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

My sister brought us to this steamboat restaurant at Jalan Raja Uda while we paid her a visit in Butterworth last weekend (Mar 22, 2008). This is one of her favourite dining places… and it turned out to be an excellent recommendation.

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).

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)

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.

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.

Beef noodle with beef, tripe and meat balls

Their beef and tripe were tender, meat balls just so so… the great thing about their noodle was actually the soup, which was thick and strongly flavoured with Chinese herbs and spices… I couldn’t stop myself finishing every drop in the bowl.

The beef noodle stall is located in Lai Foong Restaurant, located at the intersection of Jalan Tan Cheng Lock and Jalan Tun HS Lee.

It was a nice dim sum meal… good presentation, excellent variety, great taste and prompt services. The only downside was probably the price… HK$400+ (US$50+) for 3 adults, probably the most expensive dim sums I have ever had.

Not complaining though… it was our last meal in Hong Kong, and it’s a pretty good feast to end our Hong Kong journey.

Fried spring roll

Variety of dim sum at Maxim’s Chinese Restaurant

Actually we went into the restaurant because I was desperately in need of a washroom when walking around in Mongkok. At first glance they had an interesting variety of food (lots of Hong Kong specials) and from their billboard it seems like they were highly rated by local papers.

Cart noodle, egg tart and pineapple bun

We ordered a cart noodle (車仔麵), an egg tart and a pineapple bun (菠蘿包). The food quality was quite a disappointment honestly… it was not too bad, but it’s the kind of quality that I would not be interested to visit the restaurant again.

Well, at least I managed to try the cart noodle and pineapple bun before I left Hong Kong… so I shouldn’t be complaining too much.

Cart noodle was one of the food icons in Hong Kong; it got its name from street vendors who used to operate their business on roadsides using carts (I think they no longer exist these days). This restaurant was supposed to be famous for selling this noodle.

There is nothing special about the noodles; the essence of cart noodle is actually the variety of toppings the customers could choose from… the common toppings are radishes, pig blood cubes, fish balls, pig skins, Chinese sausages and beef balls etc. The customers could choose according to their likings or simply include everything (like what we did).

Congee cooked with pork and pig organs

It was odd hours (~11am) on a weekday, but the restaurant was still packed with customers… it got to be good.

We ordered a pork innards congee (猪杂粥) – rice porridge cooked with pork and pig organs like intestines, liver and stomach… and it was great. The ingredients were fresh, and they didn’t add too many additives (pepper, sesame oil etc.) in the congee, so you can really taste the core flavour of the pork and organs.

We also ordered two dessert soups, which was quite tasteless and forgettable… we should have just stick with their congee.

The restaurant had a lovely Westernised deco, but surprising offered mostly Chinese food on its menu. We ordered a spicy stewed beef (with rice) and mushroom soup… nothing superb, but not bad.

Spicy stewed beef and mushroom soup at Corner Cafe

Roast goose at Yung Kee Restaurant

Dined at Yung Kee in Oct 2007 during our Hong Kong visit. We already knew about the price, but we had promised ourselves to spend a bit more on one of our meals for fine cuisine, and we picked Yung Kee.

We ordered some iconic Hong Kong food… roast goose, roast quail, fried rice-noodle with beef (乾炒牛河; cau ngau hor), some veges and century eggs (皮蛋).

The century eggs were served as starter and are the best I have tasted.

The roast goose was superb as well. The goose was served in typical Hong Kong style, with cooked groundnuts and fermented veges. The meat was tender and the gravy blended very well with the meat. Top class.

The fried rice-noodle was just ok.

I was quite disappointed with the roast quail though, which was dried and tasteless. I am not sure if roast quail should taste that way as it was the only roast quail I have had in Hong Kong… and I didn’t like it.

The bill was above HK$400 for 3 adults… a bit expensive but I think it’s worth the splurge.

Address: 32-40 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong. [Official website]

Yung Kee Restaurant… century eggs, roast quail and fried beef-rice-noodles

Hon Po Palace is part of Hon Po Group, famous for its seafood… lobster in particular. Although not fame for its dim sum, we decided to give it a try because it’s so convenient from our hotel.

The restaurant and its dim sum…

It turned out to be a good meal. We ordered various kind of dim sum, including the common prawn dumpling (蝦餃; har gao), pork dumpling (燒賣, siu mai) and other delicacies.

Their dim sum was not served in the traditional dim sum cart, but was made to order… so it was still hot and not over-steamed when served. Their har-gao is one of the best I’ve tasted – the dough was thin and chewy, and the prawns were nice. The rest of the dishes were nice too, better than lots of dim sum I’ve tried in Malaysia.

The price was reasonable; can’t remember the exact figure, but it’s average by Hong Kong standard.

The standard set for 6 adults; and the boiling steamboat

We ordered the standard set for 6 and some side dishes; would have ordered more but their menu choices were quite limited.

The food turned out to be just ok. Their seafood was not as fresh as anticipated despite branding themselves for Ketam seafood, and their fish balls weren’t the best that I’ve tasted.

They did offer something special with their fried taro cube and bean curd, but special doesn’t necessary mean tasty.

The bill was around RM110 – reasonable. To be fair their steamboat is not really bad, but I know better places for steamboat… it was my first visit to Ho Ho, probably the last as well.

I am quite impressed by their website though (with location maps and reservation number); there are not many restaurants in Malaysia that have proper websites like theirs.