PIGGIN OUT: DUBU DUBU, MID VALLEY

MUST VISIT.

We first discovered this restaurant during one of our Wednesday movie nights in MidValley. After being a frequent visitor of MidValley for the past 8 years on every Wednesday, we’ve gotten quite tired of the restaurants there so we tried this newly established restaurant.

We visited this place again the second time last week (mainly because we were so pissed with the service we received from Manhattan Fish Market that we walked out without ordering and patronized Dubu Dubu instead. To be fair, Manhattan had since apologized and offer a free meal as a gesture of sincerity).

No. 1 - the service at this relatively small unknown restaurant (in Malaysia) was really good. The waitress was very prompt in welcoming you, showing you to your seat, taking your orders and serving your orders in nothing more than 10 minutes. Just puts your mind at peace especially after fuming over Manhattan.

No. 2 – even though the restaurant is located at the Lower Ground of MidValley where most of the fast food chains are, the open concept and ambience of the place makes you feel really comfortable and the spaciousness does not in any sense make the restaurant feel like a cheap crowded fast food chain.

No. 3 – the food quality is comparable to the other more famous Korean restaurants. I absolutely love their rice. They don’t serve white rice but a different version of our brown rice. The rice is soft, fragrant and is so good, I don’t care what side dishes they serve. Apart from their dishes, I absolutely love their ginger tea. A must try.

No. 4 – the price. Their dishes are mostly priced between RM15 – RM20 (exception for more meaty dishes). And these are prices for their dishes that comes in set (3 side dishes & soup). Definitely affordable.

Overall, physically, this looks like a simple unassuming Korean restaurant but is a really simple and fantastic Korean restaurant.

 

Location:

LG-048 Lower Ground Floor,
Mid Valley Megamall.

PIGGIN OUT: RESTORAN 8 ROAD, PUCHONG

It’s been awhile since I visited a Chinese restaurant that gave me a “Wow” feeling. It’s always the same old dishes that you have to order, with nothing really exciting about them except for some being cooked better than others.

We frequent Puchong area pretty often but my in-laws/parents (I can’t remember who) had to beat me to visiting this place. It was just the week before that we almost ate here. But my in-laws/parents beat me to it by organizing a meal here before we could go there by ourselves.

Road 8 Restaurant offers something different to their diners. If you’re bored of the biasa-biasa type of Chinese food, you’ve got to visit here for a change in dishes.

One dish which you can find here, rarely found in any other Chinese restaurant in urban area is their Wild Boar Curry Meat! Now you don’t have to go drive some 100km away to some ulu-ulu place just to have a taste of wild boar meat. And they prepare is really well as well. Think curry sauce and the meat is soft and tender.

Another interesting dish here is their Lotus Petai Vegetable. Albeit the fact that it’s a bit oily, the two vegetables goes really well together. A total diversion from the usual petai sambal and lotus soup.

We also ordered their Yin and Yang Pai Kuat which wasn’t too bad at all. Half fried with char siew sauce, the other served with mayonnaise.

The other dish that we ordered was something I cannot remember. My wife is the one that usually orders this. Some starchy soup with loads of taufu, crab meat and egg. Taste a lot like sharks fin without the fin. So if you’re a bit poor, an animalist who shouts “Save the sharks! Say no to shark fin! Down with the Chinese people! Kill the Chinese people!” then this would be the dish for you.

As I can’t read Chinese, I have no idea how much it each cost. So to those who can read Chinese, here you go, to those who’s like me who can’t, take faith in my recommendation and your wallet and visit the place. I don’t get any commission out of it.

Location:

Restoran 8 Road (Road 8 Restaurant)

No. 12A & 15,

Jalan Kenari 8,

Bandar Puchong Jaya

47100 Puchong, Selangor.

GPS: N3.046895, E101.622684

PIGGIN OUT: KEDAI MAKANAN LAUT SUNGAI YU BARU

While having my meal here on Mother’s Day, something struck me. All the food blogs have got it all wrong. They have always shown PERFECT UNTOUCHED pictures of food. That’s wrong. This is how the pictures should be displayed. But before that, a little write up.

 I think I first discovered this place when I got back from the States a couple of years back. They used to be located within the housing area nearby before moving to Bukit Tinggi. I had no idea the old shop still exist caused when they had their break up, the send everyone a message saying their new address is now in Bukit Tinggi. It was not until a couple years later that when I accidentally contacted the old shop to confirm my booking that I realize that the old shop still exists. That was a really cunning and smart move.

