Chiang Rai Style Restaurant

I was a frog in a coconut shell many years ago. I thought Tom Yam is the name of chinese owner of a restaurant. Tom is the English name and Yam is the surname. Needless to say, I was the laughing stock for a while to my friends because of this. Prior to this incident, little innocent me had no experience whatsoever with Thai cuisine and would avoid spicy food to the best I could. That changed when I moved from hometown to big city Kuala Lumpur for further studies.

In the beginning, I just don't have a stomach for spicy food. I eat something spicy then I would surely get stomach upset as if the intestine turns upside down in my stomach making me feel very uncomfortable.

The situation went on for a few years and during those years, I was eating chinese non-spicy food only. One day, I got so fed up and I started to explore other cuisines. I tasted Malay cuisine and despite the spiciness, I like it! My stomach did not take it well. From that point of time onwards, I took one step at a time: I started with a little spicy until my stomach get used to it then I added on a little bit more spicy, and then a little bit more and so on. Now, I would say that I love spicy food and sometimes I just can't get enough of it.

Why I am telling you this little story here... I don't know. It comes out naturally or perhaps because I have a favourite Thai restaurant that I would like to tell you about.

A little bit history here and don't throw shoes at me. I know it is getting longer.

It happened one day many years ago, maybe 2 to 3 years back, I went with my girl friend to Tak Fuk restaurant in Kepong which is famous for its salted eggs / butter & cheese crabs. The shop was, unfortunately, closed on that day therefore we ended up looking around for other restaurant. Walking down the same row of shop towards the end, we noticed a Thai restaurant across the road and it was not noticeable at all because the signage was not well-lit and not many people were dining in there at that time. Anyway, I could read the name of the shop from where I was standing: Chiang Rai Style Restaurant. We walked across and decided to have our dinner there.

That is one hell of discovery and up until today, I still patronize that restaurant on and off whenever I crave for Thai food.

Okay, history class is over. Me and my girl friend have recently visited the restaurant so these photos are quite new.











As far as I can tell, the shop hasn't changed much over the years. Same posters / pictures / wall decorations. Two big aquariums on the left and right side of the restaurant's entrance. The Thai music clips are constantly playing in the television.










There were a few tables of customer on that day.











I have one conclusion from many years of eating Thai food in various restaurants : Those 4 to 5-star Thai restaurants that charge you handsomely on food do not necessarily give you the value of your money. The taste is so-so and you don't feel like the money well spend. I had dined in one famous Thai restaurant and guess what, I was charged at about RM15.00 for a small bowl of Tom Yam Seafood soup and no it did not taste like heaven to me and the other dishes costed me about RM80.00 plus on my share and I was not blown away at all. There hasn't any Thai restaurant that really stands out in my memory except Chiang Rai Style Restaurant.

I would not say Chiang Rai Style Restaurant is the best out there but it certainly scores better in terms of quality and price in comparison to many Thai restaurants. When I am hunger, I remember Chiang Rai Style Restaurant.

Two glasses of chinese tea to go with our food. Let me warn you here that the food is generally spicy hot. Unless you are eating chili padi for living, whatever you order, tell the kitchen to go easy with the chili padi. Don't sprinkle chili padi over food like sprinkle salt.











Yummy yummy. The Tom Yam seafood soup. I never fail to order Tom Yam every time I eat there. This one here costs you RM7.00 and the soup is just superb. Very much to my liking. To me, this is the best Tom Yam soup in town. It is quite spicy and usually we will order a few rounds of drink to go with it.











Thai mango salad at RM6.00. If you don't eat chili padi like drinking water, it will take you sometime to pick them out from the salad. The mango was not crunchy this time.











Four pieces of Pandan Chicken at RM5.00. Well-marinated and fried to perfection. I just love it! It is troublesome to unwrap the pandan but this dish never fail to make me smile.











Pineapple fried rice at RM6.00. Here is one thing that I don't understand. Why usually the fried is rice put in the hollowed pineapple? Why they make you scoop from the hollowed pineapple? It scores point for presentation but the scooping is difficult sometimes from my personal bad experience. As long as it tastes like pineapple fried rice, it is good for me. You can keep your pineapple.

This one over here in the photo comes with chicken floss which enhances the taste of the fried rice. The best pineapple fried rice that I have tasted in town.











Vegetable at RM6.00. You know I know. No description needed.











There are other dishes which are equally tasty and affordable like boneless fried chicken, Thai style steamed fish, fried fishcake, and etc. If you are there with big group of people, try them out.

Total charge is RM31.00. Well, I still think that it is very reasonable. Happy me!

