Recipe : Preserved Vegetable and Tofu Soup

This is a menu I tried to resemble mixed pork soup at Ah Soon Kopitiam. This is the best I could do as I suspect they still have some ‘secret ingredients’ that I have not discovered yet. This soup is rather easy to prepare, although not as easy as ABC. Not too sure about the function but I guess it have some cooling effect because of the bittergourd. Don’t worry, the soup don’t taste bitter at all because of the preserved vegetables.

For a lazy house-gf like me, I bought a ready-to-use fried onions in oil and instead of boiling the soup using pig/chicken bone, I opt for chicken cube.

Ingredients:

1 block of soft tofu, cut into few pieces
3 petals of preserved vegetables
1 red tomato, cut into 4 pieces
5cm cut of bittergourd
Fried onions in oil
1 Chicken stock cube
A few petals of lettuce
Minced meat/lean meat/fresh fish slice (beef and mutton not recommended)
Water

Boil the water in the pot. While waiting cut the bittergourd into 4 pieces, remove seed and its soft white middle part. Cut again into smaller pieces and immerse in water, to remove its bitterness. Soak the preserved vegetables in water.

Once the water boil, put in tomato and preserved vegetables. Let it boil until you can see the tomato turning soft or the skin started to wrinkle. Add in a piece of chicken cube and let it simmer for around 10 minutes.

Mix the minced meat with cornstarch, pepper, little bit of salt and sesame oil. Scoop the meat (around the size of a grape) and put into the soup until the meat finished. Once the soup boils, add in fried onions according to your like. Turn off the fire and add in the lettuce.

Alternately, you can take out the meat from the menu, if you wanted the soup to be vegetarian.

Ikan Bakar at Oasis Foodcourt, Midvalley Megamall

Some of you might have already tried this, since it had made quite a name of itself since years ago. My first try was about 6 years ago, and got hooked right away except for one thing ... it's OMG so very spicy! A glass of soy milk is rather essential to fight the sambal.

The choices are very much the same as any other grill fish/seafood but my heart is always with the Mr stingray (pari). Crushed tiny crabs with the dried prawns were added to the sambal, making them taste even stronger.

My grilled stingray (Ikan Pari Bakar) is just so heavenly good, and the fish were rather fresh at the price of ~RM6.30.

As always, grilled La La (~Rm7.00)is not very recommended, as they tends to constrict once in contact with heat. Still the sambal is... oh no I'm drooling already....

Sun Yin Loong, Dataran Sunway, Kota Damansara

After seeing numerous blogs raving about the breakfasts in Sun Yin Loong, I decided to wake up early on one Saturday morning just to get a try on it. It seemed like we’re the very few last people who just go to know this place. People were already packing this place and it’s quite challenging to find a seat in there. Gathered from what I read, this place is famous for its mixed pork porridge, pork noodles, western breakfast and I was delighted (and drooling) to find a stall selling the infamous Tong Kee egg tarts.

Let me explain the ‘mixed’ term in “Mixed Pork Porridge”. It usually means, pig’s tongue, heart, liver and etc are the main ingredients of the porridge. I was surprised when CS asked me to help him ordered a bowl of porridge. I was bemused, cause I know he’s disgusted with pig’s tongue and heart, but decided to keep mum. I couldn’t help sniggering while watching him eating the innards without knowing what they are. He thought they were nice parts of the meat! By the time he finished 80% of it, I told him those were the pig’s tongue, his face turned green, like he’s ready to puke anytime and simply refused to finish the porridge. :p

I couldn’t finish the egg tarts and decided to ta pao back home and ate it 4 hours later. Maybe they lose their freshness or what, they seemed to lack the usual ‘aroma’ of Tong Kee eggs tarts that I usually bought in Jusco. I will surely taste them while they were fresh next time!

Thumbs up for their white coffee, though I found it taste more like Kemamam Hai Peng’s coffee – strong, smooth with a tint of bitterness just the way we like it.

