Lunch at Home from Take Away Food

 

My second sister came back for a month from Suchou during her summer holidays there and mom promptly bought good food for lunch at home. We always buy food back for lunch every day as she does not cook anymore. Above is chilly flower crabs which are my favorite including my sister. The thick sumptuous gravy can be eaten with plain white bread for carbohydrates. The crab meat was succulent and fresh.

 

This is 'otak' or steamed fish with secret blend of spices in coconut milk. For the special flavor and zing, lemon leaves are added.

This is 'jiu hu char' or stir fried dried calamari in literal translation. It consists of julienned yam bean, black Shitake mushrooms, carrots and garnished with spring onion as an option. 

 

Here is stir-fried clams in special gravy. We love clams and will indulge in them once in a blue moon as my sister comes back to Penang twice a year during her college holidays. 

 

Here is a photo of stir-fried potato leaves mixed with 'belacan' or prawn paste which gives extra oomph to the taste.

 

Whenever my parents buy a few dishes from a particular stall, we will be given free soup and for today, it was cabbage soup with carrots. I love the tasty clear soup with chicken bones added to infuse the flavor into the liquid. 

 

Finally, all the dishes are captured in this combined shot for our family lunch of 4 people. Buying food outside is not for everyone or everyone's cup of tea. Some prefer to cook at home to save costs than to buy outside. But my mom is a lady of leisure, going for her exercise on a weekly basis and does not cook anymore as we are subsidizing the family's lifestyle.

Lunch at GEM Restaurant in Penang

 

Just last month I went to Public Bank to take out all my Fixed Deposits from my account to put into RHB bank giving me 3.75% interests for 2 years - the highest FD rate in the country ever. After the banking transaction, my parents and I went to a nearby Indian GEM Restaurant that was just opposite Public Bank. Above is Chicken Thokku with spicy secret recipe in a thick gravy - which consists of Turmeric powder (for marinating), pepper and cumin powder, Aniseed powder, Ginger garlic paste and Garam masala powder. It is garnished with chopped parsley.

 

For starters, we had Indian crackers that can be eaten on its own or dipped in special green mint sauce or red chilly sauce. There were free flow of Indian crackers while waiting for our main course. After we had finished with the crackers, the waiters replenished the basket bowl with more crackers for us. I had a little, bearing in mind to keep some room for the main dishes later on.

 

This is Malai Khofta - the vegetarian alternative to meatballs. It goes very well with naans (tandoor-baked flatbread). It was potato balls in thick yellow curry that was very tantalizing to the palate and sumptuous. I don't mind ordering the same dish again for its tastiness. It was non spicy but creamy with milk and aromatic blend of spices to seduce the appetite. 

 

 

This was mushroom pepper fry which tastes just as good like the previous dishes. I am amazed how delicious Indian food can be at GEM Restaurant - different from the ubiquitous hot and spicy curry fares. The mushroom bits were crunchy and crispy. 

 

The snapshot above is mango lassi - Indian yoghurt drink mixed with mango ester or flavor in chemical terms. My parents commented that it was the best mango lassi they have tasted and it was thick and not diluted as served in some of the cheaper Indian hawker jaunts. I am not paid to promote GEM Indian Restaurant but to be honest, it has the best Indian food around with premium quality.

 

This is palak paneer - an Indian dish consisting of blended spinach and paneer cheese in a curry sauce. It is a popular vegetarian dish. The taste was so exquisite that I scooped the bowl clean.

 

To complement our main dishes, I ordered butter naan and garlic naan in equal proportion. Naan is a flat, leavened bread of northwest India, made of white flour and baked in a tandoor.

 

 

This photo is a combination of all the dishes ordered as they come together and served at our table. GEM Indian Restaurant is owned by Dato' K. Palaniappan which a string of titles which I don't know what they mean as stated on his name card - (DSPN, PKT, PJK, B. Com). He also has one other GEM Restaurant branch in Kuala Lumpur and two in India. The address of the main office in Penang is below:

GEM Restaurant (PG) Sdn Bhd.

66, Bishop Street

10200 Penang, Malaysia

Tel : 604 262 4070

Fax : 604 262 4070

Hand Phone : 6012 401 2007

eMail : p.krishnan@live.com

Web Site : www.GemRestaurant.com

Appliance Removal and Musings

This blog is one of my favorite blogs but it certainly requires lots of time and effort just to maintain - because of the many wonderful food photos that you see here. It reminds me of the places that I have dined and it is a food album of sorts. Since I work at home, it is good that I can allocate some precious time in updating this only food blog of mine on an occasional basis.

