Kota Kemuning - Restoran Ah Yeh Village Chef (Po Lao Heong)

This is a new place KC decided to try yesterday as I joined him and family for dinner. I decided to blog about this place because I find the food to be good and value for money, but expect long wait.

Its known as Restoran Ah Yeh Village Chef but owned by Restoran Po Lao Heong... not sure which is which but doesn't matter, the food here are good. I ordered a lai yau kum fung fish (buttered fried talapia) just like what I had at Tapah recently to compare. Their version here is better with more sauce, fish are crisped with a yummy sauce to go with it, especially because they have added small dried shrimps to it.

The lady whom took the order recommended their satay yau yi (cuttlefish) which are just like the normal cuttlefish kang kung we are used to. The different thing about the one they serve here are the sauce, which I was told is being prepared by boiling potato then blending it to make the sauce. The sauce is peanuty and a nice sour taste from lime I supposed. Is really appetizing and different from the norm, high recommended.

The rest are vegetables and a tofu which is normal. Total bill came to RM54.00, not bad at all! No wonder the wait is so long as it is fully occupied!

GPS - N3 00.381 E101 32.097

Mini Makan Trip to Sitiawan

Having just got back from the daunting first part of the Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip, I need to go on another trip to Sitiawan for my aunt's house warming. Its a family thing and I do anticipate a lot of makan as well since my family loves eating.

We decided to use the coastal up north and along the way, we started our first makan stop at Kuala Selangor, as its already 2pm plus, we decided to do the more touristy Pasir Penampang and chosen to dine at Restaurant River View (N3 20.671 E101 15.243). 5 of us ordered claypot cat fish (salt-fresh water river), oyster omellette, fried sotong and some vegetables. Bill came to about RM60.00 which is not too bad. The first are not bad, fresh too but the rest are just normal.

Moving on to Sitiawan is where the real makan begins. After the usual rest and shower, all of us (2 tables, 4 cars) headed to Pantai Remis a well known fishing town for dinner. We went to my uncle's favourite place, Restaurant Ling Cheng Ji Seafood (N4 26.47 E100 37.35), just go to Pantai Remis town, after the police station on your right, look for 7-11 of your left, its the corner shop behind 7-11. Its air conditioned and is famous for good food. It is said that the best fish served here is a fish known as "sum lai" fish in Cantonese, meaning three mud fish. Its a rare fish and is not available all the time. They said this fish needs to be cooked without cleaning any internal parts of scales and steam for 1 hour plus before serving!

Anyway, no chance to try this exotic fish, but we had a list of powderful goodies waiting for us. First up are goose feets braised with a pork leg and to with some vegetables. The goose feets are soft and tender and the taste of the braised sauce is well absorbed in, kudos to the chef, wonder how long it takes to prepare this dish! Next up are stuffed sea cucumber, where the braised sea cucumber is stuffed with a mixture of fish, pork, water chestnuts, etc. The next dish is really something new to me, totally new I mean, flower crabs cooked with cucumbers! Cucumbers, something so tasteless but to my surprise, it is excellent with the crabs! The freshness of the crabs are brought out well in this dish, cucumbers are sliced into big pieces plus some chilies and are to be taken with the sauce. The crabs are just full of sweet freshness and because the flower crabs here are generally bigger in size, makes it very good to eat. A nice sea garoupa is steamed and served, really big in size and fresh too as Pantai Remis is a fishing town itself, most seafood are brought in live from sea in the morning. The rest are normal stuff, not worth mentioning.

We ended the night at Cannon Cafe in Sitiawan town (nice chicken wings and spicy anchovies) just opposite Hotel Flamingo, quite a decent place with big screen plasma showing live football matches and that's where my cousins corrupted me with a new drinking game simply known as up or down. Want to know what is that? Come drinking with me the next round and I will teach you :D.

Next morning, as usual my aunt will buy back the best nasi lemak around. This nasi lemak is brought from the coffee stalls in the market (just behind Manjung Parade N4 12.387 E100 41.899). Its similar to those I had in Pangkor and its wrapped in banana leaves, coconut milk rice with a piece of fish on top with curry gravy. Simply amazing and good at 80 cents per packet. As I had my nasi lemak, my cousin cautioned me to only take 1 as we are going out for breakfast after that! If you are there, try their coffee too, really rich and nice.

