KAMPUNGBOYCITYGAL A MALAYSIAN FOOD & TRAVEL BLOG

Some random pictures from my Oxpicious New Year:

#1 Chinese Festive Decoration at Home (the mini mandarin oranges are so sweet and juicy!)

#2 Cuteness Overload

#3 Angpow Giving Ceremony to Perak Thalassemia Society

#4 Ipoh Girls (@ Maria’s, Josephine’s Cafe & Friends’ Cafe)

#5 Assam House, Greentown (very nice halal Nyonya Food)

#6 Weng Seng, Gunung Rapat (my family’s favorite neighborhood restaurant)

#7 Homemade Turnip Pork Balls

#8 Fortune Cookies and Banana Agar Agar (sounds eccentric but nice!)

#9 Bai Tin Gong on the 9th Day of CNY

Our first visit to Unique Seafood falls on Father’s Day, with a lounge full of customers waiting to be seated we were fortunate enough to secure a table shortly. We handed dad the baton of ordering since it was his day.

We were expecting jumbo oysters, huge mantis prawns, bigger sized crabs but most of the orders turned out less than satisfactory. According the restaurant manager, those were “the few left in the tank” unless we can tolerate with the frozen seafood. Most of the non seafood dishes like guai fei chi (empress faux sharkfin), claypot egg plant with minced meat, two-some kalian are pretty good. The salted egg crab albeit small in size, is really rich and flavourful. It better be, since Unique claimed themselves as the pioneer of salted egg crab.

Two Way Kailan

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Claypot Egg Plant with Minced Meat

Guai Fei Chi (Empress Faux Sharkfin)

LaLa in XO Sauce

Salt and Pepper Mantis Prawn

Cheese Baked Oyster

Salted Egg Crab

Sea Coconut Dessert

The total bill came about RM 180 which is pretty reasonable. For a minimum amount of RM100 spent on each bill, we were entitled for a kg of free fresh water prawns. So my parents make a revisit to claim for the voucher, and ended up ordering more. With more vouchers on hand, we went back for a family dinner the third time and this time around we have more vouchers to spend. Can you see the chain effect? The free fresh water prawn promotion is a pretty good marketing gimmick huh?

A medium size geoduck with fresh, plump and firm looking siphons was chosen. Known as the elephant trunk clam in Chinese, the giant clams purported to have aphrodisiac qualities are particularly popular in Asia countries.

Do not be fooled by a geoduck’s freakish look, with its large meaty siphon or neck extending from its large oval shaped shell. The meat has a sweet, fresh sea flavor and crunchy texture and is best eaten raw ala sashimi style or plunge quickly into boiling soup. Extra vegetables and tofu were ordered too.

Stir Fry Lotus Roots

Japanese Clam in XO Sauce

Fresh Water Prawn in Dark Sauce

Salted Egg Crab (Flower Crab)

Other than ala carte menu, Unique Seafood has more to offer, especially value for money set lunches and dinners that’s priced between 188++ to 688++. The dinner comes with a little heftier price tag but is worth every single cent. We were fairly happy with most of the dishes ordered, other than the insignificant flower crab that was recommended by the manager. Apparently Unique Seafood is quite popular among Ipoh folks, with a good scene of crowds on weekend nights, so do make your reservation beforehand.

Restoran Perak Unique Seafood
No 5, Persiaran Lagoon Sunway 1,
31150 Ipoh, Perak.
Tel 05-5486010 / 016 2615622
Fax 05-5486020

“Dong Dong Dong”, we were distracted from our scrumptious fare of dim sum in Foo San. A man in his early 30s is holding a pair of flat chisels to break the big block of candies apart. Two packets (RM 3) of Deuk Deuk Tong was brought home then.

Having lived in a “mentos” generation, it is something new for us but not for our parents. It has brought back a lot of childhood memories of them; Deuk Deuk Tong was regarded luxury back then when everyone is struggling is make ends meet.

Deuk Deuk Tong or commonly referred to as Ding Ding Tong is a type of traditional candy in Hong Kong. It is a hard maltose candy with sesame and ginger flavors. The sweet is made by first melting maltose, then adding to it various ingredients and continuously stirring the mixture. Before the mixture solidifies, it is put on a metal stick and pulled into a line shape, then coiled into the shape of a plate. (Information from Wikimapia)

Boy! It tasted so good and al natural! With rough and uneven cuts, the maltose taste is rich and delicious with a light hinge of ginger. Any idea on where we can get such goodies around KL?

Original picture as requested.

Old Town is always a pride of Ipoh people with the origination of White Coffee, curry noodles who made their name to foreign land, hor hee that attracts patrons from other states and other scrumptious variety of food. For me, it is a place that stir up nostalgia because it is a place where my parents brought me for afternoon tea since young before Starbucks, Coffee Bean or the air conditioned Old Town Kopitiam came along.

Enough said about the aromatic white coffee at Nam Heong. I’m going to introduce this particular dim sum stall that gained their popularity through the hot selling egg tarts and cha siu pastry. It is rare to see patrons that can resist the buttery-smelling pastry. Over 1000 tarts are sold on normal days but the sales shot up to double during public holidays.

With the flaky pastry shells, the egg tart looks like it would fall apart any time. Handle with care, it exclaimed. I was expecting a somehow gooey smooth and silky egg custard but it falls short of my expectation.

Anyway, the cha siu pastry is to die for! Succulent barbequed pork in sweet sauce is embedded in a parcel of crispy, flaky puff pastry. Need me to say more?

Kedai Makanan Nam Heong
Jalan Bandar Timah
Egg tarts and Cha Siu pastry from Nam Heong Dim Sum are sold at RM1.30 each (buy 10 free 2).
Opens from 7.30am to 4pm ( sold off as early as 2 pm)

Read Also:

Ipoh Old Town Food Crawl (from bfast to tea)

Tea at Ipoh Old Town

In Ipoh, eating“Zhu Fan” is so popular that in fact we have the saying among ourselves (or maybe just my family, but who cares? :p) that Ipoh is a land distinguished for its “Zhu Fan” culture. Choose from kuey teow, mee hoon, yellow noodles or rat tailed noodles to assorted seafood or poultry, each zhu fan is made to order. The cook will use a huge metal saucepan to boil the broth and cook the noodles over large fire in a jiffy.

Apparently Fai Kee is a place that comes highly recommended by families and friends for their zhu fan. So here we are, on a Sunday morning, idling at our table in anticipation of a bowl of goodness.

First to arrive on our table is the pork noodles (RM3.50). There’s something about the noodles combined with the savory broth, firm springy noodles, pork slices, intestines and lightly crisp greens.

Seafood noodles (RM 4) have been the star of the table. The bowl is a tangled nest for big fat, curled shrimp, thick slices of stingrays, lalas, squid and shitake mushroom. A generous portion of firm noodles, delicate sweet broth and a wide selection of seafood goes into making it a delicious affair. You can actually have three bowls of these with the price that you pay for Yu Ai’s. Grin

As bloated as I’ve gotten on the noodles, I’ve started yearning to snack on the deep fried minced pork(RM3.50). The bite size snack is crispy on the outside and slightly chewy and juicy inside.

I applaud Fai Kee for their efficiency and courteousness despite the ridiculous large crowd. Do hop over to EatinOut to take a peep at the infamous garoupa fish slices noodles (must order).

Restoran Fai Kee (same row as Overseas and opposite Hotel Excelsior)
28, Jalan Seenivasagam,
30450, Ipoh.
Tel : 012 – 4546111