McD's Fillet-O-Fish on the Double

The craving was back. Been hovering in my mind for 2 weeks straight. Mc Donald's Fillet-o-Fish. So, I caved in. Was at Sogo Shopping Complex, Jalan Tun Abdul Rahman, and bought this for lunch :-

Hey, what's with the plastic bag's design? What happened to those paperbags before takeaways were thrown into plasticbags displaying just the big yellow M? Wow, I have really lost touch with the fast food scene. Call me outdated but I still prefer the old packaging & its old jingle. Then again, I refuse to call the other famous franchise other than Kentucky ..

Like usual, had my double dose of Fillet-o-Fish with lotsa chilli sauce. One would not be blamed to wonder whether I took the burger for the sauce. :) The chilli sauce is also a must for the french fries, so took a bundle!

A comfort food that has yet to fail me. *Blurp*

Toilet post #2

No need to guess where's this.

Tapah Rest Stop along the North South Highway. The bestest of the best public toilet in Malaysia!

There's landscaping outside AND inside the toilets.

Plenty of cubicles and sinks.

Great ventilation by a fleet of hardworking ceiling fans.

Been there during super-peak and off-peak seasons, and find that cleanliness is always at the tip-top level. People are found to be nodding off, chatting and even eating sitted on the benches inside! Overhead many times 1st time visitors are caught gasping and exclaiming that the toilet there is just as comfy if not better than their home toilets!

Definitely worth a mention in the Tourism Malaysia handbooks as a must visit place since our public toilets are quite infamous. Lol.

Kudos to those who (ranging from those who hold the pens to those with brooms in hands) maintain that fantabulous place.

A point to note which is quite a Malaysian toilet culture - no toilet paper in cubicles. But have no fear as paper is provided. One just have to remember to get it from the dispensers placed near the washbasins.

Tapah for lunch

UPDATE:

Since mid 2007 this shop had moved to a proper shoplot in Tapah town. However since it is claimed that the taste had deteriorated, I've not visited it yet. Will do an updated post when I do.

Bet most of you are unfamiliar with this joint and will go "Tapah? Got good food-1 meh? U mean Bidor isit?". At least that's what I usually get from friends and acquintances. Well, let me correct that. Yes, good lunch can be found in that small town of the most interesting kind. Fresh from the fields, they serve frogs ('thin-kai' in Cantonese), snakehead fish ('sang-yu' in Cantonese, 'ikan haruan' in Bahasa Malaysia) and eels ('wong-sin' in Cantonese).

We regularly stop here for lunch and orders the usual ie Steamed Frogs:-

Stir fried Snakehead with Ginger and Spring onions. Sounds kinda scary but It's just a type of fish. :-

and Stir fried Eel in onions and dried chillies (KungPo style). Didn't bother to take picture of it since it looked the same as the above except there's dried chilies in it.

Oh ya, must wash everything down the green fruit juice with asam drink. This I fail to know its English name but in Penang it is quite popular and it's called 'ambla-sheng-boi' (ambla-suin-mooi in Cantonese). Appreciate help here.

Doesn't it look refreshing? Due to the sizzling weather, we finished 7 glasses between 3 of us

RM38 for 3 dishes with 3 plates of rice. RM1.20 per glass of I'm-unable-to-name fruit juice.

Real ecpc (easy peasy) to get there. Just turn off from the North South Highway into Tapah. After paying the toll, you'll see this signboard:-

The picture is not clear as I took it behind the car's windscreen. Sorry. Anyway, see the blue signboard pointing to Tapah? Yes, take a right turn towards town center. In about 10 minutes you'll come to a Shell petrol kiosk on your right. Slow down as the shop is just a minute away on the opposite road. It looked like this:-

Coincidently, the shop on the same side of the road you are on is good too. But we only use that shop as 'back-up/reserve' in the event this shop is closed or ran out of choices. Creatures of habit-ma.

To scale a DRAGON fruit

These were gifts from a friend who got them from a friend whose friend has a fruit orchard at Padang Rengas, about 1/2 hour drive away (I think) from Taiping, Perak.

Here it is. A great discovery, by my standards, that is, a method to de-scale the intimidating fruit (by my standard again) with minimum fuss/mess. Guess it's not the best way as still have the juice (kinda blood-like) dripping here & there. But hey, if you are still interested in the masacre, let's get to it:-

First, cut both ends of the fruit. Did mine a bit too deep but have no fear of wastage. I scooped up the 'meat' with my 2 front teeth! Messy but kinda fun. Then, make a slight slit on the skin ..And tear it off! Tada!! A naked DRAGON fruit! Accomplices and I cubed the 'meat' and devoured our prize civilly with forks (Left picture taken without flash on while the other with).

In minutes. an empty plate with only tracing of 'blood' left. Mission very much accomplished. So, think you can do better?

Penang Kuan Yim Teng Gooey Noodles

The famous oldest must-visit-for-tourists Chinese temple on the island of Penang. Temple of Kuan Yin the Goddess of Mercy. Above pictures were taken outside (left picture) in front of the temple's entrance and the roof viewed from inside its interval hall (right picture). I am sure a lot have been written and said about this site in other blogs as well as tourism websites (Will link a few of them WHEN I learn how to do it. Aishehmien, still a baby blogger here) So, I'll skip all the temple intro and mention 1 of the food site near it instead.

Penangites of old would be aware of another famous institution right next to it - on its leftside, across a narrow road from the many stalls selling joss-sticks and other praying paraphernalia as where I'm trying to show below.

From here, you'll see this corner shop:-

which is said to sell one of the very best of Penang Loh Mee since our parents' childhood days if not longer. For the uninitiated, this type of noodle is not at all like the Loh Mee /Lor Mee sold in Kuala Lumpur. Usually, it's made up of beehun (vermicelli) and yellow noodles served with parts of the pig like meat, skin, intestines with half a black soy sauce boiled egg in a starchy black soy broth, topped with fried lard.

Order from this stall & you'll get a bowl of this:-

Yes, there's even a black soy chicken foot in it. Whitish liquid is the must-have - garlic sauce! Red's the chilli sauce. Both came from these bottles set on every table:-

Oh, please note that the plate of Loh-bak (5-spice meat rolls) seen by its side is another order.

Verdict: Senior loh mee connoiseurs I was with were quite disappointed. They claimed that the 'standard' dropped from last time (no confirmation whether that was to mean last week, month, year or century). Nevertheless, being there brought back plenty of their younger days' memories and so, it was a long lunch indeed.

Oh, the Loh-bak was so-so only.

Shui Kee Restaurant, Jalan Alor Kuala Lumpur

Been there a couple of times but never thought to recommend it. Afterall, it's located at Jalan Alor which is well-known for its varied Chinese food, locally and the not-so-nears (outstation, over the borders). As shown below, the restaurant does offer quite a number of noodles cooked in different flavoured broth:-

I'll have to qualify myself. I have not tried any of the food on its menu except for its FISH HEAD MI HUN which I've never failed to order once sitted. It's one of my favourite around town. See how creamy & appetizing it is!! A warning though - avoid the milk tea.