So, then we went out to Jing Kee (N4 12.647 E100 41.853) in town for some wantan mee where the stall owner will flip flop the noodles quite high up when cooking. The noodles itself is different and really soft and smooth. Oh ya... the wantan mee here, wantan are optional, they will actually ask if you just want noodles with bbq pork (char siew) or add wantan to it, funny. In the same shop, there is also a stall which sells porridge or rice, where you can choose the dishes or have roast duck, chicken and pork. My cousin ordered some duck, chicken and roast pork to go with the noodles, so much to eat, gosh!

After the 2nd breakfast (growing fat), we head to get some Cheong Cia shop (N4 12.938 E100 41.764) to pack some Gong Pian and some red wine for cooking. How to resist the nice and hot gong pian, so makan again, 1 piece that is. As we returned to my aunt house, my cousin dragged me to finish the balance of the nasi lemak, so another packet and my dad made me ate 1 papaya then my aunt made me try her special red bean soup!

I took a break from all this makan and took all the ladies out to buy sea produced at Ping Gi in Lumut before stopping for more shopping in Sitiawan. As we returned, they are screaming for lunch and out we go again. This time to Kg. Cina where we head to Ah Pek Lee Kou Hock Seafood (N4 10.775 E100 40.855). We ordered some sar chiu fish here, its similar to those I had at Matang during my Peninsula Makan Trip with roe in them. Then there is also the hot plate oysters with eggs, which is only good if the oyster are fresh. We also got a lala meehoon, big difference here is that the lala comes with the big thick shells and are twice or trice bigger than normal lala!

Then its back to more chores and chaffeuring for the rest of the day preparing for the house warming. Some of the highlight dishes that night includes my aunt's fish curry, which I had a chance to try sum as it is ready mid afternoon (ya, more food, guilty) with sting rays and other fishes plus vegetables. Fried mee tiau which are teo chew noodles which are great to go with curry. Also, my uncle went back to Ling Cheng Ji in Pantai Remis to get their famous braised (lou) duck, its really different from those in KL, the duck texture are still tender, not too soft and the sauce are thick and well absorbed in. Also good from the same place are their "chee tau pei" which are skins from the pig's head which are braised until its really soft and tasty. Also, we have a whole roast pig which are roasted just in time for the house warming, chopped and served there!

There are a lot more goodies to eat here in Sitiawan and surrounding area, but within the 2 days, I am already overwhelmed by food! So if you do go to Sitiawan or Pantai Remis, make sure you spend some time there to sample the local specialities! Will write more about this place when I go there again ;)

p/s: sorry didn't take much photos this time.

Miri, Sarawak - Yong Ho Laksa

This place is located below Park Hotel in Miri town along Jalan Malay, look for Kedai Yong Ho. Its just a small coffeeshop with tables in the shop as well as by the corridor. They serve some very good laksa, sarawak style. Its a bit different from the sarawak laksa we get to try in KL but I must say its still very good!

The laksa here comes with thick rice noodles by default with prawns, fishballs and shredded chicken meat. Those sarawak laksa I get to try here or those cooked by Jack are more of fried eggs, chicken and prawns, so slight different here. Soup wise, those I had tried are more strong and sour in taste, where else this is lighter but still its really good, a must try!

The ding pian hu which is a kind of Sarawak Foo Chow's noodles that looks like koay teow but thinner. Its sort of a pan mee like noodles. The way its made is by having this flour mixture (rice flour if I am not wrong, Jack correct me!) put on a pan, then as it cooks, you scrap it up and cook it in soup, well, at least this is how I saw Jack's maid doing it. Anyway, I ordered 1 here too, but it really doesn't taste as good as the one Jack made which have fried anchovies inside. The one served here only have some black fungus and minced meat in it.

The other thing we saw here at Yong Ho is this crunchy and yummy taiwan biscuits, its basically a crepe like biscuits wrapped with eggs inside. Pretty nice and yummy.

I think there should be a lot of goodies to try in Miri, maybe next time when I have more time. Price wise, its almost KL rate, so don't expect things to be cheap, like Jack said, Miri is quite metropolitan you know :P

GPS - Miri, Kedai Yong Ho - N4 23.416 E113 59.193

Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip - Update 8 - Last Day!

Time sure flies, very soon we are on the last day of the trip and everyone is already feeling the end of the trip, time to go back to work, life, bills... well, at least we had a good break and a wonderful experience won't you think so?

We took the last morning easy, waking up late to prepare steamboat with all the fresh and yummy vegetables we had brought the previous night. Everyone got in to help, either making the soup, cutting the vegetables or just preparing their stomach to help eat! Since we are in Cameron Highlands, we had a meatless steamboat, which is also good for us with all the loads of stuff we had eaten for the last 4 days. We also had some goodie strawberries with nutella and honey, absolutely heavenly!

