Qun Zhong Eating House

This place is an institution along Tanjong Pagar Road where hoardes of hungry office workers queue patiently outside the building with pathetic faces looking into the restaurant silently praying for people to finish and leave. If you're not willing to queue or share a table, don't bother eating here. It doesn't really matter to them since business is so good. The service isn't great, although there are some nice older ladies who are quite pleasant. Strangely enough, I'm not too bothered by the poor service doesn't really bother me that much since this place reminds me of an old uni haunt where the staff were even ruder, the place dirtier (they were closed by the Health Inspectors for 2 months) but the food just as good.

But I digress. My once-a-week dumpling days are long over. I like eating here when I can find the time to wait, or if I'm having a late lunch alone, which isn't very often nowadays. My favourite starchy staple is the 炸酱面, or noodles with minced meat in spicy sauce($5), which I find even nicer with vinegar and chilli.

What it looks like after you mix it all up

We ordered xiaolongbao ($7), which I enjoyed too. The skins stayed intact when we lifted the dumplings up, and the soup was hot and tasty.

My personal favourite is the fried dumplings ($10). The filling is juicy, and the skin crispy. I have no idea how they do them so well.

From another angle:

The Chinese Pizza, Red Bean Pancake and Glutinous Rice Balls with Osmanthus are worth a try too. And look out for the parking wardens if you park at the URA carpark across the street...they are very vigilant.

21 Neil Road

Tel: +65 6221 3060

Opening hours: 11.30am – 3.00pm; 5.30pm – 9.30pm.

Closed Wednesdays

Wah Kee Noodles at Amoy St

One of my favourite breakfast stops before (or during) work. Really supple noodles and yummy sweet char siew doused in savoury chilli sauce that is neither too sweet nor salty. Fairly good wontons too.

Wah Kee Noodles

#02-125 Amoy St Hawker Centre

Open for breakfast and the char siew often runs out by 1pm

Eating up north - Yong Peng, Malacca and Petaling Jaya

Like every good Singaporean, I always look forward to a road trip up the peninsula because the food is almost always better in Malaysia. There's nothing quite as exciting as finding a small coffeeshop which has to (a) be teeming with locals (and the inevitable parking problems); (b) be rather dirty and full of noise; and (c) absolutely void of vacant tables and chairs. This is a sign of good food!

Upon the recommendation of a friend, we decided to stop at Yong Peng for fishball noodles. According to his Malacca-based lawyer, this was a pretty good place to go to. Double-parking all the way!

Not at all cheap by Malaysian standards though

The spread arrived. Each serve of noodles came with about 6 fishballs.

We ordered a yong tau fu to share...this was not too bad.

My friend had the curry version. It was watered down and didn't taste that great.

But the dry noodles with black sauce were seriously seriously good. Whether it was because we were tired and hungry after having just got out of a massive jam at the checkpoint, or because they were really good in their own right, I'm not entirely sure. But the noodles were tasty, springy, and nice and warm.

The other great thing about this place was the fishcake. Although it was nothing much to look at, it was really springy and served piping hot with a nice crispy skin. We ordered another serve of the fishcake, and an extra bowl of noodles to share.

The chilli dip was very good. The plate is smaller than it looks in the photo! I think the entire meal, including drinks cost about RM40plus. A Yong Peng local told us subsequently that we had gone to the "not-nice-and-very-expensive" place, but that didn't really matter since I enjoyed it so much. Apparently, the "corner cofffeeshop" (where on earth this corner is, I have no idea) is better.
By the time our ingenious friend managed to find a short (or long) cut to circumvent the long stream of cars on the main road towards Malacca, it was way past lunch. We had lunch at Makko, which is apparently quite an established name in the business. I'm not sure how they managed to get the Chinese translation (see picture below), but in the Peranakan patois Mah Ko means "father's eldest sister". Sadly, I found the food rather average, but the chendol was really good.

Later in the night we were craving to get out there to try the hawker food. Our friend found out about an oyster omelette stall along Jln Bunga Raya from the internet. Just as well since Jonker St was a complete nightmare full of cars and people who couldn't park or move. We managed to find parking on a side street off Jln Bunga Raya.

Look at the number of people lining up!

Look out for a red lit sign on the right side of Jln Bunga Raya if you're driving (it's a one-way street). I don't believe there is an adress since it's set up in an empty site between 2 shophouses....either on a service lane, or either on the site where a shophouse used to be standing.

Look at him go! Pans and pans and pans of oyster omelette...and still no sign of our orders

To tide us over, we ordered cheng tng from another stall. I've never seen macaroni in cheng tng before.

Another friend decided to order from this noodle shop, despite us already having eaten dinner.

The Hokkien Mee was really good though. It was very tasty with heaps of pork lard thrown in.

The horfun was even better. The noodles were full of wok flavour. I would make a return visit to this stall just for this.

Half our supper....still waiting for the oyster omelette. 7 of us were sitting in the back lane squeezed around a tiny table. The dingier, the better! I think it cost about RM30plus for the 2 plates of noodles and a serve of veggies.

Finally the oyster omelette came. Each pack cost RM6 (no they don't come in plates)

Sigh. Sad to say, it really wasn't as good as we expected. And after having waited so long, it was quite disappointing.

