Jim Chai Kee Noodle

After all that Chinese food in Hong Kong, I thought it might be a while before I started craving Chinese food again. Instead, I found myself at Jim Chai Kee Noodle looking forward to comparing their wonton mein against Mak's Noodles wonton mein in Hong Kong. 

 

Here comes the moment of truth:

Wonton Mein

Really delicious! The thin-skinned wontons were gigantic and filled with a tasty shrimp mixture. 

Way more filling than Mak's Noodles and cheaper too!

The noodles and the broth were good, but I think Mak's had a heartier and tastier broth. 

Wonton Noodle Soup

Wonton with ho fun

I love rice noodles because they're (a) great at absorbing flavour and (b) the slippery texture is perfect with soup or in a stir fry. The soup base was a lot easier to taste with ho fun than with the mein and it had a nice chicken broth taste. 

3 Toppings Lo Mein

This dish shows a clearer picture of what the wontons, beef and fish balls look like. I personally like the noodle soup version better than the lo mein because I like sauce and soup with my noodles. However, this lo mein was still really good. 

Overall: Quick service and food at Jim Chai Kee Noodle and the wontons were really good! 

Taiwan Beef Noodle @ Hong Kong Airport - HK

We stopped over in Hong Kong for a few hours to catch our flight back to Toronto. 

I was pretty hungry, so I decided to grab a bite to eat:

Beef Noodle Soup

Yum! Quite a pricey bowl of soup (airport convenience pricing), but it was pretty good. 

The beef was tender and tasty and the broth was rich and flavourful. 

Restoran Bah Kut Teh Shun Heng - KL

Our last night in Kuala Lumpur

 Bak Kut Teh

Literally "Meat Bone Tea" is made with ribs, offal, mushroom, tofu and tofu puffs all brewed together with a whole bunch of herbs and spices. The flavour is super complex and really tastes like a gigantic herbal spice mix was thrown in with tea. It has a strong herbal smell to it too. 

Dry Bak Kut Teh

Just when I thought the Bak Kut Teh was strong, this dry version was even stronger with dark soy sauce, chilis (to make it spicy) and a super strong herbal and spice aroma. It was pretty spicy, I'm not sure I would have survived my first bite of it without the small teacup of tea.

Apparently this is a good remedy for hangovers...no kidding - that stuff is strong enough to wake anyone up.

 

Enoki mushrooms and tofu puffs in broth

They used the same broth base for the bak kut teh to soak the enoki mushrooms and tofu puffs in. 

 

Creamed Beancurd with Onion Oil and Oyster Sauce

Wow - silken tofu. Someone needs to learn the secret of tofu making in Malaysia and bring it back, because this stuff is amazing!

Fried Lady Fingers in Assam sauce

The lady fingers were good, but the Assam sauce was SO SPICY!

Overall: Interesting experience...at least I can say I tried the signature Bak Kut Teh. 

Kopitiam on Bras Basah - Singapore

Singapore Skyline at Night

Skyline during the day

We wanted to grab a quick breakfast before we left Singapore and found this 24 hour Kopitiam Food court. 

Super cheap breakfast sets for less than 3 Singapore dollars
The set came with milk tea or coffee, 2 sunny side eggs, kaya toast and two sausages for $2.90

The milk tea was yummy! Not as awesome as Devi's Corner's teh tarik or Hong Kong's Pantyhose tea, but still a really good tea.
The chicken sausages were pretty good and the kaya toast was lovely (if not as amazing as Oldtown White Coffee's kaya toast). For $2.90, I'm really not going to complain about breakfast.

Chinese Dim Sum!

Har Gow
What a huge let down - the shrimp inside the har gow went bad. We pretty much threw this out. Awful!

Overall: Cheap eats at the Kopitiam on Bras Basah, but watch out for terrible quality food. 

Snacks in Singapore

View of the Downtown core from the Theatres on the Bay

Theatres on the Bay

On the Esplanade Bridge between the Theatres on the Bay and the Merlion Park was a popular food cart selling ice cream sandwiches:

Mango Ice Cream and Red Bean Ice Cream
The ice cream blocks were freezing and sandwiched between two thin wafer layers. It was refreshing on a hot summer day.

