Traditional English Afternoon Tea at E & O Hotel, Penang

Here are some desserts during a traditional English afternoon tea at E & O hotel in Penang. The English afternoon tea was free using the coupon voucher for members and is valid for 1 year. E & O hotel was owned by the Sarkies brothers and is a premier lifestyle hotel that was recently renovated.

The sandwiches are served in a 2 tier holder with scones on top. There are cucumber sandwiches, salmon, cheese and beef sandwiches. You can have a choice of various types of tea, and my favourite is orange flavoured tea. Each diner has a tea pot to himself.

A closer view of the sandwiches with whole meal bread and plain white bread.

Fine bone china is used at the cutlery. On the left is strawberry jam while the right side is butter. These are fillings for the scones where you can split into halves using a butter knife and spread the jam evenly.

Dinner at Ming Garden Restaurant in Penang Times Square

 

I had dinner at Ming Garden Chinese Restaurant in Penang Times Square last night. It is located in Birch the Plaza building on the second floor. The address is below:

Ming Garden Restaurant

77-2-28 Penang Times Square

Penang.

Tel: 604 226 9977

Above is a snapshot of the grand entrance with pixue or some Chinese mythological creature that is believed to bring luck and prosperity to its owner. I love the bouquet of red roses on the table with pamphlets of different cuisines and prices to choose from. Since it was opened yesterday, there were congratulatory bouquets of flowers to the owner and also look good to welcome new visitors.

 

Here is the decadent ambience with velvet covered chairs and embellished with buttons behind to complete the dining furniture set. Complementary maroon serviettes match the color of the velvet-covered chairs. At the top, large lotus-designed lights hang precariously over the tables. There are private function rooms too for those who wish to dine quietly away from the glare of the public eye. Usually millionaires and the well-heeled will choose to reserve a private function room to eat in complete privacy. There were about 3 very large screens showing Andy Lau's concert performance in Hong Kong and audiences bopping to the lively rhythm. It sounded more like Michael Jackson's Thriller but sung in Cantonese.  

 While waiting for our set dinner, we were served Chinese tea and 'acak' as appetizer prior to the food. 'Acak' consists of julienned carrots, cucumbers and yam bean seasoned in vinegar with peanuts and chilly added for that extra oomph. The taste was piquant and spicy, teasing the taste buds for more to come.

 

This is the real appetizer as part of the set dinner with a spoonful of fresh scallop, bits of fried scallops served above the braised asparagus. It is garnished with parsley, julienned carrots with a purple petal of an orchid. In the dessert glass are 2 pieces of some crunchy batter mixed with delicious condiments. It was just heavenly tasting them. 

 

The next dish of the set menu was braised shark's fin soup with crab meat in casserole. The shark's fins soup were scrumptious and the crab meat fresh and tangy. There were generous portions of them too.

 

This is stewed sea cucumber with mushroom and fish maw wrapped in aluminium foil. A dark purple orchid with green parsley embellish the meal. Inside the aluminium foil was also pacific clam, black Shitake mushroom and abalone mushroom. The thick gravy was just as tasty as it looks. 

 

The next dish was deep fried grouper fillet in Cuba style but I accidentally deleted the photo as I was trying to remove spare pictures. The above meal was the second last dish before dessert and consists of  fried ee-fu noodles with crab meat. All the meals were served in small portions so that they are not too overwhelming and filling. They were of appropriate portions enough to fill a hungry stomach. 

This is the finale of the set meal and the sweet dessert consists of coconut with longans topped with ice cubes in syrup. The Chinese tea helps in the digestion and washes down the remaining oil. On the whole the six course set dinner meal for two cost more than a hundred ringgit (USD 33.00) which is quite reasonable considering the tastiness of the meal.

Travel to Hong Kong

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My youngest sister (left front)  and I (in brown on right  behind) flew to Hong Kong on my birthday month in July and met up with my second sister (in green). Here, Mirinda ( in blue opposite me) was our tour guide for the day and brought us to a Chinese restaurant known as The Moon in the upmarket shopping mall in The Elements where they  have Ballys, etc. In this shot, the four of us were seated waiting for our serving for dinner. We could not get by in Hong Kong without Mirinda who could speak Cantonese and guided us besides being our spokes person. By the way, Mirinda has a tiny condominium near Shatin MTR train station that cost a whopping RM 1.2 million! (USD 400,000). The entire condominium could fit into the living room of our suite in Royal Plaza Hotel, where we stayed and Mong Kok East MTR train station was just underground of the hotel. 

