Can't stop eating

I think I'm blogging more about the food I'm eating more than cooking! I've been looking back at my posts and food is taking centre stage. No wonder I'm putting on so much weight in just a few short weeks 0_o My clothes are getting a little snug and unflattering....maybe it's time to consider a diet before I need to go get new clothes in larger sizes.

Anyways, today me and Mum decided to go shopping in Mid Valley. It surprised me that there are so many people in the shopping mall on a working day. I guess Malaysia's economy ain't going to be affected so much after all with people still spending money like crazy shopping.

We had lunch at The Toast which is situated at the walkway connecting Mid Valley and The Gardens.

The Toast serves kopitiam style food and you gotta give your table number before ordering at the cashier. We sat at a table with my favourite number 17 =D

The nasi lemak is so-so only and it cost RM4.40+ 5% service charge. It's quite a small pack but it comes with the egg. Not worth the price as it doesn't even have any meat.

This toast is part of a set with 2 soft boiled eggs and a cup of tea or coffee. Very normal tasting toast....can do at home anytime.

The set comes with 2 eggs. I like my eggs not too big, not too small and cooked just right. These are a little overdone and the yolk is not so runny anymore.

Mum complaint the milk tea is too bitter. Well, it tasted okay to me but nothing to shout about.

Well, needless to say Mum didn't enjoy eating at The Toast. So after a few hours of shopping in Mid Valley, we stopped at Taipan for an early dinner. People in Subang Jaya are spoilt for choices when it comes to food. Chinese, Indian, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese and even Western cuisine are everywhere. Lots of fast food are also available in the not too distant Sunway Pyramid and Subang Parade.

Variety is definitely not a problem for people living in Subang. The only problem is the quality of the food. It's really hard to find tasty and good value for money food here. Mum and I have our own little place for some delicious and cheap food in Subang. This restaurant is smacked right in the centre of Taipan Triangle. Nanking restaurant is located at the same row as McDonald's opposite RHB Bank. The best hawker food here is the Pan Mee (I don't know what's it called in English) and Penang Assam Laksa. It's really yummy and we always order both when we eat there.

Penang assam laksa which is the best in Subang in my opinion. The tasty soup is thick and you can actually see fish in the soup.

The assam laksa smells so good that no one can really resist it...really yummylicious.

My favourite Pan Mee. It's served with slices of mushrooms(my favourite), mince pork and some preserved vege all chopped up.

My Pan Mee are in pieces instead of the normal ribbons. These pieces are made by flattening the dough and then peel of piece by piece into the boiling soup. If you order yours in ribbons, it'll be done using a pasta machine.

Eating this Pan Mee is never complete without some fried anchovies and delicious chilli sauce.

It's Friday again and it's Halloween. Well, it's not really spooky here as Halloween is not a popular celebration in Malaysia but the same can't be said about Oktoberfest which is happening at One Utama over the weekend. I will avoid One Utama whenever events like this is happening as the traffic is horrendous.

Well...time to plan what to eat over the weekend =P

3JC Restaurant @ Sunway Pyramid

Yesterday was freaking hot and it's still freaking hot today. Thought I left the scorching heat in Macau. Had dinner with Joverse to catchup on some good old gossip. She wanted to eat something with hot soup so we ended up in a restaurant called 3JC in Sunway Pyramid. It was pretty deserted at dinner time but we decided to give it a try.

This was on their menu's back cover. Check out their tagline.

What caught my interest was they actually listed down how long it takes to prepare the dish. I didn't know it takes 5 minutes to prepare a "Hot Ceramic Chinese Bowl" 0_o

It's amazing that it takes 10 steps and almost 2 hours to make sausages only! I wonder how many sausages is that? Cannot be only making 8 grams in 2 hours right?

10 hours and 35 minutes for a bowl of noodles? And people wonders why I don't cook =P

Joverse ordered 3JC with homemade noodles which took 10 hours to make.

