Jumbo Sausage

Another food adventure at Harvest In, the sauce is a little too sweet for my liking, with strong hints of off-shelf BBQ sauce... Two big scoops of mashed potatoes are more than enough to fill up my stomach and will still give this makan-outing a slight burp.

Burger King has finally landed in Penang

As we approached Bandar Sri Pinang, the 'new' gurney drive of Penang, with the landmark 4 blue pillars on the coast of the reclaimed land, we bumped into THIS:

Without much more words, the picture is pretty self explanatory. After more than a decade of Penangites complaining the absence of Burger King from the island, wishes are finally fulfilled. Now, it's just a matter of a waiting game for the opening of the fast food outlet.

Scenery is wonderful at night with the harbour view and obstructed Penang Bridge view... a sight to behold. The immense length of the promenade will definitely add appeal to the environment, if not for the unsightly polluted sea.

For those who do not know how to get there:

Harvest In Cafe

Nestled in old residential enclave of Irrawaddy Road, lies a freshly renovated corner lot cafe.
With a simplistic gray outlook, this establishment offers western cuisine in both authentic and Malaysian fusion.I went there on two separate occasions for dinner, and the packed cafe is a testament of it's popularity among locals. Nonetheless, we were still greeted by gracious waiters/waitresses who ushered us to our seats, and promptly served with cool refreshing water to start with.

The menu displayed popular Malaysian fusion western and also some more authentic types. Ranging from RM 9.90 onwards, there were quite many to choose from, although they had excluded pork from the menu. There's even a notice posted outside the cafe, that stated "Pork Free".

Ambiance was a little noisy, from all the chatters of the other patrons, but still bearable for us to have our own pre-dinner chat.
The set dinner is any of the ala-carte menu, with an additional charge, which comes with the soup-of-the-day (in this case, mushroom soup, shown in the pic above), drinks (peach tea, ice lemon tea, tea, coffee), and dessert which is usually a choice of either cake or jelly.

Then, comes to the main courses. We ordered:
Catch of the day...(Grilled salmon [or dory!?] with rice.)
Grilled to golden (but was more burnt in the pic above), and with a sweet tasting rice (almost similar to chicken oiled rice), it comes with boiled broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. The fillet is not much flavored, but my friend likes it for the 'natural' taste of it. Need not fear, there's a Joinville Sauce to dip in depending on personal preference.

Hawaiian Chicken.












Hawaiian chicken comes with potato wedges and the usual boiled broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. Glazed with a creamy looking cheese, the pineapple that goes with it is soft and sweet, matching with the juicy chicken.

Hungarian Spicy Chicken.











I can hardly remember what this pic was until reminded by my friend. As such... it goes to say that, I recalled it as just being another poultry dish. Tasted ok..., but one of my friends said that it's weird!?... Your turn to be gastronomically adventurous.

BBQ sauce chicken.












BBQ sauce chicken was nothing much to shout about. What made up for the simplicity of it was the meat which wasn't overcooked, which maintained most of it's tender juices. Comes with mashed potatoes too.


Chicken Tikka Masala










To put this in more understandable terms, it's a fancy way to call 'ayam percik from Ayamas' with buttered rice. Really taste alot like ayam percik, but with more gravy. A whole chicken drumstick, generous serving of vegetables, still a juicy ayam percik nonetheless.

Almond fish.












Once again, the fish dishes are usually plain, and the almonds were crispy to give a different texture to the soft meat of the fillet. Nothing much to 'wah' about for this dish, but not that bad also. I remain neutral on this.

Lamb with mint sauce.











For lambs, the meat speaks for itself. Juicy and tough, takes much more effort to cut it through, lamb shoulder creates a whole adventure by itself. Am a guy who likes to bite and chew, so, was satisfied with this dish. The mint sauce complements well with the meat, and the picture just says it all with all the juices oozing out to the bottom of the plate. Damn... am salivating again.

A cute square cut of tiramisu, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream as dessert.... what more can I say, than....[burp...]

