On my last work trip to KK, my buddy Yann May suggested that dinner should come in the form of chicken wings. I like chicken skin, and wings has the most skin, so, why not?
And that’s how we got ourselves to Lido Square at Lintas.
Lido Square, Lintas, Kota Kinabalu
Lido Square is this huge food court situated about 15 minutes away from Kota Kinabalu city center. Like most food courts, there are dozens of different stalls offering a wide variety of dishes, many of these are pork free, but some aren’t. If halal food is a must, choose wisely.
We ended up having more than just chicken wings, of course.
The highlight, for me at least, would be those big cockles – RM 10 for half a kilo if you have them boiled, or RM 15 if fried. These cockles are several times larger than those you typically find in Klang Valley – only 9 pieces for half a kilo. They were absolutely on point and delicious! I love it, the lady doesn’t eat cockles, hmph.
May approves of the stingray, but maybe not cockles!
The ikan pari (stingray, RM 25) was properly grilled and rather tasty as well. The fish was fresh, and prepared to a texture that lets you chew down 90% of the cartilage. We enjoyed the fish quite a bit.
melvic chicken wings is the “brand” to go
Then there’s we came for – MELVIC chicken wings. That took quite a wait as the stall is almost always pretty busy.
The wings were nice, sweet with all its honey goodness, and made better with a squeeze of limau on top as well. These are comparable with some of the best wings in KL too.
the popiah is a bit of a disappointment
If you’re a fan of popiah, I can safely say that you may want to skip the version here in KK. Their “Northern style popiah” is almost acceptable, but the Lido style popiah was just a blend of thick popiah skin with not much else to shout about. I’ll avoid.
Other things worth checking out would be the freshly made mochi, and those steamed soup. Plenty of stalls we had no stomach space to try, perhaps next time!
Address: Lido Square Jalan Penampang, Lido Square, 88300 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah GPS: 5.943246, 116.081579 Hours: 7:30 am to 11:30 pm
After having a pretty good first impression on the food at Jalan Peel that came in the form of Kar Kar Lai chicken/pork rice stall, I was determined to go back to the area again. We did just that several weeks later, but this time to check out the hawker scene at night.
hawker stalls at Jalan Peel, Cheras
The setup of the hawker center at Jalan Peel is much like the one at Kuchai Lama (awesome grilled lamb), with rows of stalls situated along Jalan Peel, right across Shell gas station. Pollution in terms of noise, smell, or air aren’t exactly the best, but hey, we’re a third world country and we embrace this kinda thing, don’t we?
There are some dozen stalls operating on the stretch, but as soon as I saw the pork innards stall, I made my decision. The last time I had this was at Restaurant Matahari at Bandar Seri Damansara with Kim, and that stall has unfortunately, already ceased operation.
The bowl of goodness you see in the photo above comes with generous amount of 3-layer pork, tripes, big and small intestines, pork tongue, and even my favorite – coagulated pork blood. It was a little slice of heaven for RM7.
drinks, coagulated pork blood, popiah
Having seated outside the corner kopitiam, we ordered drinks from another stall. Fresh sugar cane and coconut juice, kinda felt like being on a holiday.
The pohpiah here (RM 1.80 per pc) was crispy and pretty good too. We ended up ordering more cos the Char Kueh Teow I tried to order somehow didn’t came. I still prefer the non-halal pohpiah at Jonker’s street in Melaka, but this was quite fine too.
There are certainly more stalls to try out at this hawker center. The chicken wings and the satay stalls always looked busy, and I want to try the CKT too. Will go there again soon!
Address: Hawker Center
Jalan Peel, Cheras
55100 Kuala Lumpur GPS: 3.13102, 101.72293
Among countries in South East Asia, Singapore is perhaps the only country that Malaysians often argue with when it comes to origin of food as well as who has the best of certain dishes. Truth is, while a lot of famous “Singaporean dishes” probably originated from Malaysia, our southern neighbors do have quite a lot of original food worth sampling.
Teow Chew pork noodle – pork ball, meat, and liver
The day after the first ever Nuffnang Awards, instead of following the tour, we decided to head to Ponggol Nasi Lemak Center at Upper Serangoon Street to try the pork noodle for brunch. According to Cheng Leong, this is the absolute must have whenever he comes to Singapore.
Though being in one of the only two professions that can legally lie, we trust Cheng Leong the lawyer when it comes to food.
Ponggol Nasi Lemak Centre
Ponggol Nasi Lemak Centre is just a short walk from NE13 Kovan station. The smallish hawker center houses over half a dozen stalls with at least a few operating around the clock. We ordered from AMK House of Teochew Noodles that operates 24 hours a day.
The stall offers a few dishes, but everyone ended up ordering the same dried version of Teow Chew pork noodle for $3 a bowl.
