restaurants – Page 7 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Brunch At Sri Neela’s Indian Restaurant @ Taman Desa, Old Klang Road

My 2 older girls love Indian food and anything that is spicy. However we don’t always eat spicy food for fear of ‘heatiness’. My 2 girls have inherited their daddy’s DNA; they get throat infections and ‘heatiness’ very easily. They were worse when they were younger. Now that they are a little grown up and their immune system a tad stronger, they don’t fall sick every month anymore *knock on wood*!

Anyway, last week after running some errands, we went to Sri Neela’s for brunch. My girls, including Baby enjoyed their roti meals very much, and so did moi!

Deep fried chicken drumstick and deep fried super crunchy bitter gourd – love them. I have always love Indian deep fried chicken, albeit they can be pretty expensive. See the glass of cucumber shake there? It’s really refreshing and great way to expel the ‘heatiness’ from eating Indian food. If you go to Sri Neela’s, you should try their cucumber shake (no sugar but with a pinch of salt).

This tosei cheese is really tasty. I can whack the whole tosei with cheese all by myself.

My cucumber juice (different from cucumber shake) and teh C tarik with no sugar.

Alycia and Sherilyn gulping down their ice lemon tea with double straws.

Baby enjoying roti tisu. It was her first time eating roti tisu and she whacked almost the whole crispy roti by herself!

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Lunch At YMCA Ipoh And Then To Secret Recipe For Desserts

Yesterday was a pigging out day from breakfast to lunch to dinner. First we had dim sum at Yoke Foke Moon Hong Kong Dim Sum (I shall blog about this later). Then we went to this restaurant at YMCA Ipoh for lunch. This restaurant that serves halal food is run by Florex Restaurant and offers great tasting food at really affordable prices.

As we were all still feeling stuffed from the morning’s dim sum at Yoke Foke Moon, we only ordered noodles and 2 veggie dishes. My mum who is super sensitive to MSG and would get migrane attacks each time she eats food heavily laced with MSG requested the cook to omit the MSG from the dishes.

Braised sang meen with chicken, mushroom slices and veggie.

Wat tan hor (Fried flat rice noodles with egg sauce and seafood).

Stir fried lai park veggie.

The restaurant, which is almost always packed.

Don’t know what this hot pot is called. It’s made up of some fried fish, some vegetarian stuff (made of tofu), prawns, mushrooms, dried oysters and an assortment of veggie.

Sing chau mai (Singaporen style fried vermicelli) which tasted like homecooked. It was non-salty and non-oily and even Baby ate it.

I would rate the food 7/10. I like it that the food’s great tasting, affordable and most of all free from MSG. Well, maybe not entirely free from MSG as the sauces used to cook the food would have some MSG in them. The bill came up to almost RM70, inclusive of a pot of tea for a table of 7 adults and 3 kids (Baby also ate those noodles as they were not salty). Pretty cheap eh?

After lunch at YMCA, my dad suggested that we have some cakes at Secret Recipe and to sit and chit chat. It’s a rare opportunity that our entire family got together to eat and chit chat – my big bro and his wife from Singapore, my younger brother from KL, my parents, my 3 kids and I. The only person missing was the hubs who had to return to KL to attend to his biz.

Here’s our choice of cakes:

Golden Nuggets (new flavour). Nothing to shout about. I find the caramalized nuts a tad too sweet for my palate.

Oreo cheesecake and choco mud cake.

Walnut brownies with chocolate sauce. This one, iLikey!

Durian cheesecake and a sugar-free moist chocolate cake (pic not taken as I was in the loo with the gals!) Love the sugar-free moist choco cake as it was not sweet at all. The durian cheesecake was also very delish and durian fans would love it.

