Thai Station

Hi Readers,

This week's food review is about Thai Food. We went to this restaurant located in Prangin Mall, Penang. The price for the food is affordable and there is a lot of variety of food offered.

Spicy Tomyam Fried Rice RM7.50

One of the most famous delicacy in Thailand, the Tomyam. This sourish spicy rice is fried together with squids and prawns.

Phad Thai RM7.50

The Thai version of our local Char Koay Teow. It's fried koay teow with prawns, vegetable and some grind nuts. A slice of lemon to complete the dish. One of our favourites!

Spicy Curry Chicken RM8.90

Tasty curry sliced chicken with some taste of santan. This dish is averagely good.

Belacan Shrimp Paste RM7.50

This fried rice that comes together with sliced chicken cooked with belacan shrimp paste suits the salty dish lovers.

Spicy Tomyam Seafood RM14.30

Their most famous dish, the Tomyam Seafood soup. The Tomyam soup was not thick enough but the tasty part is, it is served hot to arouse your taste buds!

Thai Station @ Prangin Mall
Address:
33-01-118A, 1st Floor, Prangin Mall, Jalan Dr. Lim Chwee Leong,
10100 Penang, Malaysia.
Opening Hours:
12.00pm – 9.00pm
Contact: 604-262 8080

Happy dining!

Year End Dinner at Starview Restaurant

Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai !!!

My department organized the Year End Dinner at Starview Restaurant in the New World Park, Penang. In Starview, they cater for wedding package, steamboat, 8-course meal and ala carte.

The Chinese New Year Package menu on the glass window

The stage in the center of New World Park

Here we share with our readers some of dishes we dine at Starview Restaurant:

We started off with instant Lou Sang bought from outside cause Starview will only offers Good Luck Yu Sang dish on the 23 January 2009 onwards.

Golden Suckling Piglet

Braised Sliced Abalone Shell with Sea Cucumber

Nestum Prawn

Steamed Fish "Hong Kong" Style

Fried Rice in "XO" Sauce

Overall the food is delicious but the portion is a bit small for big eaters. Environment and the service is good too. A recommended place for Chinese food lovers.

For special promotion package and deluxe package go to: http://foodpromotions.blogspot.com/2009/01/starview-restaurant-special-promotion.html

Starview Restaurant
102-B - 104-B-4, New World Park
102 Burmah Road
10050 Penang
Tel: 04-226 6544, 226 5213 & 227 4507

32 at the Mansion

Along the northern portion of the lengthy historic road which is now the centre of a trendy precinct dubbed 'Upper Penang Road', the locality comprises upscale restaurants, bars, pubs, boutique and antique shops. There is one particular heritage building that stands out from the rest, “The 32 Mansion” is set by the sea, with ample parking space, the restaurant incorporates a spacious lounge and dining area.

Beautiful ambiance, soothing music and delicious food makes 32 Mansion an ideal venue for a romantic dinner.

The menu features a wide range of Continental and European cuisine accompanied by a wide selection of wines. A good place to consider for Valentine's Day and other special occasions too.

Piquant salad with spicy lemongrass vinaigrette (house specialty)

The mixed fresh vegetables with the strong lemongrass vinaigrette was crunchy and spicy at the same time. A very interesting combination.

Soup of the day and Garlic Bread

The garlic bread was crisped in the oven with a generous amount of garlic and butter. They were good and blend well with the creamy soup.

Baked Salmon with Horse Radish Sauce, RM 42++

This dish gave the impression that every little detail was being paid attention to, from the salmon right down to the garnishing and dressing of the sauce. The salmon was a fresh and baked to perfection and tasted nothing less than excellent.

Charbroiled NZ Sirloin Steak with black pepper sauce, RM 74++ for set dinner

This dish was averagely good. We ordered a medium well steak, but it turn out to be quite cooked. Nevertheless, the beef steak is still tender and mix well with the black pepper sauce.

Chocolate Almond Cake

The chocolate cake decorated with some almond nuts on the top and a pinch of cream, nicely prepared. It's a sweet delicacy to end the sweet lovely night.

