Restoran Lek Lek亞烈家乡美食饭店 @Seri Kembangan

This was one of the eateries that caused quite a generous flow of saliva after i read  about it from a blog, at that time Ah Lek (Lek Lek) was located near a school somewhere in Serdang, we tried to look for it but failed, so the project was abandoned until we found that the restoran has been relocated (1 year plus ady, actually)  to Pusat Perdagangan SK ( which was a lot more easy to find lah)

We were there on a Sunday for lunch, at the table next to ours,  where  judging from the presence of the Secret Recipe cakebox – must be celebrating the birthday of someone, there were 3 generations of family members and judging from the clothes that the children are wearing and the handphones on the table, the family would be from the middle upper class range. And from the hairstyle of the ladies, which I recognized to be from the latest creation of Sassoon academy , I deduce  that they are probably…. Err..but I digress ( and you can ignore the rest of the sentence after ‘3 generations of family members..as I made that up 😀 ).

If you are not sure of what to order, before stepping into the restaurant have a look at the colour buntings at the entrance  , well, I had 2 dishes that was already on my ‘must eat’ list, so I was ‘very action’ and didn’t stop to look. And if I had, I would have seen : literally translated : melted bone dragon 化骨龙( will talk about this later) , summer fruit four vege 夏果四蔬 ( which from the pixs  seemed to have lotus root, sweet peas, broccoli, celery, some kinda nuts etc ) , butterprawn, salted egg sotong, curry fish head, ku- lou yok, Japanese snails in garlic and  broiled chicken

We ordered the melted bone dragon fish –which was their specialty, salted egg sotong and for vege- we had stir fried nai-pak

The dragon thingy- if you like boneless fish or fish paste, then you would like this dish, this was actually ‘re-constructed fish’  , the fish meat ( Ma Yau fish)  was removed, made into fish paste, and then ‘re-constructed’ into a fish, kinda like Steve Austin, ..better, faster and stronger..teng teng teng teng… . have a look below.

 

Looks like a fish, smells  like fish but is it a fish ? 

And the close up :

 

The fish ( RM26) was yummyyyy, the fish paste was firm, springy, tasty, perfectly seasoned. The gravy was simple and light-  plain soy sauce plus oil with spring onions, shreds of cabbage and the purple cabbage thingy.

And to find out to what extent did the chef go to make this a ‘real’ fish , we ‘dissected’ the fish head and voila , the chef really took pains to make sure that all the crevices are filled and stuffed with the yummy fish paste, no cutting of corners brader!

 

Salted egg sotong  (RM12) – the fried sotong that I have had usually comes in smaller pieces, so it was a change to find such chunky pieces of sotong being served. And ahhh, the sotong was deep fried and crispy on the outside, sweet and springy on the inside. And at first, the  taste of salted egg excites your taste buds and then after further chewing, you start to have some degree of ‘hot / spiciness’ at the based of your throat thanks to the ginger and chili padi. the curry leaves enhanced the dish further. Ahh..good sotong

 

Stir fried nai-pak (RM12), , the vege was succulent and fresh,  a simple and well  prepared dish which compliment the other two dishes perfectly.

 

We were also served a complimentary plate of fruits ( papaya + watermelon)

The total bill came to RM54,40 – which include the above dishes , plus 2 chinese tea and 2 rice . A perfectly enjoyable meal ( excuse me while I burp…)

Oh.. you might have noticed  the paper flower served with the sotong , cute hor..the last I have seen of the flowers were probably when we celebrated my grandma’s birthday zoinks ago , u know, the time before the whipped creamed black forest / cheese cakes took over the cake scene , where we only have those butter / sponge cake heavily decorated with red, white and pink icing, yellow/red/purple edible paper flowers, silver pearls thingy)

Location and operating hours  :

 

No 12 Jalan PSK 4,

Pusat Perdagangan SK

43300 Seri Kembangan.

Tel : 89413404 / 012 3173098

Chili Padi @ Kuchai Lama

When we arrived at Chili Padi on a Sunday lunch time, the place was packed, we were ushered to our table by a man clad in a  maroon flowery batik-ish  uniform. At the time of visit , there were some special  promotion on, for ‘ re-opening after renovation’ which was also the main reason for our visit ( and maybe also the reason for the other patrons ?)

The menu include stand alone meals as well a la carte orders , and include : salad lobster, Assam/ curry fish head, prawn petai, chicken rending, soft shell crabs, clay pot beancurd , lorhon style vege, foo yong egg, nasi bonjori etc etc.

The nasi lemak + cendol combo was on promotion for RM7.99, so that was a must order, (w/o the promotion,  nasi lemak was priced at RM9.90/ plate and the cendol , err..can’t recall, i think it was >RM4), we decide to order a curry chicken and for vege – kangkong belacan .We also had a cut out coupon for free iced jasmine tea ( normal price RM1.80) – aiya..got freebies, then save a bit la.

