Classic Greek from Pizza Pizza - $4.80

Domain @ Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

There’s no such thing as good pizza in Malaysia. That said, you take what you get, and as far as that goes, this is not bad at all.

A small simple shop serving a variety of pizza and limited pasta dishes, Pizza Pizza was empty when I drove past it, but it seems most people just get it delivered.

Anyways, the Classic Greek had minced beef, black olives, onion, capsicum, mushroom and cheese. I got a 9” to myself, which was surprisingly filling. Every bite was flavourful, a nice bread-to-toppings ratio.

I’m definitely going again.

Cajun Jambalaya Pasta from Cheesecake Factory - $14.95

132 Christiana Mall, Newark, DE - 302.454.9444

http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com

Firstable, I sorta guessed the price, so don't get all finicky on me for being wrong.

This was my first ever experience at Cheesecake Factory after numerous previous attempts so there was a bit of hype and.... and it fared pretty well in my mind.

I drove my takeout order about 30 minutes away before chowing down and the chicken was STILL tender and juicy. I really love how they placed a fat layer of shrimp and chicken over the bed of al dente pasta. I almost want to say everything was spot on for this dish, but alas, there is a complaint - the lack of Andouille sausage. That's my favorite part of Jambalaya! How can you make jambalaya without the Andouille sausage!?

That "flaw" alone is reason enough for me to choose something else on the menu the next time I go - but that's also because I have a hidden agenda to explore some of their other tantalizing dishes (e.g. chicken madeira... mmmm).

Bulgogi Bento from Korean BBQ & Sushi Restaurant - $8.95

3 Liberty Plaza, Newark, DE - (302) 455-9100

Here's a lunch special from the only Korean restaurant I know of in Newark. Bulgogi is thinly sliced prime rib eye that's marinated in some special Korean sauce. It has a slightly sweet taste to it, Usually, if you eat in, they provide you the raw meat and then you grill it yourself at the table.

The rest of the stuff they give you is part of what I think is called banchan? It's just an assortment of little side dishes. I think this place always give you a fried shrimp, two sushi pieces, a scoop of rice, and kimchi. For those of you who don't know, kimchi is the reddish stuff in the 2nd picture - essentially, it's pickled cabbage.

The rest is random - I think this was the first time they gave me cantaloupe, and I usually get the sesame-oiled broccoli and those sweetened potatoes (not sweet potatoes, but sweetened).

Thosai from Rahim’s - $0.50

Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

This is thosai. I didn’t make it. It’s indian also. I’ve just found that it’s made of rice, black gram and fenugreek. It’s actually quite tasty on its own but you usually eat it with chutney or dhal. I like chutney more but since I got a friend to get take-away for me, he didn’t specify that and instead I got dhal.

It’s usually a full circle but this one looks folded, cos again, this was take away. 

Excuse the brief post but North Korea are playing a ridiculously good opening game against Brazil now and I need to get ready to cheer in the off chance that they score.

Aww man…. Brazil just scored against North Korea… RIP the korean goalkeeper.

Homemade Chapati - $0

My kitchen.

OK so it isn’t absolutely free but I don’t know the cost of 3 cups of flour, a few good throws of salt, water, a few teaspoons of yoghurt and about half a shot of oil. A shot as in alcoholic shots. That’s all the ingredients I used.

I decided to make chapati after reading the recipe and finding out that it is incredibly easy to do. It didn’t turn out so good, but was fun and easy and at least now I think I know where I screwed up and can make a better batch next time.

  So 1 cup of flour is all the measurements I was given. The salt you add to taste and the water, well, however much is needed to get the flour into manageable dough consistency. Oil is optional but I think you should add it in. This gives you 5 chapatis.

I made 2 batches, one with water and another with yoghurt. Mixing flour with cold yoghurt is TOUGH.. that shit is slippery and doesn’t mix well, and getting the right mix is hard. I ended up adding another cup of flour into it, in an attempt to find the right flour-yoghurt ratio balance. When rolling you apply a lotta flour so it doesn’t stick.

