Category: Seafood

London: Burger & Lobster

London: Burger & Lobster – Most people (I would say, Asian mainly) will not miss the opportunity to visit Burger & Lobster, a restaurant that sells only, burger, or lobster in London. It’s like becoming one of the must-eat food in London. ‘Have you been to Burger & Lobster?’ ‘You must really try the Burger & Lobster!’ Most Asian friend will recommend this food outlet in London when you ask them what’s good in London. It’s more like a hipster place, where eating at Burger & Lobster is cool and must-do.

The place must be good, because 5 of their outlets are always full and have a queue all time. It’s not that you can just walk-in to eat anytime, you just have to wait, from as little as 15 minutes to an hour or more. Reservation only available for 6 or more, yet you still have to wait despite having a reservation. We had about 10 of us, and we still waited for like 15 minutes to get our table ready. The one I went to was at SOHO, and there’s 4 more at Mayfair, Farringdon, Knightsbrige and London City.

Eating at Burger & Lobster will let your mind have a break because you do not need to think that much on which and what to eat. There’s only, burger, or lobster! Burger, is a succulent huge beef burger serves with fries and salad; whereas lobster has the choices of lobster roll, or full lobster steamed, or grilled, or mix, or you can pay more for larger lobster. A standard burger, or lobster cost £20/each. Most newcomer will of course, go for lobster because at this hefty price tag, a lobster would be more worthwhile than a beef burger. I did not try the beef burger, but Foursquare has good review on it. My lobster was a grilled one, served with salad, and fries.

The aroma of grilled lobster was so good, and the lobster meat was very juicy and fresh. Not to mention, the fries was good too! However, I find that steamed lobster could be a better choice as the steamed one still have the lobster red roe intact (eggs), I’ve no idea where’s mine had gone. Dipping the lobster with the garlic butter sauce were just superb. You know what, the whole meal took about 1.5 hours to finish everything up, it’s like the longest meal I’ve ever had for one main course. I was just trying to clean everything up inside out of the lobster, no wastage. =D Thumbs up!

Friends from the same high school, Chung Ling High School, Penang! Interesting that we met not back in Penang, but in London. // Photo by Oohjii.

Head over to Burger & Lobster’s website for their list of locations and details.

February 11, 2014

Klang Valley: Acme Bar & Coffee, Troika, Kuala Lumpur

Klang Valley: Acme Bar & Coffee, Troika, Kuala Lumpur – Troika is one of my favourite building in Kuala Lumpur, designed by Foster & Partners architect and it’s standing beautifully just right across the KLCC park. It’s actually a high-end city condominium with restaurant at the mid-level sky bridge and also at the ground floor. Of course, it’s a high-end fine dining restaurant at the sky bridge on 24th floor, there’s also a bar as well as another Italian restaurant (unfortunately, only the Cantaloupe fine dining restaurant can get the best view of KLCC).

Coming back to Acme Bar & Coffee, or ABC in short, is another restaurant at Troika, but located on the ground floor. The restaurant, of course serve western cuisine, as well as food with a fusion of localized taste and price starts from RM25. It’s rather pricey, although some accept it because of the location and interior setup of the place. Don’t expect the premise to be big, it’s actually smaller than I expected, but the raw steel and wood design, blend with English-style design actually attracted my senses quite a lot.

Let’s talk about food. When people discusses about ABC, the first thing comes to mind must be their famous Cempadak (Jackfruit) Cake, but that’s desserts and served in the end. Of course, they have a good Smoked Buffalo Wings which we didn’t order, unfortunately. The menu’s variety is quite choice-ful and me and my friends were confused picking out our main course.

Just Mac & Cheese – RM27.

Angel Hair Pasta with Scallops – RM-forget. Another interesting dish with lots of pan-fried scallop.

Sambal Hebi Aglio Olio Spaghetti – RM31. Interesting combination of local and western taste with lots of shrimp.

Grilled Jumbo Hot Dog – RM-forget, but I know it’s the lowest price of all and my friend said it’s good! Yes, it indeed looks good.

Marinated Grilled Lamb Shoulder – RM-forget but it’s the priciest of all you see here. The portion is quite big which I promise a full stomach after this.

Cempedak (Jackfruit) Cake – RM15. The famous cake of this restaurant. Truly, the taste of jackfruit is very strong and powerful which will be pleasant for jackfruit lover. Many complains it’s overrated, but yes I still like it, but not the price.

US! The food gang, the interior designers.

Yes, the food is very over-priced in my opinion, but it seems to be a nice place for hangout with friends actually. Food taste is still up to standard in my tastebuds and service was pleasant. If there’s a chance, I want to go back for a breakfast as they have different menu. After all, the down point is still the price, really pricey. Bahhh.

