KAMPUNGBOYCITYGAL A MALAYSIAN FOOD & TRAVEL BLOG

Dreams come true they do
Dreams come true
From all of us to all of you they do

Don’t you know that dreams come true
Love is just a second away
(Better take a look inside)
Make that magic rule, let the miracle stay
(You gotta take a look inside)

Dreams Come True, Westlife

The dream of running a small cafe has nothing to do with the excitement of entrepreneurship or the joys of being one’s own boss—it’s all about one’s passion and enthusiasm. Such is a case of Dreamz Bakery. It is a love story about a pastry chef (the boy) and a designer (the girl). They both shared the same dream – opening their own cafe. That dream came to fruition when the boy had decided to return home from Singapore where he received training and the girl graduated from a design school.

Dreamz Bakery is small but warm. Customers can choose to sit on a bar top table on the right with high stools or a floor seating area on the left. The affable staffs and owner always smile brightly and the cafe design is kitschy without being cliche. The interior is quite simple; there are no fancy lampshades, mass-manufactured furniture or expensive paintings, but they focused on delivering personal touches. I love the wall adored with portraits of the café’s regular, the pink polka dot table cloth and the quirky guest book which allows us to sit in one corner scribbling and drawing.

Apart from specialising in artisan cakes and desserts, wedding cakes and occasion cakes (birthday, anniversary), there are also cookies for sale. We tried quite a variety of those cookies, and boy they tasted good! My favourite was the kitty almond cookies and chocolate chip nut cookies. I got my Latte (RM 7.50) while Ivy got her Cappuccino (RM 6.90). I thought my coffee was nothing to shout about. The yam cake (RM 9) was moist and dense, but surprisingly leave a light feeling in my mouth, and just sweet enough. Chocolate Mille Crepe (RM 9) was a tad too “flourly” and thick to my liking.

All in all, Dreamz Café is open for anyone seeking great company to come together and enjoy a leisurely afternoon. Here are some photos of this cozy cafe design:

Dreamz Bakery (3rd floor)
No 32-1, The Strand Jalan, PJU5/20D
Pusat Perdagangan Kota Damansara
47810 Petaling Jaya.
Tel: 012-2003441
Monday :10.30am-7pm
Tuesday : CLOSE
Wednesday to Sunday :10.30am-9pm

Do check out Dreamz Bakery facebook page for more info!

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Since the damaging March 11 catastrophic that caused a tsunami and radiation leakage to devastate the Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures in Japan, a lof of us have deter from consuming Japanese food. The mass paranoia have cause a lot of Japanese restaurants to experience a slow down in business.

Kin Shui Tei Japanese Restaurant stands out when they started to implement a double checking step for radiation on all their imported ingredients using a radiation detector. Do you know that they are the first restaurant in Malaysia that uses the radiation detector to do the daily food scanning? The little device costs a whopping RM7,000 and there are no ready stocks in Malaysia at the moment.

Kampachi – radiation reading: 64

Pickles – radiation reading: 78

Gas mantle – radiation reading: 4665!

Gas mantle, widely used in kerosene or liquified petroleum gas flame has a higher reading because the mantle emits radiation when lit to generate bright white light.

Some fact about radiations: Radiation is all around us, all the time. The energy spectrum has included microwaves, radiowaves, infrared radiation, UV radiation, X-ray, etc. At high attitudes airlines fly, passenger and crews are exposed to higher-than-normal radiation levels of between 3 and 9 microsieverts per hour too. (1 sievert = 1000 millisieverts (mSv), 1mSv = 1000 microsieverts).

Radiation exposure around the Fukushima nuclear power plant reach levels of 400mSv per hour. A single dosage of 1000mSv could cause radiation sickness but not death. A single dosage of 5000mSv could cause death to those who were exposed to it within a month and a 1000mSv reading could cause fatals within week. You get the drift.

more readings: http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/ral.htm

So the conclusion is not to worry too much all Japanese imports have undergone vigorous inspection by the Japanese and Malaysian Ministry of Health.

If the worry persists, it’s ok because Kin Shui Tei has chosen to stop using Japanese products all together and seek alternatives from other countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Norway and Alaska while others continue to use selected ingredients from the southern part of the country.

Let’s do some light reading after such a heavy discussion, shall we?

Thanks to the invitation from Kin Shu Tei, we got to sample chef Ikuo Tanabe’s master piece once again.  The little education session put us at ease; we enjoyed our food thoroughly without any worries.

Kin Shu Tei’s interior is simple and the colours of the whole restaurant is easy on the eye and rather classy.

Special Hokkaido chirashi sushi – RM98

I must say the food presentation was expertly done and the raw ingredients were so fresh that it is a lot like tasting the ocean. We really liked the rice imported from USA; somehow it just tastes better compared to Japanese rice. :p

Seasonal Anago Tempura – RM30

The crispy sea eel tempura was a great combination with the special dipping sauce – chef’s special sweet sour sauce with spring onions.