Since its Daniel's first trip here, how could we not take him to see strawberries, shop at the market and let him taste some fresh tea leaf (ok ok, the tea leaf is a prank by some of the guys, please don't eat it!). So we did some tourist stops, had some strawberry juice, ice cream and a cup of tea.

As we got down to Simpang Pulai, the gang are already screaming for food, so we hurried to Tapah to look for more food to eat. Tapah is our last stop before heading home and we were rounding Tapah town in rain to try to find a decent place to eat. Somehow most of the places are closed on Christmas eve and we found Little House Cafe which serve Hainanese cuisines. We got the recommended talapia fish butter fried, sambal petai, butter fried sotong and the usual vegetables and tofu. The best would have to be the fish, which are sliced and fried and also the sotong. Total bill is RM100.00, all round up, hmmm... based on estimation or a standard charge for KL folks? :P. Anyway, the food here are still good and decent.



In conclusion, we had traveled about 1,577.5km in 5 days time, going from KL to Kampar to Batu Gajah then resting in Taiping (includes Matang & Pokok Assam). Then from Taiping to Butterworth to Alor Setar. Moving up to Kangar then Gerik and from Gerik to Temenggor Lake to Gua Musang before Cameron Highlands and Tapah! What a journey but I am glad that everyone got home safe and happy ;).

It was a daunting task organizing the trip, but luckily I have got many helpers among the gang whom helped out throughout the trip! It was really a great experience, learning more about places and local food tourists do not normally visit as well getting to know each other better.

Thank you all for the participations, hope everyone had as much fun as I did. And yes, looking forward to our Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip part 2 to do the other parts we had missed out! Cheerio and wishing everyone a good year ahead, good health and have more to makan ;).

GPS - Tapah Kafe Little House - N4 11.885 E101 15.513

p/s: I have updated all the postings with GPS waypoints I manage to captured. Good hunting!

Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip - Update 7 - Gua Musang>Cameron Highlands

We are way behind schedule because of the road detours, but finally we are here in Gua Musang at 6pm, hungry and tired... determined to find the fish head that Micol talked about, we search around Gua Musang town. As we approach the old parts of the town, we found it, but its closed! Gahhh... what luck, first landslide now shop is close!

Luckily, the restaurant a few shops away is opened, so without much hesitant, we got ourselves sat down at Restoran 166 for dinner. Maybe we are early but we are the only customers there! The famous thing to try here is "Nim" fish head or according to my dad, known as Ikan Tapah. Unfortunately don't know what went wrong, we got the a big cut of the fish instead of the head steamed for us, but being as hungry as we are, not time to question!

Since we will be heading to vegetables land soon, we ordered a Tung Poh Yok (a kind of braise pork) to help Calvin beef up on his protein level, hehehe... its tasty and nice but as usual, a little fatty and unhealthy! We then goes for some lighter dishes like mix vege tofu, some vege and soup.

The dinner is a bit costly because of the fish, about RM60 for the fish alone but if you have it in KL, its a lot more than that! Fish head would be cheaper but its still cheaper to eat it here. In face, in Gerik, we should have seek for Pak Soh Kung fish to eat as a lot of them comes from Temenggor lake.

The break was good to refresh everyone and we then head on to Cameron Highlands. The highway to Cameron Highlands from Gua Musang was just fantastic, nice view and a very pleasant drive. It took almost 2 hours to reach our hotel in Brinchang.

As we reach Brichang, the pasar malam outside the police station is filled with hustle and bustle of tourists finding for food and bargains. We hurried to our hotel, the Country Lodge to check in and unload our stuff. Being as kiasu as we are, we quickly got ourselves to the pasar malam for some local snacks, mainly fried mushrooms, sweet potato, sweet corns, etc.

The vegetables here are, well, of course fresh and big, but price wise, not everything is cheap, in fact, some are about the same as KL, just that its fresh and being tourist, we like to shop! We got ourselves a whole lot of vegetables for our steamboat the next morning!

The night ended with us doing crazy things like small kids again in the apartment. Not letting others sleep, running around, carrying people around... hehehe... its really like everyone is back to their childhood. So its not just about makan or travel but also a great time for all of us to really forgot our work and reality for that moment and really let choose, burn bright and live the few days like a small kid, what an experience ;).

GPS - Gua Musang Restoran 166 - N4 53.015 E101 57.932

Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip - Update 6 - Gerik>Temenggor>Camerons plus Landslides!

