Marco Seafood @ Kompleks Cemera Asri , Medan & Maha Vihara Maitreya

We arrived at Marco around 8pm ( which is 9pm Malaysian time, way way past my dinner time..stomach growling…). Marco is an open air restaurant, the street in front of the restaurant is arranged with red plastic chairs and white tables, my host mentioned that dining starts from 5pm until late night. While making way to our table, noticed that people were feasting on crabs, prawns, ikan bakar etc and the place was nearly full, there’s also indoor seats and there is not a single soul in there, so I guess people in Medan share the same sentiments with the Malaysian on their preference to dine in open areas lah..

My host had brought along his 8 year old kid who was decked in pink from  head ( pink ribbons) to toe (pink sandals), I was trying to catch her eye and making faces at her ( actually, I have a funny looking face even without trying)  but she seemed to sulk and punch her father’s belly  whenever I try to talk to her, I think she will make a good WWF contender..

We had asparagus soup,- not the mat salleh type but  which looked like sharkfin soup with the ‘egg flower’ ( egg twirls) and as for the taste, it taste like shark fin soup ( plus the starchy part) with undertones of spiciness, the asparagus was soft and goes well with the soup.

When I took out the camera to snap some pictures of the dishes, little girl had this puzzle and sulky  look on her face ( my interpretation  of her expression is ‘what is this crazy woman doing, has she gone off her rocker..’) well..they hadn’t impose any fasten seat belt ruling about the rocker ma..so, i fell off loh..

 The fried taugeh ( minus the kepala) was next , there were bits of spring onions and prawns in the dish. The taugeh was fried with some garlic,  The dish looked plain with not much of colour, and luckily it taste better than it’s appearance.

The  deep fried sotong seemed to be the only dish that the little girl was interested in as she threw a few hard piunch to  daddy’s belly when he served her the taugeh and soup . I find the batter for the sotong a bit hard, almost like a hard-ish shell for the sotong -kinda like sotong coated in muruku flour- if you get what I mean ( i.e not like those crunchy and finer batter  that breaks easily when you bite into it ). You have to chew pretty long on the sotong as well..

The fish used for the ikan bakar was cat fish, the meat was smooth (and luckily without any muddy taste) but I find that it wasn’t well marinated as the meat was tasteless.

Overall- an average meal -, I am wondering maybe we didn’t order the right dishes as judging from the big crowd at  Marco -the food must have been pretty good huh ?

After the meal, Mr Host was kind enough to suggest a visit to a temple nearby- the Maha Vihara Maitreya. It’s a pretty gigantic temple, the compound was pretty big and with a few stories as well which includes accommodation, auditoriums, classrooms and the main hall. It seemed that development work started in Jan 1999 and the official opening ceremony was in August 2008. I guess this would be added to the itinerary for the tourist to Medan.

I noticed this guy rubbing the belly of the ‘Big belly Buddha’ statue located at the outside of the main hall  ( he was carrying on for more than 5 minutes !)

I like the look of this grand looking stone lion guarding the temple grounds. There were numerous stone columns engraved with prancing dragons at the entrance which was very impressive 

There were  3 statues in the main hall, but due to the angle and the pillars , I only managed to get 2 in this picture lah. By this time, little girl has thawed a bit and we played hide and seek around the numerous pillars .

 I didn’t manage to get good pictures – but  found some interesting pictures here  , please click here  http://www.panoramio.com/photo/14133609

Cin Yen Steamboat & Chinese Food @ Medan

December seemed to be a good  month for getting married in Medan , we parked the car to get into Nelayan Seafood Restaurant for dinner but had to make a quick exit as the place was fully booked, my host drove passed a few Chinese restaurants and all were reserved for wedding dinners. After driving around heavy traffic, we finally arrived at Cin Yen

 Stepping into the restaurant, we were greeted by ladies in red christmas hats and the restaurant is decked with christmas decorations. As the name suggest, you can opt for steamboat or chinese food, we decide on the latter, the host did the honour of ordering the dishes which include : Fish soup with yam, Two taste chicken, stewed pig trotters and hot plate tofu.

 For appertizers, we were served stewed peanuts- which was soft and tasty; and acar – which had plenty of sesame on it , it was spicy and tasty.

 For drinks, again, a big variety of fresh juices, the host recommend the ’sawi + nenas’ ( spinach + pineapple) – as I am a believer that nothing with pineapple in it could taste bad, I obeyed. Aprokat ( avacado) also seemed to be a Medan specialty ). The Avacado drink that my colleague ordered looked really pretty, the green drink plus twirls of thick chocolate. I must be looking very greedily at the drink, so i was allowed to scoop some of the juice from the glass..hmm..not too bad, although it seemed a pretty filling ( heavy)  drink ( as you would imagine avacado might be) .