One thing that is disappointing for is that we did not get our free fruits. We used to get free sliced fruits at the end of our meal without fail but I guess with the operation cost on the way up, they just could not give away freely anymore.

The restaurant is next to OldTown white coffe.











There is another Thai Restaurant in Cheras which I like to tell you about. Wait till I have photos of that place and I will blog about it.

Gloomy Perspective

It is almost certain now that Najib, who had won the seat of President of UMNO uncontested, would become the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia in no time. I do not think Badawi has any more plots up his sleeve now to derail Najib's path.

The acceptance of Najib as new Prime Minister has been viewed upon negatively by many of us: rakyat biasa. There is an on-line petition to reject him as PM. Zaid Ibrahim has been very vocal in objecting Najib being the PM. UMNO veteran Razaleigh even hinted that power is in the hand of Agong Tuanku to appoint someone else to be PM despite the fact that UMNO presidents had been the PM of the country traditionally. Anwar and opposition have got nothing else that can be done to upset the certainty. Political comments have been unfavourable to Najib as well.

It is loathsome to Rakyat of his illegal, undemocratic, and unethical way of wrestling control over the Perak's State Government and his economy stimulus packages have been anything but economy stimulating.

Internationally, Najib's reputation has been widely tarnished with the gruesome coverage of corruption and love-murder afair with Altantuya. What a notorious reputation he have achieved for the beloved country even before assuming the power of PM.

It is not an understatement that Najib is the most controversial and unpopular PM-to-be among the predecessors.

With his ascension, what are the implications do you see, Rakyat biasa?

The day of seeing a fairer, democratic, unite, and harmonious society is now gloomy and farther away from me.

TastyPot BBQ / Steamboat Restaurant

I can still recall correctly what and how it happened on that day. It started with the teeth. I just could not stop grinding my teeth even thought there wasn't anything in my mouth to munch. My lips became dry. Soon after that, my hands started to shake and my palm sweated. I could not focus on the whatever I was doing at that time as my stomach growled and hollowed.

I looked up at the clock and it was 6.00pm. I felt an unstoppable urge inside me growing stronger and stronger with every minute went by. I tried to relax my mind but I just could not.

The symptoms persisted but... but... I was not a slightest worry because I know exactly what the remedy was.

I could not think of anyone else except Ah Hung so immediately I rang him up and told him about my situation and the cure that I had been thinking. He knew there and then that we need to meet up 7pm at Sunway Mentari. I guessed he had those symptoms too on the other side of phone.

Once in a while, both of us feel the need to challenge gastronomical capacity: How much can go in. We normally patronize Yuen Buffet Steamboat at Sunway Mentari when we have abovementioned symptoms but recently we have found another buffet restaurant nearby Yuen that gives its customers good value on food freshness, quality and variety: TastyPot BBQ / Steamboat Restaurant.

Apparently, the restaurant has been around since June 2006 but it was moved to a new location recently due to fire. If you google for bloggers' reviews, which mostly before the shop moved to where it is located now, you would find the reviews have been so-so. Nothing to shout about. However, I have been there for a couple times now and I must say that for the price of RM23.80 per person, this has got to be blogged about!

Me and Ah Hung reached there at about 7pm.















As you can see from the photo on the right, the place was started to pack with people. Judging from the number, the crowd has increased from the last visit.

I am not a business man but I think for a fact that Yuen Buffet Steamboat is, literally, just around the corner. TastyPot has to be, at least, up to the mark or better than Yuen for long term survival. Anyway, what TastyPot has to offer is much better than Yuen from my humble opinion. No, I am not paid to say this.

My observation is that the food is very fresh and freshly prepared. That is, to me, the prerequisite of good steamboat and the food variety is up to my satisfaction. Basically, they have about the similar items in Yuen but they offer something extra in terms of seafood: Big and small bamboo clams, mussels, scallops, and meat crabs （肉蟹）on top of flower crabs. They are very generous with the meat crab which I know it's quite pricey in the market. The crabs are prepared by cracking and separating the pincers from the bodies. So there are two containers: One for pincers and the other one bodies and occasionally, you would find some crab roe with it. The crab is quite sizable as well. I swear I had one pincer that is as big as... er... Lux bar soap. Bad comparison I know but it is BIG.











I love seafood perhaps that is why I find TastyPot is so lovingly attractive for me. By the way, very limited choice in terms of poultry. They have barbecue lamp though. Look at this photo down here.















I am talking about half of the whole lamp here. By the time I took this photo, easily 80% of the meat was eaten up. The lamp tasted just fine for me. I had news from my friend that there was one time they had barbecued salmon fish head. Lucky him!

