Showing posts with label Food Category: Szechuan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food Category: Szechuan. Show all posts

Monday, May 18, 2009

Eating at home

Planning the dinner menu on an amost daily basis is challenging. As a norm, I prefer simple recipes that don't result in a dish that takes ages to materialise. Of course, every once in a while, I do get a bit more adventurous and try new stuff that may be slightly more labour-intensive.
Anyway, this is what our typical dinner spread would look like.
I made soya drink from scratch lately and decided to turn the soya bean grindings into mock meat for loh bak. It worked out pretty alright, abit mushy inside, but otherwise the taste was there. The chicken stock powder really helped!
This was loh bak made from a mixture of real minced meat and water chestnuts, as taught by hubby's mom.

My first attempt at ma pou tofu with loads of Szechuan peppercorn and minced meat. I think I should have used a softer type of tofu, but taste-wise, this was pretty close to the ma pou tofu that I've eaten in restaurants.

Plain fried tofu, eaten with lotsa HP sauce is how I like it.

Lotus root and groundnut soup which hubby loves.

Mango salad which hubby stayed away from because it was too vinegarish.

The usual greens.

Szechuan stir fried french beans with minced meat. Yummy!

Kangkung belacan, we are really learning to be good at this dish!

Assam pedas fish curry. Reminiscent of assam laksa because I used alot of daun kesum.

Curry chicken and eggs.
Mom bought us this new convection oven last Christmas and we have been putting it to good use, especially for broiling chicken. It's excellent; the fats drip off, the chicken is all crispy on the outside, while remaining all tender and juicy inside.

Broiled chicken leg on a bed of salad.

Ok this chicken may look good, but it was really our first bbq disaster. We smoked the chicken leg for a couple of hours in the bbq pit and it ended up tasting like charcoal. I mean, literally, I felt like I was breathing fire when I had my first bite. It had a very tart, acrid aftertaste. We tossed it. No more smoking food for us.

My latest experiment was potato and meat patties, marinated with all the Indian spices. Tasted almost like vadai.
Stir fried ginger and spring onions with pork slices. Hearthy and traditional.

Pork chops in sweet and sour sauce, our attempt at pai kwat wong, which turned out really well, actually.

We sometimes have one-dish meals too.....vegetable noodle soup with pork chop and fried egg.


Burgers!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Dragon-i Restaurant, Pavilion Mall, Kuala Lumpur (3rd Post)

We found out about the Dragon-i RM1.00/chicken promo which lasts till 30th April 2009, and had to go check it out.

This would be my third post on Dragon-i. The second post can be found here and the first post can be found here.
Since we went as a couple, we had to order a main dish in order to be able to enjoy the RM1.00 chicken promotion. (If you go in a group of 3, you can actually order the chicken, and nothing else!). We ordered the Mapo Tofu (RM16.00), which was a tad too sourish, though very smooth and tasty.
The soya sauce chicken (RM1.00) which was on promo was an average sized bird, braised in a sweet soya sauce gravy, which I really took to. The chicken was tender in parts, but the breast meat was as usual, fibrous. Eaten with steaming hot rice, this was really value for money!
The meal for 2 (inclusive of rice and water) came up to RM24.15. Not bad, for a meal at Dragon-i.

Dragon-i Restaurant Sdn Bhd
Cititel Hotel, Main Lobby,
Ground Floor, Mid Valley City.
Tel: 03-22820155
Fax: 03-22848155

3-bams!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Esquire Kitchen, 1-Utama Mall PJ and Plaza OUG Old Klang Road KL

Esquire Kitchen is one of the few restaurant chains where we can find Szechuan food in the Klang Valley.


LOCATION 1: 1-Utama Mall, Bandar Utama PJ

Shop, shop, shop, and then eat....

Fried Shanghainese noodles (RM8.90), with its springy texture and bits of pork, vegetables and a smoky aroma, has become a favourite of mine.

Hubby tried the pork strip noodles with char choy (RM8.90) which was sourish, soupy and reputedly a favourite with many female patrons. Pretty good, if you are into pickled vegetables.

Hubby liked the chilli paste with preserved beans which came with his noodles. I, however, found the taste kinda weird.


Esquire Kitchen
S335, 2nd Floor, 1-Utama Shopping Complex,
Lebuh Bandar Utama,
47800 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Tel: 03-77258160
Fax: 03-77254602
Email: esquiremktg@hotmail.com




LOCATION 2: Plaza OUG, Old Klang Road KL


Stir fried crunchy french beans (RM12.00), with bits of salty "choy poh" and minced meat goodness. We are simply addicted to this dish.


Pork slices Szechuan style (RM12.00) was another winner, with its sourish julienned yam bean (mengkuang), black fungus (mok nee) and strips of pork. Very tangy. My only complaint is that the portions here are a tad too small.



Esquire Kitchen

G5, Plaza OUG, Taman OUG,

Old Klang Road, Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-79811645

Fax: 03-79831989

Email: esquiremktg@hotmail.com

Esquire Kitchen deserves a high 3-bam.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Jiu Jiu Szechuan Restaurant, Auto-City, Prai, Penang

I love spicy food, and Szechuan food fits right into the bill.
We stumbled upon this gem of a restaurant quite by accident on our way back from Penang on the North-South highway, hungry and in search for dinner. Auto-City teems with restaurants and fast food joints. Jiu Jiu stood out since Szechuan restaurants aren't all that common in Malaysia. It's located just above Seoul Garden.
The reception area of the restaurant.
We ordered the braised eggplant in fragrant spicy sauce which was vinegary and spicy, with a touch of Chinese cooking wine (RM12.80). We loved this dish for its savoury yet tangy taste, very unique.
Another firm favourite was the savoury seared french beans (RM12.80) which had delicious tiny morsels of mui choy and minced meat.
Belly pork with Lao Gan Ma (RM29.80) was somewhat pricey and a tad fatty for my liking. It had a strong 5-spice powder taste.
We all loved the spicy bean ma po tofu (RM11.80), another Szechuan classic. Spicy and loaded with Szechuan peppercorns.


The ultimate dish of the night was undoubtedly the stir fried chicken with Szechuan peppercorns (RM25.80). Excellent bite-sized bits of deep fried, marinated, boneless chicken that just exploded in the mouth with savoury, salty, Szechuan peppercorn flavour. This dish was insanely good.

The bill for the 4 of us totalled RM115.00. The service here wasn't all stars however, the waiters and waitresses did not seem to understand English nor Cantonese, and our Mandarin proficiency was non-existent. Requests for water refills were slow in fulfillment. Nonetheless, the great food more than made up for this shortcoming. The food here was just a whole rich range of amazing flavours, all pleasing to the palette.


Jiu Jiu Szechuan Restaurant
1831-FI, Jalan Perusahaan Auto-City,
North-South Highway Juru Interchange,
13600 Prai, Penang.
Tel: 04-5013899
Fax: 04-5013898



Definitely a 4-bam for the terrific, spicy and super flavourful food!