Later in the evening, we headed to the newly opened Hoi Seng Restaurant in Ipoh Garden for a sumptuous dinner (shall blog about this later). Phoof, what a great day pigging out and enjoying Ipoh food. We also had famous Ipoh ngar choi kai and chicken with hor fun (flat rice noodles), Kg Simee’s hawkers’ food and Tuck Kee fried noodles last week. Thank goodness the red needle did not budge to the right on the weighing machine as I have been working out extra hard and extra long running by the scenic Ipoh limestone hills and inhaling the fresh, crisp and cool morning breeze for 35-40 mins every morning!

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Sea Pearl Lagoon Cafe, Tanjung Tokong Penang – Seafood With A Scenic View

On our last day of our Penang trip, we stopped by at Sea Pearl Lagoon Cafe at Tanjung Tokong Penang for seafood. This restaurant is situated next to the famous Tua Peh Kong Temple in Tanjung Tokong. It was our first visit there but the hubs has been to this restaurant umpteen times, ever since he was a toddler! This unassuming restaurant looks pretty run down and uninviting but the moment you step down from your car and walk towards it, the aromatic smell of baked crabs and prawns would fill the air. I tell ya, that aroma made me salivate and rumbled my tummy, though my tummy was still stuffed with grub from the morning’s buffet breakfast at Hard Rock Hotel Penang.

The seafood dishes are all cooked in very simple styles. Their signature dish is coal-baked crabs and salt-baked prawns. I was told that the restaurant owner relies on these two signature dishes to pull in customers, near and far.

The above picture was copied from http://www.zoom2see.com/2009/11/tua-pek-kong-temple-tanjung-tokong.html

These are what we digged in:

Deep fried popiah.

Fried hoe chien (oyster omelette).

Salt baked prawns.

Stir-fried lala (clamps) with sweet sauce. We had pandan coconut too… it was SO tasty and refreshing.

Deep fried spring chicken (baby chicken).

Baby’s first taste of fried spring chicken. She LOVED it and was reluctant to let go of the chicken from her mouth hahahahaha!

Baked crabs.

Alycia and Sherilyn had SO much fun hammering the crab claws and feasting on the crabs and prawns. There was a huge pile of prawn and crab shells scattered on the table!

Alycia enjoying the crabs and Baby the spring chicken.

Check out the roe oozing out from the crab!

The food at Sea Pearl Lagoon ain’t cheap. The bill came up to RM158 for seafood and drinks only. The oyster omelette, fried spring chicken and fried popiah are sold at a different stall (located next to Sea Pearl Lagoon) and charged separately.

All in all, the food was good. If you want to enjoy fresh and tasty baked crabs and prawns, Sea Pearl Lagoon Cafe is the place to head to. And if you want to visit the loo, you have to get down some steps inside the restaurant. It looks like the restaurant was built on some kind of pre-war fort. Initially, I thought it was a cave!

Sea Pearl Lagoon Cafe
338 Mukim 18
Tanjung Tokong
10470 Penang
Tel : 04 8990375
Business Hours : 11am – 10pm

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Goh Huat Seng Steamboat @ Kimberly Street Penang

On the first night of our 2-nite 3-day stay in Penang, we had Teowchew steamboat at Goh Huat Seng Restaurant @ Kimberly Street. What’s special about their steamboat is that the steamboat is heated by charcoal, something which is quite rare in this day and age where everything is run by electric. Goh Huat Seng is a coffee shop encased in a white washed building on two shop lots. This classic Chinese restaurant personifies everything associated with downtown Chinese restaurants: witty and sarcastic ah-mahs wait on tables and boisterous Chinese families dine with rowdy grandkids in tow. Steaming fuss-free teochew steamboat and dim sum are served in traditional style. There are no menus and asking the server what’s good signifies an insult to the cook (all dishes being good, logically). Best option is to go with what you see on the table next to you. Whatever you order, you will not be disappointed because everything here is deliciously piping hot.

A typical steamboat set costs around RM15 per person. Here’s what’s in the set:

Deep fried wantan, which was very crispy and tasty.

The yellow gadget is a portable mini fan to fan the fire on the charcoal.

This plate of noodles is not in the set. It’s ala carte and is their signature noodles. Very nice, everyone loved it.