Business hours is 11.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. and 6.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. And closes on Sundays and Tuesday dinners.
Harvest in Cafe Tel: +604-226 1718
Location is at the wikimapia link below:

Lunas Duck Rice

This place would have been blogged about countless of times by more famous blogs like PenangFoods. But then, just along my way to Sungai Sedim for a nature tour, still stopped by for a quick bite. Located in Lunas, Kedah, many pilgrimages have been made to this little town which offer the only tourist attraction of it's famous roasted duck.













The sauce and saltiness of the duck compliments well. The picture shows half a duck, serving for 3 mouths. Beautifully glazed and roasted, the meat is not too tough to chew on.
We ordered a plateful of blanched bean sprouts too... Nicely garnished with spring onions and fried garlic bits. Crunchy and the saltiness of the sauce just nice, although the ones in Ipoh (Bean Sprouts Chicken) are juicier. Personally, I think the bean sprouts in Ipoh has been drizzled too much with artificial flavorings and 5-spice-powder.

I had mine with just plain porridge garnished with fried garlic bits, and the yummy pic just says it all... [chomps]...

Ghee Seng Tomyam

This post has been long overdue. As usual, my food trail has brought me to browse the internet and this link Ghee Seng Restaurant. Therefore, my friends went there for a try. And the verdict:
The highlight of the restaurant is supposed to be the tomyam, so we ordered a mixed seafood version. Personally, I don't fancy much of tomyam, so I'll have to quote my friend' comments: "Hmmm.... doesn't taste like traditional tomyam. Too curry-like and not sour enough. Me no like. What a dissapointment.". And for myself, "Oh!!! curry! Me like!!... heheh"


And there was Thai style stir fried chicken with basil and black pepper sauce. Average taste... maybe about 5/10.





The signature dish of Thai meat rolls (lor bak) 9/10.







Kerabu (Thai salad) mango... quite tasty. 8/10.









Plain stir fried 'tau miu' 5/10






And lastly, sweet and sour crabs. Seeing 2 crabs in the pic, and the style of cooking is abit off-taste from traditional way for our liking. Not really sweet and probably have too much fermented soy beans. 5/10
On the whole, it wasn't too bad an experience, saved by the meat rolls and the kerabu. Price is reasonable, and most importantly, it's the company that makes the food tasty!
Till the next culinary adventure, Bon Appetit.

Starched Pork Strips!!!???

My another culinary adventure has brought me to savor a long forgotten dish called 'Bak Kee' (Hokkien). Located at inner city Georgetown, it's a kopitiam easily drove passed although brightly lit.
Named as Fountain Cafe (Wikimap), it's selling a specialty Hokkien dish, made out of strips of pork, very generously coated in starch. Ordered a bowl of it, it's served in clear soup with lots of cabbages and lettuce.

On a personal note, I don't really fancy this dish that much. It's mostly starchy, and with some hints of pork in the middle. The soup is sweet and tasty from juices of other meats boiled in that cauldron.















Another side dish, is a Penang favourite, fried oyster omelette from the same place. Although poorly photographed because of poor lighting (it was al fresco, in the late evening), it's clearly seen that the oyster is served on top of the fried egg. It struck me as funny, because an omelette is supposed to have it's oysters folded and fried in the beaten eggs and starch.
In this case, we had to eat them separately, which is a little odd to me. For the taste, I would put it as mediocre.

Potluck feast

On the occasion of farewell to a friend who is going to leave for good to Australia, we have decided to organise a potluck/cook-together.

My task was to cook spinach... and I just browsed through one of the many recipes that I can search from the internet, and came up with this:


Recipe:
1kg (roughly) of spinach, leaves plucked and stalks de-fibered.
1/2 salted egg coarsely chopped
1 century egg sliced to quarters
100g of anchovies (ikan bilis)
a fist of 'kei chi' (cantonese)... chinese wolfberry
3 cloves garlic
sugar and soy sauce
roughly 3 cups chicken stock (although I conveniently used pork stock, that my friend had to pre-cook his pork meat for the use of curry pork)

Sauteed the anchovies and garlic until golden, before pouring in my pork-stock. Left it to boil for about 5 minutes to get the flavor of the anchovies out and also to reduce the huge amounts of water.