The pic on the right is how it should look like after the first flip, and when the other side looks like this also, you flip it again. It will start puffing up if you don’t control the heat on the pan, which I guess makes for an interesting visual treat but that’s not how real chapati should be like. Oh I should mention this is not bad for your health at all based on the ingredients, and the fact that you don’t cook with oil. Notice I said this “isn’t bad for your health”… I didn’t say “this is really healthy”. Cos I dunno how beneficial it is for your health. The oil you add into the premix doesn’t make it oily (to the touch). And because you don’t cook with oil, the flour  that you used to smoothen the dough will also transfer to the pan and eventually onto the finished product. Yeah, you eat raw flour. Unsure of the health benefits there but let’s just say it is for the sake of ending this post.

So where did I screw up? I made it too thin, and cranked up the heat on the pan. That resulted in very crispy chapati, like biscuits. Chapati should be like tortilla wrap, it should be soft and bread-like, as in non-yeast bread.

Also, I forgot salt with the yoghurt mix. So while it was slightly smoother, it was completely tasteless. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I had curry to go with it, but that’s my last mistake – I made chapati without any curry.. or ANYTHING… to go with it. That’s like making rice but forgetting about all the other stuff. Real smart.

A Leisurely Gentleman from Logan House - $10.00

1701 Delaware Avenue, Wilmington, DE - (302) 652-9493

http://www.loganhouse.com

The Leisurely Gentleman is a burger where the bun is composed of grilled cheese sandwiches. My jaw dropped when I first heard that alone, but there's MORE - the top grilled cheese sandwich has a tomato in it and the bottom one added bacon. If that's not an ingenius idea, I don't know what is.

From the sounds of the description alone, you'd expect it to be some towering sandwich you could barely get your jaws around, but it turns out to be an entirely manageable sandwich.

Seeing how simple yet, extraordinarily awesome the result is really makes me think I need to add this sandwich to my cooking repertoire.

Assorted Baklava from Naf Naf Grill - $2.99

1095 East Ogden Avenue, Naperville, IL - 630.904.7200

http://www.nafnafgrill.com/

Even though my description of this dessert won't sound appetizing, just know that I really do love this stuff. Anyway, whenever I sink my teeth into this delectable dessert, cardboard always comes to mind. I thought of cardboard when I tasted my dog's dry food too, but that was different. In the case of the baklava, the texture is what makes me think of carboard. It's heavily layered with the top part being thin and light, sort of like paper, and then bottom being thick and dense just like cardboard.

The flavor is really fantastic though. From what I can gather, underneath the top layers of thin, crispy dough is a layer of crushed nuts sweetened with honey or syrup. The second picture shows an overhead picture with the papery layer taken off to give you an idea.

Steak & Kidney Pie from Square Pie - £4.29 / $6.30

105c Commercial Street, London, UK E1 6BG

http://www.squarepie.com/index

What the hell were the Brits thinking when they made this? "Hmm... let's take something awesome and then add kidney to it and laugh at them when they cringe as they reach the kidney portion of it." That has to be it.

I like to believe I can stomach disgusting foods, but that awful kidney flavor really disagrees with me. It's like anchovies in that no matter what else you add to the dish, you can't disguise its flavor. It's there to haunt you.

Anyway, the rest of the pie was actually really good. The crust is flakey like a crispy buttery croissant and the gravy added some good flavor. There were also mushrooms tucked away in there to give a different texture too.

I'd go back to this place, but next time stick with a less adventurous dish.

Ruby Red Trout from White Chocolate Grille - $16.99

1803 Freedom Drive, Naperville, IL - 630.505.8300

http://whitechocolategrill.com

I'm not exactly sure where the white chocolate comes into play, but when you can make fish glisten like that, who cares!

My one complaint about this dish is how uniform its taste is. Yea, it was scrumptious, but each bite tasted exactly like the last. I know this is being nit-picky so I won't delve into it, but basically, it would've been nice to have another side along with it.

Hualien Fare

Hualien City, Taiwan 

So the train after lunch at Mr. Brown’s coffee shop in Taipei, brought us to Hualien. Nice city / township, very small and quiet unlike Taipei.