This fried spaghetti was the ‘hot food’ of the day and I ordered a set with bacon and eggs (RM5.50). The spaghetti itself spelt special, being fried with western spices like black pepper, oregano and chopped basil leaves (if my tongue was right). Very tasty indeed….

CS’s obsession for eggs was proven once more. He couldn’t sit tight once he saw the word ‘half boiled eggs’ on the menu board. He ordered 3 of it! Cholesterol, cholesterol, man…. Though the egg shells were only lukewarm to the touch, the eggs turned out good with the right softness and ‘rawness’.

The butter toast was laden with lots of kaya and butter, much to the delight of CS.



breakfast
Dataran Sunway
Kota Damansara

Rui Xing Hock Chiew (Foo Chow) Restaurant, Yong Peng

My hometown, Perbandaran Batu Pahat or as some elders known it as Penggaram, is just 30 minutes drive away from Yong Peng. Most of the residents in Yong Peng are Hock Chews, causing Hock Chew restaurants blooming all over Yong Peng.

We had absent from Rui Xing for 2 years as we return less to Batu Pahat. Their specialties are Hock Chew Mee and Hock Chew Egg Soup. In fact, these are the only 2 dishes we’ve ever tried here.

‘Patience’ is the essence here, as they’ll usually take some time to prepare the noodles. Aiks, as time goes by, they had reduced the ingredients like the pork, vegetables and prawns to a pitiable state.

Unlike CS, my intention was never on the noodles but the egg soup. With only pork and eggs, this soup taste even better than some shark fin soup. I wonder how the chef managed to make the soup so thick and smooth.

Location: At the main street, just a few steps away from the shop selling famous Hock Chiew biscuit. Map will be uploaded soon!

Spring Valley Restaurant, Midvalley Megamall

Our Bonuslink points keep on expiring, and to stop that from occurring we used up 4800 points to exchange for a RM50 Tai Thong voucher. Turned out the voucher is redeemable for most restaurants under Tai Thong group including Spring Valley San Francisco Steakhouse and Santinni. A debate ensued between us as I wanted to dine at Santini while CS (the Italian food hater) voted for San Francisco. To be fair to both of us, we went to Spring Valley Restaurant at Midvalley.

At 6 pm we were the only customers in the restaurant and the service given was amicable. The waitress even helped us to go through the entire menu until we decided what to eat.

We ordered the Chef’s Special Prawn RM28, Hongkong Style Roast Duck RM16, Fish Head Curry RM28 and a bowl of soup of the day – Duck with Preserved Vege and Tofu Soup RM8. We waited for 15 minutes as the soup, fish and prawn required longer cooking time.

At RM8, they didn’t skimp on the ingredients for the soup with big chunks of roast duck, plenty preserved vegetable and tofu, enough for my mum to make a whole pot of soup. Needless to say, my soup certainly turned out great!

The roast duck per portion actually came in ¼ of a whole bird, just enough for 2 persons. It tasted nearly as good as the Hoppy Duck King. It was well marinated, meat was tender and the skin was crispy. Not forgetting the sweet and sour plum sauce to complement the roast duck was just so good.

The Chef’s Special Prawn was fresh but unfortunately were freshwater prawn – lack of sweet seafood taste, harder and thicker shells and smaller in size. On the other hand, the special gravy was very appetizing. It seems like a mix of kam heong + curry + creamy cheese but minus the chillies.

The buns were to go with the prawn’s gravy, but it was to over-fried that they were tough to bite.

Curry Fish Head was not bad with considerable amount of fish but I hope it can be spicier. I still have not found any curry fish head that could be on par with Batu Pahat’s.

Our dinner came to a costly RM109 (could have eaten a lot of crabs at Wong Poh Seafood) and we thought we could use the RM50 voucher but alas, they told us the menus that we selected were all promotional menu, hence the voucher is not applicable! I started imagining our money suddenly grow wings and fly away pieces by pieces. Ouch! Now we’re back to the debate – San Francisco or Santini?

Tai Thong
Chinese Food
Spring Valley