Then, threw in the cleaned and peeled spinach. Left it to cook for about 3 minutes before adding salted egg and century to cook it a little more. Lastly, 'kei chi' was added to add color to the dish, and seasoned with sugar and soy sauce... QED.

Then, laid back, and wait for my other friends to finish up with other dishes... It was a gastronomical delight for 8 of us!



Thai coconut milk chicken stew






Plain blanched lettuce Salted fish and pork stir fried







Curry porkStir fried chicken breast with mushrooms

Roti Bakar

A brunch on a Saturday morning started off with a hearty bowl of 'Koay Teow Soup' at the wet market of Penang Bazaar. Yummy.... and adjourned to nearby so-called-famous Toh Soon Cafe at the alley of Campbell Street.

Nasi Lemak... Simple coconut milk rice, with anchovies, and a quarter of an egg. Deliciously packed in traditional banana leaf and newspaper...

Then, the toasted bread and coffee were served.























And the verdict: The toasted bread was nicely done. Contrasting texture of the soft and fluffy texture of the bread, versus the crispy outer layer. Guess it must be the wonderful way it's being charcoal-toasted. The kaya wasn't that great, but was complimented by the generous rich spread of butter all over the toast.

For the coffee, it's unique, but didn't have much aroma of a coffee. Although it's a little bland, but was made thick, enough to awaken the dulled senses of morning drowsiness. According to unconfirmed sources, the owner self roasted the coffee beans again, adding secret ingredients of his own after buying in from wholesaler of coffee beans.

For those who is up for a food adventure, I've included the Wikimap of the location.
Bon appetit!

Carbonara spaghetti

For the evening, I endeavored to try making carbonara spaghetti for 6 (dad, mum, nephew, sis and bro-in-law) using an ingredient meant for 3!... Letme explain.

I started off with a gift from sis, a can of Prego Carbonara sauce with the recommended serving for 3. Guessing that the contents will be quite salty, I improvised like Iron Chef (i can hear your thought bubble "OH Puhleeezzz")... opppsss. I mean experimented.

Ingredients:
1 can Prego Carbonara sauce (Campbell's)
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup cream cheese
enough spaghetti for servings of 6
2 slices ham coursely sliced (not bacon. bought wrongly)
5 cloves garlic (chopped up)
6 button mushrooms (sliced)
1 stalk of coriander leaves finely chopped (should be parsley)
pepper and Formaggio cheese to taste
olive oil

Started off by doing all the normal things. Cooking the spaghetti to al dante and dishing it up and added olive oil to prevent sticking.

Boiled the milk in a small pot to reduce it to about 80% then, turned off the heat to add cream cheese and egg white from 2 eggs, and stir until it was well mixed up. Supposingly, the egg white won't be too cooked but I added when it was still hot, and it didn't turn out quite smooth.

Having made that blunder, left that aside, and continued to fry the garlics and mushrooms until a little golden in a wok. Then, the ham into the wok, until it's a little golden as well.

Then, went in the opened can of Prego sauce (tasted it a little and quite salty) into the wok and mix it up a little over low heat. Then, turned the fire off before it starts to bubble.

Then, to salvage my blunder, I sieved the contents of the pot into the wok, and discarded what must be the over-cooked egg whites. Then, turned back up the fire to low heat, and threw the spaghetti, 2 egg yolks and coriander (couldn't find parsley in market, and thought this is almost similar) in to mix well. Formaggio cheese and pepper to taste, depending on individual.

Result... YUMMY.. and I'm not boasting. Good testimonials from everyone. heheh... apparently, I had successfully neutralised much of the saltiness from Prego sauce.

Reflecting back, I think I could have done better with a cup of cooking cream and half cup of Parmesan cheese to add up to the sauce, instead of the milk, cream cheese and eggs.

The salad didn't turn out that well.... 1 lettuce, 1 stalk 'yau mak', 2 tomato, a small bowl of mint leaves, and an orange for the juice. The orange didn't give enough ooomphh...

Ended the dinner with a HUGE juicy watermelon. It cost only RM9 for a 9kg++ jumbo sized 92% H2O container! Sweet, thirst quenching dessert to end an evening. FYI.... my palm is pretty big.

Signing off.... [burp]....