 As for my drink, which is aka Green Garden ( or words to that effect), it is pretty good- there is no ‘green’ taste of spinach at all- probably hidden by the stronger pineapple taste.This is an interesting blend, I might try it at home.hmmm

 The fish soup is said to be new on the menu, and when it arrived, wow..it was in a very big white earthern pot, when the waitress uncovered the lid..wow..i think the soup could easily feed 10 pax ! the soup is very much like the soup of the  fish head noodles ( plus milk)  that we get back in KL, there were pieces of fish ( fried), tofu and pieces of yam in the soup.

 

The stewed trotters arrived with a ‘loaf’ of fried buns, the thick and dark gravy was glistening on the fatty skin ( makes one salivate), later the waitress came by and snip-snip-snip and  cut up the trotter into smaller pieces. Dip a slice of the bun into the gravy and wrap that around a piece of the trotter  … bitting into trotters+bun+gravy….ahhhh… heavenly, the meat was tender and well marinated. This dish is one of the must order at Cin Yen.

 

The 2-taste chicken – one  dry and the other wet – 1 part  fried and coated with sesame, and the other one was in darkish sauce. The chicken in sauce was tasty and the interesting thing is that the fried chicken taste like fish paste..i may be hallucinating..must be the spinach + pineapple..

 

Due to the big soup pot, we had to rearrange the dishes every time a new dish was brought to our table, the final dish- hot plate tofu tofu pieces with chopped mushrooms and slightly spicy sauce , all on top of the hot plate lined with a thin omelet – tasty

 

Overall – all of the dishes were tasty and the service was pretty quick as well. Burrppp..

 

Cin Yen Steamboat and Chinese Food

@ Kompleks Multatuli Indah Blok AA 8 Medan

Tel : ( 061) 4572886

Citra Garden Seafood Restaurant @ Medan

Flew into Medan this morning, and the flight was slightly delayed- all due to a passenger who took up a seat beside me. During boarding, Mr X took a seat beside mine, then later stood up, and  when down the stairs ,  and from the window , I can see Mr X at the end of the ‘portable stairs’ talking to the flight attendant and the controllers, after about 20 mins, Mr X dropped  to the seat all sweaty,   I  nodded and smiled at him as acknowledgement  and in return he muttered under his breath ‘ F***’ , errr… ?

Anyway, what happened was Mr X was a good Samaritan and agreed to some strangers ( a mother and daughter) request  to checked in their luggage with his, to get away from paying penalty for excess baggage. And  after checking in, he realized that he didn’t see them in the boarding area , and now, he didn’t see them in the aircraft .  And as these people are not on the flight, the airline had to remove their luggage .And the thing is that..Mr X’s luggage tag is with them …..so, it appears that  Mr X will not fly into Medan with his luggage. So, I guess Mr X will have to shop for some underwear in Medan lah

Anyway, back to food… we had lunch at Citra Garden Seafood ( this seemed to be a normal haunt for meals during my trip to Medan as it’s not far from my host’s office)

For drinks, I had my usual – terung belanda…a special drink from Medan yumyum..

 

Sweet and Sour Kerapu – This taste as good as it looks, the fish was fried and bath in gravy , the fish was fresh, the gravy was ( as expected )sweet and sourish with pieces of pineapples and onions.

 

The sam-chan fried pork ( 3 layer pork meat) was very good, the fat and the lean meat was fried to a crisp, the meat was tender and well marinated. I want a whole plate of this to myself !! Oink Oink !!

 

I knew we ordered fried broccoli, but when the dish arrive ( see for yourself ), it seemed to be prawns,  sotong  and fishball garnished with broccoli rather than broccoli being the main ingredient. The sotong was fresh and springy with lots of bite and the broccoli was cooked just right.

Fried prawns ala Penang , I didn’t know Penang had a special prawn dish, and all the way in Medan too  ! The prawns are cooked in asam and curry, this was a bit hot , and only when I look at the picture now , did I  noticed that there were so many chili padi in it, no wonder it was spicy !

 

Picked up some Bahasa  Indonesia from the menu : cumi-cumi = sotong, kepiting = crabs, Pare = ikan pari pari ( stingray).  There’s also a large variety of juices : Jus Jeruk (orange / a type of limau), ketimun ( cucumber); Terung belanda ( what I had), Tomat ( tomato) ; Sirsak ( soursop); Jeruk Nipis ( lemon juice) , Jus jagung, Sunkist, Wortei ( carrot) and Markisa ( passion fruit)

 

Before i forget , i had a hard time clearing the  Medan immigrations !

Immigration officer : Di Medan berapa hari ?

Me : x hari

I.O: Ke Medan untuk apa ?

Me : untuk …..

I.O: Apa nama pabrik di Medan ? ( and asked me to write this on my arrival card)

Me : ( #%$*&%%*&) and wrote the name of my host’s company

I.O : Tulis alamat penuh

Me : ( $^%^%*%^*& and rolling my eyes, but dare not show too much attitude, just i case i get into trouble) – gave I.O  my host’s name card

I.O : Di Medan, tinggal di mana ?

Me : XXX hotel

I.O : Ada tiket untuk kembali ?

Me : YA ! ( $^%*^%^% and showed him my ticket)

I.O – stamping my passport..finally

i think i must have a pretty criminal-ist face ..