All Entries in the "Malaysian" Category

Cafe D’Lite on West Broadway

How was it?  How did you like all the snow the past week?  LOL!

I’ve never seen so much snow falling in the Vancouver area for as along as I can remember.

To think of it, it all came even before the official start of winter.  Here in Richmond we had almost 2 feet of snow in all.  Try walking in the snow and the snow will reach up to your knee.

There is this something about snow … it’s mesmerizing to watch it falling.  While it is still powdery and fresh, it’s beautiful until it starts to turn in a slushy mess … or …

… you try to drive out to the streets.  The city of Richmond did not bother to plow the side road until the day of Christmas which made it quite a challenge to get to the main streets.   I think the worse is over now because yesterday many parts had turned into puddles of water.  Suanne and I ventured out on an errand Vancouver downtown and ended up having lunch out.

We went to one Malaysian restaurant we had always heard about but never tried before.  As a matter of fact, Cafe D’Lite has been on our To-Visit list the past three years or so.  It’s just because it was really out of the way for us.  Cafe D’Lite located in 3144 West Broadway.  Actually it is just next door to the famous Notte’s Bon Ton Pastry. Read More

Chilli Padi on Fraser St, Vancouver

We met up with Angie (of Sea Salt With Food) again for a Sunday lunch.  We wanted to go for Indonesian and choose the Sweet Chili Cafe but it was closed on Sunday.  Being already hungry and all set for hot and spicy South East Asian food, we went to the next place we can think of.

A short drive to 41st and Fraser brought us to Chilli Padi.  Chilli Padi is a Malay restaurant and located in the old location of Kedah House (another Malaysian restaurant).  I describe Chilli Padi as a Malay restaurant as opposed to a Malaysian restaurant because it serves Malay food.  Malaysian food encompasses a wider cuisine that includes Chinese and Indian cuisine.

Not knowing really what to expect, I was quite surprised how nice and clean Chilli Padi looked compared to Kedah House when it was here.  The decor is quite Malay with rustic wooden panels.  The place is quite smallish though … smallish but with a cozy feel to it.  Most of their customers, we can see, are obviously very Malaysian … Chinese Malaysians and Malay Malaysians.

We started off by ordering a very popular soup found in Malay hawker stalls.  It is actually a more Thai soup than it is Malay.  It is a hot and sour soup but what characterize this soup the most is …

… the Chilli Padi.  Of all chillies, I love Chilli Padi the best.  Despite it small size, it is lethally hot … just a slight tad milder than habanero which is way bigger.  Chilli Padi is called that because of it’s size … padi means a grain of rice in Malay.  The big bowl, good for the seven of us, costs $10.

We also got some Satays to share.  The six sticks costs almost $7.  They were really good and must tip my hat to them because they made it like the way it is supposed to be … with charred bits too.  Say, is it true … charred or burnt meat is carcinogenic?

Anyway, I love it.  The only downside is they gave so little peanut sauce and they did not even chilli it up.  it came with sides of onions, cucumber and cube rice.

Their Rendand was great — some of the best I had ever tried.  It is a lot more drier than what we had in Tamarind Hill.  The Beef Rendang costs $9.

If you dine out in a Malay restaurant you simply must order Rendang.  To me it’s like ordering Pad Thai in a Thai restaurant.  Rendang is stewed in mixture of spices and coconut milk over a few hours to a thick creamy sauce.    The ultimate is that the meat must be soft and tender … and it was so.  Chilli Padi does their Rendang really well.

We also had what they call Kacang Buncis which is basically long beans.  It is cut into short sections and stirred fried in chilli sambal and minced dried shrimp.  A good dish is when the long beans is fresh and chrunchy … it was.  $7.65.

The Sambal Sotong (squid) was a complete disappointment to say the least.  The texture felt kind of funny in that it is chewy (not springy as expected).  Me thinks that the squid must be bordering on going bad.  $12 … just wasn’t worth it.  We practically left this untouched.

The Apek Char Koay Teow was very good.  It is a Malaysian style fried rice noodle in sweet soy sauce with lots of chilli, eggs and minced garlic.  I must say they have one of the best Char Koay Teows in Metro Vancouver.  $7.65.

