Happy New Year Everyone

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very happy new year in 2016. Through this blog, I was once contacted by an Australian broadcasting company to reply a question and answer session via the phone regarding a post that I made about an outlet in Gurney Plaza. Well, I had to decline due to my sore throat but who knows, had I accepted the offer, it could lead to more opportunities and perhaps even travel to Australia for free. This blog started out as a food blog to showcase the foods that I have tasted; please don't get envious or silently resent me. Then it sort of morphed into a personal blog on anything under the sun to keep it updated. Well, it is not updated now and then and when opportunities strikes, then it is time to work on it again.

Lunch at Food Gallery

I had lunch at Food Gallery in Penang Times Square a while ago and ordered the above sumptuous meal of fusili bolognise and almond chicken. The macaroni tomato sauce was tangy and well flavored. I added extra cheese powder to pair with the meal. The almond chicken was succulent and crunchy with almond flakes added to the batter that covered chicken. The presentation was appetizing as well and garnished with greens.

 

This was a set meal with a bowl of white rice, sauces, watercress soup and chicken stir-fried with mixed vegetables. This was my mum's order from Food Gallery where we dined recently. Food Gallery is the largest food court in Penang with more than 20 stalls of delicious Penang food cuisine. 

 

My dad loves Italian food and ordered this simple meal of western food with potato chips, coleslaw and pizza.

 

When I was in Kuala Lumpur, I had marmite chicken at Lorong Seratus Tahun restaurant. It consists of deep fried chicken with marmite dip, an egg cooked over-easy way and topped up with vegetables and rice.  Lorong Seratus Tahun serves genuine Penang food like ice-kacang, chendol, lorbak, etc.

 

This is ice-kacang with chendol ingredient of green pandan noodles, some longans, red beans, chopped peanuts, black herbal jelly, corn cream, shaved ice and topped with a scoop of strawberry ice-cream.

 

This is mushrooms that are deep fried and covered with batter to taste with cream sauce dip. It was served at Manhattan Fish Market in Queensbay Mall on the basement level. The food certainly makes me salivate and looking at it might just make you drool as well!

 I had Baskin Robbins ice-cream of chocolate mint and topped with delicious chocolate that was ideal to taste and not too sweet. It is topped with white cream, a red cherry and sprinkled with chopped nuts. I normally stop here in Tapah to unwind when returning back to Penang from Kuala Lumpur. Baskin Robbins has 31% discount on the 31st of the month every time.

 

This is a magnificent paint of food theme and vases of flowers. The framed paintings was taken at a local hotel when I was having buffet breakfast. I love the play of colors and picture composition.

Breakfast at Mandarin Grill

 

This is the ambience at Mandarin Grill in Mandarin Oriental Hotel on the ground floor. Notice the plush soft velvety cushioned chairs and the heavy carpets. The food was equally good albeit less choices compared to a Chinese restaurant upstairs that we have tried earlier in another visit.

 

Another view of the ambience with the server waiting behind a food counter.

 

A wide repertoire of selection of the cereals for breakfast. This is typical of an American breakfast which was the theme of the buffet breakfast.  

 

The eggs were cooked sunny-side-up where the egg yolks are not 100% cooked and still in semi liquid form. Just learnt two terms of the types of servings for the eggs : sunny-side-up or over-easy which is 100% cooked. Also 4 types of jams were available - strawberry, blackcurrant, orange marmalade and honey.

 

This is over-easy and a portion has been eaten. See the difference? 

 

This is cheese platter and some portions were already taken and spoilt by diners. I love the bunch of grapes placed right in the middle to enhance the colours.

 

This was taken at the main lobby where a large pot of flowers decorate the area. The white orchids are real and not fake.

 

This is my buffet breakfast that is more suited to the local taste and taken at another hotel in another state in Malaysia. There were salads, hash browns, scrambled eggs, fish tempura, coleslaw, Indian curry, 'char koay teow', etc.

Food taken from Different Places

This was taken near the rented apartment in USJ 14, Subang Jaya at an eatery serving only Chinese food. Yam basket is my favorite with the steam and mashed yam deep fried in a tube and garnished with cubed stir-fried chicken, vegetables like onions, carrots, green pepper, red chillies, black shitake mushrooms and sprinkled with juliened carrots, fried vermicelli surrounding the yam basket, spring onions and parsley. I always patronise this place for its yam basket and delicious Chinese food.

This dish is known as sweet and sour fish for its taste. The fish is deep fried and then tomato sauce with added vegetables are sauteed together to make a sumptuous flavor and poured to the fish. Some vinegar is added too for the sour taste and extra zing!

This is sauteed sweet potato leaves with garlic. The stir-fried garlic brings out the aroma and tastiness of this simple dish that is easy to prepare. Sweet potato leaves are a common dish in Malaysia.