32 at the Mansion

32, Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, Penang
Tel: 04-262 2232

Website: http://www.32atthemansion.com/32/index.html

Dinner at Ingolf Kneipe (German Cuisine)

Hi Readers,

This week we will present to you the new place we dine in:
Ingolf Kneipe (German Cuisine)

This is a German restaurant and bar located at Tanjung Bunga at the Hillside, just a few shops away from the 7-11. It has a great environment and you can see a lot of westerners dining there. It is well known for its big portioned with a reasonable price for the food.

We started off with the Cream of Forestmushrooms (RM 8.80). Rate of this soup? Superb, because it is rich enough to my liking and it has a variety of mushrooms finely blended with cream. The colour of the soup looks brownish as it’s served with a hot bun.

Next comes the Hungarian Goulash soup (RM 8.80) that has a few piece of tender beef simmered with paprika. This soup is a bit too salty, but the slices of beef are cooked till tender.

We ordered Braunschweiger Style Onion soup (RM 8.80) as well. The onion is simmered in chickenstock and enhanced with beer and a touch of garlic, topped with roasted chessecrouton.

As for the salad we choosen the Mediterranean Style Salad. It consist of fresh Cameron highland lettuce garnished with smoked salmon, prawns, feta cheese, tuna and olives, surrounded with tomatoes, cucumbers and capsicums served with vinaigrette plus together with some white and wholemeal bread.

From the Grill speciality menu, we ordered Julian’s Mixed Grill one piece of tender pork chop, beef, lamb chop, bacon rasher, and chipolatas. It is also served with some garden salad. (RM28.80) The beef is a bit overcook but the lamb chop was excellent!

Dining in a German restaurant will not be complete without ordering German sausage. Thus, we ordered a pair of smoked country sausage served with vegetables - lentilstew and mashed potatoes. The texture of the sausage was cooked to perfection and served together with honey mustard.

Next will the German Butcher splatter that has one piece of chicken, country and pork sausage two nuernbergers, grilled bacon, ham, pork patties, chicken meatloft served with sauerkraut, potato cakes, onion sauced and mustard. (RM 44.80). We are a bit disappointed with this dish are the there is no decoration at all not even with some salad or so on. But the meats taste good as it is perfectly grilled together with the sourly sauerkraut.

For the last dish, we decided to order the crumbed chicken schnitzel Julian’s style served with creamy mushroom sauce accompanied by fried vegetable and mashed potatoes (RM 24.80). It just the normal chicken chop version but what is so special about this the mushroom sauces that taste special.

The restaurant menu has an extensive food choices from the range of salad, appetizer, main grill dishes that are mostly pork, beef, lamb and sausages as well as other side dishes. There are wide variety of beverages all well from the soft drink, fruit juice, alcoholic drink, cocktails and not to be miss is the German beer.

Happy 2009 and cheers to everyone!!!

Kimchi!

Hi Readers,

There are many new Korean restaurants in town these days. Korean food are now very popular and today, we will be sharing on how to make Kimchi, the most well known basic dish. Kimchi (a.k.a. kimchee) is a raw, pickled vegetable concoction indispensible to Korean cuisine. Kimchi usually includes tiny fish or shrimp. We found that this spicy fermented side dish is quite easy to make, and will keep for many weeks in the fridge, slowly growing tangier.

There are many types of kimchi eaten in Korea. Baechu kimchi, the most common variety, is made with Chinese cabbage. To make a batch of baechu kimchi:
5 heads of Chinese cabbage
2-3 heads of garlic
3 cups of salt
2 cups of red pepper powder [see below]
1-2 knobs of ginger
optional: chopped scallions or watercress, cubed daikon radish
Red pepper powder (kochukaru in Korean), a coarse powder of chili pepper flakes, can be found in any store selling Korean foodstuffs. It is made from a pepper of medium heat. If using a hotter pepper, use less (but kimchi is supposed to be spicy)!

Wash the Chinese cabbage well, remove the outermost leaves and trim off the root. Traditionally, the heads are split lengthwise, and made into kimchi in this form. I recommend cutting the cabbage into smaller pieces, as follows: After splitting lengthwise, cut out a bit of the solid mass near the root. Laying halves flat side down, make 3 lengthwise cuts along each half. Then chop widthwise into one inch wide sections.

Place the chopped cabbage into a large bowl or basin. Take 2 cups of the salt and make a brine with 15 or so cups of water. Pour the saltwater over the cabbage, and mix well. Let this stand for at least one hour.

