Hot Star Chicken Chop, Shilin Night Market, Taipei

This was the item that Kok Mun asked me to try out on his behalf on my trip to Taipei. He was not able to tried it on his trip earlier this year because of the long queue. People waited for half an hour just to buy this chicken chop.

I have been warned not to go to Shilin night market in weekend.So, I went there on thursday evening. Even that, we were lucky to join the queue with only 5 persons in front of me before a large group of mainland Chinese tourists suddenly made the queue 50 meter long.

The queue was long because the store insists on cooking the chicken chop upon receiving your order and serving you the chicken chop sizzling hot. For 50 Taiwanese dollar (equivalent to about RM5 or S$2.20), this big piece of chicken chop really worth your money.

The chicken chop is fried and flavoured with pepper salt. Unlike chicken chop here, which is essentially a big piece of chicken thigh, the entire piece of Hot Star chicken chio is made of chicken breast meat. It tastes good, but I would say not exceptional to the extent that worth half an hour wait.

On a cold and windy winter evening, a piece of hot chicken chop like this certainly warmed me up. As for drink, I wanted to try out the famous Taiwanese jade white bitter gourd juice.

The jade white bitter gourd juice tasted a little bitter, but left your mouth with a tinge of bitter sweet after taste.

On my visit to Tamshui Fishermen Wharf on Saturday, I found out that Hot Star chicken chop is sold there too. There was no long queue there. I was issued a number upon payment. When the chicken chop was ready, they called out the number and I collected the chicken chop sizzling hot from them.

Perhaps due to the cold and windy weather, there weren't many people in Tamshui Fishermen Wharf on that day. Most of the visitors were Malaysian tourists. I was told that this place is crowded with people in summer.

Restoran Cozy Corner

Remember those western restaurants in Malaysia around the 80s? We were less sophisticated then and western restaurants came with localized flavour both in their menu and decor. In those days, you could find such western restaurants in places like Malayan Railway stations, Padang Kelab Ipoh, Federal Hotel, Majestic Hotel, Puduraya, etc.

For those who are nostalgic of those western restaurants then, I would definitely recommend this restaurant called Restoran Cozy Corner in Ampang Park, Kuala Lumpur. You could definitely find those atmosphere. The best thing is that even the majority of clients seem to be retired government servants of that era.

One look at the picture of the menu at the shop front, you will know that this is a western restaurant ala Malaysia.

As I said, the decor, the staff uniform and even the clientele, all reminiscent of that era.

As a starter, we ordered Escargot Bourguignon. It was creamy garlic and the meat of the snails all came off the shell, there was absolutely no need to use the escargot tong and fork. The garlic was a little bit bitter though. I think Victoria Station has better Escargot Bourguignon.

The soup we ordered were wonderful. Both the minestrone and oxtail soup tasted good. Of couse, it came with bread and butter.

I wanted to order sour sop drink but the waitress who dressed in men's suit told me that they have no more sour sop, but they have soup sop de guava. I ordered that instead and I was surprised by its clear and cool taste. The pineaple juice was good too.

Our main dish was Hainanese chicken chop. This dish is really localized western. It tasted good too. As usual, I did not eat french fries that comes with such dishes. The only french fries I eat is fast food french fries from McDonald or Burger King and it must be hot from the frying pan.

To finish off, we ordered Creped Suzeetta ala Mode. The waiter came and fire up the liquor in front of us. Wonderful! the pancake was soaked in orange tangy syrup and eaten with vanilla ice-cream.

Besides orientalized western food like steak, chicken chop, fish and chips, etc, this restaurant serves local delight like fried kway teow, mee goreng, nasi goreng, etc too. If you are nostalgic of Malaysian style western restaurant of those days in the 80s, Restoran Cozy Corner is a good place to go to.

Toh Lee Chinese Restaurant

Christmas is in the air. Hotel Nikko in Kuala Lumpur is no different.The hotel is decorated with Christmas tree, poinsettias, mistletoes, snow flakes, candy house, etc. There are many children running around. May be there is some kind of festive celebration for children.

Actually, I did not go to Hotel Nikko to celebrate Christmas. I went there for dim sum breakfast. Toh Lee Chinese Restaurant in Hotel Nikko is one of the Chinese restaurant that I frequent during my visit to KL.

Toh Lee Chinese Restaurant is well-known for its good quality "eat-all-you-can" ala-carte buffet which I have eaten the buffet several times. Its sesame ice-cream and wasabi ice-cream are wonderful desserts. But too bad, the restaurant does not offer buffet dim-sum today.

It not too difficult to decide what to order for dim sum breakfast.

Porridge is a good starter. I ordered dried mussel with peanut porridge.

It is good to share the porridge. Otherwise, there wouldn't be enough space in your stomach for other items.

Xiao long bao is a Shanghainese dim sum. We ordered half a dozen. The soup inside the dumpling was nice, but the ginger and vinegar was not really great.

What is dim sum without siew mai and har gau?

Cheong fun is another must-have for me,  particularly prawn cheong fun. The prawn was crunchy but a bit hard today. The texture of the cheong fun was good though.

Yam kok is my all time favourite! The skin must be fluffy, the yam must be smooth.

Yummy!

Well, it is Christmas day. Santa came in for a visit too! No present for me though!

The most disappointing thing for the breakfast must be this pot of tea. We ordered pu-er, but were given jasmine instead.

Fortune cookies is a feature of Chinese restaurant in US. This restaurant offers fortune cookies too.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Is it telling me to start embarking on something? But weird, I thought this Chinese proverb "千里之行，始於足下．" is from Lao Tzu （老子）．This message slip has been clumsily translated from English to Chinese.