Zi Wei Yuan charcoal steamboat (紫薇园鱼头火炭炉)

The steamboat was heated with charcoal instead of using the common gas stove, and the soup was special as well… (we ordered a set) with fried fish and taro cubes as the base. It tasted a bit sour along with the sweetness of the ingredients, which gave a very well mixed taste and flavour.

The restaurant offered decent options for their menu, mostly seafood, from cheap fishball dishes to expensive sea cucumbers and abalones etc… reasonably priced.

Address: 6525, Jalan Raja Uda, 12300 Butterworth (location map); Tel: 04-331 2736 or 012-452 4741 (closed on Wednesday).

Zi Wei Yuan steamboat, Jalan Raja Uda, Butterworth

Farmland is famous for its porridge based steamboat. It’s becoming a habit to bring relatives from other places to dine at these porridge steamboat restaurants, as these dining style is not really common outside of Klang Valley.

Farmland Steamboat Restaurant at Bandar Puchong Puteri, Selangor

I have previously dined at Farmland’s Serdang Perdana branch; this was my first visit to this Puchong outlet.

Just like the rivalry Eastern Delight, Farmland serves simple ingredients as well, and nothing spectacular unless you are ready to splurge on some abalones etc.

What makes porridge based steamboat special is that it would not obscure the original taste of the ingredients. Besides, after some cooking, the flavour of the ingredients would spread into the porridge, thus giving the porridge some really nice taste.

The major different between Eastern Delight and Farmland is probably the ‘thickness’ of the porridge (the steamboat base). ED’s porridge was normally thicker than Farmland… it depends on personal preference on which is better, but both are acceptable to me.

Location map (Tel: 03-8068 1880 / 8068 2280)

Farmland Steamboat Restaurant, Puchong, Selangor

The restaurant is a branch from the popular Malacca outlet, fame for its Italian cooking, pizzas in particular. Just like the Malacca restaurant, this KL branch seemed pretty cosy as well.

Can’t remember the exact name of the food we ordered… some drinks, a pocket pizza, a full size pizza, a pasta and some dessert. The food was nice; not great, but nice… worth a visit. The bill was RM92 for 3 person, acceptable.

Finding the restaurant was a pain though… especially when it was dark and raining at night.

Address: 28-30, Jalan Pudu Lama, 50200 KL (location map). Tel: 03-20312830.

Coconut House, Jalan Pudu Lama, Kuala Lumpur

Simple wonton noodle

Can’t find it in any restaurants though, it’s cooked by yours truly. The noodles were bought from the market, cooked and flavoured with soy sauce and sesame oil. The pork and prawn wontons were easily made too, recipe here.

A simple dish. The challenge is actually on buying the right noodles, which requires some test and trial sometimes.

Wong Kee wonton noodle, Kuala Lumpur

Pork and prawn wonton soup

Ingredients (2-3 persons; 25-35 wontons)

25-35 wonton wrappers, 100g lean pork, 50g small prawns, 3-4 button mushrooms, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, a pinch of sault, a pinch of white pepper, a sprinkle of sesame oil.

Methods (Preparation time: 15-25 minutes)

1. Mince the pork, prawns and mushrooms.

2. Mix all the ingredients.

3. Wrap your wontons. Place a teaspoon (flat) of fillings to the centre of the wrapper, and just squeezed the wrapper gently.

Don’t worry about the fillings falling out when cooking, the wrapper would stick together almost instantly when you put it into boiling water.

4. Boil a pot of water, and add the wontons. Don’t add too many at a time, or the wonton might tangle up and the wrapper might be torn.

Cook the wontons for 3-4 minutes, and remove the wontons from the pot. The wontons are ready for serving.

Extra notes

Most wonton wrappers in the market look yellowish because of the alkaline water used, not because of the eggs as commonly believe. In fact, most of the wonton wrappers are not using eggs as ingredient at all.

Alkaline water is commonly used in making Chinese noodles and bakeries for different reasons. It is also used in wonton wrappers to make it a bit ’stronger’ and not easily torn when cooking. Despite the bizarre yellowish colour, alkaline water is harmless if used in proper proportions.