I also like the fact that there has been a grill corner that offers different way of cooking. It is great to have your food cook in a simmering pot of broth. It is even better to have your food grill to perfection as grilling brings different level of taste to your food.















There are grilled potatos / sweet potatos, grilled corns, grilled bamboo clams (Love it!), grilled scallops, grilled crabs, grilled squids, grilled prawns, grilled fishes, and grilled whatever.

Everybody knows that the signature food of Yuen Steamboat is the delicious roasted chicken wing which is notoriously responsible of making people totally forget about decency and behave like monkey. Likewise, TastyPot has roasted chicken wing too but I like Yuen's chicken wing better.

More photos for you.




























Condiment is so important in steamboat and the more choice the better. I mean the right dipping sauce would enhance the taste and add flavour to the food. Geez, the way I put it sounds like chef's comment from a cooking show. Well, they have chopped parley, spring onion, chili pepper, chili padi, fried onion, garlic flake, and etc. You can be as creative as you like with the sauce.

There are six soup base to choose from tranditional ones like chinese herb, porriage, soya bean, to exotic / adventurous ones like tom yam, spicy and curry soya bean. As we like it simple, we had our soup in chinese herb and soya bean. Not bad at all I would say.











The best way to end your meal would be fruits and desserts. Sorry for I don't have any photo on this because they are just usual stuff: sliced orange, honey dew, watermelon and a few selections of ice-cream. Use your imagination.

The place is spacious and good thing it is open air and the heat from the stove disperses quickly into the air so you would not feel warm while eating there.

One thing that I found unreasonable was the charge of RM7.00 for a simple pot of chinese tea. This was a bit much. That asides, TastyPot is my kind of place and seafood lovers out there.

The cure was very effective indeed and all symptoms were gone by the time dinner was over... until they return next time.

News That Pissed Me Off

This was published in my Facebook. For some reason, I like the simplicity of it and would like to share it with you here. I came across this news not so long ago and boy oh boy it pissed the hell out of me so much thinking about the tax money we pay! Here you go.

Goyang kaki, duit-duit mari
Hidup banyak senang, Rakyat bayar gaji
Kompani tak untung, itu saya tak peduli
Gaji tetap mari, itu yang saya peduli
5.10 juta gaji, saya senyum tiap-tiap hari
Nak kerja saya diganti, mati-mati tak akan jadi
Kompani mana boleh dibeli, Pakatan Rakyat kuat mimpi
Siapa kata saya keji, otak kau yang patut dikaji
Nak tahu siapa saya ini, pandai-pandai la klick sini

I know, my Bahasa Malaysia is lousy but the message gets to you right? This is sickening to me but it happened. If you and me not perform up to the mark in our jobs, we will be taken off from the post or worse still, get sacked and feel defeated / humiliated. Furthermore, in the time of recession, we are praying hard to God not to take our jobs away. But those in Government-linked companies do not have to face this. Key Performance Indicators do not matter. The company suffered huge loss under his management but unabashedly, he still gets to enjoy RM5 million annual salary and perks!

The fact that the Company made huge loss is a real mystery. How on earth did the loss come about? No answer given.

Paddington House of Pancakes

Now, this is my first entry on food so let me make one thing clear that it is not my objective to make any recommendation like this-food-is-good-go-try-it-out-that-one-is-lousy-skip-it kind of thing. I am not an expert in food tasting nor I cook so even if I do comment like I would kill to have this or it tastes like shit, it should be taken as an honest account of me on the food that I tried. Do not hold me responsible for anything if you take my review overly serious. After all, what is good for me may not be that good for you.

Okay, enough with the nonsense. Here we go.

I am not a big fan of pancake hence I have never thought of setting foot in Paddington House of Pancakes. Every time I pass by Paddington, I would steal glance through the window glass trying to find out what people are eating (Not nice to peep but curiosity get the better of me) and many questions would come to my mind like what could they be possibly cooked with pancake? What can be so special about pancake? How many types of pancake can there be? After all, pancake is just simple food (to me), right?

The questions lingered on until last Sunday, me and my giril friend strode into Paddington in a quest to find answer to those nagging questions.

We were warmly greeted by the staff who smiled at us as If I am about to tip him RM1,000 and as we are about to blah blah blah...... fast forward to the menu shall we? I don't want to bore you with trivia.

Well, one good-looking menu was my first impression when I held it in my hand. The thing I would have to say next is that the menu is a bit confusing to me (was I the only one?) and after a while staring / browsing through it, I got a bit disorientated by the fact that there are so many pancakes that I would like to try! They really spoil you with choices I must say or it is just me that has little experience with pancake.