I don’t want to talk about the above.  Who else but my boys ordered this.  Sigh … at this rate they are going, how on earth are they going to inherit chowtimes from Suanne and I.

The bill came up to $75 before tips and taxes.  It was not bad considering the amount of food we ordered.  If you look at it, their entree generally costs less than $10.

Overall the meal was better than expected but was somewhat marred by the somewhat funny tasting squid.  The Beef Rendang was good … the satay was good … the char koay teow was good … the tom yam soup was good.  You should check it out yourself.

Oh … we got the 50% discount coupon above because they charged us THREE times on the meal.  We got quite a shock that our credit card statement showed the transaction three times.  We called them and they promptly reversed the charges … and gave us a 50% off lunch and dinner coupon too.  We like the people in Chilli Padi … they are good honest people.

BTW … how do you spell Chilli anyway?  With a double L or a single L.

Tamarind Hill Malaysian Cuisine in New Westminster

Suanne and I consider Ed and Christina from Doesn’t Tazte Like Chicken as people with sharp mouth.  No, I am not saying that they talks a lot.  That is a literal translation from the Cantonese expression “Tsim Tsui”.  They know food very well alright.

We had been meeting over dinners once every few weeks.  It was our turn to select the location and this time, Suanne and I picked the Tamarind Hill Malaysian Cuisine located in New Westminster.  The choice was a hands down choice for us as we know Malaysian food very well.

Tamarind Hill is located on 628 6th Ave.  It is located right in front of the Royal City Center’s 7th St parkade entrance.  There are lots of street parking but I warn you to be careful about trying to park at the Royal City Center and walking over to the restaurant.  We tried to park at the parkade and noticed that there was a guy sitting in a car watching for non-customers parking in the parkade.  Never wanting to take a chance, we drove out and parked in the street.  Be warned.

We were all surprised to see how popular Tamarind Hill was on the Saturday night.  It was unbelievably packed that night.  Moreover, most of their customers were white which is unexpected for us to learn how popular Malaysian food is.  We love the place.  See above … they do have the coolest looking waiting area, don’t you think?

The dining room is really tight though with chairs and tables packed close one to another.  We were so close to our neighboring table we could smell their food … and I am sure they can do ours too.

We got there a bit early and got ourselves drinks while waiting for Ed and Christina.  Suanne ordered the non-alcoholic Mango Colada ($3.75).  No rum in this one but I am sure Suanne would love it with a little rum … except that “officially” she does not drink alcoholic stuff.

I don’t know why.  Even thought Tamarind Hill is a Malaysian restaurant, for some reason I felt that they are more Singaporean than they are Malaysian.  The owners who came to speak to us briefly (because we have cameras!) looked and sounded more Singaporean than they are Malaysian to us.

For that reason, I ordered the very Singaporean Tiger Gold Lager.  It came with a chilled glass, I liked that.  It came in a really small puny bottle, I did not like that!  You can’t get smaller than the 330 ml bottle.  $6.

Ed and Christina left the ordering to us.  For starters we ordered 2 roti canai to share.  It was $5 and not bad at all.  It was flaky and puffy as good roti canai is supposed to be.  The curry they gave was too little but understand that it’s because Canadians will treat this as a dip.  For me, I always like to drench my roti with curry.

We had three mains to share.  The Beef Rendang (Suanne’s recipe here) was excellent.  While I had better ones before, I know I should not hold Tamarind Hill to standards of Malaysia and Singapore.  it is somewhat watered down but the plus side is that there are lots of gravy.  It was not spicy at all even though it is basically a curried dish.

Because this is a dish that is slowly cooked over hours, the beef tends to breakdown a lot.  To me, the hallmark of a good Rendang is the meat basically remain intact.  Tamarind Hill’s Beef Rendang is quite springy … and that is good.  $12.

The Eggplant, Okra and Green Bean costs $11.  It is a stir fry dish with onion, garlic and tomatoes in spicy sambal chilli, shrimps and dried shrimps.  We liked it a lot.  It has a very unique blend of taste and is best with steamed rice.  I like the way they managed to preserve the purplishness of the eggplant which shows that they are not over-cooked.