Acme Bar & Coffee

Unit G1 The Troika

19 Persiaran KLCC

50450 KL

Telephone: +603-2162-2288

Business Hours:
11am – 12am (Mon – Thurs) | 11am – 1am (Fri) | 9.30am – 1am (Saturday) | 9.30am – 12am (Sun)

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August 27, 2013

Malacca: Back Alley Cockles, Lala, Cuttlefish Seafood @ Tong Bee’s Stall

Malacca: Back Alley Cockles, Lala, Cuttlefish Seafood @ Tong Bee’s Stall – In August, I went to Malacca with friends, but then I missed out quite some nice food spot in the little historical town and one of them is this little seafood stalls located at the back alley / lorong of Jalan Bunga Raya. Little seafood that I mean are those small stuff like lala, siham (cockles), cuttlefish, tiger prawns and some other non-seafood like BBQ toufu.

It’s a truly local style of food stall because firstly, it’s located on a back alley that you can hardly find it unless you walk into it, then you sit onto a low stool and share a long table with others. Very got feel and culture.

Notice King’s or MY JEANS FASHION. It’s the alley left to it.

It took me and Clarice a little while to search for it while driving on Jalan Bunga Raya and finally found it located beside My Jeans Fashion. You will be welcome and amazed by the little stalls located at the back alley, there’s two stalls and go for the one nearer to the street which is Tong Bee Stall, another one is operated by Capitol Satay Celup.

Famous TV food show host Axian came before too!

Preparing.

Sihum Cockles.

Lala.

Cuttlefish with Kangkung.

Sit down on the low stool and start ordering. There’s lala (RM1.50), sihum (RM1.50), cuttlefish with vege (RM7 for 2 person), tiger prawns and BBQ toufu. They are all very small plate and come with hot and sour chilli sauce which is good. Not forget to mention, the price is pretty reasonable too!

Clarice with the lala.

Thumbs up initially, thumbs down for the unfortunate event.

Night comes to life at the quiet alley.

One unfortunate event was that I ate a very stinky sihum which taste like, dirty drain water or something shit, it just gave me a bad experience. Probably because it’s not clean enough from the mud. Ewwwww. It was a good head start, ended with a bad sihum. But overall, this is something interesting, smell your sihum before you put in your mouth. Haha.

Tong Bee’s Stall

Jalan Bunga Raya Lane, Malacca.

GPS: N2 11.990 E102 15.110

Business Hour: 7.30pm to late night.

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December 22, 2012
Bangkok: Famous Somboon Seafood Curry Crab

Click here for more posts about my Bangkok Trip.

Bangkok Trip: Famous Somboon Seafood Curry Crab (Day 3) – After eating chicken rice, we actually went back to shopping at Platinum Fashion Mall until our foot cannot stand the tiredness. Mom was really powerful as she can keep exploring and hunting for clothing even though the feet sores. Haha, girls really girls, when it comes to shopping, they can ignore everything.

We went back to hotel for a rest later, went to foot massage then we headed to Ratchada area for dinner – Somboon Seafood. Somboon Seafood is a very famous curry crab restaurant in Bangkok located at Ratchada area.

One tips for you is that don’t get scam by taxi driver who offers to bring you to famous curry crab restaurant, Somboondee Restaurant. Some will thought it’s the same restaurant, or it’s the branch but it’s a complete rip off of the real Somboon restaurant with a ‘dee’ added to the name, the price at Somboondee is blood sucking expensive and I’ve been there few years back.

But now we are clever already, we know the real curry crab is Somboon Seafood. We took a cab there and costs 100 Baht. You can also take MRT to there and get off at Hwai Khwang station.

Somboon Seafood is a very famous restaurant in Bangkok, specially famous with their “Bangkok’s best fried crab curry”, so it’s a place that must no be missed when visiting Bangkok. The restaurant is so big that it spans 3 floors of seating. The dinner was awesome and love the curry crab.

This is the curry crab. It’s nice to eat it with steamed rice. If you are lazy and want to skip the haze of eating crab, order the one without shell.

A kind of vegetable that tasted old, and crunchy. Like it because there’s many garlic.

Noodle with goose feet.

Desserts! It’s the yummy mango with glutinous rice. A famous Thai desserts.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=215278323465761497274.0004b80a852f7e1d51867&ie=UTF8&t=m&ll=13.779047,100.573429&spn=0.005002,0.006866&z=17&iwloc=0004b8d4a7633057d235b&output=embed&w=640&h=480]

Click here for more posts about my Bangkok Trip.

