Nice to look at but not so nice to eat Part 2

Normally, the stuffs in Hot Cross Bun Miri is really nyummy but I'll say this one here is an exception...*blerk*

MY FAVE SNACKS!

My aunt got these from me a while ago when she came back from a trip to Japan...The fishy snack...in the form of candies~nyummy....I haven't had these since I was in primary school...the last time I tried buying a similar one made locally...according to the packaging, it was made by a factory in Shah Alam or sumthink...but the taste is just not the same...so.... And this one is my new fave...it's made to look like a mini sausages or something and it tasted like bacon or those barbecued ham....nyummy....oyea..the name on the wrapper is salami...=DDD

Passion Corner, Miri

I went to this Taiwanese food shop for the very first time Last Sunday with my dad and sis. Hm...when I first went inside the shop, I couldn't help noticing the wallpaper which are all in the form of bamboo trees...we went up the 2nd floor and the seating is like those japanese style cubicle where you have to take off your shoes before entering and stuff. The set meals (without drinks) are pretty cheap i think...the starting price is RM10 to around RM16...
We ordered (a) Tea Duck Set, (b) Braised pork rib set and (c) the pineapple bitter-gourd chicken to share.
The Tea Duck Set - frankly I couldn't understand why there was just a small spot of sweet sauce given. Otherwise, I guess was pretty normal...it comes with some fruit salad, a lil salted vege and a bowl of clear soup.The pork rib set - uh, it comes with coleslaw and the fried seaweed which I don't really like ...the rib was...peppery-spicy....which reminded me of the taste of pig's intestine soup...uh...not rili sure how to name that soup...The pineapple bitter gourd with chicken soup...couldn't see any pineapple though...hm...also served with coleslaw and fried seaweed....the soup wasn't that bitter and was quite nice to me but my sis disliked this one...hehe...The cutest thing is that with every set, they will give a free dessert in the form of mango jelly...and each jelly was shaped differently in the form of cute lil animals...ours were in the form of a turtle, a teddy bear and another one was...hm...dun rmbr...lol
We also ordered some side orders but it is not very um...not out of the world but pretty decent I guess except for the deep fried chikuwa (it was introduced as a type of squid but when it arrived, it was actually the instant seafood easily purchasable at supermarkets...). All the same, the meat rolls and chikuwa was served with the sweet and spicy fish sauce and therefore, was OK I guess.
As for the drinks, this is the kiwi milk tea, but I can't really detect the hint of kiwi in it although there is a very strong vanilla flavour....hmm...
The green apple green tea...catchy name huh? A lil...bitter sourish? on the tongue
The best drink of the nite was lemon plum green

Turmeric powder fried chicken and stewed pork belly in soya sauce recipe

After being b*tched at by some b*tch today, really not so happy...anyway...today I made some turmeric powder fried chicken....and ABC soup...since ABC soup is pretty easy to make, won't be sharing the recipe here...

Turmeric powder fried chicken
Ingredients
around 800g of chicken wings
a dollop of turmeric powder (just enough to make sure all the chicken is covered)
a big tablespoon of corn powder
a tablespoon of sugar
2 tsp of salt
dashes of pepper

Instructions
1) Just slather everything to the wings and marinate for 30mins or more...
2) Deep fried until golden brown
=)
Hmm...apparently the fried chicken is pretty easy as well..LOL

Stewed pork belly in soya sauce
Ingredients
about 625g of pork belly (Miri's rate: 1kg=RM16, so I bought RM10=625g) - cut into 1 inch strips
a tbsp of rice wine
about 1 and 1/2 star anise
1 stick of cinnamon
about 1 1/2 tbs of white pepper corn - pound roughly
2 whole garlic - washed and extra 'skin' should be thrown...
4tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
800ml of water (add more if you like a more watery taste or lesser if you prefer the sauce thicker)
a tbsp of sugar
boiled eggs (shell-less)

Instructions
1) Put a lil oil into the pot and when it is hot, add in the garlic and fry for a while before adding in the star anise, cinnamon and white pepper corn. fry until fragrant
2) Add in the pork belly. stir and add in the dark and light soy sauce and then the water. Stir and add in the sugar. When it is already boiling, cover it up and stew for 30 minutes or longer if you have the time to make the meat really tender...=). Before you cover it up, put in the eggs and stir for a while...