We also had a seafood dish which is simply called Mixed Seafood Asam Curry.  Asam is the Malay word for Tamarind.  The curry again was great with steamed rice which came at $1.25 per bowl.  For $17, I wished they had more seafood meat in it.  We noticed they even have cockles (Kerang in Malay) and did wonder how they managed to get hold of them.  Does anyone know where we can buy live cockles?

Where Tamarind does best is their desserts.  They were nothing but awesome.  The Pandan Cassava Root Cake, despite it’s simplicity, was some of the best we had.  The Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar) syrup adds a good touch of different sweetness to the already sweet cake.

If you only order one dessert, I strongly recommend that you order the Coconut Crepes.  You will absolutely love this.  The soft pandan crepes wrap is already great enough but the real treasure is in the Gula Melaka infused shredded coconut.  $6 is perhaps their most expensive dish but worth every cent.

Ais Kacang is a very popular Malaysian dessert.  It simply translated as Nuts/Beans with Ice.  A customer came by and asked us what this was.  As much as we tried to explain to them, I can see their eyes cringed purely by the looks of it.  I have no idea why because to me this looked absolutely delicious.  $5.50.

Cendol is another common Malay dessert.  It is shaved ice and has this greenish phlemy looking thingy called cendol.  I think the looks of it puts some people off but despite the looks and the reminder of phlem(!), it is really nice and refreshing.  $3.75.

Total before taxes and tips came up to slightly over $90.  It was a bit pricey but then we did order a lot of food.  We enjoyed the meal a lot.  The food was quite OK overall but then I want to say that I am holding them up to Malaysian standards.  The service was great, sincere and attentive.  Most importantly, the company was great (thanks again ET and Christina for coming out).

I think Tamarind Hill is perhaps one of the most successful Malaysian restaurant in Metro Vancouver.  I recommend this restaurant but remember to save space in your stomach for their excellent dessert.

Seri Malaysia on East Hastings, Vancouver

Ease, who recommended The Blackberry Bistro to us earlier, told us of another Malaysian restaurant that we should try out.  The problem for us is that it is located in the far north eastern side of Vancouver while we live in the south side of Richmond.  In short, it meant that it is a long 22 km drive to this restaurant.  But we did take that long drive.

Seri Malaysia is a Malay owned restaurant which is a rarity in Vancouver.  As far as we know, this is the only other Malay owned Malaysian restaurant other than The Kedah House.  Most other Malaysian restaurants we know are operated by Chinese cooks.

The place is very typical Malay … very laid back.  They are so laid back that even though we were the only customers in the restaurant and that there were two dirty tables with plates left uncollected, they remained left uncollected for the duration of our meal there.

Don’t expect too much from the decor … forget about having any ambiance at all.  This is a plain practical place better known for the food, and only the food.  The table is covered in clear plastic sheet over plastic lace coverings.  Their menu was simple but have enough to satisfy any cravings you may have.

Oh, one thing I had always wanted to discuss with you all and that is the cutleries used in a Malaysian dining table.  For Malaysian (and I believe it goes too for all of South East Asia and even East Asia), the main cutleries used is a fork and spoon.  Western tables have fork and knife.  I believe the basic difference is that Asian meals involve food that is cut into bite sizes while western meals leaves big pieces of meat and such on the plate (i.e. steak, chicken breasts, etc).  Also, Asian meals always have rice and it’s easier to pick up rice with a spoon than a fork.

I don’t know the details, but I recall there was an incident a few years ago in Toronto (?) where a Filipino kid was chastised by her teacher for using fork and spoon.  That became a huge issue among the Filipino community.  Any of you remember that?

Given a choice and if I am not eating stuff like steak, I prefer the fork and spoon.  He he he … old habit die hard!

One more thing … they serve lots of cold water.  You will need that because Malay food is very spicy.

Let’s get back to food.  We ordered the Roti Canai … two pieces for $5.50.  In Malaysia, you can easily have this for 20-30 cents!!  It was really good … crispy and flaky.  I wished they would have given us more curry to dunk the roti in.

Their Beef Rendang was awesome.  This is supposed to be a single serving but the serving is so large that it is enough for 2-3 people.  I swear this is the best Rendang I had ever had in this part of the world.

Rendang is and is not curry.  I know I am not making sense!!  It is basically cooked in coconut milk and spices over a period of many, many hours until the meat almost breaks down and absorbs all the rich spices into it.

