FOOD BLOGGERS' GATHERING @ SANDIAS

Excite yet nervous. This was what I felt during the Food Blogger's Gathering @ Sandias organised by Boolicious in conjunction with the Klue RSVP Event. There were 38 food bloggers (including their spouses and guests) attending the gathering so it was pretty an amazing experience for me to meet the owners of other blogs that I have been reading and putting comments daily. The introducing part was fun, cos nobody knows who you are when you introduced your name, but once you tell them which blog you are from, you will get response such as Oohhhh and Aaahhh!! Hahahaha!! But I guess the funniest moment was when WMW and I bumped into Kampung Boy and City Gal in front of Sandias and not knowing their real name, we just called out Kampung Boy! City Gal!

The place was rather small and so it was really packed with all the food bloggers mingling around. I find it pretty warm too, luckily cocktails were unlimited so i gulped down to 6-7 glasses that nite. Probably the alcohol was the culprit. Apart from my makan kaki i.e. WMW, Lyrical Lemongrass and Boo it was really great to finally meet up with KampungBoyCityGal, Jackson, Jason (all the way from Ipoh), Someone who is constantly craving, Tankiasu, Tummythoz, Teckie, Mei Yen and her Darling Bob, FoodieLiaane, WaiSikKai, Nigel, Xiu Loong Bao, RevenousRabbit, FoodCookies, Kenny Mah, BabeintheCity and who else (cracking my head)? Anyway, if i left out anyone, please let me know yah.

Ok now, on the food part...Sandias is a Mexican Restaurant and with food bloggers around, I thought the food would be extra good.

Bread to start off with.....pass me the butter please??

Since am with Hubby, I tend to order different dishes for us so that we get more food photos. Hahaha...I think that benefited WMW too since she was also busy taking photos of my food. For appetiser, I had the Pumpkin Soup...which kinda tasted like unsalted dhal. This is my second time having pumpkin soup so i don't know if it's supposed to taste like this since the first time i had the soup was at Secret Recipe which was added with curry powder. I took a few spoonful of this and passed the rest over to Hubby.

Hubby had the Chicken Tortillas which is basically minced chicken wrapped with tortilla skin and then deep fried. First bite was good...but 2 more bites later, I find it too oily for me, in fact the tortillas were covered with oil. So I just korek out the minced chicken..hehe..hopefully am not too rude in doing that.

For the mains, I had the Baked Sole in Tomato Salsa served with Oily Rice and Mixed Veggies at the side. The fish tasted bland and frozen, just like Dory fish to me and so I immediately handed this over to Hubby. For your info, I have phobia over Dory cos back to my dieting months before wedding, I was having steamed/grilled dory without any sauce almost like daily. Being a glutton, you can imagine the impact of such diet have on me. LOL

Hubby was really disappointed with his Chicken Dish too....sauteed with a sauce that tasted like a mix between Oyster Sauce and Black Pepper Sauce, the only thing I like about the gravy was actually the pine nuts. By the way, their servings were not consistent cos WMW's gravy was without nuts while fried banana was missing from our plates. :( Probably the crowd was too big for them, thus it got a bit disorganised at one point.

Lastly, the dessert!!! I seriously do not know how Mexican dessert tasted like but this layered gallet with frozen lime cream was way too sweet for me. Actually the photo of the dessert below belongs to WMW as my ice-cream shape was kinda like shredded instead of one round scoop.

Although food wasn't great, I was really happy and left Sandias with a big smile with all the new friends I made. Well...got to admit that I couldn't remember all the names (I am really bad at remembering names) but I certainly now can put a picture in my mind to each blog. Just can't wait to meet up again at next gathering...Ninja Jones isn't it?

Other Bloggers' review on the gathering:

• Happy and Wacky WMW
• Luscious Lyrical Lemongrass
  
• Pretty Xiu Loong Bao
• Cutie Joe the Constant Craver
• Hot & Pretty Babe in da City
• Sweet and Petite Teckie
  

SHANKY RESTAURANT @ SS2 (Cheow Yang area)

After being introduced by wmw to Ang Kee Restaurant last week, I brought Hubby and Papa there last weekend for dinner but unfortunately the place was super packed! As it was quite late and I feeling impatient that night, we decided to go to Shanky Restaurant which is located the same row as Ang Kee and Kayu Nasi Kandar. We used to visit Shanky quite often few years ago and I couldn't recall why we have stopped patronising this place. As I recalled, food here is nice and cheap, so I was quite happy to dine here once again.