Marina Seahorse Bistro II, Miri (EWWWW)

Since there is another restaurant with the exact same name near to this current one that I've highlighted...I will put in the address of this specific "restaurant".
Lot 280, Ground Floor,
Brighton Commercial Centre, 98000 Miri, Sarawak

This is the one shop that I will not go to again in the future...Normally if a restaurant produces a bad dish, they will still have some dishes that I will find OK and therefore, warrant another visit but in this case, this shop fails on even that small requirement...which makes me wonder why isit still open till now...No offence...and there are still people who frequented the shop...So, maybe there are redeeming qualities in this shop but for me, there aren't...(based on my first and last visit to the shop Last Friday)...even the quality of the service is TERRIBLE...cause sometimes even if a restaurant is not so good in terms of the food, if the service is good, sometimes I still will visit that shop again...

My sis: I'd have a honey wheatgrass with lemon (it's in the menu)..
Waitress: No more...
My sis: Oh, ok...nvm...

(However, when I asked for my bill, around an hour later, I saw some customers at my neighbouring table having that exact same drink)

Me: Excuse me, but is that wheatgrass they're having? I tot you said no more..
Waitress: Just arrive...

(makes me really wonder is there any delivery of the goods at nite?around 9.30pm?hmm...if there really are...then ok...maybe I'm wrong...)

Another part of the nite:
Me: What's the difference between your cottage pie and chicken pie? (it's in the menu)
Waitress: I've never seen the cottage pie. The chicken pie is uh...quite small..uh...
Me: Ok...nvm...I'll just have the chicken pie (decided not to ask her further since she seems to find it so hard to explain)
Waitress: No chicken pie
Me: Uh, oohhhkayyy....

Anyway, just to cut a longer story short, we had oxtail soup, a Hawaiana pizza and a plate of chicken wings. Before I even go further, the menu was depicted as below:

So if you are me, you will probably be expecting a reddish-brown creamy oxtail soup right?since it IS under the western column...well, surprisingly, this shop produces a local oxtail soup ie a clear and peppery-like "sup tulang" type...the famous local version of oxtail soup...duhhh...obviously a shop who can't even get their categorisation skill right in the menu shows a lot of their "talents" even before you get to their kitchen eh? A small bowl of the local soup cost RM10...hmm...doesn't even look that appetizing in this pic huh? But then, it is pretty average I think. The shop near the main road on the way to Imperial's serve better for cheaper price...=) Next up, the chicken wings. After the disappointing soup, I should not expect much but sad to say, the wings surpassed my low expectation ie...it is even worse that what I would have expected. I can even taste the salt-crystals...imagine that! Either it is the salt or the granules of stock or sumthink...the point is, after braving through my 3rd piece of wing, my tongue and lips feel swollen...hmmmm....what I can't imagine is that it is already salty enough on its own and yet, it comes with a bowl of soy sauce...with bits of small chilies (cili padi)...ironic isn't it?

My sis and I couldn't take it anymore so we decided to leave the few pieces left to rest...hehe

As for the pizza, and the menu is as below:

However, I could not find a single piece of chicken in the whole pizza. And I've really looked. See???

As if that is not bad enough, the whole thing is pretty tasteless and comes with a lil sourish smell (I suspected it is the puree but that is forgivable...I mean, sometimes puree can smell a lil sourish when overcooked...I think...hmm...or not?). The worst part is that the whole pizza patty is covered with flour..I mean I could understand a lil powder due to the need to powder our hands when handling the dough but this is ridiculous...

Oyeah, after messing around with two pieces, we still has two left so...

