Fresh, succulent seafood (among other things) at Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant
I was invited to tag along to a food tasting at the Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant (BSGR) in One Bangsar. Had a lovely meal with most amiable dinner companions such as Kerol, KY, Haze, Cheesie, Horng and Jade.
Steamed Cod Fish with Essence of Chicken, priced at RM13.00 per 100g. Served with dried lily bulbs (golden needles), mushrooms, dates and garnished with plenty of parsley. Cod is my favourite fish to eat: who can resist its deliciously white, creamy and buttery meat? Melts in your mouth, it does.
But only when it’s really fresh though, else it’s going to be a big problem. Happily freshness is not an issue at the BSGR. The dish was emptied out within seconds.
Steamed Cod Fish with Essence of Chicken
Baked Chicken with Cheese, RM30 for a Medium serving and RM50 for a Large serving. This was a somewhat confusing dish, as if it didn’t quite know what to do with itself. What is it, really? Well you have baked chicken cut in pieces, of course. The meat is juicy and quite lovely, and the skin crispy with a bite to it. Then you have a tomato-based sauce with mushrooms, peppers and cheese — similar to that of pizza or lasagne. You add the two together and… well for me it was an odd combination at first. I can’t see myself having it with rice, but I can very well imagine having a beer or ten to go with the dish.
I still don’t quite know what to make of it, but I was told that it’s Hong Kong-style. Something like that.
Baked Chicken with Cheese
Stir-Fried Prawns, Thai-style. Price ranges from RM38 for a Small serving to RM78 for a Large serving. It arrived in a sizzling pan and in my haste to capture photos of it, some of the sizzling sauce splashed onto my camera lens. Sucks.
The sweet, spicy, sourish sauce was the bomb though! There is only one way you can eat this kind of dish, and that is with white rice. An Asian gourmand’s gourmet heaven!
Stir-Fried Prawns, Thai-style
Assorted Greens with Macadamia Nuts, price ranges from RM15 for a Small serving to RM35 for a Large serving. Green peas, carrots, black fungus, some sort of celery, some sort of roots, water chestnuts and macadamia nuts. Crunchy and yummy.
Assorted Greens with Macadamia Nuts
House Speciality Butter Crabs, RM60 per kg. Served with either fried or steamed buns, and I very highly recommend the fried ones. Good sized, fresh crabs in creamy butter sauce covered with dried curry leaves. It’s a combination that cannot go wrong. We had to have another serving of fried buns because the sauce was just too good to go to waste!
House Speciality Butter Crabs
We also had dessert (photos here and here). Was a good time chatting, getting to know Jade, taking in BSGR’s soothing decor. There was also an incident where Horng leaned against a ‘wall’ only to realise that it was one of those feature waterfall walls. With real water. Which means, Horng with a wet sleeve, heheheh. Noob.
Kerol, KY, Haze, Cheesie, Horng and Jade
Thanks Jade for having us 
By the way if you want a larger version of the photos, just click on the photos here and it will take you to the Flickr page where their larger resolutions can be found.
Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant
One Bangsar, No 63, Jalan Ara
Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: +603 2282 2555
Links to: Website and Location Map and Facebook Page
What my Mom said…
A couple of weeks ago, my Mom and I were on the topic of the next generation. Not of the Star Trek type, but more of the Ryan the Nephew type. Since Ryan the Nephew is still her one and only grandchild, she is keen for more. I don’t actually understand why. I mean by the time I’m in my 50s or 60s, the last thing I’d want to do is to be surrounded by a bunch of noisy, messy kids below the age of 10 who can’t clean up after themselves.
But that’s me. Some people actually care about having descendants, continuing on the family line and all that. Good for them I say.
So we were in the car: me, my Mom and my Mom’s friend. I told her that look, she can forget about grandchildren from ME, as in Suanie. I don’t want kids of my own, I’d never wanted kids of my own and I don’t plan on having kids of my own.
Mom then nonchalantly said, “Well, you could have an accident, hehehe… 
”
I tell you, that exchange was so wrong on so many levels and until today, I still cannot believe she said that. Sure, +1 for having a cool Mom but ?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Malaysian Street Food: Ramly Burger at TTDI
If you ask a Malaysian where you can get a good Ramly burger, chances are that you’d be met with bubbling enthusiasm as you experience the following in sequence:
1. Your friend speaks a little too fast as he tries to gather his memories as to where the BEST (in his opinion) Ramly burger is.
2. Your friend tries to give you directions to this most awesome Ramly burger stall because it will always be located at the most obscure places (to you).
3. Your friend attempts to describe how the most awesome Ramly burger (in his opinion) tastes: words used are often juicy, messy and awesomesauce.
4. You have no idea what your friend is talking about nor could you understand his directions.
5. Your friend says, “OKAY NEXT TIME I TAKE YOU THERE BECAUSE THEY ARE THE BEST!”
A typical Ramly burger stall: A cook, an assistant and customers waiting for their burgers
You see, Ramly burgers hold a special place in our hearts. It is uniquely Malaysian and boy, are we passionate about our Ramly burgers! There will be one Ramly burger stall that hits you the most and that will become your sole favourite. When you’ve found your absolute favourite Ramly burger stall, it would be very difficult for you to switch allegiance, unless you’re starving of course.
My personal favourite is the one at SS2 square, opposite the police station. My friends and I have been eating Ramly burgers at Wan’s for years. I can’t personally explain to you how awesome it is, it just is. Strange how I’ve never blogged about Wan SS2 burgers, perhaps I shall do it soon!
