Wishing everyone a very Happy Lunar New Year
May the new year bring new hope, better opportunities, good health and abundance of happiness and joy
Have a jolly good time, with lovely and tasty food to fill your tummy this festive season!
Cheers
Invited Review @ Young Heart Restaurant
By now, if you are still wondering where to have your reunion dinner with your family, why not try out this restaurant located at Pulau Tikus.
Young Heart Restaurant serves a variety of food that is pleasing for those who want a healthy yet tasty food. And for the coming Chinese New Year, the proprietor, Ann Kee has come up with various types of Chinese New Year dish that will be both unique and pleasing to your palate.
The exterior and interior
The logo of this restaurant. It is a real plant, not just for display.
Everything the restaurant has, from the menu, logo and even the cushions are of heart shape design.
Our table, specially arranged by Ann Kee
The menu for CNY dishes
The items on display inside the restaurant
We were served two kinds of drinks. One is the Honey Lemon with Aloe Vera – RM6.00/glass (Honey Lemon RM4 + Aloe Vera RM2). This drink is a thirst-quencher and taste very good when chilled.
The aloe vera is not the common ones you have on your home. Its leaf is very large, as seen in the photo above.
Another drink we had was the Chamomile & Chrysanthemum – RM4.50/glass. This is really a soothing and relaxing drink. As it is known, chamomile do give a calm and relaxing effect. The photo below shows the chamomile (top) and chrysanthemum (bottom).
Chamomile & Chrysanthemum – RM4.50/glass
Sauce
Lotus Root with Sugar & Vinegar – RM3.00
This dish is the appetizer. Taking this opens up your senses as it taste sweet and sour at the same time.
Vinegar is made from the oxidation by acetic acid bacteria of ethanol in wine, cider, beer, fermented fruit juice, or nearly any other liquid containing alcohol.
The word "vinegar" derives from the Old French vin aigre, meaning "sour wine". It is also known as acidity regulator E260.
Dipping sauce for the vege rolls. Chinese (far above), Japanese (middle) and Siam style sauce. The Chinese sauce taste a little hot due to the garlic and chopped chillies in it. The Japanese sauce is sweet while the Siam sauce is mildly hot.
Vege roll:
Egg Vege Roll – RM6.60
Prawn Vege Roll – RM7.60
Unagi Vege Roll – RM7.60
This dish is usually served in 4 pieces (right pic). There’s a choice of egg, unagi or prawns as the ingredient but not a combination though. I tasted the unagi roll and it turned out quite nice. The vege is fresh, felt like eating salad. The thin rice wrap is a healthy combination to this dish.
Hot & Sour Soup – RM5.00/bowl (serves two). This soup is really sour. If you think assam laksa or tom yam is the most sour soup you have ever tasted, then you should try this and taste it for yourself!! A lot of vineger is added to this soup.
Take a guess what this is before you sroll further. We had no idea what it was with the name written in the menu. So Ann Kee was kind enough to go to the kitchen and bring it out to show to us.
It’s called Snake Squash and this dish below is Snake Squash with Pork – RM11.80
Very interesting dish. First time trying this kind of vegetable and it taste very much like ‘tang kua’.
Golden Scallop Dumpling - RM18.80
Lovely taste with minced pork, prawns and scallops.
Cheese & Chicken Gaotie – RM10.80.
Pan-fried dumplings with cheese and chicken filling. Surprisingly, the fusion of eastern style and western ingredient creates a flavourful taste to this dumpling.
Prawn & Leeks Goutie – RM9.60
Also another pan-fried version but has prawns and leeks as the filling.
Fried Bean Curd – RM4.80.
One of the simplest dish of the night but yet a show-stealer. The bean curd is homemade and this contributes to the soft-on-the-inside yet crispy-on-the-outside dish.
Stir Fried Mix Vege & Mushroom – RM16.80. A common dish but has various types of mushrooms!! Simple and healthy dish.
This dish is called Prosperous Year in Malaysia – RM6.80. Chicken wings and drummets marinated with spices and chopped kaffir leaves and then deep fried. A very finger licking good dish. Smells real good and very fragrant. The chef had to make extras of this as all were snapped up even before some of us managed to get one.
The "Ha-ha" dish. Fried Prawn & Garlic – RM18.80.
Also another fragrant dish. Garlic is added into the batter and the prawns are deep fried. The bursting flavour of garlic, combined with the sweetness of the prawn meat is very nice.
Another vegetable dish, Sponge Gourd with Pork - RM13.80
I never had sponge gourd cooked this way, with carrots, mushrooms, dong guai and some other herbs. Very ‘cheng tnee’ kind of dish, and loved by one of our blogger friend that night.
How can there be cny dishes without fish? This dish is Steam Cod & Bean Curd – RM29.80.