It took forever for me to make up my mind on this one but good thing that there is a small separate menu that helps customer to choose the ideal pancake by outlining popular choices in Paddington.

Well, when you can't make up your mind, just go with the recommendation! Let me show you what we ordered that day. The photos are taken directly from the menu. I say Paddington's Big Taukey, you should pay the photographer well for good job done on the photos as staring at them can make one really hungry. At least it works that way for me.

I ordered the above. It comes with double gourmet cheese sausages, beef salami, hashbrown and grilled mozzarella. When my order came, it was a let-down visual-wise. For some reasons, I actually expected the actual one to be as good as the photo's.











My girl friend ordered Grilled Chicken Burger that comes with caramelized onions, grilled cheddar, peppers, chicken ham and hashbrown.

My impression of sausage has been so-so. Nice to eat but if I am to choose between egg sandwich and sausage for lunch, sausage would go to the refrigerator. The so-called premium sausage that I had tried before failed to elevate the ranking of sausage in Food That I Love Chart. In fact, I was a bit skeptical and wanted to change my order. I am glad that I did not.











As I sliced the sausages into small parts, my thought was: If I am going to be charged for that much, this sausage has to be good or else I will burn down Paddington! Thanks God the sausage was indeed a heaven treat and God did not want me to end up in prison an arson convict.

As much as I like to eat, I do not have rich vocabulary to help me in describing food taste that could make you drool like a baby. So this is simple straightforward from me: The best sausage that I have in my life and I would like to use Britney Spears' sluttish song in the background "Gimme more, gimme more" to enhance my statement. For me, it did not taste like I am biting a sausage, it has texture! Mind you, I have views that sausage don't have texture at all and you eat one sausage is like you have eaten all the sausage in the world: They all taste alike. I was very wrong about this. Suffice to say that I was eating 'meat' rather than sausage. Soft texture, tender meat, rich flavour, and the brown sauce is perfect to the meat.

Enough with the description on sausage now or else I would jump up from my seat and drive down from Seremban to the nearest Paddington and threaten the chef to cook one for me now or end up losing the retaurant in fire even though it's 1pm at the time of writing.

The pancake did not dissapoint me. It was soft and tasty and it had a mild sweetness to it which is very nice and it did not conflict with the brown sauce. The beef salami tasted equally good. I had the urge to lip-clean the plate. I would die a happy sausage man right there and then.

Likewise, my girl friend enjoyed her pancake as much as she enjoys shopping / window-shopping for new pair of shoes every now and then.















I was thinking to myself why did she order chicken burger as there are, obviously, better choices? Don't argue with woman about choices I tell you just don't go there but go with the flow.

I took a bite on the burger. My oh my, the burger tasted oh so heavenly good! It is like the meat, pancakes, hashbrown, sauce and everything in the plate fit in well together in taste! No wonder she was quiet, very concentrated and contended the whole time. I don't mind to lip-clean her plate.

You don't leave Paddington without trying the desserts. There are many choices but as soon as I saw this photo down here, I know immediately what to order.











Maple baked mixed fruits (peaches, plum, pineapples, strawberries, bluberries) and ice-cream. This baby costs me RM23.50 and we waited 20 minutes for a freshly baked pancake dessert!

When it finally landed on my table, I was taken aback at the size of it: That's like my face times 2! There should be a warning to customer that this dessert is good for three persons. As much as I like to eat dessert, this is too big for the two of us. We did not get to finish it.

























Needless to say with the amount of food and contentment we had, we happily paid the bill and slowly inched towards the exit looking like two big round balloons.

Me: Do you Belch want to come back again? Belch
Girl friend: Yeah, I think I really like Paddington. Belch

So we will be back to Paddington to try out other pancakes.

One Day In Bentong

Not so long ago, me and my girl friend travelled to Bentong to meet up a friend and we were shown around Bentong. The trip was sort of last minute really but I was eager to go to Bentong because I know there is this famous homemade ice-cream and of course the hot spring which make the trip worthwhile. Besides, it only takes an hour to travel to Bentong so why not?

On the way to Bentong, we were dead worried that the weather would not be too kind to us. It looked like it was going to rain. Well, it turned out the weather was just nice the whole trip.

Upon reaching Bentong town, we were hungry like hell as we had skipped breakfast that morning. We were introduced to a food stall that is selling delicious wantan mee at the junction opposite Chinese Town-Hall.















