Dinner at Wang Chiew Seafood Restaurant - 2nd visit

As I've mentioned in my earlier post, Wang Chiew Seafood Restaurant is fast becoming a favourite. I've had a few dinners there after my first post and although I didn't manage to take photos of every dish we ordered, here's just a few.

The mantis prawn in cereal and salted egg is a firm favourite, as always.Stir-fried broccoli with prawns quite good too. The broccoli retains its crunch and the prawns are good-sized and fresh.We tried the Assam Fish Head curry and found it quite appetizing. The tart assam curry goes really well with steamed white rice. The curry comes with chunks of fish head, long beans, brinjals, ladies fingers and tofu puffs.I always try to order a tofu dish with every meal. Wang Chiew's specialty is actually an Indonesian curry tofu. I forgot to take photos of that dish but instead got this one which is soft tofu braised with loofah gourd, mushrooms, baby sweetcorn and carrots.

I will be posting more photos from Wang Chiew's menu later.

Dinner with friends at South Pacific Seafood Restaurant, PJ State

I had dinner with several good friends recently to celebrate .... friendships, new year, new life, whatever! What better way to celebrate that to have a lobster fest? Great food plus good friends - it's the perfect combination! So we all converged at South Pacific Seafood Restaurant in PJ State to begin our yummy fest.

We ordered the lobster in two different styles - Steamed in Chinese herbs and wine and Marmite. The Marmite lobster was lip-smacking with the sweetish Marmite sauce clinging to the shells and huge chunks of lobster meat. We all agreed it was very good! The steamed lobster in Chinese herbs and wine was equally good as we can actually taste the sweetness of the lobster. It's very light and is quite a contrast to the Marmite lobster. The very popular satay comes in big sticks of chicken meat marinated in a special blend of spices. There is no peanut sauce to accompany the satay but that's fine because the satay is good enough on it's own.We also ordered the Stirfried frog legs with ginger and scallions. Unfortunately, this dish is disappointing. The frog legs are big enough although there seems to be something missing in the sauce. I'm not sure if it is because our expectations were raised to such dizzying levels after the lobster that we are not able to enjoy anything else after it. South Pacific Seafood Restaurant is located at PJ State, behind the former State cinema. It's open daily from 6pm until late.

Lunch at Wang Chiew Seafood Restaurant, SS2

We stumbled upon Wang Chiew Seafood Restaurant recently, much to our pleasant surprise. After years of living in PJ, I don't know how we could have missed it. It could be because it's hidden in this single row of shophouses smack in the middle of the SS2's residential area. Now that we've found this gem of a restaurant, we're sure to be visiting more often.

For our lazy weekend lunch, we ordered several dishes such as Deepfried mantis prawn with salted egg yolks and cereal, Claypot seafood, Crispy pig intestines with dried shrimps, Butter sotong and stir-fried vegetables.

The deepfried mantis prawn with salted egg yolks and cereal is a definite winner. Wang Chiew's version is coated with mashed salted egg yolk and Nestum. The slightly salty egg yolk and sweetness from the cereal makes this a very addictive dish. I can't stop popping this into my mouth.

Next up is the Fried pig's intestines with dried shrimps. I've never eaten this dish before and although I do like pig's intestines I thought this dish is too simple. The intestines were crunchy but otherwise tasteless although the dried shrimps did add a little saltiness to the dish.

My mom loves sea-cucumber and fish maw so the Claypot Seafood is her favourite must-order dish everytime we eat out. Wang Chiew's version is quite tasty and comes with big chunks of sea cucumber, fish maw, mushrooms, baby sweetcorn and brocolli.

We ordered the Butter Sotong because it seemed to be on every table on the day we ate at Wang Chiew. The reason is evident when I popped the first morsel into my mouth. The sweet creamy sauce enveloping the crispy sotong is a clear winner. Absolutely delicious!

Our bill came to about RM50+ including drinks for 3 adults and 1 child. Wang Chiew's address is 30, Jalan ss2/103, 47300 Petaling Jaya,Tel: 03-7223662. Business Hour: 11.30am-10.30pm

Weekend buffet lunch @ Oriental Banquet

We celebrated my mom's birthday recently at Oriental Banquet for a weekend lunch buffet. We had originally wanted to try the buffet at Noble House in KL but they are always fully booked, thus we were told to try our luck at Oriental Banquet.

We managed to book our table without fuss for lunch on Sunday. Our reservation was for 11:30am and when we arrived there were only a couple of tables of guests there. The buffet line was not completely set up yet so I managed to sneak in some photos while they set up. There's a decent amount of food there so I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Our menu for RM39.00++ per pax consists of a bowl of sharksfin soup with crabstick for each person. The soup was quite mediocre although for RM39.00++ it's decent with real sharksfin.

I liked the appetiser section where the food is served in dainty spoons and shooter glasses. My favourite is the pomelo salad with octopus. The tangy salad and the chewy octopus topped with crispy squid is quite addictive and I found myself going back for more. The crispy fish skin topped with salsa is also quite good.

For the hot mains, there were a wide selection of dishes to choose from such as spinach tofu with mushrooms, moneybags, steamed fish, braised chicken, glutinous rice, yong tau foo and noodles.

There's a section of hot soups too with bak-kut-teh, yellow wine chicken and carrot soup.The selection of dishes are rotated so there is actually a wide range if you stay for longer hours. There's peking duck which I had to queue up for and also suckling pig for which I had to wait for the 3rd round before I finally got a chance to get to it before it's all gone.

I managed to take some pictures of the process for the Peking duck.

There's just a small table for desserts like Chinese pancake, ice-cream, fruits and hot desserts such as gingko and soya.

Oriental Banquet is a part of the Oriental Restaurants Group and is located at 16 Jalan 19/1, Section 19, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Tel : 03-7957 8488.

Best fish paste noodles @ Old Town

Where do you go when you crave for some good old-fashioned noodle soup that's packed with goodness? Me? I go to a little stall at the back of a house in Old Town, PJ. This little stall has no name, hence no signboards and is only known through word-of-mouth. It can't be seen from the road either because it's hidden right at the back of a house. The word-of-mouth advertising must be serving them well because it's packed with customers and waiting time for a bowl of noodle soup can stretch from 30 minutes to 40 minutes.

So, what makes them so different that people are actually willing to wait that long for a bowl of noodle soup? It's the best I've ever had. I usually order the flat rice noodles (kuey teow) and my bowl of noodles come with a very generous amount of vegetables, 3 big pieces of very tasty fish paste (yee wat) and a piece of stuffed tofu skin in a very light sweet broth that doesn't taste of MSG. The amount of vegetables in that one bowl can easily match 3 bowls at any other stall.Of course, if that's not enough, you can also add sui kow (dumplings), stuffed tau pok, stuffed brinjals and stuffed bittergourd. Be warned though, the sui kow portion is huge and is very filling! I like to add the stuffed beancurd skin. It's really delicious.They also serve pork noodles with minced & sliced pork and liver. As you can see below, the ingredients are so much more than the ones served elsewhere. The best thing about this noodle stall is not because of the generous portions of ingredients that they serve. Instead it is the wholesome goodness of the noodle soups that taste like it's home-made that keeps me going back for more.