Very soft and smooth cod fish steamed to perfection with bean curd as side dish. The sweetness of the fish flows out to the soy sauce gravy, making it very nice to be mixed and eaten with white rice.
Some other signature dishes includes their hand-made noodles.
Black Jelly Mushroom Fried Noodle – RM8.80 has a lot of black jelly mushrooms and other cut vegetables.
Shredded Pork Noodle – RM7.50. You can hardly see the noodles with all the shredded pork covering it.
This noodle is a little dry but taste nice with the well-marinated pork.
This Ground Pork in Spicy Bean Sauce Noodle – RM7.50 is only recommended for those who can really take hot stuff. It’s very spicy and might even bring you to tears. Right cariso?? 
But of the three types of noodle, I liked this one. Maybe it’s because I enjoy spicy food.
So head over to this place if you want somewhere quiet and conducive to have a great reunion meal with your family or friends.
Note: portion of food might differ from pricing or normal serving size as there were a group of us dining together.
Location and contact:
For other reviews:
Criz Lai, Steven Goh, What2see , Jason & Gill, Allen Ooi, Penang Tua Pui , Allie, FoodParadise, cariso.
How often do you have a spark of idea to dine at Food Loft @ Gurney Plaza?
Although this outlet is very beautifully designed and conducive, there isn’t usually a big crowd here. I venture in one fine day after being undecided on what to have for a late dinner.
Ambience is nice and relaxing. Perfect to wind down after a long day of shopping for shoppers there.
I pass by the Vietnamese counter and they had this variety of chillies and sauce for you to pick.
Spotted the chef cooking and serving this pineapple fried rice.
Then after we ordered, we walked back to our seats and waited for the food to be served.
First to come was the Vietnamese Pho.
Phở is served as a bowl of white rice noodles in clear beef broth, with thin cuts of beef (steak, fatty flank, lean flank, brisket). Variations featuring tendon, tripe, meatballs, chicken leg, chicken breast, or other chicken organs (heart, liver, tongue,[citation needed] etc.) are also available. ‘With the lot’ (made with chicken broth and all or most of the shop’s chicken and cattle offering, including chicken hearts and livers and beef tripe and tendons) is known as ‘Phở đặc biệt’ (unique phở). There are also various vegetarian varieties of phở.
This has got to be the saddest looking rice noodle soup I’ve ever seen (just compare the photo above taken from wiki….how different!!)
And the freshness of the vegetables is in such a condition that if it’s seen in your fridge, you will be thinking whether to discard it or not.
I ordered the Pasta with salmon. It turned out alright, but the salmon is a little dry, maybe due to over-grilling. The pasta is creamy enough but lacks other ingredients to make this dish a satisfying one….for instance some mushrooms maybe? (I’m a mushroom lover!)
Any nice food to recommend if I ever step foot into Food Loft again?
Prangin Mall nowadays have so many food outlets. Mostly are local entrepreneurs trying their luck on the food business, dishing out local chinese/western food.
Little Oasis, The Fusion Kitchen, here serves a wide range of food. From local to chinese to western and even japanese.
The outlet is quite small, located at one corner of the level, just beside the escalator.
I was curious on how the japanese meal would taste like so I ordered Grilled Teriyaki Fish. Japanese tea is ordered separately.
Although the presentation looks much like what is served in a Japanese restaurant, the choice of ingredients which makes up the dish is rather too "localized" I would say. No miso soup but instead, seaweed soup with chicken stock. No chawan mushi and the stir-fried vegetables are just white cabbage with some strains of carrots.
The fish is soft and sweet but the gravy was a little too thick and salty. The Teriyaki sauce wasn’t as fragrant as I thought it would be.
Seaweed and tou fu soup.
For the western dish, it fared much better. For starters, mushroom soup was served with two pieces of garlic bread. The soup has a thick consisitency.
I forgot the name of this dish but it was some japanese style of cooking but served in a western way. The dark sauce coating the fried chicken breast is teriyaki sauce if not mistaken.
The batter gives a nice and crispy coat to the chicken meat. The side dishes are normal though…salad and french fries.
At the end of the meal, ice-cream is served. We were not asked for a choice but were served mint with chocolate chip ice-cream. (I was grumbling…..I never liked MINT ice-cream!!!!)
But at least this gives a cooling end to our meal and we continued to walk around the mall looking for some bargain items.
p/s - sorry no prices for the meals above as I forgot & lost the receipt
I’ve cleaned up this blog. Deleted some old unrelated post and if you still did not realize, I’ve change the blog name as well. Have decided to turn this blog into postings which focuses on food and anything related to it. Hope there’s more interesting and nice food to savour out there!!
New Year, "new" blog….May the New Year brings new opportunities and success in everything we pursue!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009
(collage of the places I traveled to & some food I made or savour last year)
p/s - Postings not related to food will be written in a new "home"…. 
Cheers!!