Sports Cafe, Miri (NYUMMYYYY)

This place was recommended twice by two different friends so I decided to go over and give the food a try with my sis since we r pretty stumped on where to have our lunch...or isit dinner...anyway, I'm pleasantly surprised despite the first impression since we gotta go up the stairs to the shop to start and it was pretty "shady" with the dim lights and all...ahhaha...It is a very good place I guess to sit around for hours surfing the net on the free wifi or watching some reruns of TV shows or even listening to the music playing. The food was pretty reasonably priced for me and taste pretty good...My sis and I went there twice in three days I think...once for dinner and another time for breakfast...They are open at 7 am!!!! and closes around 10 or 11pm? Not sure...What I do know is that their service are EXCELLENT despite their mandarin-only service....oh well, they prolly get what I'm trying to say in my broken mandarin so everything's well...
I would personally recommend the fried chicken wings...if I'm not mistaken, they put in a lil fermented beancurd and the chili mixed with tomato sauce is pretty nice and reminds me of the sauce in McD...LOL
The Singapore BeeHoon is also very tasty but a lil spicy I think cause during my last visit, they seem to put in quite a lot of curry powder...hmmm....nevertheless...still nyummyyyy
The century egg with pork porridge however is a lil disappointing...not in terms of the taste...not much anyway...but the century egg depicted in the menu was like a whole egg cut into pieces but in the real thing, there were prolly less than half of a whole century egg put inside...Also, I think the pork smell a lil..."off"...I got a suspicion but won't be putting it up...*uhhh*
The lemon juice...not bitter...unlike lotsa shops which never wash the skin properly causing my juice to owes be bitter...
The cashew nut chicken was nice but it was more like celery fried with chicken cause the celery was wayyyy more than the chicken...
The baked cheesy chicken or sumthing with mango sauce...when this one came, I tot they put a whole lot of thousand island in it...(the spicy kind...forgot the name...). Then I remembered I ordered the mango sauce...so my conclusion is that the t.i.sauce is prolly the mango sauce but I dun rili recall getting any taste of mango so....hahaha
However, this one is quite nyummy but after the half bowl, you'll prolly feel that it is a lil too much...honestly...I wouldnt pair mayo with cheesy stuff so much cause you'll actually feel sick if consumed in large quantities...(one whole plate count as too large a quantity for me). LOL
The golden fried rice...it was recommended by the steward that nite..or isit just a waiter?hm...it comes with fish roe...nyummyyyy....but actually it tastes just like a good fried rice...delicious but pretty normal...=) except for the fish roe's addition...
Our iced Neslo and Milo

Delifrance Miri Part 2

Like usual, a trip to Delifrance, Miri is in order since I'm back here. This time around, I made a really bad choice and ended up bitterly sorry for myself, literally! Btw, Delifrance is having a promo at the moment so if you order one set then you get to order another for 50% of the original price. Do note that there are only a few main dishes on the promo list though. (Different branches offer different promo, this promo is only available in Miri and I'm not sure about other branches)
Like usual, there's the free soft drinks that come with the main dish. Now, for my "bitter" mistake...The Salmon Thermidor. According to the menu, and I quote "Grilled Salmon gratinate with thermidor sauce served with creamy mashed potatoes and garden salad". What they failed to tell me is that the thermidor sauce is served "bitter". Believe me when I say bitter cause it's even worse than swallowing whole mouthful of chinese medicine and with the slightly pungent smell of the cheese, well, it really gives a whole new light to my dining experience. LOL. I have never ever tasted thermidor sauce which is bitter before so this is my first time. When I asked the waitress "Is this sauce suppose to be bitter?"..."Yes, it is"...Hmmm.....I fail to understand why the sauce is bitter though...the last time i had something with thermidor sauce was Lobster Thermidor in Eden's and it was NOT bitter at all. In fact, if I remembered correctly, it was very creamy and cheessyyyy....This really spoils my good experience with this sauce...so a piece of advice, NEVER EVER order this at Miri's Delifrance...considered yourself warned....
My sis made a very safe choice in choosing the Chicken Forrestiere, which she basically had every time we go here...
As I did not finish my food, I was not full...*durhhh* So I ordered another croissant...The Egg D'luxe or something....Hm...personally, I think they could do better with the egg salad (egg with mayo and some salt and pepper) in the croissant. And the croissant was rather ....hard...

Tea at Imperial Restaurant, Miri

Since my internet connection was down for the last few days, I didn't have the chance to upload any posts. Last Thurs, sis n I went to Imperial Restaurant for the tea-break set since we've never tried it before. Furthermore, it is really cheap~*grins*. We ended up ordering the combination set...hehe (it's just RM16.90 - picture above)

The smaller sets are just RM4.99 to RM5.99....
Sadly, the croissant and bun are a lil disappointing but I guess that's what you'll get for the price...LOL...however, the service is EXCELLENT!
The only thing that is pretty good is the tiramisu. The Pao de Queijo is pretty ok too. The corn bread, however, is a lil dry and stale...hmm...