It was dinnertime when we arrived, so we had a walk around the night markets to look for dinner. Stopped by a little restaurant whose name I’ve forgotten, and had regular Taiwanese food. They were advertising that they make their own noodles so we tried that.

To start I got us some century eggs. I love this shit, as you can tell from here. Apparently they are good anywhere around the world.

I had the seafood soup noodle. Not much seafood here, just a few squid rings and I don’t remember what else. Only so-so.

 

My friend had stir-fried vegetables with kimchi sauce on rice, I don’t know how that went. 

 

Some home-made noodle slices here in kimchi sauce, stir-fried as well. They’re probably not what you’d call noodles, just dough that’s cut into trapezoid slices. But this was good.

Then some stir-fried beef and vegetables to share, these were very flavourful as you can tell from the thick sauce. A tad too salty to be had alone but we all had noodle/rice so that’s fine. Not bad, I was satisfied.

Continuing on we had some dessert but I only have this one pic of hot Tau Fu Fa with peanuts. My friend had the other one, a black herbal drink that I didn’t try, and since it’s just a cup of black liquid I decided not to take any photos either.

While they were buying dessert I went across the street to the convenience store, Family Mart if I’m not wrong, to buy me some of my kinda dessert, the local brews. This was the only one left by the time we got back to the dorm. Seen here posing in front of the Laphroaig which I picked up at the airport on my way into Taiwan.

I am too lazy to go thru all my old posts to check if I mentioned this, but if not, another thing about Taiwan, alcohol there is so effin cheap, so cheap I want to move there. I’m serious too. I was totally entertaining that thought each time I step out of the 711 or bottle shop with a new purchase. This can? It’s 500ml, that’s a pint, and only $1.30.

DAAAAAAAAAAyyyyyyyymmmnnnnnnnnnnnnn……

Fish & Chips from Tower Of London - £5.00 / $7.19

202-203 Grange Road, London SE1 3AA - 0844 482 7777

This wasn't exactly served AT the Tower of London, per se, but it was a tourist trap right outside. And before you get on my case for eating at a tourist trap, lemme explain - we were hungry, and it was cold, rainy, and we had walked tons. I mean SHIT tons.

Anyway, their fish & chips are really something. Well, steak fries are too fat for my taste so the chips weren't all that, but the fish was pretty awesome. The fish was delicately fried leaving a nice, crispy finish, and the tartar sauce was so good that I daresay it was on par with McDonald's tartar sauce (I mean that in the best way possible - I absolutely LOVE McD's tartar sauce).

Not so bad for a tourist trap...

Buffalo Burger from Gourmet Burger Kitchen - £8.95 / $12.95

29-31 George Street, Oxford, OX12AY - 01865 245 424

http://www.gbk.co.uk

This was my first time eating buffalo, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. I'm not quite sure what it was about it that made it so good. The consistency? The spices? Anyway, if you get the chance to order buffalo and it's just a little bit more cost, I highly recommend it so you taste for yourself.

Tan Kim Hock Durian Candy - $1.90

Some shop in Yong Peng, Johor Darul Takzim, Malaysia.

You’re gonna get a kick outta this post… Durian Candy! From a shop I normally visit to get Otak-Otak (I’ll post about that some time later) in Yong Peng, Johor. It’s about 125 miles from home, but whenever I go to Singapore I’d stop by Yong Peng for some otak-otak on my way home.

At $1.90 a pack with probably 20-25 pieces inside, it’s pretty expensive by Malaysian standards. This is also not the best durian candy I’ve tried. I’m no fan of durian but I’d at least like durian flavoured products to taste a bit like actual durian.  So no, this candy doesn’t have a strong flavour, doesn’t leave you smelling like durian after, there’s just nothing outstanding about this.

So in an effort to make this post worthwhile I’ll add some more pics from the night BEFORE I bought the durian candy. Stayed a night in Johor Bahru for the fun of it and bought the following for dinner: nasi lemak, keropok ikan (fish crackers), A Capricciosa pizza slice from Monty’s, and otak-otak.

