Sharing my Ideas, Views and Opinions !

Someone told me that Japanese food is one of the healthiest cuisines known to man? When comes to sushi or sashimi, most of it is not cook.

I wonder how healthy it can be when pollutions happen in just about every corner of the earth but hey, not all Japanese food is served raw.

Because of the word “healthy”, Japanese food can be found in almost every place that I have been so far. No exception to Shanghai.

Not long before this, I spent a lunch in Watami – Japanese Casual Restaurant located inside the Super Brand Mall. If you don’t like raw food and your partner does, here is the right place for both of you.

As suggested by the restaurant name, I ordered something casual. As a start, I ordered garden salad and tofu with bento. The salad is nothing unusual, just few leaves and thousand island sauces.

The tofu, on the other hand, tastes good. I know, tofu is tasteless, but this one, is different. The combination of bento and soy sauce just make it perfect.

This restaurant also serves finger food. In this case, I went for deep fried chicken cutlets and fries. As for this, I really have no clue why Japanese restaurant serves French fries?

With a dip in Thai chili sauce, the chicken cutlets can be really nice.  See, so far all are cooked dishes except the green salad.

Oh yea.. I still cannot resist myself from sashimi rice and a glass of fruit juice. N Udon. N Miso soup too.. hehe.. It seems incomplete if all these are not served on my table.

This time I paid for RMB 124 (~RM 62) and I consider this affordable. Ohh, the restaurant is just few shops away from Long Feng Dim Sum. If you are there, might as well try out for this one too.

Watami – Japanese Casual Restaurant

8^th Floor, 168 West,

Super Brand Mall, Liujiazui,

Pudong, Shanghai, China

GPS:

牛车水 or better known as Chinatown used to harvest more than 70% of migrant populations (Chinese) in Singapore in the early days. Back then, this is just a humble place but today, it turns out to be one of the main attractions in Singapore.

To me, this is the place where I got my very first traditional Chinese costume which make me look like Chinese, the first place where I tasted the best dumplings ever and of course the first place where I visited when I first visited Singapore.

Personally, I have labeled this place as ‘must visit’ place in Singapore. If my math is right, I never miss visiting this place whenever I am in Singapore.

Over here, you will feel like you are in another world.. a Chinese world .. duh.. you can get cheap souvenirs, reasonably good deal on Chinese traditional stuffs and good food too!

I am not much of a shopper but I love to bring my mom around to see what I see and loiter around in strangers’ places. This time, I told her, “I will show to you what I love about this place.”

The weather is quite warm when I first arrived. Despite I was born in warm country, I still sweat like pig. I nearly get into a situation called “cerebral hypoxia” or better known as not enough oxygen getting to the brain.

As soon as I arrived at the hawker streets, I told my mom, “This is the main reason why we are here!” She just replied with a gentle smile. How sad when I only get to order Kuey Chap and Stew Pork Leg.

My favorite dumpling stalls and dessert shop were closed. On the bright side, this place is not as congested as usual, maybe because it is Chinese New Year when everyone is busy collecting angpow.

Both the dishes I ordered are really delicious. It makes me salivating when I wrote this post but the potion is slightly small. So, I decided to order seafood noodles just to fill up my bottomless stomach.

Generally, the food around this area is quite good and reasonably cheap. If you are ok in paying SGD, this place can be a food haven for you too.

Chinatown, Singapore

39 Smith St.

GPS: 1.282423, 103.8439

Thailand is famous with “Tiger Show”. What exactly is that? By definition, it is a streak of wild tigers performing on stage, sorta circus alike. I know what is in your mind! No, it is not Tiger Woods shows to be exact.

Okok.. I think you should Google it to get the right definition as I am too innocent to share it here. Beside that “show”, Thailand is also famous with Thai Cuisine.

When you travel abroad for a long time, you will have this “miss home” moment. Although, my soil water (direct translation from Malay, “tanah air” a.k.a. Home) is not Thailand per say, I have been longing for hot and spicy food.

In the middle of hustle bustle Shanghai, I managed to locate this Thai restaurant, Simply Thai. What more can I ask for when fate bring me there! No doubt tom yum came across my mind straight away.