Golek (?) Mango
I knew about the Apple mango (usually from Mexico) and the Philippines mango (which I LOVE), but I had no idea there were so many varieties. These mangoes had an interesting taste to them; they didn't taste like the Philippine mangoes I'm used to. The flesh was a lot firmer and less fibrous.


Langsat and Mangosteen
The langsat fruit was divided into little rubbery pieces and tasted a like a sour and bittersweet grapefruit.
The mangosteens (which I've heard amazing things about) were actually a bit of a disappointment. Apparently it's not the best season for them now, so the mangosteens were kind of sweet and sour.


Durian Cake!!

My first experience with durian was in a cake - which probably helped the experience since the cake with the fluffy cream and layers slightly covered up the pungent smell of the durian (nothing can truly ever hide the smell of durian though).

Pow Sing Restaurant - Singapore

The famous Merlion & Marina Bay Sands

Marina Bay Sands Resort (on top of the three hotels is the rooftop garden)

King Pork Ribs and Ong choy
The ribs were quite tasty with some pickled vegetables on the side.


Crispy Nonya Squid
The sweet and sour squid was different from the typical deep fried calamari rings or grilled calamari. It had a nice sweet flavour in general


Hainan Chicken Rice
The chicken was really nice with slightly leaner meat and covered with green onions.
It also came with a tray of sauces and a bowl of rice flavoured with chicken broth:
 
There's a thick dark soy sauce, a watery soy sauce, chopped ginger sauce and hot sauce that you mix together to eat with the chicken and rice. The chicken broth rice was so fragrant and delicious - it wasn't too oily or too dry either. I could eat this instead of white rice any day! So GOOD!


Crispy Chicken Wings with Prawn Paste
The deep fried chicken wings were okay.


Sliced fish with ginger and spring onion
The grouper was boneless and had a nice meaty texture. Yum

Overall: The service was fast and the food was decent. It was a nice meal at Pow Sing Restaurant.

Website: http://www.powsing.com

Takashimaya Food Hall - Singapore

We caught a cheap Air Asia flight to Singapore (The Lion City).

As we were busing from the Changi Airport to Orchard Road, I couldn't help but notice how clean and green the city was - it really is the City in a Garden. (Although, the picture on the right does remind me of that scene in Walking Dead with the empty city. The Financial district was empty because it was Sunday)

Awesome view of the City Skyline.

We went to the Takashimaya Shopping Center and immediately hit the basement food floor:

I've heard about Fried Carrot Cake from a friend (it's called turnip cake or lobak go in Chinese). I have no idea where the term "carrot cake"originated from because it's actually made with daikon instead of carrots.

Chai Tow Kway
It tasted like rice noodles more than daikon. The texture and consistency was totally different from any stir-fried lobak go I've had. It was also pretty bland and tasteless (an instance where hot sauce may come in handy).

Juchheim

Despite the bad experience in Hong Kong's Juchheim, we decided to pick up a ring of Baumkuchen in Singapore (because we are such big fans of baumkuchen, we really get excited every time we see a baumkuchen store).

Definitely did not regret that decision!

It was definitely closer to the real Japanese version of Baumkuchen than the Hong Kong version, but still couldn't compare to Nenrinya

It was denser overall and when you took a bite it was fluffy. It also had the right flavour of baumkuchen from Japan. 

Jasons Food Hall - KL

Jasons Food Hall is a high-end grocery store in Kuala Lumpur's Bangsar Shopping Center.

 

We came for the cakes!

Double Chocolate Cake and Peach Cake

Mmm Chocolaty goodness...with dark chocolate on top and chocolate cake inside. 

The peach cake was nice - light, fluffy and peachy. 

Raspberry cake

All pretty and pink

 

Secret Surprise Chocolate Muffin

It was a chocolate muffin with oozy dark chocolate in the center (like a molten lava cake). Best served after microwaving it for a bit to melt the chocolate inside. 

Banoffee Pie

Caramelized bananas with a dusting of powdered sugar on top of a cream pie. Nice!

Strawberry Cheesecake

A super adorable cheesecake with strawberries and pistachios (!!!) on top. It had that New York Style cheesecake flavour that I love. Pretty yummy. 

Overall: Great place for classic and traditional desserts in Kuala Lumpur. 

Website: www.jasonsfoodhall.com.my