Breakfast at Soong Kee

This morning I went to breakfast with my parents at Soong Kee.  They are famous for "hor fun", rice sticks, and wonton noodles.

My parents had the "hor fun".

I had wonton noodles.











Then I ordered a bowl of "sui gao" but they didn't have that this morning so I ordered a bowl of their prawn wontons in soup.

A bowl of 10 prawn wontons.

This is how the wontons look like.











The bill for all the above was RM19.  We were not happy that it cost so much.  The noodle was RM4 a plate.  The prawn wontons cost RM7!  I haven't been to that place for a long time.  I think I will not go back for a long long time.....

Fruits

It is durian season in Malaysia again.  Since I came back I have had durian once.  I like durian but I am not crazy about it.  Although I have not had durian for a long time, I wouldn't want to eat that everyday.  I went to Jusco the other day with my niece.  There were lots of durian for sale in Jusco supermarket.  So I bought two packets because one packet costs RM25.90 and two packets cost RM45.  I couldn't resist so I bought two packets.

Buying durian like this has all the advantages I think.  First I get to choose the taste ie. sweet only or sweet with bitter taste.  I chose the bitter sweet one.  Then I don't have to get rid of the durian shelf myself and they are guaranteed nice.







After I bought the durian, my cousin visited me and brought me more durians.  My cousin brought me durians from Simpang Peretang.  The durians were from my cousin's durian estate.

These are nice too although not as nice as those that I bought from Jusco.















Other fruits I bought recently were dragon fruits and mango.  Last Monday night, I went to pasar malam with my sister.  We bought five large dragon fruits for RM10.  I think it was a bargain.

Since most people prefer the red dragon fruits, I don't see anybody selling the white one anymore.

This is how I serve dragon fruit.

I bought this mango from Jusco too.  I was impressed with the size of the mangoes when I saw them in Jusco.  They were very big.  I haven't seen such a big mango for a long time.  This weighed 1.09kg and it costs 1.19 per 100g.  So I paid RM12.99 for the mango.  It was very nice but my father said probably I was the only person buying it from Jusco because he thinks it was quite expensive!

Home cook meal

Since the start of my holiday, yesterday was the first time I cooked an unusual dish at home.  I usually cooked chicken or pork and a veges.  Something very simple and easy.  Yesterday I cooked stuffed eggplants.  The eggplants were from my garden.

The eggplants were young and fresh from the garden.

These were all the eggplants.  I used 300g pork mince, 1/2 t salt, 1t flour and 1t cornflour for the fillings.

There was some left over mince from the eggplant. I cooked it in soup with 夜来香, also from my garden.  The soup was sweet and nice.

Other than these, I also cooked fried eggs with bitter gourd and carrot.  Bitter gourd and carrot were not from the garden.  More home cook meal to follow.......

Lunch with sister and b-in-law

I went out to lunch with my sister and brother-in-law yesterday.  We went to the infamous "林木街" in Seremban.  This is a hawker place with a lot of good food.  We spent RM17.50.

Stuffed eggplants, stuffed tao foo and fish balls cost RM4.20












Curry noodles (板面) costs RM3.50.  The curry was quite lemak and tastes good.

Two hainanese chicken rice cost RM7.  The chicken was nice but the rice wasn't as good as it used to be according to my b-in-law.  I tasted this the first time so I think it was good enough for me.  The chili was very good.

Then two coffee and a glass of herbal tea cost $2.80.












It was quite economical and tasted good.  The place is always full of people over breakfast and lunch.  Lots of parking spaces.

Gardening

Part of my holiday agenda is to work in my garden and to grow some veges.  My parents live in the house since day one which was about two and half years ago.  My mother grows two longan trees in the garden.  They are doing extremely well.  She also grows passion fruits, cestrum nocturnum (夜来香), aloe vera, calamansi and leonurus heterophyllus (益母草).