As the road trip will be long today, all of us got up early to get ready for the day. Morning in Gerik is still cooling with nice fresh air, its good to just get up early and enjoy the weather. Reminds me how KL used to be when I was young, when the morning are foggy and cold.

Without much delay, Edwin whom just had a crash course on Gerik from his local friend took us to a local food court in town where we had breakfast. Its the usual Chinese fare but they are slightly different from those we used to have in KL. We got ourselves some dim sum, wantan mee, prawn noodles, curry noodles, chee cheong fun and nasi lemak! Since its going to be a long drive, we want to make sure everyone had a good heavy breakfast. The curry noodles are worth mentioning here, order the thick gravy one, its nice and rich. Before leaving town, we stock up on mineral water and some kueh at the wet market.

It didn't took too long to travel from Gerik to Temenggor Lake which is our next stop, on On the way we saw interesting signs of wild elephant crossing warning. Can't help but keep wondering if we will bump into one and I am sure the gang will go crazy with their cameras! Soon we arrived at Temenggor Lake, first sight of it when we are crossing the bridge was beautiful, immediately all the cars slowed down to enjoy the view. Once we crossed into Banding Island, then I realised Banding Island Resort is under renovation, no wonder no one is picking when I called them to try to do booking. After the resort, there's a Petronas there which is packed with cars resting and taking a break, unfortunately there are no nice view there. We moved further up the island and found a scenic spot for some photo shoot, this is partly a photography trip after all?

Before departing from Banding Island, we checked out the boat jetty and found out that its actually flooded! Water level raised to just below the marine police base there, 1/3 of shops and jetty are covered with water from the lake, not sure if this is a norm. Again, the shutterbugs snapped their cameras away here.

We then hurried everyone to move on, leaving Banding Island going further on the East West highway to Kelantan. The drive is really scenic with nice view of hills and mountains and of course again, the shutterbugs are screaming to stop for pictures. Daniel then advised us that there is a stop with nice view, this way we can park safely and snap away. So we arrived at a rest stop known as Titi Wangsa, as the name suggest, it over looks the whole Banjaran Titi Wangsa which is basically a long stretch of hills and mountains that protects the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia from the monsoon.

Everyone is getting hungry at this point, with the little kueh we have, we continued and rushed heading to Gua Musang through Jeli. First sight of Jeli is a relief as there are no floods here and the road are good but as we got halfway through, about 50km more to Gua Musang, we got stucked! A signboard saying that the road to Gua Musang is closed!!! OMG! We asked around and found out that landslide have covered up the road. At this point, we have to decide to go all the way back to Gerik or take the risk and see if we can pass since so many vehicles turned into the road anyway.

At this tension point, we send scout Daniel and Jason to ask further while the rest look for the loo at the Jeli bus station. The bus station is technically closed, with only 1 bus in sight and non of the counter or shops are opened. As the girls tried to be polite and covered up while seeking for the loo, I managed to flagged down a 4WD which told me that its safe to go as there is an old small road to detour. To be sure of this, Jason and Daniel managed to flagged down a motorbike... ya a motorbike! I saw a car and a motorbike, but they choose to ask the motorbike (hehe... what if the road is only passable by the bike?). Anyway, Jason is convinced that the road is passable and so our little adventure begins :D.

With slightly below half tank of fuel, we took the risk and headed on. There is seriously, no fuel station on the way down this road! Mainly small villages along the way, very little shops and mainly motorbikes. The only fuel station I saw are those cheap fuel they sell for motorcycles to use, which is basically a hut with a small little pump.

Soon, we came to the part of the road where a small signboard points us to a detour, in the beginning, the roads are still ok, looks like old and not maintained trunk road, then soon we came to small village road meant for 1 way traffic with lalang along both sides. At one point, we hit muddy dirt road below a railway bridge but lucky we managed to get passed. Then we hit smaller road and Jason had to be our ambassador to go down and ask the locals if we are on the right direction. After some assurance, we moved on deeper and came to small junction. We took the left turn with some kampung houses next to it and the moment Paullie asked, "the road so small, what if another vehicle comes the other direction?", a Pajero shows up the other direction! This really reminds me of the drive the wildgeeks have to Lata Kijang, hehe...