I mustn’t say much about the restaurant itself as Simply Thai is quite a famous franchise around. As soon as I was greeted with sawadeekap (hello in English), I was served with complimentary prawn crackers as appetizer.

Like I said, tom yum is a must. So, don’t be surprise if the waiter, who I suspect does not have Thai bloodline ask if you want tom yum soup as this is one of their chef best recommendation.. duh..

To play a prank, normally I will start to use my broken Thai language to respond to them. The puzzle look on their faces is priceless. In split second, you will know my prediction that they are not Siamese is right.

Whenever I go to any Thai restaurant, Som Tam (papaya salad) cannot escape from my order list. As much as I consider myself as carnivore, this salad really tames me.

While busy browsing through the menu, my bionic nose senses very nice fragrant from opposite table. No.. they are not farting.. but I spotted Deep Fried Chicken in Spices.

Without hesitation, I ordered this and coincidently Pat Thai (Thai Noodles) is just right there, whispering me to order it. Not a bad choice for my dinner and I am quite satisfied with this meal considering it only costs less than RMB 200 (~RM 100).

Simply Thai

Jiashan, 上海, 江苏省,China, 200120

GPS: 31.237539,121.50107

Many many many years ago, human kill for a simple reason, FOOD. Many many years later, human can do a lot of things for food too! Of course, not to the killing extend laa. I am one of them. I blog for FOOD. Eh.. more like I blog because of food. FREE food sometimes.

This time I get free invite for food tasting at Cheng Ho Court Chinese Restaurant. Yea, I have been here before and that is why I made myself available this time because I really really miss the food here.

It might look red from the outside but it is definitely not because of Chinese New Year. The mandarins and angpows and pamelo are just for decorations. More like to rejuvenate the CNY ambience.

I was served with 10 course meals. There is only 9 photos below because the other one it already ended up in my stomach! I am not going to tell you what it is and let you keep guessing.

First dish: Deluxe Hot and Cold Combination

This dish takes slightly longer to prepare. There are varieties of ingredients which include seafood, fish balls, mushrooms, eggs and vegetables and many more. If you never been to ala Chinese style restaurant, you have to control yourself not too eat so much at the beginning of the dinner. That is because the best is yet to come

Second dish: Braised Shark Fin Soup with Dried Scallop and Crab Meat

Shark lover? Too bad! Shark Fin is my all time favorite. How can I miss this when there are scallops and crabmeat involves. Just added a little black vinegar and it will be perfect for me.

Third Dish: Deep Fried Crispy Chicken

Ok. This is not KFC but it is a homemade deep friend crispy chicken. The chicken is marinated with herbs before it was deep fried. It might taste a little dull especially near the chicken breast but with salt + lime + assam, I am sure you are going to crave for it once you try it.

Fourth dish: Deep Fried Garoupa with Sweet and Sour Sauce

Normally, I am not a fan of boney fish but after deep dried, all the bones seems like edible and crunchy. If only plainly fried, the fish will be too dry. With sweet and source sauce, many kids love this dish.

Fifth dish: Yin Yang Prawn

Why want to resort in one style of prawns when you can have best from both worlds. Boiled prawns with mayonnaise are my real preference as compared to butter fried prawns. Both are equally good and you only pay for single price

Sixth dish: Braised Three Varieties of Mushrooms with Seasonal Vegetables

Common dish as you can easily find this in any Chinese restaurant. Personally, I love all the mushrooms since I have been mushrooming (leisuring) at home most of the time.

Seventh dish: XO Fried Rice

In all normal 10 course meals, the rice dish is cooked with salted fish or in Yang Chow style. This rice dish is uncommonly special when they cooked with XO sauce.

Eighth dish: Chinese Pan Cake with Red Bean Mochi

Mochi is famous Japanese dessert and Chinese Pan Cake is traditional Chinese delicacies with stuffed kaya. The combination of both tastes super yummy.

Nine dish: Golden Fish Dumplings.

Of all the dishes, I find this dessert is very creatively made. Instead of round snow moon cake, it was molded into golden pink fish shapes. In Chinese, fish is believed to bring good luck and fortunes to the righteous person. Not all fish tho. Definitely not salted fish for sure.