It used to be quite crowded during weekends but that night, it was quite empty. Those familiar waitresses were now replaced by Burmese waiters. Luckily, the lady boss is there and I was hoping that the food quality still as good as before. One of my favourite dish there is the Stir Fry Sang Yue (Snakehead) with Ginger and Spring Onion. Yumzz...still turned out the best I ever head, full of wok-hei and the fish slices were smooth and sweet.

The Seng Gua with Beancurd sounded normal...but trust me, the gravy was really good and again, it was full of wok-hei. I believe this is a vegetarian dish as I don't see any meat in it...but it taste wonderful. If I ever go on diet, I won't mind having this everyday...err..ok ok..maybe alternate days.

Am so into the Herbal Chicken nowadays....we ordered half a chicken and sad to say, I think mine is better.. The chicken was steamed way too long, I guess that explained the huge amount of gravy/soup. Soup was great, no doubt about it, flavourful and full of chicken essence, probably that is why the chicken meat tasted bland cos all the flavour was released to the soup. I don't like the meat at all, probably they should renamed this dish as Chicken Herbal Soup instead.

Lastly, a plate of Stir-fry Potato Leaves which once again full of wok-hei. Yumzz...certainly didn't regret coming back again for such a nice meal.

I don't know the price of each dish as my dad volunteered to foot the bill. Total of the 4 dishes plus 3 plates of rice and 3 cups of chinese tea came up to RM52. Not too bad isn't it?

AH TUAN EE'S PLACE @ SS2

My colleagues (4 of them) came to my place after work one day to visit Pea and Pumpkin and of course, the 2nd agenda would be to proceed for dinner after they finished exhausting both my Ps. Miss Accounting suggested we try Ah Tuan Ee's Place, a Nyonya Restaurant nearby which somehow never strike my interest to try although I live so near and always drove past that place.

After browsing through their menu, we ordered the followings:

Pandan Chicken (RM15.80 for 5 pieces), so where are the pandan leaves? It tasted like ordinary fried chicken and for that kind of price, I felt so ripped off.

Seems like all my colleagues got a passion for squid. Since it's a Nyonya Restaurant, we opted for the Sambal Sotong (RM33.80). The gravy was not too bad; spicy and appetising. But again, I think the price is a bit too high.

The Stir-Fried Four Angled Beans with Sambal (RM14.80) was crunchy...yummzzz...this got to be my favourite dish tonite.

We also ordered a pot of Curry Fish Head (RM36.80) which came piping hot but to my disappointment, the gravy was watery. I would prefer the thick version that goes so well with steamed rice. I find the fish meat was a little bit overcooked but I loved the floating brinjals, ladies finger and tauhu-pok.

Last dish of the night was something non-spicy, Fried Golden Beancurd topped with Minced Meat and Chicken (RM16.80). I only took one bite, so that explained how impressed I was with this dish. Hahaha! Actually the tofu was ok, just that I prefer spicy food than non-spicy.

Since we were not too happy with the food yet still feeling gluttony, we ordered a bowl of Iced Cendol (RM4.80) to share. Hahaha...terrible isn't it? 5 of us sharing 1 small bowl of cendol but the waiter was happily distributing bowls for us. But I guess overall, everybody was impressed at the Iced Cendol; shaved ice was smooth, gula melaka was rich & flavourful and the cendol was fresh (homemade we suspect?) But to me, RM4.80 for a bowl of Cendol is too overpriced!

Lou Sang using Iced Cendol? Eh?? Where are those Cendol?? At the bottom? Dig dig and dig!!

Total bill including drinks and rice came up to RM169 for the 5 of us. Personally I felt the place is way too pricey for a neighbourhood restaurant. Anyway, if you are interested to try, here is the address:

Ah Tuan Ee's Place (same row as New Paris Restaurant)
74 Jalan SS2/72
47300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

BONJUK - Tradititional Korean Porridge

After our Saturday food crawl, I met up with Boolicious, Lyrical Lemongrass and WMW again yesterday for dinner at the newly opened BONJUK, a Korean traditional porridge restaurant which focus on promoting healthy. With over 700 outlets throughout Korea, Japan and United States, this outlet in Desa Sri Hartamas (formerly A Little Dim Sum Place) is the first franchised outlet in South East Asia.