Because of the richness and intense flavour in Rendang, about the only way to eat this is with rice.  If you had never tried Rendang and loves curry, you should try it.  If you dare, ask them to make it spicy … yummy!  The Beef Rendang is $10.50.  There are so much that we had it to go.

Rendang keeps well refrigerated.  So, next time we are around the neighborhood, we will buy a serving or two of this stuff to bring home.

We ordered two servings of steamed rice which costs $3.  The serving is ridiculously large … I had never since so much rice before.  I like that.  Frankly, even one serving of rice is just enough for us two adults and two kids.

We also had Mee Goreng which is Fried Noodles Malay style ($7.75).  It is made both sweet and spicy at the same time.  Again, I swear this is about the best Mee Goreng in this part of the world.  This is hawker food in Malaysia where one could have this for about $1 only.

One more thing about how laid back the people in Seri Malaysia are.  Even though there were no other people in the restaurant, they forgot to bring us the Ikan Bakar until we asked for it when we were almost done with the other dishes.

Anyway, the Ikan Bakar was great … $8 is bit expensive seeing it is just one crummy fish.  The fish is grilled and then topped with chili paste known as sambal.  The Sambal was on the sweet side but really spicy.

We tried ordering their Curry Fish Head but we need to order this 2-3 days in advance.  We’ll do the Fish Head the next time round.

I highly recommend Seri Malaysia for Malay food.  Forget about the decor, or the service … you should only focus on the food.  They are as authentic as you could get.  Also, their prices are cheap provided you don’t compare them to Malaysia’s.  Their address is 2327 East Hastings (near the intersection with Nanaimo).

Blackberry Bistro in Richmond’s London Landing

George and Ease recently invited us for dinner.  It had been a very long while since we had met up.  It must have been something like over three years.  We had utmost respect for them and remembered so well how they had supported us in times of need.

A few years ago Arkensen was in hospital.  Suanne and I took turns to stay with him in the hospital every night.  There was that one day Arkensen had a rough patch and I stayed with him right through lunch and dinner time.  Just then when it was late and I don’t expect anyone anymore, George showed up despite his busy schedule. Seeing that I had no eaten yet, George went out scouring for dinner for me.  I will never forget that act of selflessness from him.

Ease told us she had been reading our blog all these while.  So when Ease contacted Suanne suggested we meet up for dinner, we immediately agreed.  We went to this new place call the Blackberry Bistro.

The Blackberry Bistro is described as a Pan Asian restaurant but to us it is more than that. It is located at the so called “new Shaunessy of Richmond” which I think is more aptly called London Landing.  I had been through this place many times before when I was training for the Half Marathon and had always noticed the name Blackberry … this place used to be overrun with blackberries but of late a lot of the industrial buildings had been torn down to make this a new waterfront residential area.
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For those who are are familiar with this southern Richmond nighborhood, I want you to know that it’s on 6011 Dyke Road.  It is very near where the London Farm and the starting point of the London Landing dykes.

We had expected a very Asian setting but were quite impressed with the setup.  The restaurant had a decidedly modern setting with high ceilings which is lends to it a sense of spaciousness and grandness.  This restaurant sure put in a lot of planning and thought into it.

There is even sofa and fireplace in the eating area upstairs with plasma TV and all (and not playing HK variety shows!).  We actually did not expect that there were so many customers but were quite surprised that they had a healthy mix of customers.  This is perhaps the only place we had seen so far which serves decidedly authentic Asian food and had more than 50% of the customers who are white.  I like that.

The table setting was well thought out although I think they put in too much effort to making this good.  Case in point … the manually wrap and bind the chopsticks and cutleries.  The menu too is really cute … which for a moment I thought was a placemat!

Their menu is very much South East Asian.  We had the nice juicy Chicken satay for starters.  Having grown up in Malaysia, I know what real good satay are and this is it.  He he he … what this lack is the fatty chicken skin which will make it even more juicier.  The peanut sauce was quite OK except I had wished it had more chuncks of peanuts and a bit of chilli sauce like the way it’s supposed to be.

The best satay in the world is the one in Kajang, Malaysia called Haji Samuri.  Compare the above against this blog entry I made here … looks pretty close, huh?