Alycia who did not nap the whole day dozed off with her mouth wide open while waiting for the food to arrive, hahaha….

This is how I heated up Baby’s Heinz pasta by putting the bowl into another bowl of boiling water. But everything went into the bin as Baby had just woken up from her nap (she only napped at 6:30pm), was terribly crabby and didn’t have appetite to eat anything.

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Sinful Indulgence At Alexis Bistro @ Gardens

After a hearty and sumptuous dinner at Yuzu Japanese Restaurant @ Gardens on the second day of Hari Raya, we headed to Alexis Bistro for coffee and cakes. Alexis serves delectable cakes and coffee and is one of my favorite places for cakes and to hang out with friends to chit chat. Here’s what we had (and for you to drool on)….

Tiramisu with vanilla ice-cream and strawberry sauce…

Marble cheesecake…

Can’t remember what this piece of chocolate cake is called. But it’s sinfully delicious with loads of macademia nuts and butterscotch…

Hubby’s glass of hot latte (minus the sugar) which he shared with me – very thick, rich and has the ‘umphhhh’ power! iLike!

What a pleasure pandering in such sinful sustenance during the Raya holidays…. which had without any doubt brought an excess baggage under my spaghetti strap top, sigh!

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A Very Early Father’s Day Celebration

Since we were all in Ipoh this week, hubby and I planned a very advanced Father’s Day celebration for my dad. On Wednesday, hubby brought us to Moven Peak for a very sumptuous and enjoyable eat-all-you-can steamboat which was priced very reasonably. Initially, we could not decide whether to go to Mun Choong Chinese Restaurant or Moven Peak. At the 11th hour, my dad suggested Moven Peak steamboat since his company recently held an annual dinner there and everyone enjoyed themselves. Well, there was absolutely no regret as all of us, especially the kids had a very, very enjoyable time there eating, yakking and laughing away… at Baby C’s antics.

We left the restaurant at about 10pm after spending about 2 hours there. When we reached home, the gals had another round of enjoyable time cutting and walloping the cake. Gosh, I ate so much till I felt so fat. Everyone slept at way past midnight and Baby C who really enjoyed herself (after a month of pain and torture) was still wide awake at 12ish midnight and in a playful mood and only slept at around 1am.

Hubby bought a chocolate moist cake from the famous Indulgence Restaurant in Ipoh as my dad loves chocolate cakes. The cake is best eaten warm, so my dad put his slice of cake into the microwave oven to warm the cake up. It was really yummy!

We also bought my dad a shirt.

Towards the end of the dinner, Baby C made all of us laugh with her cute and funny antics. She was whining away as she was feeling restless. She so wanted to eat our food but was only given a small slice of tofu…. and of course she ate her homemade beef+fish porridge and double boiled chicken soup. So I gave her an apple which I took from the buffet counter for her to chew on. It was the first time that she was given the freedom to hold on to a whole big apple to chew on and boy was she excited and ecstatic. She was obviously having a great time chewing and sucking the sweet juice from the apple. When she dropped the apple on the chair, I took the apple from her to wash it with some drinking water. The second the apple left her hands, she yelled out and strained in frustration…. moving her body forward with both her hands reaching towards me, as if begging me to give her back the apple. She was really scared that I would take the apple from her for good…. and that made all of us laugh…. and she made the family sitting next to us laughed too lol! My sweetie-pie also shared her precious apple with her favorite cheh cheh and that made us laugh even more. She was doing the ‘one bite for you and one bite for me’ kinda thingy non-stop and that was really funny, sweet and cute.

Fresh scallops in shells from the buffet counter. It was the first time I saw fresh scallops in shells. This was one of the hottest items and was polished off from the buffet counter in a flash all the time.

Our steamboat in superior herbal soup.

Our steamboat in porridge soup base.