 

Above was one of our orders of crispy dried noodles topped with scrambled egg white and garnished with fish eggs. The serving looks appetizing for me. The noodles were crisp and crunchy to the palate. 

 

We also had deep fried wanton paired with Thai chilly sauce and black sauce in a yin yang shaped sauce container. 

 

Chinese food is never complete without an order of pork ribs braised in special sauce. It was simply heavenly having such fine dining food. 

After travelling to Golden Bauhinia Square, Aberdeen Fishing Village, Repulse Bay, our next stop was the optional tour of Ocean Park where we dined at The Neptune Seafood Restaurant. I loved the ambience here and it gives me a feeling of swimming in the ocean with the huge manta rays, baby sharks, schools of colorful ocean fishes, etc swimming gracefully in this 2 storey-high aquarium.

 

This was our dining table and we got an excellent view of the mega aquarium or oceanarium while waiting for our servings. Loved the deep blue glasses of water.

This was my selection of fish with potatoes for the MAS cabin food that was served to the passengers. The white gravy was certainly tantalizing and sumptuous. You have another choice of chicken with rice but I am a fish lover, hence I chose this meal. There's a bun with butter, butter sponge cake with chocolate cream, salad, water and juices. Geens like cuboid carrots and long beans were paired with the poached fish. This meal was mouth-watering and yummy!

Fine Dining at Indulgence Designer-Eating Restaurant in Ipoh

Just last week, I went to Ipoh for the weekend with my 2 younger sisters and stayed in Impiana Casuarina Hotel, a 4-star hotel in the city. At night, we headed straight to Indulgence Fine Dining Restaurant that is nestled within the city of Ipoh. It is located in a large white colonial bungalow with ample car parking bays. A guard was stationed to take car of the cars and diners outside. According to my well-travelled second sister, Pellegrino is only served here in whole of Malaysia and cannot be found elsewhere. Pellegrino tastes like sparkling water for a whopping RM10 per bottle. Indulgence specially imported Pellegrino for its business - so you don't have middlemen to take profit.

For starter, I had wild mushroom soup served piping hot in red dining set with toasted garlic bread. Personally, I still think the mushroom soup in Mizzi Bistro in Penang is the best which is peppered with secret herbs and plenty of mushrooms blended in. This place in Indulgence, though it serves fine dining food, the service is lacklustre.

I had marche which is a selection of mini vegetables canopied by Manchego cheese, topped with arugula and edible nasturtium flowers. For this plate of mainly leaves, it cost RM29.00. Being a Penangite who is spoilt for choice, I think the food does not do justice to the money spent. And it was served in small portions, not enough to fill a hungry stomach. As all the photos were snapped in dim light, the pictures did not turn out great compared to my other posts.

My sister has Cocomo under the seafood selection which consists of kataifi wrapped prawns with honey coated walnuts, avocado dressing on torn chilli-ricotta baked rustic crouton and lobster glaze. The Cocomo was delicious and portions just right. We each (there were 3 of us sisters) divided our orders by a third and put them into smaller individual plates to savour all the dishes ordered.

This is Mooze which consists of orgo 'rice' pasta with calamari rings, crab, coriander and miso soup poured on. Surprisingly, the calamari rings tasted just right and not over cooked. As I went to the ladies, I noted photos of Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew together with the lady boss and chef in a photo framed up and hung on the wall of other photos of dignitaries as well.

Viola is under pasta in the menu and we also had this fine dish of alternating ravioli of porchini and spinach ricotta in an oyster cream with leafy flat parsley. It was delicious to the palate that makes me yearn for more.

Since I still had residual cough, I ordered hot chocolate or known as choco mellow for my drink that comes with marsh mellow and chocolate shads. This cost me RM15, but for the sake of fine dining, I guess, I cannot complain too much.

To finish off the main meals, we had chocolate cake for dessert. It came with strawberries and topped with white milk cream. For the 3 of us, the total bill came to RM221.00 with Cocomo costing RM42.00. For the Americans and Europeans, the conversion rate is so attractive and it stretches your moolah here in Malaysia. That is why, my youngest sister's USA company in Penang sent 4 of their American staff to Penang for a break and the following week, sent more employees here to enjoy the life in Malaysia at very affordable hotel rates.