Here are combined food pictures with soup, chopped garlic, etc. This eatery tucked amongst the row of shop houses is very popular and is always packed with diners. They have 3 to 4 cooks working hard in the small kitchen so that food can be served quickly. During Chinese New Year, they also gave out free red packets or 'ang pows' albeit one year before from Guiness Stout during the year of the Tiger.



This is smoked salmon foccasia that was served in Tun Mahathir's The Loaf at Subang Shopping Gallery. The preparation is very simple and easy peasy. Just add some greens, potato chips and smoked salmon to the bread pocket. It is environmentally friendly since the food is served on a wooden plate.

On the right is my friend's order of chicken ham with grated cheese and croissant. Don't they look yummy together?

I stayed in Mandarin Oriental Hotel beside Suria KLCC last week. Upon checking in, an additional bed was in the room and not taken out. Feeling bad, the receptionist who took us to our room called for the extra bed to be removed while at the same time, gave us 2 large free chocolate chip cookies of smileys, 2 large dark chocolate bars (beneath the cookies) and 2 glasses of milk.



Here, you can see the chocolate bars that were hidden by the large cookies. The chocolate bars are specially made by the hotel and not bought from any supermarket as there were no wrappers. Besides, they tastes just right, not too sweet which may cause diabetes. Chocolates are rich in anti-oxidants to help prevent cancer.

Behind the dark chocolate bars are chopped dried peaches and almonds as you can see from the photo above.

During my business trip down south, we stopped in a R & R area (Rest and Recreation) and had some desserts like tarts, chocolate cake and tea. (see photo above). So, there you go, hope you like my food photos taken from the various places that I went to during my business trip in Malaysia.

Chinese Food and Buffet at E & O

I ordered this colorful dim sum of pandan green flavor, strawberry red, black sesame seed and yellow corn filled with meat and steamed with white chinese cabbage in a bamboo steamer. It looks appetising with the four different colors that make an eye candy.

This was ordered at Dragon-I Chinese Restaurant in Gurney Plaza, Penang. It consists of steamed brocolli with sliced abalone and black Shitake mushrooms. The gravy melts in my mouth and it was just as delicious as costly.

This was served at E & O hotel in town with small cups of black grass jelly topped with a flower fruit. Before they start disappearing one by one, I took the opportunity to snap this photo at the start of the buffet.

 

This is butter cake topped with sliced peaches, strawberries and blueberries. It was also sprinkled with almond flakes on the side with white cream. Icing sugar is then sprinkled to complete the serving. 

 

These are glasses of pudding with longan, cut dragon fruit and water melon. They certainly look tempting, don't they? I love dining at Sarkies Corner at E & O hotel.

 

This is the seafood corner with fresh prawns, raw salmon and raw oysters with lemon wedges. My second sister just loves fresh oysters and had 17 of them! Then she was down with flu the following day, but thank goodness she recovered quickly after a visit to the family doctor before she flew back to Suchou, China to continue lecturing as part of her job. 

Dinner at Clinic Cafe - A Hospital Themed Restaurant

Last night, I had dinner at this hospital theme set up restaurant on the 4th floor of Gurney Plaze. What attracted my attention was the many first time diners thronging to this splendidly designed cafe that looks just like a hospital. Even the waitresses wear nursing uniforms with face masks! You can even find posters normally found in clinics on health and the various parts of the body to educate the masses. The tables and chairs were specially designed to look like those taken from a hospital with plenty of red PVC cushions as backing. There were also syringes and surgery tools exhibited behind glass panels.

This was my order of breaded fish fillet cut in stripes and deep fried till golden brown. Notice the syringe of tomato sauce on the right side. I thought this was very innovative. Even the drinks come in beakers and various shapes that you can find in a chemical lab. The food was not too expensive considering its hospital like ambience and comfortable red soft cushions on the seats. Since it was Malaysia's national day on 31st August, the Malaysian flag on a toothpick was added to the cuisine.

This was another order of black pepper chicken noodles that tasted quite yummy and piquant with lots of black pepper thrown in and served in a stainless steel kidney-shaped bowl. Overall, the food tastes quite good with reasonably good price below RM10.00 a dish. Though we waited quite some time, apparently the cook forgot our order, we were nevertheless not disappointed as after the second reminder, they quickly served the food in 5 minutes after a wait for half an hour or so. But time flies quickly as we were also entertained with flat screen TV shows of Tom and Jerry - a feel good and humorous flick.

Not only the tables and chairs look like those in a hospital, the lights resemble surgery lights in an operating theatre as shown above. I must give credit to the interior designer for putting all these minute details to resemble a hospital setting.

This is the surgery room (notice the wordings behind the counter) that whips up beakers of drinks for the diners. I certainly find this restaurant amusing and even the 'nurse' waitress wear black stockings besides the face mask. This hospital themed food cafe is much better than a toilet theme outlet in Queensbay Mall where you sit on toilet bowls at chairs and food served in toilet bowl-like receptables! I don't even bother to walk inside and try this place.