I decided to have the curry version instead so it comes with beancurd and long beans. I'm sure this will take more than 10 hours 35 minutes as they have to prepare the beans and beancurd =P

This is the meatball that took 52 minutes to prepare and eaten in 5 minutes ;P

We finished our noodles in like 15 minutes...hehe...ever gave a thought on the 10 hours the chefs took to prepare it. We do sometimes take chefs for granted when the dish looks so simple isn't it? Makes me wonder if they are overdoing it for a bowl of noodles as I'm sure noodles served at hawker stalls are prepared with less time and is tastier. The noodles at 3JC is so-so only. Wouldn't say it's delicious but the serving is quite big for Malaysian standards. Well, it's a good place for gossip session as the place is pretty empty so it's not noisy and you don't feel pressured to leave when there's a line waiting to be seated =D

After pyramid, it's yumcha at SS2 mamak. It's been ages since I've been there. Met up with Ian, Sam, Terence and Kamal. Haven't seen Terence and Kamal for years and they look the same! Well, it's a good start to getting the bunch of Computer Science people together. Sam's the only one not from Comp Science but she's been hanging out with our group since Uni days.

Wouldn't it be fun to have a 10 year reunion of some sort in the future...man, I'll be in my 30's by then 0_o Am sure many of us will have Juniors by then to add to the havoc ;P

Pizza vs Satay @ USJ 9

Mum wanted to have dinner at Pizza vs Satay which is a place we used to frequent. Their nasi lemak and satay used to be very famous. During my Monash days, our whole gang used to eat here as a treat once in a while as it's a little hard on our college student budget. I remember we always ordered fruit juices in giant mugs and Ian always ordered a spaghetti carbonara. It is really amazing just watching him eat. You see, Ian eats his carbonara by the strand. That's right, strand by strand and it takes ages. We always cross our fingers hoping that his pasta would be the first to arrive so by the time he finishes the last strand, he wouldn't be too far behind us!

Anyways, today we arrived at the restaurant and it was pretty deserted. I'm not sure it's because of the holidays or we are too early for dinner but it was already 6.30pm when we got there. The deco is still warmly inviting as before but that's where the similarity ends. To put it bluntly, the food sucks. The service sucks even more.

Once I saw the restaurant's staffs, I thought I was at a funeral. There's no smile, no chatter, just lots of sour grapes. Well, we thought we'll give them a chance as the food was the one that got us here. The waitress that took order is the worst I've even encountered in a restaurant. She didn't know what's on the menu. She doesn't know what is available. She don't know nuts.

Our conversation that made me wanna puke blood...lots of blood.

Me : We want satay and Hawaiian pizza.

Waitress : Ok

Me : Mum, you want anything else? Soup?

Waitress : Ok...1 soup

Me : *puke blood...I was talking to Mum and she thinks I'm ordering*

Me : What soup are you serving today?

Waitress : I don't know. Wait ar...*turns to the pizza chef for info...pizza chef then turns to kitchen to ask*

Me : *puke blood again*

Waitress : It's mushroom soup. Mushroom ok?

Me : No. We don't want the soup. What are the mixed fruits in this desert *points to menu*

Waitress : *looking super blur and turns to pizza chef again. This time she pointed to the menu as she can't even pronounce the dish's name. Blah blah blah...and she's back*

Waitress : Today we don't have this. The people are out catering and they took the equipment with them.

Me :*WTF??? Puke more blood*

Mum : 0_o

Me : Give me one bruschetta -_-

So off she went to deliver our order to the chefs. At the mean time, it's still feels like a funeral. After about 15 minutes, the food is ready. When the chef pass the food to the waitress to serve, she actually asked "Which table?" My goodness, there's only 2 other tables besides ours and one of the table was already half way through their meal. Can she not remember which table ordered which dish? There's only 3 freaking table for God's sake! She actually went beyond stupid as she asked the chef which table every time she's given a plate of food to serve. Even after we already gotten all our food and only one table left to serve, she still asked which table. I don't think I have enough blood supply.

The only thing that kept me happy in this place was the jigsaw puzzles hanging on the wall.

Satay with ketupat. If you ever want to try this place even after reading this post, order the beef satay only as the chicken is tough and dry. Mum and I both agreed that the tasty satay sauce saved this dish.

Mushroom Bruschetta which is way too salty.

I really would not recommend anyone to try this restaurant. Gone were it's glory days. I shall try to put this bad experience behind me. Instead, I'll treasure the fun memories I had with my friends eating here while pushing Ian to eat faster by threatening to eat it for him! These crazy fun people are now in different places pursuing a career after uni. Sue Yi and Joe working in Singapore, Yunita in Indonesia, Yu Hock back in Penang, How Khang studying in Hong Kong and Terence in Johor. It's only Ian and me left in Subang. Okay...technically, I'm in Macau but since I'm blogging from Subang, I'll consider myself rooted here for a moment.