Chop up garlic and ginger. The amount you use is up to you. I never use exact amounts...and I've always enjoyed the result, even if it sometimes comes out more gingery or garlicy or spicy than usual.The only thing you really need to make kimchi is the salt: since this is a raw food, a certain amount of salt is needed to pickle and preserve the cabbage.

Mix the garlic, ginger, 1.5 or so cups of red pepper and the remaining 1 cup of salt with a half cup or so of water. Mix it well. Your mixing hand will start to tingle. Relish this sensation.

Once the cabbage has soaked for an hour in brine, drain off all of the liquid, then rinse the cabbage and drain again well.Mix the paste from above into the cabbage. Add optional ingredients mentioned above, if desired. Mix it all up well, until the paste coats the cabbage evenly.Mix it up some more!

Once it's thoroughly mixed, place the mixture into very clean containers. Fill containers close to the rim.If there is some red liquid left over, pour it into each container. You don't want any air pockets in the kimchi containers, and you do want the cabbage to soak in this kimchi juice.

Clean off the lips of the containers, and put on lids. Do NOT tighten lids too hard. Let the containers sit at room temperature for 2-3 days, and as they begin to ferment, air will bubble out and containers may leak a bit.Traditionally, kimchi is put into ceramic crocks and buried in the earth. You can put yours in the fridge. At fridge temperature, it will continue to slowly pickle, getting more tangy with time.You did it! You made your own kimchi! Enjoy.

Other Kimchi variety...
Kimchi Pancake: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/530450
Kimchi Fried Rice: http://www.maangchi.com/recipes/kimchi-bokkeumbap

*Credits to JasonUnbound*

Breakfast At Dome

Hi Readers,

Another food review at Dome café brought to you by Food Promotions.

Dome café has the ambiance of old world European coffee houses and modern day coffee culture in its classical surrounding of domed ceiling, wooden and brass materials. This café served world finest coffee and delicious wholesome food all under one roof. Their menu consist of soups, salads, All Day Breakfast meals, gourmet sandwiches, hot kitchen special such as pasta, pie, burgers, and sweet temptations like dessert cakes.

As for their sandwich there is few selection of bread to be chosen by you such as Warp, Focaccia, Turkish Bread, Baguette and Mixed Grain. I have chosen chicken, cheese and avocado in Turkish bread. It has delightful amount of pesto chicken, spinach leave, with few thinly slices of avocado that really taste good with other combination, sweet chilli mayonnaise with the sides of tomato chutney and wedges.

Next would be the from the Filler selection of the menu. Let me present to you the Club Sandwich in DOME. This is a very special club sandwich indeed. It has pesto chicken as well, spinach leaves, a layer of juicy yummy delicious beef rasher, freshly cut tomato, spread together with mustard mayonnaise and tomato chutney between thick slides of toasts and served with hot chips. I could say that the toast bread is a bit hard to bite. Overall this dish is excellent.

As for the beverages, there is a wide selection at DOME café from the range of finest coffee till fresh juices. This is the Apple Crush, a simple mixed of sweetened, crushed with ice, flavoured with fresh apple and honey, served in a tall glass with spoon. Although it sounds simple but this drink is a very refreshing for the hot weather :)

Last but not least, we should not miss out the world finest coffee in this café. There a few types of coffee from the range of hot and cold or blended as well. To complete my breakfast of the day I have choose the Flat white coffee that is a single shot of espresso infusion, topped with gentle skin milk served together with 2 small pieces of almond cookies. This coffee really has a very rich and smooth texture. It’s a good wake for an early morning.

Website: http://www.domecafe.com.my/

Penang Food Hunt 2008

Hi Readers,

Food Promotions team went for the Penang Food Hunt 2008! This hunt is organized by Rasa Rasa together with Time Out Solutions. We paid RM 100 per person for the hunt without the hotel stay and RM 150 for non-locals who wish to stay in Paradise Sandy Beach Resort. Overall, the hunt was a great one! Well done.

Registration starts at 9 in the morning and the briefing at 11am. Participants will receive a goodie bag, consists of a Rasa Rasa Penang book, RM 10 voucher for New World Park Food Court, RM 5 BBQ Chicken voucher, Candies from Chocolate Boutique and many brochures of Penang Heritage and maps of Penang.

