Sep 19, 2009

mooncakes anyone?

one night i was discussing food with a colleague and he reminded me of mooncakes. the mid-autumn or mooncake festival is on october 3 and now the restos and other food establishments have started selling mooncakes.

since there's a vast majority of chinese people in malaysia, mooncakes are a big thing...even haagen dazs and starbucks have joined in the band wagon. luckily, there's a mooncake fair at the midvalley megamall.

mooncakes are baked pastries stuffed with lotus seed paste and salted eggyolk. looks like those baked hopias but only bigger and the texture is similar to the hopia too but eggy of course. anyway, i cannot remember if i've actually eaten one. the booths at midvalley offer samples and when i tasted one of the traditional ones, i opted to get the fancy ones. i'd have to say this is quite an indulgence...you'll see why later on.

read some posts on mooncakes so i got an idea on what i wanted to get. i want the modern snow skin mooncakes. these are not baked and have a shorter shelf life...i'd describe snow skin similar to the ready to eat tikoy of eng bee tin. soft...chewy and made of sticky rice.

hotels have come up with the fanciest ones and here's what i got.

wrapped in an oppulent box, shang palace of shangri-la hotel came up with a chocolate truffle with macadamia and caramel crunch (RM24).






everything is chocolate from the snowskin to the filling. what i liked about this is that, it's not sweet and chocolatey at all but the essence of chocolate is there, the macadamia nuts and the hints of caramel. it was like eating chocolate cake...pure chocolate but doesn't have that overpowering sweetness or chocolatey goodness. however, for roughly PHP325 a pop, i'd think you'd have second thoughts getting this. i could not fathom the fact that i bought this. but curiosity got the best of me and i'm pretty sure this is the first and last time i'm gonna buy this mooncake.

the next one is chynna's golden treasure (hilton).



another snowskin mooncake, dusted with gold... looks really well crafted though it only comes in a plastic square box. the snowskin is not infused with anything so in the inside it's white, call it original flavored snowskin but stuffed with tiramisu and kahlua paste. oh what a treat i tell you! i was so amazed when i tasted it. it tasted like mocha which i love, everyone who tried it loved this mooncake...even the guys! and at only RM14 a piece, this for me is a sure winner. yeah i know, at almost PHP200 you'd still have second thoughts on whether you should buy this, but i think it's worth it.

i also got a green tea with brown sugar mooncake but this one is baked one...leaning towards the traditional one...it's quite cheaper though at RM8/PHP100 but it's just too far from the other two that i decided to not post it anymore. anyway, i have failed to find a snowskin green tea mooncake which i reckon would be delish. i guess that's it, i got excited about these ones that i opted to post them right away...and yes i have too much backlog i really should start writing more stuff soon.

Sep 12, 2009

unagi feast at sushi king


was browsing the net and i saw the sushi king promo of all things unagi for the month of august. i suddenly craved for unagi.

similar to sakae, sushi king also has the conveyor belts where you can choose your sushi from. prices vary depending on the colors of the plates.


as much as i wanted to order all the unagi offerings, i had to settle for just a couple. here's what i got.


unagi nishoku (RM6) cucumber sushi wrapped in unagi with ebikko on top. there's nothing special with the wasabi flavored ebikko - actually it didn't have any distinct taste. i love japanese mayo and of course unagi so i wouldn't complain though i think the price seem to be pretty steep for this one.




unagi ikada sushi (RM4) basically tamago sushi with unagi on top. unagi has the right thickness it was nice but nothing special. enough to satiate my unagi craving.


we also had tempura, chicken karaage and fried rice...i wonder where the pictures were or did i forget to take them. i think sushi king has better sushi than sakae but seems to be pricier as well. anyway, sushi king can be found almost everywhere in kl so you can easily spot one.



sushi king
low yat plaza
bukit bintang,kl

Sep 8, 2009

kl: world of dimsum

one of my long overdue post. the pictures are bad because i was trembling due to hunger. my friends and i met up and decided to ride the bus instead of getting a taxi since we had a lot of time to spare. we rode on a different bus of which route we were not sure of. to make the long story short we had a road trip since we didn't get off at where we should have gotten off and had to wait for it to go back. by the time we got to world of dimsum we were famished. here are the stuff we got.




hokkien mee - first time i tried this dish. has the distinct soy flavor and the pork rind/chicharon flavor was very evident. liked it but it was too oily. dunno how much this was, around RM 5-7 probably.




steamed charsiu buns (siopao or siu pau) - it was ok nothing to rave about.

dimsum feast!



hakao/har gau - chunks of shrimp inside a nice dumpling wrapper



siomai/siu mai - typical pork dumpling topped with something that appears to be a roe of some sort



japanese dimsum - typical dimsum...pork crabsticks wrapped in nori



and of course chicken feet...my dimsum staple.


the dimsum costs around RM 3-4...roughly 50 pesos each. pretty cheap if you ask me. however, the quality is so so. nothing to rave about. this typical dimsum place serve them heated up, in short they were chilled not so much of an illusion for having them freshly made. plus they were served with the usual chilli and sweet sauce not the once we have back in manila. it was a quick fix but i'd probably try the other dimsum restos in the area or better yet go to the city center to get a fix from my favorite dimsum place. have yet to write about it as soon as i get more pictures.



world of dimsum
jalan radin
sri petaling, kuala lumpur