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Penang Road Teochew Cendol

I hate crowds. I hate fighting and jostling with the crowd for foods. It makes me feel like I am a refugee in a war torn country grabbing food rations. And if I have to pay for that, it makes me even more turned off.

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During Christmas, there were this huge group of people at the Penang Road famous Teochew cendol stalls. There are two stalls. One is call the Teochew cendol, the other the Raja Uda cendol. To me, they taste both the same. But probably, the Teochew one is clever to rub shoulders so he has better business.

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See? The taukey sat with the famous people and the photos are all over the wall in this little coffeeshop. You just need to walk a bit further down, look for the green and white quaint coffeeshop belonging to the Teochew Cendol. They don’t sell any foods, only rojaks.

rojak

But I teach you a trick. Just go straight to the Teochew Cendol coffeeshop, sit down and ask the Indonesian worker to bring you what you want. No need to scream and shout, jostle and shove with tourists. It was a breeze! The rojak is not bad in my opinion. I hate eating rojak and I think in a year, I ate like once or twice only. So, if I say it is good, it is good, ok? :) Penang rojak has cucumber, turnip (sengkuang), green mango, pineapple and tau pok slathered with their stinky rojak sauce and covered with grounded peanuts.

ais kacang

I saw someone having the ais kacang and it looks pretty. Eventhough no one wants a bowl, I ordered it nevertheless because I know it makes a good photo. So, here is a bowl of ais kacang loaded with a lot of red beans, sweet corn, attap chee, leong fun and sago balls.

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And what makes people throng to this cendol stall? The gula melaka syrup with coconut milk plus the fragrant green thread are simply the best.

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Unlike some cendol, this stall cendol does not hardened. You may want to try their daun pegaga juice too. I don’t like the taste but I heard daun pegaga gives women beautiful complexion.

You should be able to find this cendol stall if you are in Penang Road. The stalls are located at a tiny lane call Leboh Keng Kwee but we call it Penang Road Cendol.

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Enjoy your Christmas!

Unlike previous years, this year Christmas is on a very low key affair where foods are concerned. I had my lasik eye surgery today at Optimax Penang. I dare not plan anything as I wasn’t sure if I will be able to handle all the cooking and etc.

However, the intra-lasik I had was very quick and I am all ok now. No pain, normal eyesight and etc. Anyway, Christmas is just one day so whether I cook or not, there are plenty of foods to eat. Tomorrow night, we will go to a friend’s house for some barbeque. Since I am not supposed to be expose to smoke and dusty places, I get to sit far away and command people to bring me foods. Hahahaha.

snowmen cupcakes for christmas

These cupcakes are baked by my niece’s friend. She did it as a hobby. Really pretty and tasty carrot cupcakes there. They were given to me two weeks ago during my eldest son’s 1212 (12 Dec) barbeque.

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So, dear friends, relatives, readers of Malaysiabest, please enjoy your Christmas. Eat, drink and be merry! Blessed Christmas! I will probably find some excuses to get drunk on the bottles of wines and liquor stocked up at home minus the traditional roast turkey.

For me, I will reserve the merry making for New Year. My two older sisters are away this Christmas so I think I will roast a big fat turkey for New Year when they are back. I just have to roast a turkey or I feel something is missing. The challenge of making one stupid, tasteless big bird into a masterpiece with crispy skin and flavourful meat is the ultimate achievement for every Christmas, or New Year. Who knows, turkey price may drop after Christmas!

Whoops, is today (Dec 21st) Winter solstice or tang yuen festival

rice balls/tang yuen

OK….It is December 22nd. That means, you have time to go roll some tang yuen tonight.

Am I right that today, December 21st is Winter solstice or the tang yuen festival? If it is, then, I am terribly bad for missing the date because we normally roll our rice balls the night before.

I thought it is December 22nd each year but apparently, the sun has shifted position and it is December 21st according to wikipedia.

tangyuan

I never failed to observe this festival so I must go get some glutinous rice and roll the balls. My boys loved doing it.

The above video is from 2008.

and the below is from 2007.

Since now I take better video, I must make one this year, huh?

Recipe : Herbal, drunken prawns

I like live tiger prawns prepared as drunken prawns but now, I feel like so cruel when they dunk the live prawns into the boiling wine. I can almost hear them screaming…’arrghhh…hot….die….’

So, to substitute the killing, I decided to cook my own drunken prawns using white, large prawns. The prawns are dead, so I didn’t commit any murder, eh?

herbal prawns

Recipe for herbal, drunken prawns

8 large, white prawns, remove sharp head and tails

3 pieces dried dong gwai

handful of dried kei chi or wolfberries

half cup shao xiang hua tiao chew (chinese rice wine)

half cup water

flavourings – few drops of fish sauce, soya sauce, pepper

3 cloves garlic, smashed

1 thumb size ginger, slice
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Heat water, add garlic, ginger, dong gwai, flavourings, kei chi and boil over low fire for several minutes until dong gwai imparts flavour. You can smell the fragrance.

Add the wine and prawns and simmer. Once prawns turned opaque, turn off fire and leave the prawns to continue cooking in the boiling wine soup.

Garnish with some sliced ginger and coriander.

teriyaki chicken

I also made a teriyaki chicken on the same day. I merely pan fry some chicken meant for barbeque till cooked. (this means the chicken had been seasoned well) I pour in some teriyaki sauce and honey plus some cornflour mixed with water. My little boy loves the teriyaki so much.

baked beans and eggs

And the rest of the meal was baked beans and eggs.

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The whole meal for dinner…

Wedding dinner at KL Tower

Last month, my niece had her wedding banquet at KL Tower. The direction and signs to KL Tower sucks. My brother who lives in PJ also got lost. For a tourist spot like KL Tower, they sure are very foolish in the way they put up the signs. We could see the tower but just couldn’t reach the road leading to it.

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Anyway, my niece got me a reserved VIP parking so there was no hassle after we found the road to KL Tower. However, there were lots of tour buses and tourists, making the place really busy and chaotic. Certainly not a place you want to go for some romantic evening because there are loud, noisy tourists at every corner.

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Once we got up the tower to the wedding venue, it was all peaceful again. The view is fabulous and we were lucky to have a very clear night. However, I was there just to get tipsy so I didn’t bother to take any photos. All these photos were taken by my 13 yePars old son.

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The banquet hall has a lot of pillars so if you are not sitting at one of the more VIP aka relative tables, then, you need to watch on overhead projector what is going on at the stage.

drunken herbal prawns

I didn’t take photos of all the foods. On average, I would say they are not too bad and portion is rather big too.

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Dessert was interesting with mochi and the deep fried dumplings.

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Wedding favors were in the form of KL Tower shape water bottle with my niece’s wedding photo, heart shape chocolates and a heart-shape can of sweets. The price of per table is not too expensive but for Penang standard, it is very expensive. If I am not mistaken, it is about RM799 per table. The foods are halal.

As I always reminded my sons, next time, I am never ever going to sponsor their wedding, so they better think twice before they marry. Find a girl who doesn’t care about wedding banquets! Hahaha.