Start Station: Hotel Car Park near Dalat School at 11.30am & flag off at 12.00pm
Finish Station: Fort Cornwallis 7.00pm
The Hunt is categorize into 3 parts: Leg 1, Leg 2 and Leg 3.

LEG 1:

"Going by Google" where we have to get stamp/chop on paper from the 4 selected restaurants and have lunch at 1 place of our choice. On the way to the 4 selected restaurants, we have to also take 3 photos of the Heritage that is in the Google map provided and 1 photo during our lunch to prove that we ate.

Next is to collect Challenge 1 @ Digi Centre 3rd floor Gurney Plaza, complete it and submit it in Cititell Penang.

Our answers!

LEG 2: Shell We Walk & Wok

Submit Leg 1 “Going by Google” and collect control sheet containing: Leg 3 Questions, Treasure Questions, Road Safety Questions and Challenge 2 (walk hunt Qs) for hunt within New World Food Court

Task 1 - Answer 10 clues at New World Park (Answers are around the New World park Area)
eg:
Q: Scared!! And avoid American political figure? They are common fare in Malaysia.
A: Chicken & Duck Rice (clues? Scared!! and avoid...)

Q: Unagi back from the siblings here.
A: Lee Brothers (clues? Unagi= Eel; and eel back? Lee!)

Q: DNA before short relative owns a supporter.
A: Genesis (clues? DNA=Gene, short relative=sis, Haha!)

Task 2 - The Shell Challenge on stage to cook. The challenge is to cook our local sweet pancake, Apom manis. It’s not as easy as ABC! Try asking her.

Collect Leg 3 Tulips and drive hunt Qs after finish and submitted the answers in Challenge 2.

Leg 3: The Spice Trail

Task - answer 20 clues on route from New World to Fort Cornwallis following the tulips provided.

Eg:
Q: Rocket man’s latest food business.
A: New Kit Siang (clues? Lim Kit Siang’s new biz?)

Q: Saya dengar ini itek-itek punya
A: Duxone (clues? Duck’s one...)

Q: Sounds like the order our clues are in on this leg.
A: Sequins (clues? In sequence lar!)

Q: Sounds like furniture people in the food business.
A: eKia (clues? It’s simple isn’t it?)

Q: Local Fish having swallowed piranha’s head, is the one clearly ahead.
A: Topman (This one is hard. Local fish=Toman, and it swallowed a “P” head, thus toPman)

Q: Right in to this transporter makes, a fruitful topping on your cakes.
A: Chery (clues? Chery is a Chevrolet car show house, and yes, cherry makes a fruitful topping on your cake)

Q: Well done, Johnny!! Eat here.
A: Bravo (clues? Johnny Bravo cartoon, Bravo=Well done!)

Q: You’ll never walk alone, these supporters cry.
A: Liverpool FC (clues? All football fans know! But we can’t find it, we related Liverpool with the Reds and wrote our answers at Red Chopstick :( The answer is in the advertisement board that we did not notice) Q: This eatery in pink has cooked food.
A: Sin Kan Pin (clues? Pink? We are not sure why we can get this right. Pure luck?)

While cracking our heads with all the clues, we also have to complete the treasure clues and buy them on the way. Allow us to share one of the easiest treasures that we didn’t even manage to solve!

“At last the issue that remains is what you need.
When all is consumed after a good feed,
A new pocket size one to clean you out will do nicely.
Roti canai and Thosai have it in part in their variety,
This treasure that is found at our dinner, lunch or tea,
But I need proof that it was purchased from a Shell station only.”

Guess the answer! (No prizes to be won though...)

To end the race, we need to complete treasure clues, road safety and Leg 3 clues before finish station. Don’t forget to develop and submit the 4 photos took from Leg 1. Voila, we finished our race early at 6.30pm.

The very next day, breakfast is served. Here’s the variety of food.

Out of a total of 97 teams, 2 teams are rewarded with the best photographs while top 30 teams with the highest score receive prizes from the sponsors.



Top 3 teams will walk away with cash prizes. And the team which came first scored full marks, 170/170! It’s amazing how perfect people can be when they work in a team. Congratulations to Team 46!

Congratulations Hunter R Us!!!