You should know about nasi lemak by now, except this is the other way you find it; in a wrapped triangle. Banana leaf inlay and paper under that, wrapped into a little triangle, usually no more than 1-2 ringgit depending on size. This one I paid RM1.50 for, so $0.50 cents. But notice the serving is not exactly a full meal by your standards.

Nor mine of course, hence the Capricciosa pizza slice. I’m not gonna say much except that it’s a whole lotta bread and not enough toppings, I remembered it being much much better the last time I had this over 1.5 years ago, but that was the morning after some heavy drinking so maybe that’s why.

For sides I also got some keropok ikan or fish crackers, deep fried of course. Sorry for the lousy pics I was half high on a cheap bottle of Highland Park 12 year old scotch, and also starving so that’s the only pic of the keropok I got.

Anyways, last thing I got was some otak-otak. That’s basically blended fish and I’m assuming some spices cos it’s usually very slightly spicy. The typical way of serving it as you can see is to wrap it in between 2 banana leaf folds stapled on ends and grilled over charcoal fire. If I’m not wrong this is an authentic Malaysian dish, a Peranakan invention from north Malaysia. I think. It’s good shit. Fun fact: otak means “brain” in Malay, and in the language the same word said twice with a dash usually means plural…. So otak-otak would mean brains.

The end.

Ramli Burger - $0.94

Outside Most 7-11s in Malaysian Cities

This… now THIS… yes this.. this is t3h bomb. Ramli burger. No Malaysian doesn’t know it. It’s the unofficial Malaysian dish. In fact maybe by the next generation it will be the official Malaysian dish, overtaking nasi lemak.

What I got this time is a “Burger Daging Special”. Daging = meat = usually means beef, special = means they will add an egg in. I wonder why I didn’t get the Burger Daging Double Special, which means 2 meat patties.

This here… cheap bread, REALLY cheap meat of questionable sources, cooked in butter, cucumber slices and sauce. Sound normal? Yes. However, the secret here is the sauce. Maggi brand soy sauce and ANY cheap-branded chilli sauce and mayonnaise (probably Lady’s Choice, a local brand). It’s essential. Try making a Ramli burger without these and it will fail MISERABLY.

What they do is take the burger buns/bread and put it on the giant wok/grill, that’s usually completely layered in butter. Then they take a piece of Ramli brand meat patty, slice it in the middle and slap it onto the grill. If you asked for a Special, which I did, they will crack an egg on too, and drop that piece of meat patty on top of it. Then right before the egg completely solidifies, they fold the egg over and around the meat, enveloping it.

The rest is standard fare; lettuce (sometimes) and cucumber on the now-hot-and-buttery bread/bun, put the meat on, squeeze your sauces and you’re good to go.

The pics show exactly how bad the “quality” of the burger is. However, its taste cannot, CANNOT, be rivaled. I mean I like my Mushroom Swiss from Chilli’s, or my occasional McD’s too, but this is a whooollleeee different story.

This is orgasm in every bite. This makes it into my list of top 5 stuff you HAVE to try in Malaysia.

If this is all a little incoherent, it’s cos I’ve had quite a bit to drink. And no that’s not what makes these so ridiculously awesome. I think.

Haw Flakes – $0.03/roll

All Over Malaysia and I Suppose China Too

We interrupt the regular Taiwanese broadcast to bring you a lil snack I’m binging on right now.

Haw Flakes! I think they come from China, as the company responsible for this is Qingzhou Jiahe Food Co Ltd. I’ve never found these in other countries, I suppose Malaysia is the only importer of these very badly packaged yet ridiculously satisfying snacks. But I’m sure other countries have it hidden somewhere in a dark corner of a dingy Chinese grocer in Chinatown, you just gotta look for it. Granted, if I never grew up on these I’d probably be quite wary of its contents, China and all. But no, I’ll risk a 3rd nipple (if that is all that will happen) for the sugary goodness.

