Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels: January 2014

Sunday, January 26, 2014

YummY! - Nasi Bojari @ Madam Kwan's

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YummY! Jotaro's Food Review

NASI BOJARI @ MADAM KWAN'S (Halal)

1-Utama Mall, Bandar Utama, Selangor, Malaysia - January 2014

I have always been a great fan of Madam Kwan's, especially their Nasi Lemak. I am here again at their 1-Utama outlet and for a change a friend recommended that I try the Nasi Bojari instead. Now I have two favourites at Madam Kwan's

Located at the ground floor of the 1-Utama shopping mall in Bandar Utama, it has a very cosy seating area which although has an open concept was relatively quite.

For those who want some privacy, there is a semi-private alcove where a curtain can be drawn to give some visual privacy.

We were there explicitly for the Nasi Bojari but ordered some extras to go with the rice, like this Stir Fried Kailan - a simple dish that was fried with whole garlic.

And a couple of soups too. This Mixed Vegetable Soup, a simple lightly flavoured soup and ...

... and the spunkier Tomyam Soup that came with some prawns and cuttlefish.
Both this soups were so-so only but they did whet our appetite for what was to come.

At last the belle of the meal came, looking very pretty indeed with a sparkle of red and yellow. The rice must have probably been cooked with coconut milk as I could taste a slight creaminess of santan here. Nicely cooked, it was neither to soft or hard and very tasty too.

A few accompaniments came with the pretty thing. Firstly was this Shredded Beef Rendang. Initially, I thought it looked rather dry without adequate gravy to go with the rice.
Surprise, surprise! It goes very well indeed.

And this Assam prawns take came with slices of large onions. Just slightly sour and sweet, it was lovely.

As they say safe the best for last - this huge piece of fried chicken drumstick & thigh would have put the fried chicken from fast food joints to shame. With a crispy skin and juicy meat, it was superb. It was a really, really a large piece - luckily they provided a knife to make eating it easy.

Half a hard-boiled egg and slices of cucumber and tomato also came with the Nasi Bojari. One can take this dish by itself and it will still be a balanced meal. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Drinks to go with our dinner was this Soya-Chincau, a good mix that is sometimes called a "Black & White" or a "Michael Jackson".

And this refreshing Lemon Grass Cocktail - a invigorating concoction of lemon grass juice, lime and mint leaves.

Desserts was Bubur Cha-cha, a hot broth made from pieces of sweet potato, taro with sago cooked in thick santan. It was something sweet but endearing.

Madam Kwan's serves a plethora of Asian dishes, below is their menu (note: pricing is at time of this blog) -

MADAM KWAN'S

G342-G343, Ground Floor, 1-Utama Shopping Centre

Petaling Jaya Selangor, Malaysia.

Tel. : 603-7727 2297/96

email: customerservice@madamkwans.com.my

GPS : 3.150123, 101.616277

Face Book Page : https://www.facebook.com/madamkwans

Homepage : http://madamkwans.com.my

Contact Nos. of other outlets :

Suria KLCC: 603-2026 2297/98

Mid Valley: 603-2287 2297/98

Pavillion: 603-2134 2297/96

Subang Empire: 603-5022 2297/98

Alamanda: 603-8889 2297/92

Bangsar Shopping Centre: 603-2283 2295/96

Madam Kwan's @ 1-Utama Shopping Centre Location Map (Google Map Link)

Thursday, January 23, 2014

YummY! - Kampar Delights @ Kam Ling Restaurant

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YummY! Jotaro's Food Review

KAMPAR DELIGHTS @ KAM LING RESTAURANT

Deep Fried Green Tea Tofu

Kampar, Perak, Malaysia - January 2014

Kampar, a town with its roots in the Malaysian tin industry, seems to have a hiccup to it's growth when the North-South Highway by-passed it. With the new UTAR Campus being built there, there has been a rejuvenation in its growth. And with this new growth there is now many new foodie outlets. Still it is the old traditional food that keeps on attracting people to take a detour through the old trunk road and take a taste of those oldies but goodies. Food like the claypot chicken rice was first to be seen in Kampar. They have pretty good curry noodles here too. And I can always recall having very good and smooth ice-cream made from santan (coconut milk) decades ago. Alas, that ice-cream stall is no more.

Oops... I digress, but then it's always good to know a bit of history of the place where we eat. One of the old place for good food is Kam Ling Restaurant right in the middle of the old town centre. This being near Chinese New Year we kicked of with the traditional "lou sang" dish.

Eating of the lou sang dish herald in good luck for the rest of the year. Each ingredient of the dish signifies a certain lucky trait. The served dish is then tossed with chop-sticks, the higher the toss the better one's fortune!

I always like this dish; the crunchy vegetables and tit-bits with the sweet plum syrup serves as a good appetizer with the added bonus of bringing luck.

Next came the house speciality - Curry Chicken Bread. The curry itself is good but not that fantastic. Order this dish for its uniqueness.

The separately cooked curry chicken is wrapped in waxed paper and then baked in the bun. This dish is served with the top centre cut opened and the sides of the bun cut into square pieces. The pieces of bun are nipped and dipped into the curry.

They proudly advertise this speciality with a poster right at their entrance.

The third dish was also an unique one - Deep Fried Green Tea Tofu. The tofu was deep fried in very hot oil to give it a crispy skin but still maintaining the soft inside. A tinge of the greenness of the tofu can be seen through the brownish skin. Deep fried dried prawns, garlic and spring onions were then added and finally a oil-soy sauce gravy poured over.

When cut opened, the tofu really had that green tea colour. Oddly, there was not much taste of the tea, only a hint of the green tea was tasted. The tofu texture itself was slightly firmer than the usual tofu, but it was still softly bitey. The crunchy deep-fried dried prawns was very good with that burnt prawn taste and smell. Overall, it was a wonderful dish - one of a ying-yang opposites of hard and soft.

After the two unique dishes came this stir-fried Kailan. Simple but not that ordinary as it was fried with cut chillies and slices of onion.

The "Kau Yoke" that came next was an enigma. It was done Hokkein style with slices of yam. Kampar is predominantly a Cantonese town, and the Cantonese style is done with salted preserved "moi choy".

Both versions are good in their own ways. AND both versions are not easy to make. The pork belly have to be slightly boiled in chunks first. After boiling the skin is then poked to make it softer. The chunks are then slightly deep fried and later cut into slices. The yam is similarly cut into slices and deep-fried. Both pork and yam are steamed after having been left to be seasoned with nine-spice powder for a while.
This dish was good! The yam they used was well selected as it was soft powderish chewy.

To crown of the meal - steamed Patin (upper river catfish). I like eating this fish in smaller towns as the fish used are normally caught in the wild compared to the bred version served in the cities.

The wild version have more and thicker fish blubber. I just love this - fishy oily and creamy!

Yes! Kampar has grown; so too has Kam Ling. From a modest beginning decades ago in a single colonial shop-house, it is now housed in a large new building (the equivalent of three shop-houses) with a very spacious and comfortable dining hall that can host functions.