Dinner & Breakfast @ Bukit Mertajam, Penang

Ok, lets talk about dinner first..

Friday p.m

We headed off to the Tua Pek Kong temple at Bukit Mertajam, ronda-ronda and finally managed to get a parking spot, ‘parking attendant’ immediately appeared and offered his hand umm…not as in marriage proposal.. so, we dropped a few shiny coins into his open palms ( kinda like paying protection money, I guess), walked a few steps to the temple area where the hawker stalls were  and ohh..food galore..PW wanted to try a fishhead dish that a friend had recommended so we hunted around and finally found it at a shoplot at the street beside  the temple

The fishhead dish is like the deep fried chunks of fish meat ( and other parts) that we get in fishhead noodles, and these are cooked in a gravy with celery, spring onions, cabbage and tomatoes. You have a choice of porridge or bee hoon to go with this dish. We chose porridge and this seemed to go rather well with the fish which was rather tasty, umm..not bad

 

We ordered mixed  vege from a tai-chow stall at the same coffee shop – this was average,nothing to shout about.

 

Also ordered deep fried Belacan chicken, I wish the belacan flavour was a bit stronger. This was average

 

aturday a.m.

After the usual ‘what u want to eat ah? “ questions, we headed off to Kampung Baru for breakfast

The coffee shop occupied a corner area and was packed ( I didn’t note the name of the shop though ( clever me, eh?))  but I recall  it was near to 2 dialysis centre ( not a good enough clue ?)

I had Koay Chiap , I hadn’t come across any stalls in KL selling this yet,  The soup and the duck ( and whatever parts that were served : gizzard, intestine, skin, meat , liver etc) was rather tasty albeit a bit salty.

 

PW ordered dry prawn mee, there were 2 stalls selling prawn mee and after many many minutes of pondering ( and after a bowl of Kueh Chiap) , looking around the other tables to see which stall had the majority of the customer the decision was made- the stall at the front. PW paid extra to have some chicken feet added to the bowl. Looks good hor ? according to PW, this was not bad.

 

i tried some apam from the Indian stall, which was rather ok. ( anyway, what could go wrong with apam ?)

Ceruk Tok Kun @Bukit Mertajam, Penang

Yeahhh… Another (working) trip to Penang ..which meant a chance to catch up with the gang up north.

In the e-mails prior to the trip , I was told to pack my sport shoes which I did and noted the weight this added to my knapsack, well…. someone would be in trouble if I don’t get to use this.

When I did a search on Ceruk Tok Kun, most of the results were political based, as this is the hometown and birthplace of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.  Ceruk Tok Kun aka Hutan Lipur Bukit Mertajam is a forest reserve with an area of over 37 hectares. The highest peak- Bukit Mertajam (guess this was where BM got its name ?) is 457m above sea level. There are jungle trails as well as tarred roads leading to the hilltop , distance is said to be ~ 4km. ( ‘ceruk’ means : cleft, cranny, lane, path)

We arrived at the forest reserve at about 7:30 , both of the parking areas (one at the entrance, and another one further closer to the trek) were almost full, makeshift stalls were also being set up, peddling fresh vegetable and fruits, health drinks, goats milk. natural honey, traditional kuihs  etc

 

We started our walk at 7:45, quite a crowd, young, middle aged , old, tall, short, round, oblong, apple, pear, cellulite, serious joggers/ walkers ( with pedometer, sweatbands, ipod,  branded outfit and shoes), barefoot and bare-chested walkers (show offs) , telekung-ed females in long sleeves t-shirts and track pants, uncles in pagoda shirts , lipstick-ed females clad in tiny singlets, kiddies with Crocs ( the real thing or RM9.90 at Carrefour ?).

It was kinda tough in the beginning to get into the right pace, the trail can be steep at certain areas, 15 minutes into the walk and we were panting, out of breath, oily sweaty hairs tapered to our foreheads and our shoes felt like they weigh 50kg . And then you get potong-ed by aunties strolling by leisurely in their Japanese slippers with not a bead of sweat on their wrinkled foreheads, their permed white hair blowing gently in the breeze and you realised, how fit you are lorr.

 

Along the way, there were rustling sounds from the foliage, and sometimes it felt like something swooshed by at the back of you, well, turned out to be monkeys, bucketloads of them ! ‘ be careful of your bags’ an uncle who was walking a few paces behind us barked, some walkers tried to chase  the monkeys away with some sticks , but they held their stand. Come to think of it, it’s the human that were invading the space, not the other way around, maybe the monkeys should be chasing us off with  sticks ? (I do not have any photos of the monkeys as kiasi me was afraid that they might take off with my little Nikon.)