The dish is basically similar to wantan noodle but with a healthy dosage of pork meat, a few pork balls, liver (if you prefer), mushroom, some vegetables, and plenty of deep fried shallots in a vinegar based sauce with a bowl of soup at the side and some red chili padi as condiment.
Even with a heavy dose of skepticism at first, the pork noodle turned out to be really nice. It’s a combination of taste that I never really had before, and I really liked the sauce that works not unlike the experience you get from having xiao long bao with vinegar. It was very tasty.
If you’re around Singapore, this would be a decent place to eat. I’ve read that the nasi lemak is pretty good too.
For those who just bought their Blackberry 8520 from Xpax and are new to Blackberry, here’s a few applications that I consider a must have. These are the software I advised every BB users to install, and they are all free (as in free beer type of free)
1. UberTwitter
This is of course, a must have for anyone with a twitter account. Twitterberry might have a cooler name, but UberTwitter absolutely pawns in terms of functionality and user friendliness. It supports basically everything twitter has to offer, including picture upload, geo tagging (with cell towers or GPS), RT, reply all, DM, etc etc.
2. Opera Mini
While the Blackberry built in browser is pretty decent, Opera Mini offers a much better user interface in web surfing. The browser also goes through a proxy that compresses and reduced image size for faster downloading. Other than that, the wealth of short cut keys make web browsing a much simpler affair with less fiddling on the trackpad/trackball
3. BBM version 5.0
The BBM version 4.6 that comes with Blackberry 8520 is perfectly usable, but the upgraded version offers a better user interface, ability to add display picture, and also the very interesting Blackberry Group that allows calendar, task, and file sharing capabilities.
4. Google Apps
Google Map, Gmail, Google Latitute, Google News, Google Readers and more are available for your BB 8520.
5. Blackberry App World
For everything else, there’s the Blackberry App World.
Hokkien Mee (or Prawn Mee) is one of my must-eat dishes whenever I have a chance to go back to Penang. The aroma of that spicy prawn stock soup, the crunchiness of kangkung, bean sprouts and fried shallots, the spicy chili paste, the prawns, the slices of pork, and the morning commotion always bring back memories from yesteryear.
Hokkien Mee with wantan noodle
I did just that earlier this month when I was back for a friend’s wedding.
This particular stall has been in operation for seemingly forever, I remember ordering from them when I was in primary school, and that was quite a while ago (no prize for guessing it right). Today, they are located at the Mt. Eskerin morning wet market. The same market my mom works, and Horng’s family runs a coffee stall.
Louis, Horng, and I have known each other for two dozen years =/
The stall sells both Hokkien Mee and Wantan Mee, something that is not very common in Penang as most hawkers here only specialize in one dish. To be frank, I don’t care much about most wantan mee in Penang, this one included; however, the side benefit here is that we get to order Hokkien mee with wantan noodle instead of the usual vermicelli and yellow noodle.
The combination is not just a novelty but actually tasted very nice, the smoothness and springiness of wantan noodle works well with the spiciness of the prawn stock soup, presenting a strange yet familiar taste. Kinda like meeting a half brother you never knew existed, or something like that.
At Horng’s family coffee stall (5001 kopi stall), you can order the pretty unique Haw Flakes drinks (山楂水). It is a drink I haven’t come across anywhere else, tasted just like, well, the liquid version of Haw Flakes. Very refreshing and cooling for the throat. Give it a try!
Address: Mount Eskerin wet market
Tanjung Tokong, Penang GPS: 5.448659,100.301571
Whenever I go back to Penang, there are a few hawker food that I usually do not miss. The char kueh teow, curry mee, mee goreng, and also kueh teow soup such as the one at Lebuh Armenian. The other dish would be this famous dried kuey teow at the Mt. Erskine road side hawker center.
the kueh teow soup stall
This particular stall has been in operation for at least the past 20 years or so, back when this make shift hawker center only had a couple of stalls operating under the trees. There are many places that sells kueh teow soup, but when it comes to the dry version, this place probably came up with the best concoction.
dried kueh teow, with soup on the side
Much like wantan noodle , this dried kuey teow is served with a bowl of 4 types of fish ball soup on the side. The kueh teow then is served with some dark sauce, shredded chicken, and raw vegetables.
The different types of fish ball has their own unique texture and taste to it, some softer, some firm and bouncy, and all very delicious. I particularly love the sambal belacan that is served as the condiment, made from fresh red pepper, belacan, and lime that is rather spicy and perfect with those fish balls.
my favorite sambal.. slurps
A bowl of the dried kuey teow goes for RM 3.50, but as with most Penang hawker dishes, the portion is quite small, which is just as well so that I can order another bowl of curry mee or mee goreng to fill up my stomach. 😀
map to the hawker centre at Mt. Erskine
The hawker centre operates from around noon to 4-5 in ther afternoon.
Address:
Jalan Mt. Erskine,
Tg. Tokong, Penang GPS:5.450560, 100.302064