If you are from Ipoh or happen to be in Ipoh, you really should give Moven Peak steamboat a try. It’s what the Chinese call “pheng, leng, chen” (which literally means cheap, beautiful and really good in Cantonese)! My gals loved it so much that the next day, they pleaded daddy and koong koong to bring them there again. Well, we will definitely patronize Moven Peak Steamboat again in August or September when we come back to Ipoh again (to bring Baby C to Penang for her MCUG scan).

Check out my other blog to read more about Moven Peak and to view more pix of the food.

No. of times viewed = 286

Ocean-Green Seafood Restaurant, Penang

When we were in Penang recently, we had a very lovely seafood dinner at a restaurant situated by the sea. I was lucky I could enjoy my dinner with hubby coz Baby C dozed off. She normally would not take her nap at that time (7ish pm) but because she had interrupted nap the whole day (the flight to Penang and new environment in Penang, etc), she totally konked out by 7pm during the taxi ride to the restaurant. She was so tired that she fell into a deep sleep and I had to wake her up for dinner.

Ocean-Green Seafood Restaurant is always very packed with people. I find that the food tasted satisfactory, really nothing to shout about and the thing which attracted me most is the view of the sea from the restaurant.

Remember my previous post on Deja-Vu? The moment I reached the restaurant and saw the facade of the restaurant and the view of the sea, I told myself “bingo, this is the place that appeared in my dream several times!” Spooky isn’t it? If only I could dream of some nice numbers, I would have bought them right away the next morning, hehe. BTW, this had happened to me once. I dreamt of a set of numbers one night many moons ago and bought the numbers the next morning. The numbers came out as consolation prize (only RM60).

BTW, this is the view of the sea from the 30th floor of the hotel that we stayed in – Northam Suites at Gurney Drive. We will be staying in this hotel again for our next visit and subsequent visits. The hotel is located just next to the hospital that Baby C will be staying in.

Click HERE to check out the food that we ate in Ocean-Green Seafood Restaurant.

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Xiao Fei Yang Steamboat

This is the delicious pot of steamboat which we had at Xiao Fei Yang, a restaurant specializing in Taiwanese steamboat. We celebrated Baby C’s first birthday at this restaurant.

The soup was simply delectable but I was told not to gulp down too much of the soup as it could be very heaty. Why heaty? That’s because it has lots of herbs in it, coupled with the broth from the beef and lamb meat that were cooked inside the pot of soup.

Check out my other blog to get details of the restaurant and to view more pix.

No. of times viewed = 328

Last Minute X’mas Shopping

We did our last minute X’mas shopping on Monday evening at Mid Valley Megamall. We left the house at around 6pm and only left Mid Valley at a little over 11pm. We had dinner at Canton I @ Gardens and the food was pretty good. This restaurant was packed with patrons. After shopping for the gifts, we waited for almost an hour at the Jaya Jusco gift wrapping counter as there was a long queue and there were only 2 assistants to service the shoppers. By the time we reached home, it was 11:30pm. After washing my 3 gals up, gave them milk, it was already way past midnight.

We realized that we left out a few people last night and hubby has now gone to Mid Valley again for an eleventh hour shopping rush. We will be having some lamb chops and pan-fried salmon fillet for dinner tonight. There will be a X’mas party at hubby’s aunt’s house tomorrow and there’s going to be lots of food and pressies for everyone.

I wish all my readers a very merry X’mas and don’t go on an eating binge this holiday k? Remember to exercise!

The open kitchen at Canton I.

Alycia and Sherilyn enjoying their food at Canton I.

No. of times viewed = 331

Our Sunday

Our initial plan today was to pack home some hawkers’ food to eat after church. But when I was lost for ideas on what to eat, hubby brought us to Jaya 1 in PJ, the nearest place to our church. As usual, Alycia and Sher voted to eat pasta and spaghetti, one of their all-time favorites. So we went to Santini and had Italian food.

Alycia and Sher were tickled pink to see the chefs making pizza and putting the pizzas into a huge stove with flame.