Suanne had the Laksa.  It is creamy, thick, flavorful but otherwise not overwhelmingly spicy.  It is pretty good and we agree that this is just not one of the run of the mill laksa.  The mere looks of the laksa broth itself tells us that they did not just use any off the shelf paste to make this.

The laksa came with spring rolls.  Taste wise, It was alright but in the looks department it was quite unique in that they gave us a dip which I could not quite figure out what it was.  Looks like some orangey jam but not quite.

I had been on a mission to search for the best Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup of late after some of you reader had been commenting on this topic.  Since, they had this on the menu, I ordered this.  The broth is intense to say to least but lacking in spiciness which I personally like.

The bowl is huge.  As a matter of fact, their servings are very large and are served in unique triangular bowls and plates.

Arkensen had the Hainanese Chicken Rice.  Presentation was good.  It came with FIVE sides … nice!  The all important rice was flavorful.  Hainanese rice is not the normal plain steamed rice but is cooked with chicken broth producing an “oily” chicken flavour rice.

Arkensen did not quite like the chicken because it was made of chicken breast.  Chicken breast meat is generally tougher.  I remember growing up in Malaysia people specifically did not want chicken breast but here in Canada, Canadians pay more for chicken breasts!

Nanzaro ordered some dish where he gets to pick two types of meat.  He likes these kind of food where he gets to choose.  I can’t remember what this is called.  He had the char siu and honey spareribs which came with rice and sides.

I tried Nanzaro’s spareribs, it was great … crunchy and sweet.

Almost all dishes came with at least two sides — some salty-sweet triangular chips and grilled zucchini.  And you know what that means?  We had too many dishes on the table … it was jammed pack with dishes of all shapes and sizes.

George and Ease ordered the Singapore style fried vermicelli.  Unlike ones we see elsewhere this one is chockful of ingredients.  It looked pretty good.

George and Ease also had the curry chicken.  It looked nice and good but I did not taste it.

It was when we finished our meal when the owner came by our table and chatted with us.  I always enjoyed talking to the owner.  In some places we went to, the owners look at us with suspicioun when we whip out our cameras.

The owner, Phillip, told us that almost all of the ingredients are made on their own.  He even said that the wonton wrappers are made inhouse.  It is because they actually own Soo Jerky too and had a R&D kitchen from which these dishes came from.  He told us he would travel to far flung towns in Malaysia to get the original recipe of Kuching Laksa which he claims is the best there is.

Since he talked about Kuching, I asked him about this noodles called Kolo Mee which I had always heard of but never tasted.  You know what happened next?  He asked us to hang on and disappeared to the kitchen and made us his version of Kolo Mee (this is not on the menu).

I am so impressed and knew then and there, this is not just any restaurant.

The Blackberry Bistro has a good selection of gelato and guess what … they made these gelato on their own too.  After all the food we declined the gelato but on their insistence, we tried their blackberry and blueberry ones.  It is certainly one of the best we had tried … not too sweet and tastes like what it is supposed to be … fruity blackberry and blueberry.  We’ll come back again some day just specifically for this.

You MUST try their gelato.

Coco Chilli in Richmond

Update 19-Jul-2008: Please note that Coco Chilli had now closed.  In it’s place now is Pho 99.  Click here to read the blog post for Pho 99.

Alexandra Road has a large concentration of restaurants in Richmond. That 1/2 mile stretch from Garden City and the No 4 Road is lined with restaurants. If there is one place we lunch out a lot on weekends, it is here. We go to Kam Do and Silver Tower quite a bit.

Despite all the visits, we had never stepped into Coco Chilli before. We knew it was there, who would not have noticed the bright yellow facade. It does looked a bit teenager’ish to us and without taking a second glance we thought that it is a bubble tea house or something like that. We were wrong.

I can’t really figure out what type of a restaurant Coco Chilli is. They have quite a bit of spicy and curry dishes. On one hand, I would say that they are a South East Asian restaurant but then it’s something about it that says that it is a cafe style restaurant.

Whatever it is, they have a very extensive menu. What we like best is that there are lots of pictures on them. Maybe it was bad timing but when we placed our order, all our top choices were not available. They apologized and told us that it is either that the ingredients had not arrived (oysters) or they had ran out of ingredients.

