Archive for the ‘Hawker Food’ Category
Saturday, March 8th, 2008 |
It was days before Chinese New Year. Sis and I just arrive in our hometown, and we are on ourselves to find dinner. Fearing the price jack up and all that, we decided to play safe by visiting the neighbourhood hawker center, and once there, sis started pimping this stall selling baked fish and stir fried vegetables, praising the food sky high.
I couldn’t agree more. They were the best four angled beans stir fried with sambal that I’ve ever tasted! The tangy sambal flavour, the crunchy to the bite bean, and the serving on banana leaves gives the perfect texture, taste and aroma to the dish. To top that off, the beans were not tough to chew, unlike some places where the beans were tough to chew due to the incorporation of some old, tough beans along with the tender shoots.
Equally sinful were their baked stingray. Slathered in tangy, sourish and slightly spicy sauce very much like the Portuguese grilled fish sauce, this grilled fish is still juicy to the bite, and the sauce is just perfect to go with hot, fluffy white rice.
We polished off the dishes in a jiffy, which is a surprise given that we are not fish persons at all! In times like these I just felt that, 9 out of 10 times, hawker food rawks simply because they are good, cheap and no frills!
Viva la hawker food!
Er, but its harder to take photos in hawker center due to their awful lighting, and the photos didn’t do the food justice. LOL!
Popularity: 44% [?]
Posted in Eating, Hawker Food, Seafood | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 |
You know where have I been last weekend? I finally drive to the Southernmost state of Malaysia, Johor, all on my own! Yeah, I feel so accomplished, man. Just drop by to visit JY who is currently working in Muar.
The first night dinner was settled in a street full of small hawker stalls where the locals call it 贪吃街 or Glutton Street, in English.
What is famous in Muar? Otak otak of course! The ultimate “brain” food! Akakakaka!
Made of fish, eggs and coconut wrapped in pandan leaves (screwpine leaves) and grilled to perfection!
You can tell that I sort of consume on that for dinner. Filling, but only for a little while.
Another shot of the otak otak. Syiok!
Okla, I actually ate something else. Konlo wantan mee, which is quite normal but taste a tad different from state to state. The wantan mee from my state is darker, because we like to drench our food with a lot of dark soy sauce.
Will be posting about more foodie from my Johor trip, so stay tuned!
Popularity: 37% [?]
Posted in Eating, Hawker Food, Local Delicacies | No Comments »
Monday, October 29th, 2007 |
When you talk about Taiping food, you will definitely hear the most talkabout Taiping charkuetiau! So how does it look? Delicious? Salivating already?
Charkuetiaus aside, these lobaks are must have!
More fried goodies! Fried tofu, fried youtiau, fried spring rolls and fried meat rolls! Yummy yummy!
Salted egg crabs! Sinfully delicious, I tell you!
A soupy bowl of fish head beehoon. After all those flavourful food, it is nice to have something bland.
Pictures above were taken at the food court near Lake Garden during my last food excursion to Taiping. That place was great! Scenic view, good food, peaceful life and a plentiful of rain!
Popularity: 35% [?]
Posted in Eating, Hawker Food | 4 Comments »
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 |
When we were younger, my dad used to bring us to Tong Kee for dinner. Tong Kee is a hawker stall serving dishes and rice at dinnertime. They also sell double boiled soup. This particular stall is quite famous and they tend to be very crowded during dinnertime.
My sister and I revisited the place lately, because we missed the food.
This is the khauyuk, or braised pork with yam slices. The pork and yam are both tender enough, and the gravy is done just right. We always eat our rice with the gravy.
This dish is ready made, so if we are very hungry we always order this, and ask the server what the other tables had ordered so that we can order the same thing and thus, get our dinner faster.
This is the pao siu yuk. This dish is made by stir frying roasted pork with garlic, dark soy sauce and sugar. The combination of the tender meat, springy lard and crispy skin is just irresistable. This is a must have when we have our dinner there too.
A vegetable dish to balance the meal. We ordered stir fried kailan with pork slices this time round.
And for the soup, we opted for a bowl of double boiled lotus root and bone soup. Sis and I both agreed that it wasn’t exactly as good as last time.
Last I heard that the second generation is taking over the business right now, although I could still see some old, familiar faces during my last visit there. Maybe a change of chef is the reason of the difference in taste.
This place also serves roasted pork, white cut chicken, as well as some other dishes. They have a variety of soups too, which includes watercress and chicken soup, bittergourd soup, salted vegetable soup and a few more. This place caters for dinner only, and be ready to wait for a seat during peak hour.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Posted in Chinese, Eating, Hawker Food | No Comments »
Sunday, January 28th, 2007 |
What a hair raising hairmi experience! I never knew that I could attempt a huge project, but I actually went all the way and cook my first ever, homemade prawn noodles soup. Fondly known as hair mee, this is one of the hawker fare that I really enjoy. I would have to say that tasting one too many mediocre prawn noodles soup outside is one of the main contributing factor. As usual, I googled up the recipe and found that this recipe from kuali is good enough, although from the amount of ingredients given you would have known that I made a lot of shortcuts here and there. 
Ingredients:
For the stock:
1kg spareribs (pai kuat)
500g belly pork
3 chicken carcasses, cleaned
600g flower crabs, shells removed, halved and cleaned
600g prawns, shelled
2 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
tbsp oil
500ml water, 4 litres water
50–75g rock sugar
Seasoning:
1 tbsp salt or to taste
50–75g rock sugar
600g fresh yellow noodles
300g rice vermicelli, soaked until soft then drained
250g bean sprouts
200g water convolvulus(kangkung), plucked into neat sections
3 hardboiled eggs, shelled and quartered
Some shallot crisps
Chilli oil:
4–5 tbsp chilli paste (cili boh)
6 shallots pounded
3 cloves garlic pounded
4–5 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
Method:
Put spareribs, chicken carcasses and water into a deep stockpot. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1–1½ hours. Halfway through, add belly pork and cook until meat is just cooked through. Remove and slice the meat thinly then put aside for use as garnishing.
Boil crabs and prawn shells in 500ml water then simmer for 10–15 minutes. Strain stock and add to main stock. Add rock sugar and salt and bring to a boil to dissolve sugar. Marinate shelled prawns with curry powder.
Heat 4–5 tablespoons of oil and fry pounded shallots, garlic and chilli paste until aromatic. Dish out and set aside for use as chilli oil and paste. Add 2 tablespoons oil to remaining chilli oil in wok and stir-fry marinated prawns until just cooked. Remove and set aside.
To serve, put noodles, rice vermicelli, bean sprouts and water convolvulus into a noodle strainer. Scald in a pot of boiling hot water for a minute then drain off excess water. Place into soup bowls. Top up with the main stock and with a quarter slice of hard-boiled eggs, sliced belly pork, chilli oil, chilli paste and shallot crisps.
I should have garnished them with fried shallots but I don’t have any. They still taste good nontheless! Yummy! Another accomplishment for *~Riceballz~*! 
Popularity: 17% [?]
Posted in Cooking, Hawker Food, Noodles | No Comments »