Halfway through lunch, Sher my trouble-maker spilt water AGAIN. This time, she stood up on her chair and toppled her water tumbler with her hand… and the water went pouring all over my dress! You tell me, how not to be mad with her? This brat spills water 9 out of 10 times she drinks water, unless I stand next to her and watch her drink or hold the cup for her.

Do check out my other blog to see what we ordered from Santini.

After lunch, hubby sent me and Baby C home first as I had to feed baby her meds. Hubby then brought the 2 older girls to RT, our favorite bakery to buy me my favorite multi-grain and seeds bread. I’m going to eat bread for dinner tonight. Next hubby brought the the gals to Guardian to get baby shampoo and hubby took the opportunity to buy his princesses something. He grabbed the chance to quickly buy this gadget for the gals since I wasn’t around to stop him! I shall blog about it in my next post.

Hubby also brough Sher to the clinic again (the 3rd time in 2.5 weeks). This is the first time Sher is having such a bad cough and runny nose. I had expected this to happen since she’s just started pre-school.

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Our Hari Raya Holiday

We treated our maid to a buffet lunch at the coffee house @ PJ Hilton today. Many families were seen treating their maids to the buffet lunch too, in celebration of Hari Raya.

Kids being kids, Alycia and Sherilyn attacked the crackers, keropok, sausages and ice-cream.

I filled up a bottle of water for Baby C but she hated the bottle and gave me the ‘I almost want to puke’ look when I let her suckle on the teat. She also didn’t want to sit in her pram and kept whining and fussing till we brought her out and carried her round the coffee house.

After lunch, mah mah discreetly brought Alycia to the car park with koo por (hubby’s aunt) as they wanted to go shopping at Giant. Hubby and I tried to distract Sher and brought her to our car. Alycia had wanted to follow mah mah and koo por shopping but mah mah can only handle 1 kid, so she told Alycia not to let Sher know. It’s always not easy to handle Sher as she can be very wayward and would run wild in the shopping mall, touching everything that she sees. Even I can’t control her. In the car, Sher kept asking “mummy, where is cheh cheh? I love my cheh cheh. She’s my good friend. Why is she in koo poh’s car? Where are they going?” Hubby and I told some white lies coz if Sher found out that they had gone shopping without her, all hell would break lose until they return home!

How did you spend your Hari Raya holiday?

No. of times viewed = 350

Dinner At Prince Hotel

We had dinner with hubby’s relatives at the Chinese restaurant of Prince Hotel last night. There is a 50% discount off a-la-carte menus on-going, which will end soon. We ordered one whole Peking duck, stir-fried venison, a very tasty cod fish, a unique dish of grilled eel, chicken, 2 plates of veggie and some gastronomical desserts.

While we were eating, the kids played ‘choot choot train’ and London Bridge Is Falling Down …

Alycia and Sherilyn with their little aunty (hub’s 5 y.o cousin)…

Baby C with daddy. She fussed big time throughout dinner and I had to nurse her in the toilet, which had such strong air freshener that I almost suffocated…. and I had to quickly nurse her and bring her out of the toilet!

This is one of the best desserts I have ever tasted – white almond milk double boiled inside a whole coconut, served with ‘lui sar tong yuen’ (black sesame filled glutinous rice balls). Everyone loved this dessert. I love it too and I am now dreaming of gorging on another round of this sinful carbo!

Do check out my other blog tomorrow to see pix of the other dishes and gastronomical desserts that we ate.

No. of times viewed = 358

Tea For Two

We had dinner at Tea For Two @ Bangsar last Friday. I ordered an oxtail soup which was very tasty. The meat was very tender and flavorful. I also had a large bowl of salad with lots of olives, bacon bites and grilled chicken breast.

This restaurant serves Western food and has quite a cosy ambience inside the restaurant. Do check out what other items we ordered here.

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Lunch At Xenri Japanese Restaurant

Apart from retail therapy, whenever I am under stress, I will ask hubby to bring me to a fancy restaurant and I will gorge myself full with grub to de-stress myself. Not too healthy a hobby eh?

