K.L, Malaysia: Madam Kwan's

One of the best lunches we had on our K.L trip was at Madam Kwan's at Suria KLCC mall, featuring some of the most popular dishes in the Malaysian food lexicon. Food prices here aren't necessarily cheap by Malaysian standards of course, there's always a premium to pay for ambience and setting, but I'm sure you'd walk away quite satisfied after your meal. Good place to bring your foreign friends too for a 101 on the cuisine.

Achar


A popular Malay-Indian pickle, the Achar here was sufficiently sour, spicy and crunchy all at once. A good side dish to have, but I'm personally not the biggest fan.

Nasi Bojari
Madam Kwan's tri-coloured rice with assam prawns, beef rendang and deep-fried chicken drumstick.


I was curious of what the "tri-coloured rice" from the Nasi Bojari really was, and it turned out to be something close to a typical Asian fried rice but with hints of garlic and shades of red and yellow from colouring or turmeric. The beef rendang came in a more shredded style (compared to the usual big chunks of beef that we are used too), which I thought was not too bad and made chewing all the easier heh. The (huge) deep-fried chicken was awesome stuff by the way, well-marinated and all tender and juicy inside.

Chicken Curry


The Chicken Curry had a very appetising spiciness and zest to it. There was only one serving of this on the table (three of us were having the Nasi Bojari) but we all stole a couple of spoonfuls of the gravy to go with our rice. It went very well indeed.

Otak-Otak


The Otak-Otak (to the uninitiated this is really a spicy, grilled fish paste in banana leaf) was delicious. I liked how it had bits of fishcake and shrimps in it for that extra crunch and flavour. The level of spiciness was just nice as well - high but not numbingly spicy. Great stuff.

Price
RM7.90 for the Achar
RM21.90 for the Nasi Bojari
RM15.90 for the Chicken Curry
RM17.90 for the Otak-Otak
RM6.00 for a glass of Coke

* Prices are subject to 10% service charge.

Place
Suria KLCC Mall, Ramlee Wing Level 4/20-21.

Additional Comment
Certified Halal.

Pictures taken with the Canon EOS 500D.

85 Fengshan Centre

More affectionately known by my friends as "Block 85", this hawker centre is a fairly well-known dinner and supper place in the east end of Singapore. My friend swears by the bak chor mee (minced pork noodles) here and some of my friends wanted to give it a try.

Dry Bak Chor Mee
Soup Bak Chor Mee



No ratings for these two dishes as I did not taste them one bit (duh!) If readers hadn't known by now, I can't eat pork or lard because of my faith. Everyone found the noodles ordinary, but the distinguishing factor is the soup, the minced meat and the meat balls, which everyone simply loved. Daphne said 8.5/10 by the way!

Place


Two different stalls, one selling the "dry" one, the other selling the soupy type.

Price
$2.50-$3.00

Barbecued Chicken Wings: 7.5/10


Slightly better than the ones I had for lunch at Food Republic, but somehow or another I still think the best barbecued chicken wings are still at East Coast Food Centre! It's a good thing though that the chicken wings here at Fengshan are juicy and sweet.

Fish Otah: 7.7/10


Otah is kinda like a spiced fish paste wrapped in banana leaf and grilled over a slow fire. The otah here is not too bad, nicely spicy and not too dry either.

Place


Sin Bedok North BBQ Chicken Wing

Price
$1.20 for a chicken wing,
$1.10 for a large otah.

Note: Price is an estimate.

Ah Balling Peanut Soup: 8.5/10


Fine, so this isn't a very good picture, but our hands were too oily from holding the chicken wings that we couldn't take a good shot of the ah balling. Plus the fact that lighting is pretty dim at Fengshan. Most importantly, this ah balling peanut soup is good delicious stuff, and so very filling too that I made it my dinner. I chose two peanut, two red bean and two sesame balls. They all tasted great in the almond peanut "soup", but I have to say the best is still the peanut ones. If you're wondering what these balls really are, they're just glutinous rice balls filled with a flavoured (peanut, red bean, sesame, green tea) paste.

Place


Ah Balling Peanut Soup.

Price
$1.50 for four balls,
$2.00 if you want six instead.

Overall
Place
85 Fengshan Centre
Fengshan Market & Food Centre
Blk 85 Bedok North Street 4

Additional Comments
There is no Halal stall available here, at least from what I gathered when I was walking around.

The Curry Wok

My friend WanHua was disappointed that Adam Road Food Centre doesn't has grilled sambal stingray on Mondays, and we decided to head nearby along Coronation Road for Curry Wok, a small eatery that is known for its traditional home-cooked style of Asian dishes. They serve quite a bit of pork dishes here like braised knuckles, making it uneasy for me but at least my friends were all agreeable to go no pork no lard with our dishes.

Vegetable Curry: 7.5/10


You can tell by the colour that it's very much closer to that of Lontong, and it does taste rather similar as well. The curry wasn't too thick nor watery, it was just fine.

Onion Omelette: 6/10


Ordinary.

Sambal KangKong: 8/10


I like the sambal a lot, it had the spicy kick to it. Vegetables were very fresh and crunchy too.

Beef Rendang: 5.5/10


Beef was very tender, but I found that it had too much fat, and for a seasoned rendang eater, this was nothing to shout about. Ordinary.

Otah-Otah: 8.3/10


My grandmother often buys this if she visits Malaysia over the weekend. It's basically a large slab of otah rather than the thin slice you have in the typical leaves. Otah, for the uninitiated, is usually spicy fish paste, though of course we have other flavours like sotong (squid), prawn and crab. The best and the usual one to me is always fish. And here at Curry Wok, they fried it nicely and it was very tasty indeed.

Service
Very friendly, and pretty prompt.

Price
We paid close to $48 for everything, including drinks and rice.

Place
5 Coronation Road
#01-04 Coronation Arcade