Anyhow, the driver of the Pajero told us that we took the wrong turn, Gua Musang is through the right side of the junction. At this point we had to u-turn in the narrow kampungs and lucky the locals are friendly and gladly let us use their driveway to u-turn. At the right turning, we go pass the railway bridge (just inches above my truck) and move on. Soon, we came to a downhill and saw a long queue of cars, guess what, another landslide! A policeman on motorbike directed us to queue on one side. The queue is about 1km plus and we had to wait like 45mins here for the tractor to clear the road for us to cross. With hot weather, 1/4 fuel left, you can imagine how tense we are then! Finally, we got to cross, but through muddy roads again through the side, the 2 other cars are definitely complaining at this point.

Without thinking much, we move on, along the way, there are numerous mini landslides, part of road collapsed and muddy roads after flood. I think this whole part of Kelantan is really been hit bad by the flood. As we arrived in Gua Musang, everyone is screaming of hunger, so fueled up and look for the chinese place to eat fish head Micol mentioned. It was really an adventure getting to Gua Musang! I can just imagine how bad it can be if we are really stucked in flooded area, more reasons for Ed to consider a 4WD now? Muhahaha :P.

GPS - Gerik Food Court - N5 25.799 E101 07.822

Peninsula Malaysia Makan Trip - Update 5- Alor Setar>Kangar>Gerik

The next morning, we got up real early to start the day, by 8am, we are already at Chia Bee Bak Kut Teh (who owns the motel) to try their famous fried fish with bak kut teh. We also got some fried lala and kang kung belacan :). The bak kut teh here are more herbal and sweet type, fried fish is pretty good and the lala are the small type that you just take and suck one by one. After a good and heavy breakfast, we move on and let the shutterbugs loose at Alor Setar Tower.

Before leaving Alor Setar, we head to Star Parade and visited Wah Tua Guan which is a popular place among the local. The serve local food and desserts here. We shared some laksa here, the lemak one and the assam one too. Both reminds me of those I had at Kim Laksa in Penang earlier the month. They are really good I must say. We also had some other stuff like the meat roll, toast with meat in it, etc. but the best are still the noodles ;).

The gang then checked out and headed to the Kedah Paddy Museum, we been told that this is a must attraction to visit when you are in Kedah. On the way, you will notice the seas of paddy fields with a picturese background of hills, blue sky and clouds. Its was crazy hot that day after all the rain we had to endured in Taiping, but we soon reached the paddy musuem. The museum is quite nicely done, learning a lot more about paddy and there's this revoving painting of paddy fields in Kedah that is a must to check out! Just as we leave the musuem, the shuttlebugs seems to be biting Daniel and Jason, so we had to find 2 different spots for them to take photos at the paddy fields surrounding the musuem. I don't know how to describe these, but I can tell you one thing, the hot burning sun really did not stop them, pix after pix after pix, especially Daniel and Jason, they are mad!

All of us then took a trip up to Kangar in Perlis, this is the first time for me to Perlis and I think for most of the rest too. Along the way, we noticed its mainly being dominated by paddy fields and nice limestone hills too. Daniel also managed to help us grab some goreng pisang on the way there. Kangar is quite a busy town, a little jam here and there and we found this Hailam coffeeshop just opposite KFC Kangar, Restoran Ging Dou. The coffee here is the best I have sampled so far in the whole trip! We got some roti bakar but its quite normal stuff, but the fried keoy teow here is quite nice, different from the normal style, the others commented that the fried rice is good too. The shop is runned by Chinese, but food is prepared and served by Malays. Sadly, we do not have much time to explore Perlis and can only make a quick stop at the coffeeshop. One thing unique about here are their parking system which are ticketless, quite high tech ;).

As we do not have much time, we had to rush to Gerik in Perak for the night, so we zoomed our down south, going in from Gurun while enjoying the view of sunset at the paddy field on the way down. From Gurun, we took the small road to Baling then to Gerik. Its was quite a tiring drive for a while as the small roads are winding, in progress and it was getting dark. After much torture, we finally made it to Gerik about 9.30pm. We stopped at Restoran 113 in Gerik for dinner before calling it a night. The food at 113 are slow to come but its was quite ok, they have carpet wild boar, guiness chicken, pork belly with salted fish, etc. According to Jason, our key entertainer, the best dish are none! I tell you, these bunch of makan kaki-s are really demanding! However, Micol added that the wild boar here are interesting because the texture are soft and tender. As we are all already tired, we call it a night at the Rest House Gerik.


GPS - Alor Setar Chia Bee BKT - N6 07.417 E100 21.731
GPS - Alor Setar Wah Tua Guan (inside Star Parade) - N6 07.372 E100 22.357
GPS - Gerik Restoran 113 - N5 26.199 E101 07.764