Chilies

It's been a few days since I last posted anything up. So like usual, I will just update what I've been eating for the last few months...and after that, I can finally clear up my computer space from all those pictures taken in various shops....=)

Chillies...it should be pretty familiar to most of us I guess....But I will never understand why I always ended up ordering the chicken dish on most of my visits. If it's not me, then it must be the person I'm with at the time...it's not that I personally loved this one so much...in fact, I don't really like the tomato sauce that goes with it...I really couldn't understand why a lot of shops nowadays always opt for the tomato puree plus a lil chopped tomatoes and some herbs, usually oregano to pass off the sauce with a fancy name or sumthink...not that I have anything against Chilies but it's not just them, some Italian shops also did the same for most of their tomato based sauce. I'm not sure what I would actually want to taste in a plain old tomato sauce but it's really kinda boring in a way...which makes me dun feel like ordering tomato-based sauce for my chicken....

The milk shake...chocolate...my faveeee

Oya, this sauce goes with the chips down below...it's actually a blend of minced beef and cheese so it is great at the beginning...until you started getting a lil sick of the sauce....and the chips...tortilla chips if I'm not mistaken actually comes with its own salsa sauce...a lil watery I think...but if you add on another RM5 i think, you get the cheesy minced beef sauce...and without the add-on, you can get the bottomless chips...if you got a whole group of people then I should think the bottomless chips makes a gud appetizer I guess and you can actually get them to refill it over n over again though I dun tink I'm up for another piece of it in a long, long while...LOL

Note: The tortilla chips will be uploaded shortly...accidentally deleted it and will have to upload from the laptop again.

The soup which comes with Weetameal biscuits...ehhe...mushroom soup...

Uh, I forgot what this is. Should be the salmon...hmm...

The steak...=) The mashed potatoes have tiny bacon pieces sprinkled over them...

Bar Steak Recipe

Today, I made bar steak...My personal fave...hehe

INGREDIENTS:
A:
around 400g of minced pork (lean meat)
3 tbs sesame oil
5 tbs light soy sauce
pepper
B:
5 eggs (beaten with a lil salt and pepper)
3 potatoes (cut into slices)
1 whole carrot (cut into slices)
2 tomatoes (cut like oranges)
1 big onion (cut into dices)
abt a small bowl of tomato sauce...roughly 12 tbs mixed with a tbs of sugar, some dashes of salt and pepper
water

1) Subject the carrot and potato slices to deep frying. Remove from wok and soak up the excess oil with some scott towels
2)Heat up the oil. After ingredients in "A" was mixed up thoroughly, scoop one tbs of the mixture and dump into the eggs mixture before taking that whole tbs up and put them into the hot oil. Repeat until all the mixture was done. PS: Once brown, remove each "mini meat patties" onto a plate.
3) Heat a lil bit of oil and fry the big onions until slightly brown. Add in all the "fried" potatoes and carrots and mix well. Next, add in the tomato sauce mixture and after stirring, add in about 1 to 1.5 cup of water (uh, the cup's actually the drinking mug in my house...it should be about 250ml up to 300ml of water). To check, the whole sauce should be still thick even after adding in the water.
4) Remove half of the sauce to keep for dinner. Same thing for the "meat patties". The rest, just add into the wok and stir. Serves about 5. (The whole thing)

Sakae Sushi

Everyone was talking about how nice this shop's sushi was n etc so I finally went to see for myself about a fortnight ago. Hm...ended up eating the buffet as I reached there around 3 sumtink...One thing to it was that the sushi was way cheaper than any other Japanese shops/restaurants I usually frequented but maybe cause it's during the buffet...every single dishes I ordered were only available during the first round (at least for the ones I find nyummy). After that, when I ordered again for the same thing, it's always answered with "We're sorry but we ran out of this and that" which get me thinking they limit the customers to just a plate? of the nice ones? Since there wasn;t much people when I was there. Hmmmm......Despite all that, my friend and I still managed to eat up quite a lot of plates...LOL...and I did ordered a side dish...the potato salad...it looks really nice although it din taste as good as it looks...