I miss those days. How I wish they could all come back so we could have more days like that =D

Hot Springs @ Sungai Klah,Sungkai

My day started at an ungodly hour of 7.30am when Mum woke me up for our day trip to the hot springs in Sungkai. Before heading for the hot springs, we first have to make a detour to the Sunday morning market in Taipan -_-

Aunt Helena was at the market as well for some marketing chores.

After Mum got her weekly dose of morning market, we went to meet Aunt Serene and Melaine for our gals day trip. As usual, before anything else happens, we have to get food =)

Yippee...bak kut teh for breakfast. My favourite bak kut teh shop in Subang Jaya. Among my friends, this is known as "Leng Chai Bak Kut Teh". You have to go eat there to find out why ;P

They serve generous portions of food. Always must have enoki mushrooms in my bak kut teh =)

Yau char kuey...definitely a must-have as well.

Vege to make the sinful meal seem healthier =D

After getting our stomach satisfied and a little bloated, we hit the road. About 1 hour and 30 minutes later, we arrived at our destination.

It's RM10 for adults. They really should proofread their signboard if they want to make this a tourist destination. It's so embarrassing that they can't even spell "Entrance" correctly.

A little chaotic at the ticket counter. So far, the place is giving me a really bad impression.

We got our tickets and made our way on a wooden bridge towards the hot springs.

And we saw some guys boiling eggs in the small stream.

They offered to sell us the eggs at RM2 each...we declined and left them to tend to their eggs.

We found it.

The skies were blue...

The water is not!

To avoid vision damage, don't look around either 0_o

Soaking your feet in the water is very popular here.

This beautiful butterfly can't resist dipping it's feet in the water too =)

This place even have an egg boiling area.

Don't worry if you forgot to bring any eggs. There are plenty for sale.

This is where eggs are boiled. It's not a pretty sight.

People are very creative when it comes to eggs. You can cook it in a basket, in plastic bags or even with a towel. Foreigners must think we are really hard up for our eggs in Malaysia.

I find this guy's method of getting his eggs cooked the most innovative of all =P

Watching people boiling eggs can be very boring and we were hot and sweaty in the hot weather. So we headed to the cafeteria =)

We suck on some refreshing ice-cream to cool us down.

Lots of people at the small cafeteria. See the fan on the right? Well, it's the one of the two miserable fans available there -_-

Despite having a roof, this family still needed an umbrella =P

After a much needed rest at the cafeteria, we decided to try our hands at boiling eggs. It can't be that hard right? So we got ourselves some eggs and found a nice spot to boil it.

It's very easy to cook your eggs in a hot spring. Just put your eggs in the water and make sure it doesn't get carried away by the current. The water is very hot at 90-100 degress Celcius. Don't touch the water or you'll be sorry.

After about 5 minutes, the eggs are cooked!

Not too bad eh?

I'm trying to take a bite of the egg...

... but it's so freaking hot!

I finally got to taste the egg and it's yummy. Just wished we brought soy sauce and pepper along.

The eggs were so yummy, we went to get more! This time we cooked it at a different spot where the water was bubbling away...

The water is very hot so me and Melaine have to use sticks to cook our eggs.

Even though we look like pro hot spring egg cooks here, it actually takes a lot of skills okay. It's very dangerous...the ground is wet and slippery and if you fall in the water, you'll know how the eggs feel like sitting in the water.

After all that hard work, we were famished. So we left the hot springs and went hunting for food =)

We decided on Garden Seafood in Tg. Malim for an early dinner.

Apple juice with sour plum.

Singapore style fried vermicelli.

Our roasted chicken which is very tasty.

I think they took out the chicken meat, make it into a paste and then stuffed it back into the chicken skin.

This is called the "Four Heavenly Kings" vege. Despite is grand name, it's a simple dish made up of long beans, brinjals, lady's fingers and also pungent petai.

Thai style fried Garoupa fish.

This is the restaurant's signature beancurd dish recommended by the waitress.

Really smooth beancurd...we all love this dish

Crispy fried honey squid.

It's a fun filled day eventhough the hot springs pool is a real letdown. The water is so dirty and also people there wade into the water in full attire. Some kids are even playing in the water in their underwear -_- Sightings of balding pot bellied uncles in tight swimming trunks scared us as well. The idea that there's no clorine to kill any germs in the water is enough to keep me out of the water too. Though I'll gladly risk my life if a hot Christiano Ronaldo look-alike is in the water ;P