I have to confess: I didn’t eat three meals a day while in Dubai. I was either too lazy to get out for food or too stuffed from tea time.
Still, I did eat some lovely food.
I love you chicken shawarma
I fell in love with the grilled meat and bread combination while in Dubai. It’s just so yummy!
What got me started was a chicken shawarma set from IKEA. The plate had a few sides and even french fries in the bread. The chicken was tender and seasoned so well. Drool. [28 dirhams]
I had a cheaper shawarma from the roadside stall near where I stayed. It was good too but the pickles were urgh. [10 dirhams]
At Mom’s Cafe, shawarma wasn’t served yet so I got the taco version with grilled chicken. [16 dirhams for two of this.]
Tea time
I had a coffee break everyday while in Dubai since I was mostly in shopping malls. It was also the best time to use the cafe’s Wi-Fi to send my mom and sister snapshots of my day. (By the time I reach my accommodation, it’s 12 midnight for them so not a very good time to send stuff.)
Water
It’s very rare that water gets an entry of its own in the Glutton Series. But water in Dubai is more expensive than other places so it gets a special place.
The most expensive water I bought was a 2 dirham bottle of 500ml water at the Pinoy restaurant. The size is usually only 75 cents in supermarkets.
Lesson learned: Don’t buy water at restaurants.
Surprisingly, there’s also free water around too. I was surprised to find water fountains at Dubai Mall. I repeatedly filled my water bottle while walking aimlessly.
Cheap breakfast from supermarket
Cobbling together pre-made food from supermarket is a trick that works in othercountries as well. I bought a butter croissant and a bottle of milk from the supermarket before the tour at Jumeriah Mosque.
Milk fills up the stomach really easily so it’s something I like to buy for breakfast when travelling.
Do you have a favorite food in Dubai? Share them in the comment section below.
It’s Glutton time again! Each time I visit a new place, I share with you the yummies (or not) that I ate. Previous editions include Indonesia, east coast of Malaysia, Singapore.
My friend M left a comment in my past post that I need to try kohtu roti. I wasn’t really sure what it was but I ordered one anyway when I got back into Colombo.
It turned out to be my favorite dish during the entire trip. Maybe I was really hungry when I ate it but every bite tasted like chicken heaven.
Kohtu is sort of like stir fried noodles but with prata instead of noodles. This gives the dish an interesting texture.
Egg hopper
The hopper is a thin batter cooked on a little bowl shaped hot plate. The batter has toddy (palm wine) in it so there is a sourness.
I didn’t like my egg hopper as much as the kohtu. Despite the abundant pepper on my hopper, the taste was still a little flat.
Unknown noodle dish. I went back to the hotel where I had the hopper and kohtu, hoping to get the same for breakfast.
Unfortunately, it was too early so the shop only had this unnamed noodle dish. I ate the noodle with a serving of daahl and some chicken innards.
It was alright.
Drinks!
Can you believe I didn’t have any tea in Ceylon until my fourth day? Even then, the tea was from tea bags.
When I got into Colombo, I ordered a milk tea to go with my kohtu and hopper. The drink turned out to be too fabulous for words.
Sweet with no hint of tannin as other red tea do.
Despite my love for tea, my favorite drink in Sri Lanka has to be ginger beer. I was introduced the drink at my last lunch in Sri Lanka. The brand EGB claims that they are the only ones who use real ginger in their drink. In any case, I love the mix of gas and sweet ginger.
New year munchies!
These new year goodies were prepared by the hostel in Kandy. I’m grateful that I was able to have a taste of traditional Sri Lanka new year food.
D and I visited the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia during a 5-day trip in March. We crossed out Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan (again) off our list of 13 Malaysian states.
Five days is a lot of food so I will only be highlighting some of the best yummies we had.
Glutton in Kuantan, Pahang
We visited only Kuantan while in Pahang. On our first day, we visited the famous Akob Patin House which was (almost) right behind our hotel.
The Malay eatery is a medium standalone stall/house. It serves ready-cooked food for customers to scoop into their own plates.
The most famous dish there is their patin fish. I got a small piece cooked in tempoyak (fermented durian). The fish melted in my mouth but the fermented durian tasted strange (sort of like stinky tofu in Taiwan).