Anyway, after Baby C’s third jab on Wednesday, I was feeling so stressed up that I went to one of my favorite Japanese restaurants for lunch. Xenri Japanese Restaurant is located at Wisma Elken at Old Klang Road. They serve very good and tasty Japanese food and the interior decoration of the restaurant is very soothing.

I ate this Bento set (minus the rice).

Alycia and Sherilyn were of course the happiest as they can go gai gai after school…. on a weekday, which is quite rare. When we got home, all of us ate cakes (bought from our favorite bakery, RT Pastry House). It was their ‘yee por por’ (mil’s god-sister)’s birthday and they got to blow the candles on the cake.

There were 6 adults and 2 toddlers and hubby ordered 8 bento sets! Check out the other mouth-watering bento sets that we ordered.

No. of times viewed = 438

Our Sunday

Though it was Merdeka Day, we had a typical Sunday today. After church, we had Japanese buffet lunch at Kenji Japanese Restaurant @ PJ Hilton. Our kids used to eat for free previously but today, we were informed that kids below 6 yo will be charged RM17.50 per kid! Most hotel restaurants would not charge kids below 6 yo but not the Hilton group of hotels.

My plate of protein – I love the deep fried pregnant fish, grilled Unagi, grilled salmon and California roll (rolled without any rice). I also love sucking on lemon wedges in between eating my meal, so that I won’t feel so ‘jelak’.

We were given a room today – Aly and Sher had a fun time running around the room but I found it really uncomfortable sitting on the floor and having to nurse Baby C on the floor.

Sweet rush – Alycia and Sherilyn rushing to grab their chocolate dipped marshmallows.

A very contented Sher. All the sweet sins made her hyperactive after the lunch.

No. of times viewed = 331

Crystal Jade Chinese Restaurat @ Gardens Mid Valley

On Monday, we had dinner at Crystal Jade Chinese Restaurant at Gardens, Mid Valley City. I had wanted to try Fong Lye Taiwanese Restaurant but hubby said that the food isn’t fantastic. He wanted to try the new Crystal Jade’s fine dine chinese restaurant since he loves the Crystal Jade’s fast-food outlet, especially the ‘lai mien’.

This is what we ordered :

Tofu noodles, i.e. tofu made in the shape of noodles.

3 types of roasted stuff – suckling pig, roasted pork (siew yoke) and roasted duck.

Special house tofu (made with spinach).

Seafood fried rice which the gals enjoyed.

Stir-fried ‘sei kwai tau’ or four-season bean.

My favorite ‘sing lei kai’ or crispy roast chicken.

Also ordered a fried vermicelli which was tasteless and looked ‘white’ and unappetizing. Even my maid can cook a better fried vermicelli. Thus, I did not post the pic of the fried vermicelli here.

Verdict : Food wise – satisfactory but nothing to shout about, run-of-the-mill classy chinese restaurant food.

Ambience : typical fine dine chinese restaurant setting with a good view of KL.

What I don’t like is that we were being stared at throughout dinner… by the supposed-to-be hospitable and service-at-your-demand waiters….. who were standing everywhere, eyes fixated on us, which made me a tad uneasy. We couldn’t even talk what we wanted to talk about loudly as we felt we were being eavesdropped by the no-intention-to-listen-to-your conversation waiters who were standing just a few feet away from our table.

Just when the food arrived, my little princess cried for her milkie as expected. My mum had to call the lady captain over and politely ask her to tell the waiters to walk away as I had to nurse Baby C. I went to a corner and quickly nursed my little princess who choked till she puked on me and on the floor, but thankfully, only very little puke.

Total bill came up to around RM230, which was really expensive.

I don’t think there will be a second visit to this restaurant, unless someone gives us a treat there. I should have gone to my favorite Purple Cane Chinese Restaurant or Din Tai Fung at Gardens or Dragon-I at Mid Valley Megamall.

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