Smoked Ayu – RM55

The moist, flaky fish with a delicate smoke flavor was really good. Highly recommended!

Beef tofu Katsu don – RM38

On the surface, it’s a seemingly simple dish, but there is so much going on – a delicate layer of tofu wrapped with beef roll and coated in a crispy bread crumb batter. This tops my list as well.

Lamb rib steak – RM50. Lean and juicy, the lamb rib steak was grilled to perfection. The thick sauce looks appetizing and tasted great at the same time. Special mention must be made regarding the potato salad; so creamy and so delicious!

We had an early birthday celebration for KampungBoy courtesy of Debbie and the restaurant manager.

The make shift “cake” is so pretty! Kudos to the sous chef for such an innovative master piece.

It was my third time to Kin Shu Tei and we have never been disappointed. It is one of the long standing Japanese restaurants in town, partly attributable to Chef Ikuo Tanabe’s dedication and strict standard applied. He is such a perfectionist, and we have seen it with our own eyes.

Kin Shui Tei
C/o Tropicana Golf & Country Resort,
Jalan Kelab Tropicana,
47410 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Tel: 03-78042079 / 03-78804437 ext 315

Every year when I asked KampungBoy what he wants for his birthday dinner, he asked for nothing but good healthy and happy life. I know! That is one hell of a very general answer; so this year I asked him to make a special request and he specifically asked for a “crabby dinner”. After some deliberation, I decided to take him to Wong Poh for some yummy-licious claypot butter crabs!

If you are a crustacean fanatic, Restoran Wong Poh at Bukit Mayang Mas is the place to go. We reached the place at 6pm sharp on a Saturday evening but to our horror, the place was already packed inside out and we have sit under the intense glaring sun.

We ordered the salted egg mantis prawn as an “appetizer”. It came to our table hot and crispy. While the mantis prawns were coated with incredibly rich and creamy salted egg yolk paste, we find Wong Poh’s version to be too “flour-ly”.

The claypot butter crab is the piece de resistance here, which we spotted in almost every other table. The crabs were so fresh, so fleshy and most importantly reasonably priced – medium size crabs are selling for RM 45 per kg and big size crabs are asking for RM 70 per kg. For only RM 52, we had two medium size crabs with plenty of sweet, succulent meat.

Not to forget the thick, creamy butter sauce with a sprig of curry leaves or two. The gravy is best mopped up with fried ‘man tao’ (RM 0.70 each).

KampungBoy said that it was one of the most incredible-tastiest and satisfying birthday dinner ever. Forget about fine dining! Ditch the fork and spoon! To add to the experience/taste, we broke the claws apart with our hands, pulled the meat off with our teeth and happily licking the butter sauce off our fingers. Messy but so satisfying.

Happy Birthday again!

Restaurant Wong Poh
36 & 38 Jln BM 1/2
Bukit Mayang Mas
47301 Petaling Jaya
Tel: 603-7803 3527

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Read our review on Xiao Fei Yang here.

Being a Hainanese, KampungBoy is quite a fussy eater when it comes to anything that does with his hainanese roots. We usually have our cuppa together at the Ah Weng Kor Hainanese Tea Stall in Imbi Market during the weekends. He also likes the hainanese pork chop at Yut Kee so much that we make it a point to drop by whenever he’s back in KL. One fine day, I told him I’ve had enough of Yut Kee’s, so let’s do something for a change.

“OK, let’s go to Sukico Hainan Cafe then. Heard some good thing about em’”, he told me. I almost choked on my water, for obvious reasons.

Sukico Hainan Cafe has been in Damansara Uptown for as far as I can remember but it was only our first time there. The decor is simple and minimal, and the menu is pretty straightforward. The place had an old, musty smell that I don’t feel comfortable with. Maybe it’s just me and my sensitive nose.

I had a feeling that our Iced Hainanese Tea (RM 3.50) is going to be bad when I saw it being prepared by the foreign worker. You gotta trust a woman’s sixth sense – my hainanese tea was diluted, overly sweet and where is the thick frothy foam that sits on top? Nowhere to be seen.
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Tonight I will steal you away
All I want is just one taste
All that I want to do
Forbidden fruit

~Ne-yo, Forbidden Fruit

And in my case:
All that I want to do
Strongbow

Tantalizing and exciting like forbidden fruit, Strongbow is a brand of cider made of fermented apple juice.

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“My mother would kill me if she knows that I’m charging anything more!”

It was the answer given by Hans, one of the owners of D Legends Bar when we asked him why is everything in the menu so reasonably priced (below RM 18 for all items).

Touted as a neighbourhood bar, D Legend Bar always believe in giving their customers the best value under the sun. It is also a place where you can just come in your shorts and slippers and dine with all the great legends like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson and the likes.

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