Menu wise, you won’t find any BBQ meat like any other Korean restaurants nearby. As I mentioned earlier, BONJUK focus on healthy food, thus you can find various flavour of Korean porridges and each has their own nutritional values. They recently introduced bibimbap and they have great variation, I was too spoilt with choices. Click here for the menu.

Initially, I was keen to try the porridge, but I just couldn’t decide which one to order. Seafood? Oyster n Mushrooms? Salmon? Kimchi? At the same time, knowing that I am very fussy when it comes to texture of rice and porridge, I decided to order Bibimbap…hehehe..to be on the safe side. True enough, the texture of the porridge is not what I fancy. While I prefer the Chinese version which is smoother (Meen) and watery, the Korean version was a bit dry and you can still see some grains in the porridge. I tried Boo’s and Lemongrass’s porridge, although it taste good, but I know definitely I won’t be able to eat one bowl by myself.

Lyrical Lemongrass's Seafood Porridge (RM15.95)Close-up shot of the seafood porridgeBoo's Kimchi with Spicy Octopus Porridge (RM12.95) Close-up shot of the Kimchi with Spicy Octopus Porridge WMW's Beef Bulgogi BibimbapWMW commented that it would be better if they put in more beef My Spicy Octupus Bibimbap served on Hot Stone Bowl (RM21.95)

The first time I had Bibimbap was in Lotte World, Korea and somehow, I could not find any of it served here as good. But I simply love the bibimbap in Bonjuk, the spicy sauce with octopus was really flavourful and appetising. Served with seaweed soup and Kim Chi (Korean preserved chinese cabbage), the meal was rather satisfying.
The owner of the outlet, Andrew Kim was rather amused when he saw us snapping photos of the food upon being served. We told him that the photos are to be posted on our blogs, hence free advertisement for him. I guess he was really happy about it and treated us to Korean Seafood Pancake. Haha…goodie..that means more photos! The pancakes I had elsewhere were more flourish but the pancake here was soft and full of clams, mussels, shrimp and squids. Nice!

After the yummy dinner, we decided to have some dessert (notice some trend here?) and so we walked over to Alberto’s to try their highly recommended Kinder Bueno’s flavoured Gelato. But to our disappointment, the Gelato greeted us with semi-melted face at a discounted price….sigh. So we walked off to Hayn’s Pizzeria for their Lecka-Lecka Gelatos. Ended up with coffees, tiramisu, brownies and crème brulee since the gelatos were way too sweet for us. And of course, another round of photo snapping.

Latte, Long Black, Cuppachino and Tiramisu Tiramisu
Creme Brulee....Lemongrass's fav..

Thanks to Boo for such great recommendation and once again, a great night out with my new foodie friends.

Bonjuk is located at: 18, Ground Flr, Jalan 25/70A, Desa Sri Hartamas
Hayn's PIzzeria is located at 64 Jalan 27/70A, Desa Sri Hartamas

NOTTI PUMPKIN

Each time I put back Pumpkin into his cage after playing/bonding session, he refused to go in and show his protest by whining really loud and sharp. See it yourself!

FOOD CRAWL IN KLANG

Last Saturday, Boolicious, Lyrical Lemongrass, WMW and myself got-together for a food crawl…destination: Klang. Our ulterior aim was the I-Po Roasted Duck which I have heard wmw raved so much about. All of us met in Glenmarie, in front of Meng Kee Char Siu (Roasted Pork)..ohh..it was such an irresistible temptation to have a dose of char siu before heading to Klang but at the same time, we wouldn’t want to spoil our appetite for the duck.

Meeting Boo and Lyrical Lemongrass was really exciting for me, since they are the 2nd and 3rd blogger I met so far…and certainly more to come this Friday at the Floggers Gathering. Oh my, after all the chit chat and laughing, I was certainly very very hungry when we reached I-Po and saw all the luscious glowy shiny roast duck hanging side by side at the back kitchen. Of course, all of us took out our cameras almost instantly to snap snap snap. Even took a picture of the trade secret in making the duck skin so crispy and upon request, it would not be posted up.

Yumm..mouth watering oledi...yumzz...