The next morning, we were walking around one of those ubiquitous shopping malls in Malaccca and found a random coffeeshop for breakfast. The French Toast was sinfully good! Thick slices of bread smothered with peanut butter before being dipped in egg and deep fried. A definite must-have on a dark and moody day. I suppose there are other branches around Malaysia, but if I don't recall wrongly, we had this at the Classic Kopitiam shop within the basement of the Palawan Mall 5 mins walk from Hotel Equatorial.

We had lunch at Seri Nyonya at the Hotel Equatorial. The same foodie (the chap who brought us to the fishball shop at Yong Peng and who was smart enough to use BB GPS to find an alternate route to Malacca) had said that this wasn't too bad.

Ayam Pongteh (no babi since everything was halal)

Sambal Terong (brinjal)

Sambal Sotong

Mango salad

Otak, which came free. The entire meal, which included a bowl of hee peow soup, came up to RM105 altogether, which was not too bad for a meal in a decent hotel. It was better than Makko, but still wasn't as exciting as I had hoped.

We had dinner at King Crab in PJ.

Beancurd with salted egg yolk, baby bok choy and mushrooms. Pretty decent.

Veg with golden mushrooms and wolfberries. Decent, but I didn't like the ginger strips.

Jiu yim, or salt and pepper prawns. Average.

The most amazing meal of my trip - crabs fried with salted egg yolk. This was mindblowingly good. It was so amazing that after 2 crabs, we ordered 2 more. We licked up the entire plate not wanting to waste a single remnant of egg yolk sauce...I licked every part of the shells as well!

The next morning, we headed to Uptown at Damansara Utama for breakfast at Village Park. Again, carparking was horrendous. The cars were double/triple parked, and even illegally parked along the centre median.

They had a spread of various meats and vegetables, but it was a bit too much for breakfast

We had nasi lemak with fried chicken. The chicken was really good - just the right blend of spices and flavour.

I'm planning the next trip up already!

Yong Peng

1. Yuan Yean Fishball Eating House

Turn left off the North-South Highway (assuming you are travelling northwards) at Yong Peng. Travel along the one-street town and look out for a Caltex Station on the opposite side of the road. Make a u-turn and you'll find the stall just to the left of the Caltex.

Melaka

2. Medan Makanan Bunga Raya

Jalan Bunga Raya, Melaka

Oyster omelette is open only at night.

3. Seri Nyonya

3rd floor, Hotel Equatorial Melaka

Banda Hilir 76000 Melaka

el: 60-6 2828333 ext 3331

Petaling Jaya

4. Restoran King Crab

No. 103-107, Jalan SS25/2

Taman Mewah Jaya

47301 Petaling Jaya

Tel: 60-3-7808 2388

http://www.kingcrab.com.my/

It's located along the LDP just directly opposite the Kelana Jaya LRT Station

5. Village Park Restaurant

No. 5, Jalan SS21/37

Damansara Utama

47400 Petaling Jaya

Tel: 60-3-7710 7860

Open daily from 7am-7.30pm (closes at 6pm on Sundays and PHs)

Don Quijote Spanish Restaurant

I had an absolutely wonderful dinner at Don Quijote last Wednesday, and even as I write this I am wondering when I can schedule a return visit. The food was very enjoyable - perhaps not the finest, but definitely good quality.

We ordered a jug of sangria to share ($44 per jug)

The place was packed on a Wednesday

The mussels ($16) were very nicely done, with a garlic and white wine sauce that had us licking our spoons.

The bacon-wrapped asparagus was really nice too - the bacon was not too salty and the asparagus was sufficiently well cooked. But at $10, I felt it was a bit pricey.

Tuna stuffed with red peppers ($16). Decently done.

Garlic fried mixed mushrooms ($9). Decent as well.

The beef tenderloin with blue cheese sauce ($18) was amazing, mindblowing, out of this world yummy. The beef was super tender, and the cheese sauce was heavenly.

Chicken wings in garlic and chilli sauce ($8). Nice but ordinary.

Spanish style eggs stuffed with potatoes ($10). Not too bad but after eating the beef I couldn't think of anything else....until....

The squid ink paella ($28 for a small, $48 for a medium and $58 for a large) came along! It was unlike any paella I had ever eaten...luxuriously soft, creamy and absolutely full of flavour. The servings of prawn and squid rings were very generous, and the squid ink taste came through nicely.

We didn't get to try any of the desserts, and for that, DQ has to blame its neighbour Udders. The Hazels Nuts and Mao Shan Wang flavours were the perfect ending to an almost perfect meal.

Although I thought the beef with blue cheese and squid ink paella were absolutely wonderful, I'm wondering if I was so pleased only because I didn't have very high expectations of the place after having read a few dud reviews. However, the person who arranged the dinner had been raving about the place, and tradionally has been rather credible when it comes to things he takes seriously (ie. alcohol and food). But I think that this restaurant warrants a few more visits, and based on my one visit, I would happily have signed up for a Feed at DQ if they had one.

17 Lorong Kilat, #01-09 (opposite Beauty World at Upper Bkt Timah Rd)
Tel: 6465 1811

Open Tue–Sun11.30am–2.30pm, 6pm–10pm

Sunday Brunch11.30am–2.30pm