Which reminds me that you might like to check out on Appliance Removal Chicago and click on the link of Appliance Removal Chicago given to see that many of your unwanted items at home like mattress, carpet, printer, refrigerator, leaf, furniture, and any other junk can be removed from you house to make space for yourself and your family. Frankly speaking, my house or rather my parents' house is cluttered with items - some wanted, some unwanted and they need to be sorted out before clearing them. But then my mother is a lady of leisure, preferring to watch tv the whole day and reading newspapers, if not napping in the afternoon. She frequently tells her friends on the phone of her cushy lifestyle living like a millionaire and they are envious of her but then we three kids are the breadwinners and paying for the household expenses like food, electricity, phone bill, and other utilities like cable-connected television so that she can watch Astro the whole day. I think my household seriously need Appliance Removal Chicago to clear out the unwanted stuffs that has cluttered so much space at home.

Drinking Wine

Jesus turned water into the best quality wine at a marriage feast in Canna. And yes, Christians are allowed to drink wine and there are many  types of wine to choose from to suit your palate. The different   types of wine offer patrons a variety of wine to taste like sweet wine, dry type, etc. 

I only drink wine on social occasions like birthdays, some special celebration, dinner functions, etc. My uncle who is a doctor loves to drink wine and will have a glass of wine everyday after dinner. He is now 95 years of age and still plays 18-hole golf. My boss also drinks wine frequently and buys a bottle of wine each time he has finished with the last consumption. And he is helming the small but dynamic company at the ripe age of 60 when most people would have retired and scaled down their activities.

The different types of wine have anti-cancer properties with powerful anti-oxidants like resveratrol contained in the wine. Drinking wine also helps to prevent heart attacks and clears the bad cholesterol clogged up in the arteries. There are many health benefits of drinking wine and that is why wine makers with vineyards are growing their business around the world. People consume wine in every developed country and will continue to do so for a long time to come.

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!

Dinner at Max Gourmet, Gurney Plaza

 

Yesterday I was at Gurney Plaza to catch the Transformers 3 : Dark of the Moon, 3D movie and dined at Max Gourmet on the 7th floor of  the lifestyle shopping mall. Above was my order of steamed garoupa with  hor fun or flat rice noodles. The hor fun was tangy with flavorful thin liquid gravy and slices of garoupa which is an expensive fish. I love this dish and will always order the same meal whenever I patronize Max Gourmet.

 

As opposed to dining al fresco, I usually dine indoors with air-conditioning turned on to lend a cool atmosphere for comfort. This was my friend's order of herbal ginseng chicken drumstick ramen or Japanese noodles. The soup was delicious with hints of ginseng sprinkled with red wolf berries for better eye sight plus other aromatic herbs. 

 

After our hearty meals, we had our drink and dessert. On the left was Mango Platinum Ice Blended while on the right was Ginseng and Water Chestnut that I ordered. Mango Platinum Ice Blended has real sweet cut mangoes with bits of raisins, peanuts, some syrup and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. The ginseng with water chestnut was boiled until the flavor seeped to the water giving a tasty drink to finish off the meal. 

 

On the third floor of Gurney Plaza is the ever popular Kim Gary Hong Kong Restaurant. This place is usually full of diners, simply because of the delicious food and very affordable pricing. If you are a member, you get a further 10% discount. The meal above was fish fillet cheese baked rice garnished with broccoli for the color and visual appeal. It consists of rice steamed with lotus leaf laid at the bottom for the fragrance, corn, button mushrooms and fish fillet. This has always been my favorite dish since I stepped in this popular restaurant.

 

This is lemon butter fish served at Karen's Kitchen with apple green table cloth and menu. The gravy was simply ambrosia and heavenly. It comes with mashed potato, salad, fish fillet and a generous portion of lemon sauce that complements the fish. 

 

I was also at New World Park, which is a food haunt with swanky restaurants as well as dozens of  hawker stalls where you can dine al fresco and choose your table. I had ice-kacang recently as shown in the photo above. And I requested for extra creamy corn to go with the shaved ice with rose syrup, milk, black herbal jelly, and not forgetting a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

 

This was our free roasted half chicken after collecting 9 chops on the Chicken Rice Shop loyalty card. For 6 chops, you get a quarter chicken and for 3 chops, you get a drum stick. I also frequent Chicken Rice Shop for the many varieties of food like 'pie tee' or known as top hat. The roasted chicken was succulent, tender and juicy.