D found something strange in her plate of mixed rice. The strange food looked like a sliced cucumber but was mushy. Then D discovered that it was green durian cooked in curry. BANANA COOKED IN ITS SKIN!!
For dessert, there was tapai which was sticky glutinous rice wrapped in leaf. Sticky liquid dripped out. It turned out to be rice wine which was really strong and hit me in the head. BAM.
Find Akob Patin House: Tapak PCCL Jalan Besar 25000 Kuantan Pahang
Glutton in Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu
In Chinatown of Kuala Terengganu, Madam Bee’s Kitchen serves peranakan food. D and I head there for a late lunch and tea on different days.
Some of the items on the menu were not available that day (watch out for the orange round sticker!)
The food was tasty but very down-to-earth. The menu did not have fancy peranakan food such as buah keluak or kong ba pao.
Find Madam Bee’s Kitchen: 177 Jalan Kampung Cina, Kuala Terengganu 21100, Malaysia
D and I stumbled upon Warung Pak Aziz while looking for breakfast in Kuala Terengganu. (McDonalds was not open until 9am!)
This little stall was in the middle of a carpark, next to office buildings. All the patrons looked like office people and we were the odd one out.
The best food here was the keropok lekor which was a deep fried fish cake. (I usually think of keropok as being thin.)
The owner, Pak Aziz, was delighted that D wanted to have another serving of keropok lekor. (Yes, I ate a lot of them too.)
Warung Pak Aziz address on Foursquare: Parking Kotitab
Glutton in Kota Bahru, Kelantan
Right opposite our hotel in Kota Bahru was a 24-hour hawker center. For our late-late-lunch, we had martabak and nasi air.
Martabak is a pancake-like dish with great filling. I had beef with mine.
Nasi air was a new discovery for D and I. It’s an interesting porridge-like bowl of rice and soup. The rice always seem to be in an interesting lump, instead of the watery grains found in Chinese cooking.
Happy Chinese New Year! Yes, CNY does not end until the 15th day.
This week’s FoodFriday features a special Chinese New Year edition of the Glutton Series.
For this banquet, we’ll have home cooked meals prepared for reunion dinners and a special “lou sang” dish that involved violent chopstick movements.
First course is the CNY eve reunion dinner at my aunt’s place. Every year on Chinese New Year eve, the extended family gathers for a meal.
This year, the table was overflowing with food (as usual) because many brought multiple dishes. I think my family brought the least as we only had my mom’s famous salted duck and a plate of salted vegetable.
Not included in the photo is two types of soups (one without chicken as my dad is allergic to chicken) and steamed fish.
Because the main dining table had limited space, I was assigned to the children’s table. The “youngest” person at the children’s table will be 19 years old this year.
Auntie’s place for lunch
The next day, we were invited to a friend of mom’s place for a lunch gathering. The auntie (a title we use to call an elder woman) is a great cook and she made an amazing lunch.
We had dumplings (a traditional Chinese New Year food). There was roast duck and roast pork which can be found in many Malaysian Chinese outlets.
The fish eggs dish is interesting. The auntie mixed fish eggs with chicken eggs and pan fried it in a rectangular skillet. The tiny fish eggs are snugly wrapped in a coat of eggs. Yummy.
Soup was winter melon soup with meatballs.
We ate all this accompanied with rice. My stomach was stretched almost to the maximum.
Last course: Yusheng
It’s quite alright for adults to have food war during Chinese New Year. The photo below shows Yusheng.
It’s a medley of food, put into a large plate while the server reads incantations (not really, just “auspicious wishes” ). The eaters then violently toss the ingredients with chopsticks.
I’ve never had this dish when I was in Sabah. It was until I began work that I am invited to Chinese New Year luncheons and I participate in the violent act.
After mixing, the dish is sourish with shred of turnip being the main taste.
What’s your favorite Chinese New Year dish? Share it in the comment section below.
The weekend trip to Pontian was short and sweet. My sister and I did not do much, which also meant that we did not eat much.
There’s not much formal travel information on Pontian (zero at the time of writing on Wikitravel) so we did a lot of Google searching about food and things to do.
Pontian Wanton Noodles
Pontian Wanton Noodles
Since Pontian Wanton Noodles is famous in Singapore, I decided that we must eat wanton noodles in Pontian.