The wantan mee was not bad at all. If you ask me, the best wantan mee that I have ever tasted so far is Guan Kee at China Town, Kuala Lumpur.













The bakery shop that sells tasty cheese tarts. The cakes are nice too judging from the look and the number of customers queuing up to buy them but we refused to give in to the temptation at this point.












We save our appetite for the homemade ice-cream!

Here you are the famous Bentong homemade ice-cream. The restaurant is located on the way to Bentong town and it is called Kedai Kopi Kow Po like 'Kaw Bo' in HokKein which means something like is that enough? Of course, this is just my speculation and I did not know if the owner did come up with the name just like that.

I tasted many different kind of ice-cream. I would say that this has got to be remembered as one of the best-tasting ice-creams in Malaysia! It tastes so much better than those exaggeratedly and unreasonably priced out there.











Apparently, The Ruler of the state loves the ice-cream according to the newspaper cutting on the wall. I ordered 3 flavours: Peanut, Chocolate, and Coffee. They don't taste like your average ice-cream which, usually, too sugary and / or dairy. Creamy texture but doesn't taste creamy at all. Suffice to say that the sweetness is subtle and the flavour takes you to the heaven, figuratively. Oh well, I think I fail miserably in describing the taste but trust me on this one, they are really good! Do not give the banana flavour a miss. You would regret it! RM2.00 per scoop.

If you have a Bentong friend, he / she would probably tell you that you shouldn't miss the rivers / waterfalls. After the meal and ice-cream, it seemed natural to cool down the body temperature a bit with the cooling river water!

We were brought to what the locals called Batu Tujuh river where it is located somewhere at the Bentong-KL old road about 10 to 15 minute drive from Bentong town. You would not miss it. It is on the right side of the road and there is a signboard 'Perting Terjun' or something like that. There is no reason why we can't appreciate our nature a little bit more. The river is beautiful and I am so glad that I was there. It takes the mind to serenity immediately. Enough with words, let the photos speak!























We chose a resting spot not too far from the junction. The river seems to be very popular with visitors as car after car drove pass us. There are couples and families taking up different resting spots along the river. The water was freezing cold as if filled with invisible ice cubes! Took me a while to go fully wet.

























If you plan to visit this place, do take note that it does not provide public facility where you can change and bath. You have to think of other arrangement.

It is pity to see that the place is littered. Malaysian, be a responsible visitor clean up before leave!

While it was fun dabbling the icy water but who would resist the thought of dipping into hot spring water and cook up your body a little? Did it sound sadistic the way I put it? Ha ha.

Further down the same old road (Bentong to KL direction), in less than 5 minute, the hot spring is on the right. Surround by green hills in all direction, the place had many visitors at the time we reached there around 5pm.











There are two separate pools: One for the water that is lukewarm as shown above. Be warned that this pool is covered with dark green alga hence the water is somewhat dark greenish which makes it less desirable to dip in. The other one, which is my favour, would cook your body literally because the water is boiling hot and bubbles going up from the ground clearly visible from the surface. The water is clear in this pool so for me this is godsend.











The hot spring is at its hottest point at around the noon time so cleverly avoid your visit to the hot spring at that time.

On a serious note, I think it is kind of important to observe courtesy and be considerate whenever we are at the public places. It was totally irksome to me seeing one of the visitors bathing in one of the pools as if he owns the place! He soaped and washed off in the pool in full view of others!

Just like many other places of interest, the rubbishes were everywhere in the landscape and the public facility is poorly maintained which defeats the very purpose of having it at the first place.

We did not stay long. Took a bath at friend's home and then we went to Bentong's town for dinner.

By the time we reached Mee Heong Restaurant, it was 8pm and rain started to pour down so, was I lucky or what? Had it rained at day time, I wouldn't have half the fun of the day. The restaurant was packed with people.










With the waiter's recommendation, we ordered Indonesia sotong and Hong Kong fried chicken. The Bentong people definitely has international perspective if you ask me. What next? Hot-like-Brazilian-girl soup or sweet-sweet kawai Japanese girl desert. Come to think of it, it would be fun to name dishes with country names, don't you think? Give me one kick-ass Irish beer please. It may not look tempting from the photos (my photography sucks big time!) but the fried chicken is really good!











This is a dish that I can't recall its name but it's bean curd with fish paste in clay pot something like that. The other dishes not mentioning here are just usual stuff. Stir-fried vegetable and etc.












Time flies when you are having fun. We stayed for catching up with each other and departed from Bentong to Kuala Lumpur at around 11pm.

A pleasant trip indeed. Thanks Bernard for showing us around Bentong!