All chooked up

You know how it is when you’re really, really hungry and are enroute to a meal you’ve had before and you just know it’s going to be so good because you can taste it?

Looks are massively deceiving.

Insipid saucing gives bean sprouts a bad name.

That was how it was at lunch. I’ve been known to be very fickle when it comes to what to eat, but today I knew I wanted the chicken rice at Yat Yeh Hing in People’s Park, opposite St Ignatius Church in PJ. We even managed to find parking.

I ordered roast chicken and bean sprouts. The drinks in the shop are catered by the restaurant owner, who also makes ala carte dishes, so I also ordered a tofu from her. I barely waited till the shutter clicked on my camera before I began eating. Shock and horror! The chicken was so tough and stringy that it has the texture of untreated hemp. I hoped it was just that odd piece, but three pieces in and I was masticating so hard I could have cut a wisdom tooth, had I any left to cut.

It was only after my plate of rice was finished that I got a decent, tender piece of chicken. By then my jaws ached and I was in a bad, bad mood. Kit reminded me that the last time we ate here we took the steamed chicken, so it may well be that the roast chicken was always a dud. Looking around, all the tables had the steamed chicken.

Still, it pissed the heck out of me to have the worst chicken I have ever eaten at this very meal. The place was chosen for its track record. It is inexcusable that he’d stink at roasting chicken while excelling at steaming them. And if he knew he stank at it, why the hell does he offer roast chicken? Even his bean sprouts were insipid. Although plump and fresh, they lacked the combination of oil, stock and sauce which makes it a crunchy, salty, satisfying mouthful.

For RM6 I could have had a whole banana leaf lunch. With a banana for dessert!

The only decent thing was the tofu. But at RM6 for that little cake, it was hardly worth it, seeing its topping was pickled radish and a little minced meat. Sure, it was molten soft inside and very good when warm, but if I have to sit through bad chicken for this tofu again, you can forget it.
The final nail in the coffin was the fact that the glasses the tea came in were so very badly washed that one still had the imprint of lipstick on it. While I am not squeamish and have eaten in more than my share of unhygienic places, this stinker was the final straw. I’m big on personal space and privacy and to have someone’s lip print on the cup I’m supposed to drink from is akin to asking me to French kiss a stranger wearing a very unfetching shade of coral.


Goodbye chicken rice shop at the corner, it was not nice knowing you and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I stop by again. I’d eat at the Chicken Rice Shop more willingly next time!

Undecided

The steamed flower buns are essential to an Esquire meal.

I wrote about the culling of some QSRs from my list of places to eat. It’s easier to bid adieu to places like that since for all the ID and the marketing research that goes into them, they are still soulless places.

However, when it comes to places like Esquire, I have a hard time deciding whether it is time to make the final cut. It is a place intrinsically linked with numerous family meals when I was growing up. It has with it part of my family DNA – from weekends browsing in Sungei Wang Plaza and lunching at the Esquire outlet on the top floor, to weekday dinners when Grandma did not cook. It was also a favourite meeting place between Ying May, one of my best friends and I, when there was still an outlet in Bangsar Shopping Centre.

I think the chain has undergone some changes. I believe it has changed ownership and is now run by the same people who managed the Nam Heong chain of chicken rice shops. Esquire outlets are in two places I like going because of the ease of parking – Subang Parade and Atria.

I’ve brought Erin to dine at Esquire twice. Both with Nana and Pops. She enjoyed the Esquire tofu both visits, but I am not sure if the food is really all that it should be anymore. I continue to order the same dishes, (except for the Japanese eel, which they tend to run out of so many times that they should take it off the menu) but I just am not sure I’m getting the quality I want.

Soggy dumplings and no vinegar!

Szechuan eggplant

Presentation does not exist in Esquire! Note the spring onions marooned on the edge of the bowl!

The wor tip (deep fried dumplings) was soggy and stodgy, and mum commented on the grey-looking paper base on the steamed flower buns, though the buns themselves are still soft and passably large. I think there could be a lot less oil used in the paprika chicken and the Szechuan eggplant, though the flavour is still good. There is a RM2 surcharge when you request for the Esquire tofu in a set menu (what the?!), and overall there is no presentation to speak of. But yet…

Erin likes the Esquire tofu, but I dare say she likes the kind I cook too!