February 13, 2012
Singapore Food: Lucky BBQ Seafood At Pasir Panjang Food Centre

Singapore Food: Lucky BBQ Seafood At Pasir Panjang Food Court – Who likes Singapore food? Please raise your hand. Just my 2 cents, no offence, I like Penang’s food more, Singapore’s food, SO-SO only. Perhaps Singapore’s Chili Crab is good? I don’t know, never try before. Singapore’s Hainan Chicken Rice is just another chicken rice, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong also has their very own Hainan Chicken Rice, so what’s so awesome about Singapore’s Hainan Chicken’s Rice? Other than that, I think what’s good in Singapore is those restaurants and cafes. Haha.

Let’s get into the main point. I believe Chinese in Malaysia always eat out at seafood corner, cook fried corner – 煮炒zhu char (hokkien), da chao (cantonese), zhu chao (mandarin), which is eating Chinese cook dishes in kopitiam or food court instead of a proper restaurant.

On my trip to Singapore, I’ve get to try the Singapore-style of zhu chao. Located in Pasir Panjang Food Centre, there’s a stall named Lucky BBQ Seafood. I get to know about it because my brother is a frequent visitor to this stall and it’s operated by my brother’s girlfriend’s aunty.

Our dinner started off with a plate of appetizer, called Gong Gong (Conch), it’s a kind of sea snail. The Gong Gong were just light cook and to be eaten with seafood chilli sauce. The way of eating it is like how we eat the balitong here. It’s my first time to try out this Gong Gong, quite special.

Up next is Fried Lala Clams with garlic and egg. Something different again because mostly what we had in Malaysia is spicy and sour style instead of garlic and egg which makes the taste lighter. This in fact brings out the taste of the seafood more.

Fried Garlic Sai Yeung Choi (watercress)(xi1 yang2 chai4), have you tried this before? I bet many of you haven’t tried before as watercress vegetable (sai yeung choi) mostly used for making soup.

Hotplate Bean Curd, something common here. In this little hot plate, you can find many bean curd toufu and mouth watering vegetable. A plate of this cost SG$10.

Another common thing can be found in Malaysia and Singapore, as well as everyone’s favourite – the Balachan Deep Fried Chicken, they call it the Prawn Pasted Chicken.

Lastly, the Sambal Crab, Lucky BBQ Seafood-style of Chilli Crab, which tasted sweet and spicy on the sauce. It’s something special again, with a little bit of spicyness, it tasted not bad.

Singapore’s Zhu Char is kinda different from Malaysia’s in term of food. Ask me which one I like, of course I will say Penang’s. There’s no curry fish head at there which I like. Share your views.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com.my/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=215278323465761497274.000469feb8850ec72b675&ie=UTF8&t=m&vpsrc=6&ll=1.277516,103.791296&spn=0.005149,0.006866&z=17&iwloc=0004b5d97028001375683&output=embed&w=640&h=480]

January 6, 2012
Ruyi Tomyam Mee On Macallum Street

Recently, I shared about the Xiang Xia Tomyam Mee and just lately, I found another nice tomyam mee near that area, not at Weld Quay but at Macallum Street (五条路), or simply known as 5th Road to the locals.

The place where the tomyam mee is at the cafe named Ruyi Cafe. In fact, the whole cafe only sells the tomyam mee and fried fish beehoon.

They have a variety of ingredient come with soup and noodle. You can pick normal soup (qing1 tang1) or tomyam and the cheapest starts from RM4.50. There’s fried fish, fish ball, shrimps, minced pork meat and shrimp meat for you to choose to add in your noodle.

Here’s my delicious bowl of tomyam noodle, picked Maggi as noodle and there’s fish ball, fried fish fillet and the shrimp meat (the local call it hair gor bak in Hokkien). This thing cost me RM6.50 and it’s good. The soup has a strong tomyam taste, not too spicy, yet it brings the sourness out and there’s a little bit of sweetness in it. It’s good.

If you ask me to compare with Xiang Xia’s. I like this more.

Ru Yi Cafe

32, Gat Lebuh Macallum,
10300 Penang.
五条路 / Gor Tiao Lor (Sri Saujana 隔邻)

Business Hour: 9.30am-10.30pm

Tel: 04-2624012

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June 20, 2011
Hai Boey Seafood At Teluk Kumbar, Gertak Sanggul

In KL, when talking about seafood, people will think about Kuala Selangor or perhaps Klang, and in mainland Penang, people will think about Tambun, but in Penang island, there’s 2 place famous for seafood, Gertak Sanggul and Teluk Bahang. It’s not your typical Western seafood with cheesy lobster, Chilli soft shell crab, salmon fillet or tuna. What I am talking about is fried mussel, steamed fish, salted egg crab, and more Chinese-local style seafood.