Surprisingly the restaurant is absolutely packed with people. This place must be popular. Despite their popularity, I must add that the bowl I was given had morsels of dried up food still sticking on it. Yucks!

For drinks we ordered their Coconut Milk with Jelly. It was super rich but refreshing and extremely yummy. We love it but at the same time know that coconut milk is not exactly very healthy.

It was still mummy’s choices that weekend’s eating out. So, mummy kiboshed any desire for fried rice for Arkensen and Nanzaro. We knew they wanted anything with lots of carbo in it. So, we introduced to them the Belacan Vermicelli. Oh, the boys sulked alright but when they took the first bite, they were sold. (See that, boys? Mummy sure knows what you like right?).

The Belacan Vermicelli smells good (to us anyway) when it was brought to our table. For those of you who knows what Belacan is, you will know it does give a pungent smell and flavour. If you like belacan, you will like this.

Suanne and I decided to order two main dishes and supplement them with rice. We ordered their Mussels in Curry. We had wanted to order their Oyster in Eggs but since they did not have oysters, we settled for this. It was great.

The curry was thick with only a little spiciness to it. What we love was their humongous and fleshy mussels. We counted twelve of them there. It was absolutely marvelous. If we come here again, we will order this again.

The Fried Green Beans on the other hand was just OK. They don’t taste very fresh (no, it’s not that they tasted stale … not at all). We expected such green beans to have a certain crunch to it which to us is a sign of freshness. But the sweet spicy sauce makes up for it.

We’ll go again to Coco Chilli and hopefully the next time they will have everything they have on the menu … and also 100% clean eating utensils.

Have any of you Richmond readers ever been to Coco Chilli before?

Ginger and Garlic Malaysian Restaurant & Grill in Richmond

Arkensen and Nanzaro made a huge protest when mum suggested to go to Ginger and Garlic Malaysian Restaurant. They are getting more and more assertive these days. Given a choice, they will go only to Kam Do or California Cafe … sigh, my boys … :-) Well, this week is mum’s week — mum gets to chose where to eat out. Tough luck, guys!

The Ginger and Garlic Malaysian Restaurant is relatively new. This place used to be the Honolulu Cafe we used to like a lot. If not for the fact that name of the restaurant has the word “Malaysia” on it, frankly, I would not have known that this is a Malaysian restaurant. It’s just that Ginger and Garlic does not really figure much in Malaysian cuisine. It’s not that ginger and garlic is not used but names like belancan, tumeric, or sambal should have been more an apt name. *shrugs*

BTW this is located 7700 block on Westminster Highway in Richmond.

We ordered the Malaysian Combo Dinner for 2. This one costs $28.80 which includes an appetizer platter, a soup and two main dishes. It started with what they call the Malaysian Platter which included shrimp cakes, spring rolls and roti canai. There are 2 dips included. For my boys, things are looking up … roti canai is their favourite. I can see they are getting a bit more pleased with mum’s choice!

The Tom Yum Kung Soup is the next on the combo. It is ultra spicy hot and sour. Tom Yum is not a Malaysian dish, it is Thai although it is pretty popular in Malaysia. The added bamboo shoot gives a nice crunch to the soup.

The next one had to the best on the combo … Prawns with Sambal Sauce. What we like is the big prawns. For the uninitiated, the taste could be pungent. This is perfect with just plain steamed rice.

The other main dish on the combo is the Oyster with Chili Paste in Hotpot. This is equally great too. The entire pot is full of large juicy pieces of oysters. Cooked with a lot of sweet onions, this one also is great with rice. However, we do see a thick film of oil which we patiently removed. Not exactly very healthy, but it does taste great.

To appease the boys, we had fried rice (again!). This time since it was mum’s choice, she gets to choose what type. Suanne got the Minced Beef Fried Rice with Shrimp Paste. The boys again protested the choice but guess what … when it came, they love it. This plate costs $8.50.

The total bill came to $44 including tax and tips. I recommend you try this place out. It is not the best food around but if you want to try something different amongst all the Shanghainese, Cantonese, HK-Cafes, and Northern Chinese restaurant all over Richmond, this could be a welcome change. If you like sambal, you will like the Ginger and Garlic Restaurant.