Creating the masterpiece – the Ramly Burger Special!
Recently Gordon introduced the Ramly burger stall at TTDI to me. Of course nothing is comparable to my SS2 favourite, but this one turned out to be pretty good. It’s in front of the corner 7-11 along Jalan Burhanuddin Helmi in TTDI, a street away from TDH, Boathouse and Sid’s.
By the way, isn’t it amusing how Ramly burger stalls and 7-11 shops are almost synonymous?
Le pièce de résistance: Ramly Burger Special with Cheese!
I used to buy Ramly burgers at RM1.80 a piece. Now they cost something like RM2.50 and above. If you want the special, which is chicken or beef patty wrapped in an egg, it costs RM3.40. Add a slice of cheese to the deal and you fork out RM4.40. That’s RM1.40 away from what our government says you can spend in a whole day for 365 days and not be considered poor.
Therefore by my brilliant Math calculations, Ramly burgers are a luxury item. There is no way you can eat Ramly burgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner WITHOUT busting your budget. Just saying 
The best way to eat a Ramly burger at night after hitting the clubs
But they taste oh so good…
Have a great weekend, folks!
Suanie and Alex for Genting Trailblazer 2010!
I first heard of the Genting Trailblazer last year when one of my Bootcamp buddies, Ean Mei participated. Running through a jungle, up and down hills, jump into natural mud baths… HELL YEAH SIGN ME UP!
Unfortunately I wasn’t fit last year (kickstarted my fitness journey only in August 2009) plus it was too late for me to register. Well even if I had the chance to do it then, I wouldn’t have because I’m chicken shit. Not one for tough work, really… my Mom didn’t tell me anything about that when she gave birth to me so I didn’t sign the consent form to go through hardship.
… but this sort of things sounds just right up my alley. So this year, I mustered up the courage to sign up for Genting Trailblazer 2010. Found myself a partner for it even, yay! Say hi to Alex!
Suanie and Alex at Original Bootcamp’s 1st Birthday Bash! Photo by Joyce.
Alex is a fellow Bootcamper, though he’s in the Petaling Jaya Alpha (5.45am) platoon and I’m in Petaling Jaya Bravo (7am). I’d warned him that I’d be doing this for the fun and adventure of it, not for any kind of competition. Our own time and pace and all that. He’s okay with it and we’re good to go!
… on Halloween this year lah, not now. So let’s see, we have about 3 months to train for this shindig. Nick suggested jogs and runs through FRIM and Bkt Gasing, while me and Alex’s vision of training has more to do with beer down our bellies. Well then, wish us luck!
Chicken Chop – the quintessential Malaysian-Western dish
Despite my (not too) far-fetched claims of extraordinariness, I’m actually a rather typical Malaysian. So if you are anything like me, it is most likely that your first encounter with Western food is the chicken chop.
Chicken what? Chicken chop… as unique to Malaysians (okay fine, Singaporeans also and they are to be included every time I mention Malaysia or Malaysians here) as the usage of lah, sure or not, eh hello, how can like that and various other delightful Manglish expressions.
The chicken chop that got me thinking about writing this post
I grew up automagically linking Western cuisine with chicken chop, then fish and chips, then steak, then lamb, then pasta. It wasn’t till I was much older when I realised that hey, no one outside of Malaysia or Singapore knows what the heck a chicken chop is! It is not even to be found on Wikipedia!!!
Then I was duly informed that the chicken chop is a local creation: I’m not able to provide a history of how it came about, but it may have something to do with the Hainanese in Malaysia. I suppose it’s the evolution of pork chops to lamb chops to hey, let’s grill this chicken too and call it chicken chop.
Breaded chicken chop with black pepper sauce at Hailam Kopitiam
I even conducted a survey to find out if I was indeed correct. Below is my finding, garnered from my sample size of one.
Me: Do you know what is a chicken chop?
MrSixPackAbs: Yes. It’s a karate blow used when scared shitless. Why?
Yeap.
Chicken chop with sweet and spicy sauce at Old Town White Coffee
A chicken chop as I know it is a piece of de-boned chicken thigh, breaded and deep-fried or just plain grilled or pan-fried. Its accompanying sauces are usually black pepper or mushroom which you pour all over the chicken. In KL there’s the Hailam sauce which I don’t quite fancy because of its slight sweetness.
The usual side dishes that come with the chicken chop are the coleslaw and French fries. Variations? Assorted vegetables, mashed potatoes or rice, whatever suits your fancy. Thus fulfilling the requirement of meat + carbs + greens. Very Western, or at least it seems so in our Asian minds!
Chicken chop from Souled Out! at Desa Sri Hartamas
What’s my point? Nothing, really. I just thought it was amusing. I was at the restaurant near where I live and wanted something for dinner. I asked the proprietor…
“Got what ar?”
“Malay, Chinese, Western…”
“What Western food do you have?”
“Chicken chop…”
And so in order to write this post, I began my chicken chop phase. What is a chicken chop phase? Just a long stretch of time where I could eat the same type of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner for days. Then I realised that…
I ACTUALLY REALLY, REALLY, REALLY LOVE CHICKEN CHOP!
Chicken chop with mushroom sauce at Freddy, Millennium 86 at Taman Paramount
So if you know where I can get awesome chicken chops in KL or PJ, let me know. Better still, TAKE ME WITH YOU! Heh, thanks.