These lil wonders come in a pack of 10, costing a whopping 1 ringgit. That’s 30 cents in USD. So a roll is only 3 cents. Granted, they are small and you could probably pop a few rolls into your mouth at one go, but somehow each flake has enough flavour, so don’t want to pop in more than a couple per time. I go with 1. Attached is also a picture of how small a roll is, each flake no more than 1mm thick.

So what exactly is haw?  No clue? Me neither. But wikipedia mentions (there’s a wikipedia entry on Haw Flakes!) that it’s the chinese  hawthorn fruit. Interesting, the only Hawthorn I know is the location of my uni campus in Australia, and an old side-scrolling platform game, never knew it was a fruit.

Anyways, the taste is tangy but primarily sweet. You should give it a try if you find it.

Haw Flakes!

A Taipei Morning

Soya Bean King & Mr. Brown Coffee, Taipei, Taiwan

We walked around that morning and found "Soya Bean King”, so soya bean (or soy bean as it is known in the US) milk it was for breakfast, accompanied by vegetarian bun, glutinous rice and peanut paste soup and yau char kuey / yu tiao, which literally translates to “oil stick” and there couldn’t be a more accurate name for it. I’m guessing it to be about $1.50 per person, keyword is guess.

Soy bean was nice and smooth, not too sweet. Pretty good. But then we have that here in Malaysia so it’s nothing to write home about.

Amazingly enough the vegetarian bun was also oily as all hell.  So in Taiwan it’s deep fried everything including breakfast. It think they first stir fry the vegetables in a few cups of oil before they wrap it in dough and make it, yet the skin is so oily it feels like they dunked the bun in a bowl of oil before baking. Maybe that IS what they do…. /shrug.

The glutinous rice and peanut soup thingy is actually a dessert and the version we have in Malaysia is without glutinous rice. It’s normally very buttery, so making it taste almost like peanut butter, but warm and thick like cream based soup. The glutinous rice in this version made it much less sweeter, which would work for some other people but I kinda prefer the stronger tasting no-rice version.

Around lunchtime we were gonna take a train to Hualien and with a 20kg bag each we had limited choices as to where to walk to, so the first (and only) place we could eat along the way to the train station was Mr. Brown, a coffee chain in Taiwan, so Taiwanese Starbucks. I’ll firstly get this out of the way, the Americano was only average. As for the food…

It was average too. I don’t remember the price but I do remember it was not cheap by any standards. Coming in sets, I had cheese baked fried rice and my friends had a mini pizza and roast chicken with rice. It all came with tomato soup each, which was probably canned. My cheese baked fried rice was not the greatest, I think I’ve had better in Malaysia. It’s apparently a Hongkee invention, baking fried rice topped with cheese and tomato or cream pasta sauce, sometimes with a piece of chicken, beef or fish fillet in between. My friend said the mini pizza was rubbish, and considering that it looks like oven baked vomit topped with egg, I’ll say he’s being kind. The roast chicken guy had nothing to say about his meal so that’s that. Then it was off to Hualien for better food, more about that in the next post.

Duck with Sherry & Ginger Sauce from Sally Lunn's - £9.98

4 N Parade Passage, Bath BA1 1NX - 01225 461634

www.sallylunns.co.uk

This is supposed to be one of the "must-see" places to go if you're in Bath, but it's more for its history (the restaurant is housed in the oldest building in all of Bath) than for its food. They offer tours of the building, but thanks to shotty railroad engineering, we arrived too late for that.

The meals here are served in the traditional "Trencher-style" which from what I understand is a fancy way of saying "on top of bread." Sally Lunn's claim to fame is its renowned "Lunn bun" which to me, was nothing more than light and crispy Texas toast, aka garlic bread. Although, I can imagine that if I had eaten this back in Medieval times, it would have been euphoric.

The duck itself was moderately sweet and was well-prepared, meaning that it wasn't too rare/burned. More than anything, I was relieved that it had taste at all after trying their vegetables that completely lacked flavor.

For the price I paid (~$16 USD), I would've like more quantity, especially considering that the birds I saw in the UK all looked like they were on steroids.

Also, the server seemed attentive, but he accidentally charged us with a bottle of wine instead of just a glass. Might want to be weary of that if you're ever there.