59 Abalone Kway Teow Soup

Kway teow soup comes in many flavours. You have beef kway teow, pork kway teow, fishball kway teow, etc. Even beef kway teow, you have the Vietnamese style, Thai style, Taiwanese style, etc. This shop in Taman Sri Tebrau, off Tebrau Highway (3 km north of Johor Bahru, near Crystal Crown Hotel) sells abalone kway teow. The shop opens daily from 7pm to 11pm and attracts big crowd all the time.

The best bargain and the hottest selling item is a bowl of large kway teow soup that costs RM10.

A large bowl is definitely not enough for me. The soup seems to be tastier if you go to the shop later in the evening. For RM10, you get 3 slices of abalone. It is canned abalone, but it is soft and tender, not those rubbery and chewy. The abalone soaks in the soup stock and tastes good.

Of course, it is not only abalone, you get also 5 oysters. The oysters are fresh and nice!

2 prawns. The prawns are boiled for just a short time and taste sweet. Not crunchy, but fresh!

2 fishballs. The fishballs taste average.

1 fish dumpling.

2 pieces of liver.

General portion of pork meat and minced meat.

and 1 piece of pearl abalone

With all these ingredients, I think this large bowl of kway teow soup definitely worth my RM10. It is very good as a light dinner. If you want to eat more, you can always order a plate of boiled chicken.

Another thing I like is the cincau drink prepared by this shop. I usually order 2 bowl. Good to cool down your body's temperature.

Raju Restaurant

Sunday morning in PJ is serene and quiet. Driving through the housing area, you could feel the homely atmosphere of the daily life of middle class inhabitants in Klang Valley.

Next to SMK La Salle, PJ is a restaurant called Raju Restaurant, hailed as one of the top 40 restaurants in Malaysia.

Unlike its serene surroundings, the restaurant was bustling with customers and waiters coming in and out of the shop and the expanded eating area next to it. The customers were mostly English speaking middle class Malaysian. There were quite a few Ang Mohs too.

The old car with the car plate number 3344 parked outside the shop next to a big scrolled tosei doll belongs to the owner, probably Mr Raju.

We sat down and not too long a waiter came with a metal tray with different types of chutney and put banana leaf on the table. Another waiter came and asked whether we want some fritters for a start and took our orders. I must said the service was swift.

We ordered tosei gee, tosei rawa and drinks. My favourite chutney has always been coconut chutney with green chili, the red chili chutney was really hot.

The deep fried sea food at the shop front looked fresh and appetizing. We ordered quite a bit.

The ikan senangin served hot was nice and sweet.

The prawn was okay too, except a little bit hard, just a little bit.

The squid was so so lah. A bit hard and below average.

After all the sea food, I ordered another tosei telur bawang (tosei with eggs and onion).

Yummy! And lastly a piece of wadeh!

The bill came up to RM70 plus. Luckily, I didnn't have to pay!

Expensive breakfast ah! Actually the meal became my Sunday brunch! Well, this is what the owner has to say about their food.

Well, I think the strong point of this restaurant really is their swift service and foods served hot always taste good.

This area of PJ seems to have a sizable Indian community as evident from the shops around the restaurant. After eating, we went to a CD shop 2 doors away, Ragaa's. We were attracted by the accordian music playing loud in the shop.

Wow! This BBC documentary on the sitar player Ravi Shankar is selling at RM199.

In the end, Azam bought the accordian music CD for RM65. It turned out to be French music titled Moulin Rouge.

Mei Heong Yuen Dessert

After finishing my class at 1pm on thursday, I was too late for the buffet lunch of the RoboCup Singapore Open 2009 closing ceremony. In fact, at around 11am, Guohua has already SMS me that the food is all gone. I decided to go to China Town to buy some roast meat. After parking my car in Temple Street, I walked pass an interesting dessert shop, Mei Heong Yuen Dessert.

I went in thinking of a light meal. I ordered a glutinous rice dumpling and a bowl of walnut paste..I love all those paste, whether it is sesame, peanut or almond. To my surprise, the shop sells Taiwanese style cotton shaved ice too. I ordered a bowl of mango shaved ice that comes with mango fruit as well. It is said that one of the best Taiwanese cotton shaved ice is red guava shaved ice but I could not find it on the menu. Guess I have to wait for my Taiwan trip.

Nando's

Peri-peri is the Swahili word used in Mozambique and Angola to describe the African bird's-eye chili, a close variety of cili padi. In Mozambican cuisine, peri-peri is often used in preparing sauces and marinades for roast and grilled dishes, especially chicken and various fish. Peri-peri is widely used in a vast number of dishes of Portuguese cuisine.

Nando's, the Portuguese-themed chicken restaurant, originated in South Africa from Portuguese who left Mozambique after the independence in 1975. The chain uses peri-peri in many of its dishes, and helped popularise them worldwide.