If you want to make a wonton soup, do not cook the wonton directly in your soup. Cook it in boiling water, remove it and add into your soup instead… or else your soup might look all yellowish like the one above.

Pork and prawn wonton (recipe)

Chinese roast pork

Ingredients (2-4 persons)

500g pork belly, 1 tablespoon fine salt, 1/2 tablespoon five-spice powder and 1 tablespoon coarse salt.

Methods (Preparation time: 55-65 minutes)

1. The skin needs to be dry before putting it into the oven; it’s one of the key factors to create the crispiness. So, clean your pork hours before cooking it, so that it could dry properly.

You might want to consider drying it with kitchen towel or put it under a fan etc… just make sure it is dry.

2. Rub the fine salt and five-spice powder on the meat.

3. Pre-heat the oven for 5 minutes at 180°C. Put the pork belly into the oven with skin facing up; lay the coarse salt on top of the skin.

Roast the pork for 20 minutes.

4. Take out the pork and remove the coarse salt. Use a sharp instrument (knife or fork etc.) to poke the surface of the skin… poke it thoroughly (the whole surface). This is crucial to make the crispy skin.

5. Put the pork back into the oven and roast for another 20-25 minutes.

Verdict

Not bad. The taste was good… it could be better if I add some other ingredients like pepper and wine, but I like this recipe for the fact that it’s so simple to prepare.

The only failure is that the skin was not crispy enough. My main mistake was not making sure the skin was dry enough before roasting it (step 1).

I tried to amend it by increasing the cooking time, but I was afraid that the meat would be too dry at the end.

It’s still a decent dish nonetheless.

Extra note

Remember to put the pork on a rack, with a tray underneath to catch dripping oil. It’s a pretty standard practice when roasting meat (chicken, lamb, whatever) which will save us plenty of cleaning time after the cooking.

Chinese roast pork (recipe)

Some Dim sum at Pan Ki

One of the major reasons why I like this restaurant is because it’s relatively easier to find a seat even in Sunday morning. Their dim sum is pretty old school, nothing fancy but with decent taste and varieties… and when it comes to dim sum, old school is a good word.

I like their har gao, siu mai, and also their chicken feet. Their pork based dim sum are normally better than fish based dim sum, somehow.

Reasonably priced, quite cheap by KL standard.

Pan Ki Dim Sum, Sri Petaling, Kuala Lumpur

Eastern Delight is famous for its porridge based steamboat. This Sri Petaling branch should be their first outlet; they also have branches at Kota Damansara and Sunway if not mistaken. Chose to dine here because my aunt had never tried porridge steamboat prior to this visit.

Porridge steamboat at Eastern Delight

The porridge steamboat is quite common in Guangzhou, China, but has only become popular in Kuala Lumpur in recent years. It’s still not commonly found in other cities like Ipoh or Penang.

Porridge steamboat is actually nothing much different than normal steamboat besides using porridge as the cooking base instead of variety of soups. The beauty of porridge based steamboat is that it would not obscure the original taste of the ingredients like most of the soup based steamboat.

Clay pot is commonly used for porridge steamboat because the porridge would easily stick to the bottom if metal steamboat pot is used.

Eastern Delight serves some pretty simple ingredients, and 9 out of 10 customers would probably agree that their food is overpriced… but their business seemed to be doing well regardless. In fact the restaurant was so pack that night that we had to sit at open space instead of enjoying the air-con inside the shop (hence the poor lighting for the above photo).

At the end of the dinner everyone went home with a happy stomach. Set aside the price, it’s not a bad meal… or else I wouldn’t have dined at the restaurant for numerous occasions.

Address: No 26, Jalan 14/149L, Sri Petaling, 57000 KL. Phone: 03-9059 3545. The restaurant is located at a shop somewhere between Sri Petaling and Happy Garden, a bit difficult to find if you are not familiar with this area.

Eastern Delight porridge steamboat, Sri Petaling, KL