One thing I really love about this place is the quality of their food as well as the price. My first experience with Klang was in Telok Gong. But after discovering this place, Telok Gong is now a forgotten place. This place serves way better food than Telok Gong. For example, ordered Salted Egg Crab in both places – in Sungai Yu, it was loaded with the yolk of the salted egg and you’ll be licking it off the crab orgasmically while in Telok Gong, there was not a drop of salted egg yolk. All there is was a salty taste on the crab. Another example would be their Lala Mihun. In Telok Gong, you’ll be looking for the lala like looking for the “you know what” spot. But in Sungai Yu, its overloaded with it.

So ever since then, Telok Gong has been a God forsaken land where I would never recommend anyone going except if you fancy sitting beside a coconut tree for dinner.

Apart from the great tasting food and price, this place also has a wide variety of food which is good cause after visiting it a few times, you can get bored (except for the salted egg crab) and there they have other varieties for you to taste.

So here are some of the pictures of the food we had – the real food blogger way.

First up is my favorite – salted egg crab (RM59/kg). Loaded with salted egg all over the crab that you would definitely not be able to find one dot of salted egg left. Meat is absolutely fresh too.

Next best is their Tom Yam Prawn served in a coconut (RM43). Prawns are of course fresh and the tom yam is sour the way I like it. Definitely the soup would be slurp up. Not once did we have left over soup.

Next up is their curry buttered crab (RM59/kg). This was a new dish that I have yet to try. Crabs boiled in curry loaded santan. Good for those who’s suicidal and fears jumping off the building. Left over sauced meant none of us were suicidal enough.

We also ordered the Clams (Lala) with wine (RM23) and it turned out really good too. They used the bigger version of lala and the freshness and sweetness of it went really well with the Chinese wine and garlic.

The other thing that we always order is their BBQ sting ray (RM24). All that was left was the sauce.

The other stuff that we had for the day which I didn’t manage to capture were of course their Lala Mihun- RM15 for large (which of course is a must order), their Chicken Tonic – RM28 (which was pretty ok) and their deep fried squid – RM20 (biasala).

Overall, even though I am a little muak of their BBQ sting ray, I would still keep coming back here because there’s still a lot of dishes which I have yet to taste. And going by my experience so far, I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.

Location:

Kedai Makanan Laut Sungai Yu Baru,

31-0, Lorong Batu Nilam,

3B, Bandar Bukit Tinggi,

41200 Klang, Selangor

Contact: 03-3325 8808

JOY, WARMTH AND ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL

Athalie is now 18 months old and as the days passes, she continuously adds joy, laughter and happiness into our lives. Watching her grow and interact with the world around her is simply the best thing to just sit down and do… that provided she doesn’t come over to me and say, “Up. Up. Daddy Daddy up”, and she holds your finger and walks you to where she wants to go – be it a water area, to her toys, books, etc.  It really doesn’t matter. Her little hand clasping your finger transports you to her world where everything is beautiful.

We’ve been constantly amazed at her progress in her vocab. We don’t drill her and sit her down to learn words etc… but her ability to catch up on the nursery rhymes we read to her and our conversations is seriously out of the world. At around 16 months, she was completing sentences in a nursery rhymes and story books and a couple of weeks back, she completed the sentences for the entire “Sing a Song of Six Pence” which is a seriously long nursery rhyme and then she recited the entire “Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars” all by herself. It totally blew us away. All this progress that she’s making never fails to put a smile on our face, hold each other so much more closer and just be thankful for the wonderful daughter that God has so graciously given to us. It melts our heart further to hear her sing, “Daddy, Daddy, I love you” or “Mummy, Mummy, I love you”.

The other joy she brings to us is through her excitement. This can be when we come out from the bathroom and she chasses us around while we try to get dress, when we go for a holiday and she literally just run around the hotel room screaming for joy, her excitement when we bring her to the pool/seaside, how she enjoys her food and feed herself or when she dances and sings. All of these just bring about so much joy to the both of us and makes us just want to spend all our time with her. These precious moments not only alleviates all our worries but also brings the family closer together and appreciate the love and company we have in each other.

It’s beyond words how a 18 months baby could bring about so much love and joy to the people around her and wipe out all worries and gloominess. Simply beautiful.