Saying goodbye to Esquire is akin to putting my old leather bomber in the recycle bin. I probably won’t wear it again, but it is an intrinsic part of who I am, because it was the essence of what I used to be, which coloured the choices I made to become who I am now. To me, relationships with food can be like that too. So what do I do?

Got Kreme-d

The displays at Krispy Kreme is enough to give teeth cavities!

Malaysians waited a long, long time for Krispy Kreme to come to Malaysia. I never realized just how many Malaysians have had a KK experience and yearned for more, until the chain (brought in by Berjaya), opened in Malaysia about two years ago in Times Square. The Malaysian Times Square, not the Times Square in NYC.

Kit and I went to that outlet a few days after the opening. He’d never had a KK doughnut, (that comes from living in Ireland half your life!) and was eager to cut his sweet tooth on some. I, was excited because the last time I wanted a KK, I flew myself to Bangkok!

We both think KK has the best doughnuts amongst the donut players in Malaysia – Dunkin Donuts, Big Apple and J Co, the amazing Indonesian franchise. However, we are old enough and conscious enough of the number of gym sessions it takes to burn off a half dozen of these sinners, that we limit ourselves. It also helps that KK opened outlets in places not much frequented by us.

My six-pack!

However, we were at Sunway Pyramid on Saturday and could not resist being the first ones in the outlet. Funnily enough though, this outlet did not have their famous neon sign which is switched on each time fresh doughnuts come out of the fryer.

Tastes like coffee but they don't say anywhere that it is!

Still, I got us a six-pack (if only the real ones were this easy to send out for!) and a coffee for me. I did not plan on a coffee, but the Tasty Caramel Chiller turned out to be a frozen coffee. I really wish they’d make it very clear that Chillers were their version of ice blended coffees. Really, wouldn’t YOU be misled if you saw on the board ‘Chillers’ followed by ‘Fruity’ and flavours like Passionfruit, Raspberry and Orange Blast and then under the heading ‘Kremey’, flavours like Tasty Caramel, Velvety Vanilla, Dainty Green Tea and Yummy Cookie? Doesn’t the last list scream ‘non-coffee’ to you? It did me! So I was not too happy a puppy with my coffee Tasty Caramel. If I wanted coffee, I’d have an illy espresso. And a cute little pig on top of it too, if I had my way!

Anyhow, we had six doughnuts to enjoy with the coffee. The assorted half dozen costs RM15. I chose Caramel Cookie (loved the crumbly bits of cookie and the caramel net over it), Original Glazed (still the gold standard, so crisp and light!), dark chocolate (did not get to this one), Glazed Chocolate and Vanilla Cake (I don’t like the crumb of these, they are too dry and crumbly. Nothing will replicate Dunkin Donuts’ first cake donuts), and the New York Cheese Cake (graham cracker top and some fondant-y lemony filling made this quite interesting).

While I definitely see the appeal of these doughnuts (after all, the brand is 72 years old, with a 1937 founding), I think there is a generation of kids who are growing up to associate these calorie bombs as their version of Grandma’s or mum’s baking because one is probably passed on or in a nursing home, while the other is too busy trying to keep the family solvent in a two-income family.

Case in point was the family who were in the outlet with us. The elder boy was nearly four and he demolished three doughnuts in huge bites. His dad told me he could eat these zero nutrition items ad infinitum, but would struggle to finish a sandwich. And the parents continue to let him eat this! And shrug off his 1am bedtime. To top it off, the kid drinks coffee! And only the Coffee Bean ice blended. Oh.My.Lord. Kit tells me to stop imposing my belief system on other parents, but after I see incidents like this, I wonder that chains selling all these treats should have a consumption cap on doughnuts for kids under 12, and a strict No Minors policy on coffee.

Where is Jamie Oliver when we need him? Oh, that’s right. He’s home, with his kids, cooking them real food and undoubtedly baking some real treats too!

I’m sorry for the rest of the populace but I am so glad I have a husband who bakes and a father who cooks to feed my kid while I am out making a living!

Sign of the times

It’s a great thing for Malaysian gastronomy that despite the increasing use of religion as a trump card from everything to voter rights, right down to the gazetting of locations for houses of worship, there is a jump on the number of non-halal eateries in the city. Ninja Joe is one of the first pork-serving fast food chains. I first saw an outlet in Tropicana City Mall and I liked their burgers well enough. Not so much that I haunt their joint, but I suppose the real pleasure comes out of seeing it exist and grow.

I snapped this bunting in Sunway Pyramid. I like its tongue-in-cheekiness.