After a while (maybe half an hour )  we came to a rest area, like a tea-garden stop or something- although there were no tea being offered, just some walkers/joggers taking a rest, there was a clearing and I got a peek of the valley below.

 

The hilly slopes were filled with ferns, branching out, catching the sun…

 

These looked kinda alien like to me

 

Ferns against the bleak sky

 

 Baby ferns..sooooo cuteee one… looking like a cluster of sprouting question marks

 Apart from joggers/ walkers there were cyclists in their canggih shiny mountain bikes making their way up the hill. Strength and will power…

 

And some of them tsk tsk tsk…like that also can mehhh..cheating laahhhhh

 

 

 After walking for more than 1 hour, we came to another rest area complete with ‘gym facilities’ . we found quite a number of walkers there, taking a breather . We asked a couple who were enjoying their drinks, how far more to go to  get to the peak, they said that they hadn’t been up there before, we asked the same question to another girl and she said that this is the furthest she has been. Oh ah…

 

We decided to be heroes…to infinity and beyond…and left those lazy, weaklings  behind..

It was kinda eerie…the road was getting much steeper and the worse part was we didn’t see anyone up ahead, I guess the question of turning back crop up a few times, but then we will see someone coming down hill or a cyclist passing us, so we persisted…

 

And then finally…after 1.5 hours (total)  we reached the summit ( not quite Everest, but still….)  and was greeted by majestic looking telecommunication towers

 

On our descend, we met a lizzy out in the sun….

 

With aching feet and  rumbling stomachs, it took us close to 1 hour to get to the base. At the base, the fruit and vegetable stalls were enjoying brisk business, to temporary suppress our hunger, we brought some steamed jagung from a Pakcik , which turned out to be pretty tough ( the jagung, not the Pakcik) which meant I had a good jaw workout as well.

At the parking area we met MeowMeow out in the sun….

Thanks PW for arranging the walk, what a good (and dead tiring) way to spend sunday morning… i enjoyed that very much ( FYI- I had sore calves for the next 3 days, ouch ouch ouch )

One other thing highly commendable, i did not see discarded water bottles, plastic bags or litters along the trail , which is sooo unMalaysian one lerr

There was a shoe hanging around a bush somewhere though…Cinderella was here ?

  For a map to Ceruk Tok Kun, click here

 

Little Tree Cafe @ Kuchai Lama

Hadn’t met V for sometime and finally ‘negotiated’a suitable time for a meet-up, I wasn’t sure what was V’s inclination in food, but her simple pre requisite was ‘ anything, as long as it’s tasty’. Hmmm…should I suggest somewhere tried and tested ? or venture to the unknown ? Well, venture to the unknown won, hands down.

As we stepped into Little Tree Cafe, we found it  to be a cozy and comfortable, where you could yak in low voices for hours or get busy with  your laptop as they offer free wi-fi. The cafe occupies 2 shoplot, which must mean rather good business ?

We weren’t sure what to order and asked the waiter to recommend something. V was having Little Milan Chop, I wanted rice ( yeah, typical Asian) and asked for the  butter chicken lotus rice

For drinks, they have  health tea series, premium Italian coffee and fresh juices.  I ordered  the  Refresher – which was Celery + cucumber + sour plum. The strong taste of celery overpowered the other ingredients, very refreshing. Do not order this if you don’t like celery, duh !

V had Rainforest – which was a combination of guava + green apple + sour plum ( and maybe some other stuff), this was rather good. V was rather happy with her drink. (our drinks were RM7.50 each)

 

Butter chicken with lotus rice ( RM9.90), this was prettily presented. The rice topped with shredded dried seaweed came in a lotus leaf parcel, and a rather generous portion of bite sized chicken pieces drenched in some creamy gravy. The rice was fragrant, rather like chicken rice. and the chicken was interesting, the taste is not unlike  the taste of butter prawns complete with curry leaves and all. This was nice.

 

The Little Milan chop (RM15.90)  is a undercover chicken dish…hmmm…the chicken is sandwiched between 2 slices of ham and generous amount of cheese, the dish also came with a dollop of mash potato +cauliflower + broccoli  . this was creamy cheesy rich, the gravy was tasty, the combination of the ham+cheese+chicken was rather good. V was smiling ear to ear and will start to recommend Little Tree to her circle of contacts.

 

Overall, I would rate this as good , in terms of food , service and environment.

Thanks for the treat V !!

Location  :

 No 13 & 15 Jalan Kuchai Maju 8,

Jalan Kuchai Lama

56200 K.L

Tel 7983 1380

( Little Tree is at the next  block of shop lot behind Jojo’s kitchen, you can refer to the location map to JoJo here )

Biz hours : Mon- Fri 10am – 1 am

                   Sat – Sun 10 am – 2 am