This is one of the longan trees.  The tree is not tall but produces lots of longans, at least twice a year.  The longans are big and sweet.

I cut a branch of longan yesterday morning.  They taste really sweet.  Sometimes the bigger ones are not as nice as the smaller ones because the seeds for the bigger ones are also big.

This is one of the big ones.  Sweet but the seed is also quite big.

This is how big the seed is.

On the same branch, we get different sizes of longan.  The best ones are the ones with small seeds.

Calamansi tree.  The fruits are not doing very well now.  They are very dark in colour.  I think maybe it is because there are too much weed around the tree.  I tried to clear the weed since I came back but it is raining everyday and I couldn't do much.

This is aloe vera.  There are lots of babies all stuck together.  I need to clear the weed and spread the plant properly.

This is cestrum nocturnum (夜来香).  The flowers or the buds are what we eat from the plant.  My grandmother liked to cook these for us to eat when I was young.  So when my mother started growing veges in the garden, I requested her to grow this because I haven't eaten these for a long long time.  My mom couldn't find the plant anywhere.  Then a friend told me that her mother has in it in her garden.  So she asked her mother to gave a plant to my mother.  Now the plant is doing very well in my garden and it has also multiplied.

We cook the flowers in soup, Chinese style.  My mom will make pork soup and when the soup is nearly ready, add the flowers or buds in the soup.  The soup has very nice fragrance and taste very sweet.  It is supposed to be good for our eyes and vision.

Dinner with friends

Last night three of my classmates from high school asked me out to dinner.  We went to Regent Restaurant in Taman Bukit Labu, Seremban.  We ordered three dishes, stir fry fish slices with green onion and ginger, tao foo with bok choy and steam chicken with minced ginger.

Stir fry fish slices with spring onion and ginger.  This dish was good but normal.












Tao foo with boy choy.  This was very ordinary too.













Steam chicken with minced ginger.  The presentation of this dish was terrible.  The chicken pieces were not arranged properly and it was too salty.  The sauce was all over the plate.  So we complained to the captain about it being very salty.  She was very polite and offered to replace the dish with another dish.  We then picked steam chicken.

This was the replacement chicken (白斩鸡).  This was satisfactory but the dipping ginger sauce was salty too.  So we ended up eating the chicken without the ginger sauce.









Overall, I think the standard of the restaurant has dropped.  We paid RM70.  The price was acceptable.  I think I will go back one more time to try again.  I used to like the food there.  Hopefully this was one off disappointment for me.

Dim sum at Pak Chok Restaurant

My father was convinced that the dim sum at Pak Chok (百酌) Restaurant are exactly the same as Min Kok.  So we decided to go breakfast there and investigate.  We got there at about 7:30am this morning and we were the first customers.  As we sat down, the waitress brought over a tray of dim sum.  I thought they were so efficient but she told us that we have to choose what we want to eat before they steam the dim sum.  They are all frozen.  We picked eight dishes and she took them back to steam.  I was quite disappointed.  Proper dim sum restaurant will steam everything, bring them to the table for us to choose what we want.

Siu mai, taste good.

"Shui jing gao", doesn't look as pretty as in the other place but taste good.

"Char siu" dumplings, taste exactly like the ones in Min Kok.

"Har gao", taste good.

"Glutinous rice with dried shrimps", I thought it was "loh mai gai" but it wasn't but taste OK.

"Deep fried rolls", taste good too.

"Jee choy gao", not nice.

"Jiao zhi" with a bit of gravy. Like wonton by taste like siu mai.












I paid RM30 for these with Chinese tea for three.  Compared to Min Kok, I think this is expensive.  I won't go back to that place.  The restaurant is old and doesn't have air condition.  If we didn't go early, it will be to hot.  I may have to pay a few more bucks if we go to Min Kok but I think it is worth is.  I have come to the conclusion that the restaurant didn't make the dim sum themselves.  I think they buy the dim sum frozen and just steam and sell.