Buzzing with FOOD

Will be off to KL for the long weekend, armed with my camera to snap all the food I’m going to try and the places I’ll be going. Hopefully my KL "guide" will bring me exploring and discovering the wonder foods of KL. Weeee….

*am wondering why I’m so excited. Maybe because it has been almost a year since I left KL and come back to my hometown to work - How much has it changed in a year??*

Will update when I get back.

Have a nice weekend ahead everyone!!!

p/s: KK better make up your mind whether you want IT or not….or you rather drool and salivate by just looking at the photos…which is torturing enough though.

Some say, you don’t have to find a nice restaurant to get great food. This is the case to prove such claim.

A small pre-war corner two storey-house which has been turned into a coffee shop with little to none renovation from its original form. No fancy doors with tinted windows neither is there any sofa chairs nor an air-conditioner.

A closer look and one will be focused on the blue banner hanged just below the name of the coffee shop

"Guan Hiang Coffee Shop" - "Francis Western Food (Fusion Style)"
Business Hour: 5.00pm to 10.00pm (Closed on Monday)

Such small shop with such a simple publicity is enough to get people from far, even those from KL to come here and satisfy their craving for western food which can be found practically anywhere else??

That’s what you/we think until……we tried what the chef here has to offer.

There’s like 30-40 kinds of western dish you can order from and that’s not including the "Today’s Special" yet.

The specialty here is of course the Fusion Style which the chef tries to put into his cooking method. So, his main way of cooking is by Baking the dish. As we can see from the menu, most of the dish are baked instead of the usual deep fried.

So here’s the chef and his dependable big oven used for all the baking.

Moving on the the food….mind you, waiting time here is darn long as this is a one-man show(chef) with only one side kick who helps with preparing the garlic bread and garnishing the dish with salad.

My appetite just opens up once the I saw what was served to us. It was very special, looks colourful, and portion is worth the price paid for…and I haven’t even took a bite yet!!!

This was the "Today’s Special" - Chef’s Spicy Chicken (Baked)

Grilled chicken topped with rich and flavourful curry and then baked to bring out the aroma. There’s loads of pineapple, capsicium, tomatoes and even crab sticks in the curry. It does not taste very spicy but just enough to give a good blend to the chicken meat. The chicken meat on the other hand, is very tender and goes well with the unique gravy.

Next came the dish I ordered….Moroccan Fish (Baked)

Pearl white dory fish topped with a special moroccan gravy and garnished with crab stick, tomatoes, capsicium, pineapples and even mangoes. The curly bits on top is grated cheese.

Look at the toppings…the chef is certainly very generous with the amount of ingredients put into each dish!!!

Not to forget the side-dish, the garlic bread which is soft and very tasty. The salad is just normal, while the parsley-garnished potatoes is sweet and soft.

Foils were used to bake the dish ingredients and transfered to plates when it comes out piping hot from the oven. All baked dish comes with steamed potatoes instead of french fries.

The chef serves pastas too and the carbonara we saw on another customer’s table looks very tempting and mouth-watering!!!

The western and fusion style of preparing the dishes is certainly unique and taste very good too. No wonder people just don’t mind sitting in that small and simple shop for a long period of time to savour the food.

The shop is at a corner of a traffic light junction in Pulau Tikus just a few blocks down after Bellisa Row. It is just opposite the Maxim Cake House which we had our nice and cheap gelato

In the past week, for 3 consecutive days, I only had FRUITS. Yes, only fruit for 24 hours for 3 days. It sounded easy at first, so I challenged myself to go through that diet for whatever reason, be it to detox the body, or to take in more natural vitamins, or whatever it may be.

It sounds easy to go through it. Some said "You still get to eat all the time…but only fruits ma". Others quoted "Crazy ar? What kind of diet is that?" Actually after going through it, it felt harder than puasa. If puasa, we tend to eat more  carbohydrate food to give our body more energy to last throughout the day. By only eating fruits, it digest easily and there is a tendency to get hungry at a faster rate!!

It was ok and good on the first day. Since I usually only eat 1 or 2 meals normally, so eating fruits throughout the day still can keep my hunger away. The second day reached and I started feeling hungry even as I got up from my bed in the morning. The thought of having a "malaysian-ised" breakfast such as nasi lemak, noodles, etc. quickly vanished when I realise my fruits diet is still on-going. Gobbling down the papayas, apples, pears, oranges was enough to keep my hunger at bay while off I go to work.