Do give it a try and make sure you pre-book in advance. Else there is a high possibility that you missed this chance very soon.

Cheng Ho Court Chinese Restaurant @ Mines Wellness Hotel

Jalan Dulang, MINES Resort City,

43300 Seri Kembangan, Selangor Darul Ehsan.

Tel: 03-8943 6688

Operating Hours:

Mon – Sat: 1130am – 230pm (Lunch) 6pm – 930pm (Dinner)

Sunday & Public Holiday 9am – 1130pm (Breakfast) 1130am – 230pm (Lunch) 6pm – 930pm (Dinner)

GPS: 3.030512,101.716576

How do you feel when you skip blogging for few days? Normal? That is so not normal to me. How can I abandon my blog even for a single day? But, this is something that I have to deal with when I was in Miri recently.

If you want to go online, the hotel will charge you RM30 ++ for 1 hour or RM 60++ for one whole day. I might be desperately needed to connect to virtual world but I am not willing to pay for that amount. One month of streamyx only cost about RM88. Pardon me but I am not stupid or super damn rich.

I know many of you was wondering what happen to me in Miri, so I decided to leak a little information about what’s nice in Miri. Not sexy girl, not big bungalow but FOOD of course.

Calling for cheap seafood, how can it be compared with SEAFOOD in Tanjung Seafood Restaurant? Please don’t expect to be fully air-conditioned or high class restaurant but this is another typical Miri restaurant that might not look appealing from the outlook but I can tell you, there hidden gems beneath every dish.

If you seriously have no clue on what is good over here, try “Bilin”. Is a sorta green vegetables stir fried with red wine that only available in Miri or Sarawak (I think). Some of my friends told me you get this vegetable from Cameron Highland but I never see it myself YET.  

Don’t worry! You won’t get drunk from the red wine. Hehe.

Ohh..I ordered kam heong cockles. As you can see, they removed half of the shells to make the portion looks bigger. Lol. I bet this is similar in most of the restaurants. It is called “Restaurant’s Optic Illusion”.  

This dish is good but slightly spicy. Somehow I will not rank it as one of my favorites. Well, fat people are lazy and same goes to me. If they removed the shells completely, I will consider on putting this dish in my food wishlist

Ohh.. not knowing what else is good here, I decided to ask the ask the waiter to recommend. Let me quoted what she said, “You like to eat tofu? Guys normally like to eat tofu. We got very nice tofu here with some broccoli and mushroom. Feelling weird (try stop that tofu topic), I just said,”Ok. Give me one!”

When the dish is served, I thought this dish will definitely cost more than RM 50. Look at the ingredients. It has sea cucumber, abalone mushroom, big prawn, etc. All looks so expensive! I have strong feeling that I got slaughter this time. Maybe I look like a damn stupid tourist with my DSLR.

 Not to “potong steam” while eating so, I decided to eat first, worry about the bill later. No doubt this dish is really good. No wonder the waiter said a lot of customer ordered this. (although I thought she is lying to me at that time.. where got people say their dish not nice, right?)

And the main highlight, Sweet and sour crabs. In Miri, you can easily order crabs dishes and you don’t need to wait for “CRAB Seasons”. They have variety of cooking style from spicy to sweet and sour, from local to international style and many more.

Normally I don’t eat crab when I am outside. To maintain my image and reputation maa but since I am alone, wth, just go for it. Ok! Please stop imagining how I look like while eating crab! Not to brag but I know I look good all the time. LOL.. puke..

One “must try” drink in Miri beside Kokoberry Bubble Milk Tea is 3 layer drinks. I know I wrote about 3 layer drinks in ABC Food’s Corner but this is totally different. The last layer is barley green (xiao mai chao) instead of coconut sugar.

Guess how much I paid for all these? Considering that I mentioned I might get slaughter? I only paid about RM48.30 for this meal. Cheap isn’t it? I bet you will not get the similar quality or portion in KL. If you happen to drop by Miri, go try it out. The restaurant is just right infront of Marriot Hotel.

Tanjung Seafood Restaurant Miri, Sarawak

GPS: 4.372428,113.969507