Seafood in my opinion is one of the most expensive food because sea creatures are not easy to capture. These high cholesterol food (except fish) are not healthy, yet many people are craving for it. The freshness taste of seafood are so tempting.

I went to Hai Boey Seafood Restaurant, one of the famous seafood restaurant (another is Good Friend Seafood which I didn’t visit before) in Penang lately for a family dinner.

Hai Boey located deep inside Gertak Sanggul by the seaside is a nice place to have your Chinese-local style seafood as you can enjoy a nice view of sunset during the evening with a nice sea breeze. There’s a little beach and a small playground which allows little kids to play on. Being a big kid, I just went around to take photos of the place.

We arrived at about 7pm and surprised to see that the place was already fulled with people. I think that for the next visit, it will be 6pm, the earlier, the merrier as you can take a stroll near the beach and chit-chat with your friends and family there and chill too. It’s not all about food, but enjoying the sea view too!

We ordered several little seafood which were not those super expensive dishes, but were quite delicious. It was dad who became the leader to make down the order on the food. First up was a plate of what the local called – char kappa which is fried clam with sour sauce and garlic (RM15). It’s really a nice starting dish. The sour sauce were so delicious and it’s nice to eat with rice. The clam was so nice to eat with many garlic and the sour sauce.

Next up was a Japanese style fried brinjal/eggplant (RM9.00). Besides eating just seafood, we did order some vegetable, non-seafood dish to neutralize the seafood cholestrol. This was surprisingly to be good as it’s not only deep fried, but stuffed with a little bit of carrot cutlet and little meat.

The other vegetable dish was something light. It’s a simple Chinese style spinach cook with garlic (RM12.00). The vegetable was soft but I didn’t fancy on this much because I was too concentrated on the fishes, crabs and more seafood! Haha.

As for some carbohydrates dish, we ordered a fried bee hoon and tang hoon mixed (RM15.00). This one is kinda special, on my first try of the mixed of tang hoon and bee hoon, I couldn’t taste the presense of tang hoon, but when look closer into it, the tang hoon actually blends into the taste and the taste covers the texture of both noodle. This is pretty good, especially with lots of little shrimps and beansprout.

I saw some people’s table has this dish, the deep fried sotong (squid) – RM10, and it looks so tempting and crunchy. I am kinda fan of crunchy food and I ordered one too. Though, there only me and dad who were eating it and there’s quite many of it. Eating this with the seafood chilli sauce was so good. It’s just crunch-crunch in the mouth.

You might not see clearly what it is. This is a big claypot, with a big Red Snapper fish in it. This is the claypot red snapper fish (RM52.00) which is one of their recommended dish. The red snapper fish was a little bit hard, yet the freshness can be tasted through my tongue. The sauce was actually soy sauce, a little bit of alcohol and some other spices which I don’t know that makes it good. This dish comes in a big portion too.

Lastly, how can a seafood dinner comes without a crab? We were not really into crab for the dinner, somehow because of it’s a seafood dinner, we ordered a salted egg fried crab (RM22). It’s a small dish as it’s just eat-for-fun and there’s only 2 crabs. Yum yum yum that’s what I want to say because the crabs were deep fried with salted egg which you can taste the salty-ness, yet preserving the freshy taste of the crab. I like this.

It was really a nice dinner and went back home with a full stomach.

Hai Boey Seafood
29 MK 9, Pasir Belanda,
Teluk Kumbar, Gertak Sanggul,
11900 Bayan Lepas.

Tel: 0134881114 / 0124981114 / 0194791114

Business hours: 5.30pm – 11.00pm

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June 12, 2011
Tomyam Mee At Xiang Xia Fish Head Beehoon, Weld Quay

The sun was going down on a Saturday evening and my parents brought me to Weld Quay for a dinner. Cruising along the seaside at Weld Quay was nice as it brings us to a friendlier part of Penang with all walks of life. The golden sun was setting and it’s an quiet and yet to be noisy Saturday evening.

We came to this 乡下鱼头米粉 which translated is Xiang Xia Fish Head Bee Hoon (rice noodle). As stated in their name, the famous dish is the fish head bee hoon, but there’s another famous dish and that is the tomyam noodle which I was craving for and I like.

I have never been to this place before but I heard many good comment about it and how spicy the tomyam noodle is. I ordered a bowl which is less spicy and no doubt, it’s really delicious, especially eating with fried fish fillet and maggi noodle. Just one thing, the maggi noodle was too little. Anyway, it’s still yummy.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com.my/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=215278323465761497274.000469feb8850ec72b675&ll=5.41416,100.339776&spn=0.005127,0.006866&z=17&iwloc=0004a4bc77df4c9f0fd78&output=embed&w=640&h=480]

June 3, 2011