Work…needs concentration. But hunger kicks in again and out comes a big tupperware full of fruits, from kiwis to papaya (again) to oranges to pears and pineapples. I was practically eating fruits throughout my time in the office. a few bites of apples, then an hour later, another few bites of pears, then later again, some kiwis…and so on.

Second night going to bed with hunger but I was telling myself, there’s just one more day to go…..so don’t get tempted by those muffins, chocolates, chips…

Third day, the same routine of fruits (bananas, watermelon, apples, etc.) for every meal. I finally ended my fruits diet on the night dinner meal.

Suddenly the rice and other dishes taste great, even the normal plain vegetables stir-fried with garlic. Hahaha…..what a glutton of me. I was telling my family members how I miss eating all those food we normally eat.

Some say you will look more radiant, alert and feel much healthier after the fruit diet. I don’t know about the aftermath on what’s inside my body. Everything still feels the same but the only thing I realise is that I lost 2kgs from the 3 days!!!! It’s either due to the "so-called healthy diet" or that my weighing scale is faulty or my eyesight is failing me. Hehe…

So anyone who have tried this before??

Gelato?

To those who have never heard of it….it sounds sooo foreign.

Well yup, Gelato is invented in Italy

Gelato

an Italian ice cream with almost no air and thereby denser than other ice creams

Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English

Alright, to make things sound simple, Gelato is the Itallian version of ice-cream.

But it is different from conventional ice cream in terms of fat content and density

If you can read the words in the picture below, the last two paragraph in the blue area says:

Gelato contains only 10% butterfat compared to ice cream’s typical 18% to 26% butterfat content. Premium and super premium ice creams contain an even higher percentage. Less fat means gelato has more flavour compared to ice cream as additional fat in ice cream coats the tongue which dulls the flavour.

Density or ‘overrun is the air which is incorporated into gelato during the churning process. Although air is not added into gelato, it makes up of 25% of the total end product. Ice cream however has air pumped into it during the churning process as much as 50% to even 100% to increase the quantity of the end product but at the same time it produces a lower quality product.

taken from maxim cake house

okok….makes you sleepy with those lengthy meaning?

Then let your eyes (or mouth ) drool over these yummy looking Gelatos!!! By the way, all photos are taken from MAXIM CAKE HOUSE which is located in Pulau Tikus, just after Bellisa Row.

There’s like 39 flavours to choose from…YES, 39 (i think there’s more than that as some on displayed is not in the list)!!!!….so imagine how long it took for us to make up our mind!!!! All of them looked so tempting…feels like seeing "come, pick meee…you’ll love it" written all over them!!!

She finally decided to pick…..

Chocolato Gocco

and…

Wild Rose

If you fancy some gelato instead of the usual fattening ice cream but feels gelato is just too expensive in places like Lecka-Lecka,etc., then head on the Maxim to get your dose of gelato for only RM 3 per scoop and Rm 3.50 for the Nuovo and certain sorbet types. What’s sorbet (pronouced as "sore-bay")??

Sorbet is a no milk, no fat alternative to gelato and consists mainly of fruits. Sorbet is different compared to sherbet or granita (ice). Sherbet originates from France and contains milk whereas granita (ice) has an icy texture. Sorbet iare popular with citrus fruits due to its refreshing taste.

taken from maxim cake house

Well Maxim is a Cake House so of course they do sell cakes and pastries just like other bakeries do.

The variety of cakes and the designs is really an eye-candy (and great for photos too with all the colours involved!)

And I didn’t know I was not suppose to take photos of the pastries and breads till I snapped one and was commented by one of the worker. Hey, I’m giving your shop a free publicity!! Isn’t it good? And I didn’t even ask for any favours

After 8pm or so, the is a 15% discounts for all the pastries and breads.

Now you have a better idea what gelato is?? Then heed the advise from the poster above which says:

"Why are you still reading? Gelato is only 2ft away!"

ermmm…although not 2ft from the computer you are reading this….but for those in Penang, pulau tikus is not that far right???… hehehe