Glorious Food Pictures for the Week

I have decided to make the photos a little larger for clarity in this blog. By tweaking a little with the width of the main body and side bar, I managed to get what I wanted instead of spending too much time looking for a suitable food template. So what do you think of the pictures? The photo above shows the ambience of the dining area in Royal Hotel along Larut Road in Penang. It displays wall paper consisting of photos of collonial Chinese pre-war houses by the side with cloth covered chairs that make a contrast to the sight.

For the weekend, I stayed in Royal Hotel in the deluxe room with an additional room to work that comes with a fax machine and writing desk. The lounge chair here looks beckoning and comfortable withh plush cushion against the thick curtains.

Here comes the food where we had breakfast the following morning. It consists of toasted slices of bread spread with a myriad of jams and butter. In this close up photo, doesn't it look appetising?

While waiting for my colleague at Royal Lake Club in Kuala Lumpur, I decided to take a little tea break and ordered black forrest cake and butter cake with hot chocolate. Decided to indulge myself a little after coming out from the library while he attended to the contractor for the synthetic turf tennis courts that are being installed by the company. Since my work requirement is to handle all the computer and administration work, I am not required to be physically present on site at the tennis courts.

This was my dinner of quiche that was ordered from Delifrance along Mont Kiara, an upmarket place with many high-end condominiums and many expatriates live here. The quiche was just so-so; I would have prefer if it has spinach in it like the one I have tried in Singapore which was tastier.

Recently, I went to Food & Tea Restaurant in Gurney Plaza and had prawn mayo with rice and soup set. The prawn mayo was mixed with cut honey dew melon and mixed with Thousand Island cream. I kind of patronize this place and will always order the same kind of food as it is quite delicious.

This is chicken lasagna from Delifrance but I find it too oily and did not finish it as I was too full. It looked scrumptious but since they did not have seafood croissant, I had no choice but to order what is available. This will be my last time going to Delifrance in Mont Kiara as the service was slow and bad, even though I love dining at Delifrance for their seafood croissant.

This salmon-egg croissant was ordered in Northern Beach Cafe in Penang from the French stall. It is not often to find a true French man to prepare food for you except for this stall here. The portions are adequate and just right - neither too much nor too little.

I had seafood lamien again in Dragon-i Restaurant in Gurney Plaza without calamari or sotong and extra fish slices to make up for it. It is like eating noodles in soup prepared by trained Chinese chef.

This was my friend's order of stir-fried seafood with pan fried Hong Kong noodles that are crunchy to taste - also ordered from Dragon-i. Gurney Plaza is the high end premier shopping mall that I visit often to dine and also to read books for free at MPH readers' circle since I am a member.

I hope you enjoyed looking at the photos as much as I enjoyed putting them together in this culinary journal of mine. You are free to comment as to how I can improve this blog while I read more food articles in the press to improve on my writing style and food vocabulary.

Variety of Cuisines from a Myriad of Restaurants

Before I proceed, do note that DianaTan.net is my main blog hosted on a personal domain since 2007. Hence, the photos here are my own and not copied. I have full rights to the images captured here for my gastronomical journal in Best Asian Food which is hosted on Blogger.com. The photo taken above is sauteed asparagus with lily bulb which I ordered from a popular Taiwanese restaurant in Queensbay Mall. The food was exquisite and crunchy to taste.

This is brocolli stir-fried with carrots and garlic. I like the texture of the brocolli and the dark green color that was preserved even after cooking with heat. If you over cook the brocolli, it may turn to light yellow in color and may not look so appetising.

This is champaign bubble tea that was especially recommended in the same Taiwanese restaurant that I patronized recently. Despite the name, it is not added with champaign but has a rather exquisite flavor that is unique and delectable. The sky blue color certainly stands out and makes the cool drink look desirable. It was added with brown pearls as you can see at the bottom of the cup.

Still the different dish ordered from the Taiwanese restaurant, this is deep fried prawn roll mixed with other recipes and wrapped up in tofu skin. The order was just right and not too much or overwhelming with big portion.

This photo was part of the collection taken during E & O buffet dinner at Sarkies Corner. There were a myriad of selections to choose from ranging from creme brulee, cakes, nonya kuih, etc. Each dessert was specially made with a personal touch from the professional chefs in E & O Hotel. That is why Sarkies Corner is mostly booked and full of patrons and diners. You may have to reserve for a table to get a chance to dine here on weekends.

I bought this orange sandwich roll sprinkled with raisins from Roti Boy outlet that was recently opened in Gurney Plaza. It has strawberry jam inside which makes it sweet and tangy with a soft texture.

I ordered this ala carte meal from Sushi King that has cheese, chicken on sticks, fully boiled eggs and topped with curry vegetables. The dish was scrumptious but I find the chicken a bit on the hard side but overall, it was a fine dish.

This dish was specially designed for Father's Day at Sushi King which was on 20th June. It was a set meal with some vegetables, noodles in soup, fried seaweed and rice wrapped with tofu skin. The dish was palatable and tasty as well, but you might find it a bit heavy with the noodles included.