Since most of us skipped breakfast, we ordered one whole duck as well as a bowl of sour veggie to share. The duck was very good indeed, skin was crispy meanwhile the meat was still juicy. Although the duck are poured with hot oil before being served (that explains the crispy skin) the duck was not oily at all. The dipping sauce was good too. I packed 1/2 a duck for Hubby to try and he loved it too and said that he could easily finish a duck by himself.

One whole duck for 4 of us

Another photo of the duck from a different angle

The Sour Veggie was sour and spicy, after first bite, my tongue and lip was slightly numb but that didn’t stop me from having more. Definately a great combination to go with the roast duck.

Hot & Sour Veggie

Since we were already in Klang, we were so keen to try the famous Tong Yuen (Sweetened Glutinous Rice Ball) in Bukit Tinggi but no one seems to know the address. Boo called Citygal for direction and apparently they only open at night. Sigh…anyway, we still head to Bukit Tinggi to search for the shop and somehow we ended up at Leo’s for Gelatos. I never heard of Leo's before but apparently they have outlets in USJ, Sri Petaling and Carrefour Kepong. We were told that all the ingredients for the Gelato are imported from Italy and made in their factory in Sg Besi. I did a quick search and Leo's and found this.

Their menu is quite interesting especially the beverages section. And so, each of us ordered a colourful drink, so that we could take some nice picture of it.

Top Left : Glory of Gold Cup, Top Right: Top Ten Award, Bottom Left: Hard to Resist, Bottom Right: First LoveLook at my cup of First Love, the mango flavoured Nata de Coco is in lil'star shape. Cute eh?

Our Gelato aka Gang of Five: We had Tiramisu, Chocolate, Cookies, Mixed Berries and Strawberry

Time to go home....we headed back to Glenmarie to drop off Boo and Lemongrass…and oh no, the temptation to have Char Siu at Meng Kee had won us over this time. We ordered a strip of char siu to share. According to Boo, the Char Siu here is not as sweet as their KL outlet near Jalan Alor. Although wmw commented the meat we had that day was a little bit hard, I find it very good standard as compared to many char siu shop and since it was AGES since I last went to their outlet in KL, certainly I couldn’t even have a benchmark to compare. Anyway, still a good plate of char siu for me, especially with great companies.

My dad mouth-watered when I show him this photo

Thanks to Boo for holding up the Char Siu for me. Can you see the layer of fat, followed by meat, then fat, then meat, then fat, then meat, then fat??

The Addresses:
Restoran I-Po

No. 180, Jalan Batu Unjur

Bayu Perdana 1, Klang

Leo's Bukit Tinggi
Lorong 2-0 Batu Nilam 4B
Bandar Bukit Tinggi, Klang

Meng Kee Char Siu
20 (Ground), Jalan Pekedai U1/36
Hicom Glenmarie Industrial Park Shah Alam

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY MY PRECIOUS PEA

It's my precious SnowPea's 4th birthday today. Still remember the day when I brought him home, he was as tiny as Pumpkin...and now look at him, such a big boy oledi. Very happy to see that Pea beginning to be more relaxed now as compared to couple of days ago. At least now he doesn't isolate himself from us. Since it's his birthday, I cooked him chicken rice to cheer him up he has not been eating well for the past few days due to his upsetness with Pumpkin (or at me?). I am so happy to see Pea is starting to behave like his normal self again, big big grin from me.

As with past years, I bought him a small vanilla muffin as birthday cake as well as a froggy toy as present. This year, Pea's god-mum (my dog-lover colleague) also bought him a present consisting a packet of treats and 2 small soft toys. Hence, I would like to post a few photos of this joyous occasion...enjoy!!

Happy Birthday to Pea, Happy Birthday to Pea, Happy Birthday to Peapea....Happy Birthday to Pea!!! Hip Hip Hooray!!Yummy! Pea enjoying his muffin bought from Subway Sandwich
Birthday Presents from God-mum
Pea with new froggy toy from me

Tired Pea posing with his new toys! OH NO!!! INTRUDERS!!! Pumpkin, stop it, they belongs to Bro Pea!!!!!
Pumpkin on colleague's lap! Sooo Cute and sooo exposed........Shame Shame Pumpkin!
God mum with her new god son! Pumpkin also got a packet of goodies from God-mum. Thanks God-mum!