Nasi lemak- ahh..the curry chicken was tender and rich with the flavour of santan, the ikan bilis and onion sambal was spicy and sweetish ( the version that I like), the acar ( pickled vegetable –cucumber, cabbage and carrot)  was tangy and crunchy,  and my favourite was the prawn floss..ohhh..the distinct flavour of prawn was brought up with each bite, what a wonderful combination. I loved this nasi lemak.

 

Kangkong belacan – this was slightly spicy and the taste of belacan was not over the top.It seemed that only the young and tender shoots were used in this dish as there were no tough chewy kangkong  to train our jaws, and there were also  enough of the wok-hei ( stove fire) . Very nice .

 

Curry chicken – well, if we had known that this was the same as the curry chicken served with the nasi lemak, we might have chosen to have the rendang chicken or some other dishes so that we could sample other flavours Chili Padi had to offer, but anyway, thank goodness that this was an enjoyable curry chicken, so we weren’t  overly upset about our blunder.

 

Cendol – the santan was slightly dominant over  the flavour of the gula melaka- which was a not a bad thing, meaning that it wasn’t overly sweet, I find the ice shavings a bit coarser than what I would like it to be, this was rather ok.

 

I find that the environment was good ( u can sit indoor ( air conditioned) or at the kaki lima( natural air))  service was efficient, the staff were friendly and the meal was yummy , overall – an enjoyable meal.

The bill came to RM31.50 for 2 pax ( plus 1 rice), without the promo, I guess you can add another RM8 or so to the bill.

NB: one thing we found a bit weird was that at each table packets of creamers were available, but we couldn’t find coffee or tea on  the menu (or maybe our menu was a misprint / we can’t read  / what creamer  ? there were no creamers, we were seeing things / creamers go with nasi lemak /creamers were for taking away/ those were paper weights, not creamers /those were salt in disguise/ etc etc  )

 

Location and business hours :

Chili Padi faced the main road and being  a corner lot, was s very easy to locate 

 

Jia Xiang @ Simpang Ampat, Penang

We were suppose to leave SC’s place at 6:30, but between gossiping / catching up, origami, pizza, SC screaming at her kids, kids stuck to pc playing zombie, the rain, people taking overly long time in the shower, resuscitating the goldfish and a few more other reasons,  we lost track of time, and by the time we arrive at Jia Xiang, we were almost half an hour late or if you are Malaysian, we were on time 😀

We were told that there might be a big crowd and to minimize the wait .PW had call up earlier to  pre-ordered the dishes . So, we could only stare at the whiteboard and prayed that she made some good choices

 

On the whiteboard ,  include : kung po froggies, curry powder sotong, claypot crab / flower crab rice, kum heong crab/flower crab , black pepper prawns, curry tofu, marmite chicken, yam duck, thai style trotters , roasted peanut pork ribs etc etc…

And our order : –

Stir fried sweet potato leaves with garlic – the tender sweet potato leaves was plainly fried in garlic and some sauces, a simple dish and yet so delicious.

 

Claypot Crab rice— my saliva went through an overdrive when I heard them ordering  crab rice  over the phone, images of succulent crabs, steaming fragrant rice..oh la la. The dish arrived in a clay pot and after the steam had cleared, we could see quite a generous amount of crabs in the pot. Although provided with the necessary tools ( crusher thingy  and hammer) it was not an easy task to ‘break’the shells , well..no pain no gain..i was a bit disappointed with this dish, no complaints about the crabs which were meaty and fresh, but i had expected that the sweetness of the crab would have seeped into the rice and added some crabby sweet flavour to the rice, but sadly, this was not the case.

 

Pei Pa duck –the skin was brown and crispy, the meat was tender (and with some fat) , the sauce was gooey sweet – I thought this was a very good duck but surprisingly we couldn’t even finish half a duck, I guess I was the only one with a sweet tooth.

 

Bittergourd with salted egg – I couldn’t really taste the salted egg in this dish, I find it a bit too wet/ soggy for my liking, luckily the guord was well cooked, the thick slices were  succulent, soft  and not too bitter. This was so-so.

 

Steamed fish – can’t remember what was the species of the fish, the broth was tasty but the fish was overcooked, which gave that tough/ tongue grating texture. What a waste.

 

Tofu in minced meat – homemade mushroom ‘soaked’ in a sea of minced meat, muchroom and spring onions, the gravy was wonderful,  the tofu was smooth and tasty, this was the best dish of the lot.

 

The total bill came to ~RM150 for 7 pax ( plus rice and drinks) , which was reasonable. A friend tarpau the claypot crab rice for two, which came to RM38.

Overall, an average meal.

Location : I lost the location map, will look for it and update this post ( soli soli)