Unlike its name suggest, the wanton noodles is not promiscuous or cruel. Instead, it is a noodle dish served with little dumplings (wanton) which are fried or boiled.
We headed to Kedai Mee Heng Heng, a 15-minute walk away from the hotel. I was so hungry that I brought us into the coffeeshop next door.
I was rather puzzled why there was no wanton noodle. We were told that the dish was served next door. We thanked the people and sheepishly left the place.
Our noodles came really really slowly. We found out later that serving food at a slow pace is typical of Pontian town.
We ordered the black sauce noodles (instead of the sweet red sauce–ketchup–which feels urgh). The noodles were alright and the wantons too but nothing to shout about.
Football Field Restaurant seafood
Football Field Restaurant seafood
Another highly-raved about place was the Football Field Restaurant which seemed like a long distance from our hotel on Google Maps. In reality, the route was quite quick.
We didn’t order crabs because they were priced at a crazy RM70 per kilo. I could have RM18/kg crabs in Sabah so I refused to order crabs.
We did have grilled flounder which was amazing, as usual. The chilli paste that came along didn’t spoil the sweet taste of its flesh. (I sound like a cannibal.)
yucky noodles
Mediocre noodle at mediocre Pontian noodle stall
We wanted to try food at the Market. However, we found outthat the market only opens in the evening and at nights. In the end, we headed to a row of shophouses and tried our luck at one of the coffeeshops.
We stood in the shop waiting for tables to clear. No one was leaving and food was served at the usual snail pace.
We switched to a roadside eatery instead. The food was very bland.
Tropical fruits
Tropical fruits: Mangosteen and guava
Not counting the fish, this was probably the highlight of Glutton in Pontian.
Our taxi driver stopped at a roadside fruitstall where we bought a bag of mangosteens and two humongous guavas. I finished my guava only on the second day, biting through it like a beaver with my front teeth.
As for the mangosteens, they were sweet and delicious. I had fun making a video about how to peel a mangosteen, check it out if you haven’t seen it.
I was home for the holidays and ate many yummy things (and some less yummy food). This post is divided by the locations I ate the dishes.
Bon appetit!
Durian. My family loves durians but I’m a little meh about it. However, this time when I was back, I have kind of fallen in love with its creamy custard texture.
Lamb chop. On the second day when I reached home, I had a craving for lamb chop so I requested my parents to bring me to our regular steak place.
Our seats were right next to the covered drain but we got wafts of drain smell floating around us. :<
The lamb chop was rather disappointing. The portion was large but the meat was so tough I felt like I was a grazing cow. My jaw hurt in the end.
Kota Belud kopitiam
Before my mom and I headed to Kudat, we stopped by a kopitiam in Kota Belud. We lunched with my dad and my parents’ friends and ordered things to share.
Fried bee hoon. A typical fried noodle dish, garnished with roast pork bits.
Pig blood curd yong tau foo. If you’ve not had blood curd (like bean curd but with animal blood), you might feel a bit queasy about it.
It’s actually really tasty. It doesn’t taste of blood. I can’t really describe the taste but it’s firmer than jelly.
Kudat seafood
Mom and I couldn’t find a nice place for seafood while we were in Kudat. In our car, we went about town.
Finally, we settled at one of the wooden houses at the sea. We happened to sit at the less popular restaurant. Oh well, food is food is food.
Crab. I’ve never had this sort of crab before. The usual crab I eat has a uniform color but this was patterned. Mom said it was a “flower crab”.
The meat wasn’t as firm as the usual crab I eat. But the good thing is that the shell is less tough and I can break off the shell easily to the crab meat.
(This crab was not eaten in Kudat.) Just to show you what the regular crab I eat looks like. I had this at restaurant near my home.
Steamed fish. Oh, how much I love fish steamed with soy sauce and ginger. The sauce goes well with rice.
Roadside fruit stall
On the way to and from Kudat, fruit stalls are scattered by the roadside.
They all sell the same seasonal fruits: BBQ corn, bananas, jackfruit, honey, rambutan.
BBQ corn. It’s interesting how they cook the corn. I usually eat steamed or boiled corn, never one roasted by fire.
However, our cobs of corn weren’t cooked enough.
Honey. Mom bought a bottle of dark honey (“Darker means older honey,” said the seller.) I haven’t tried it but the bottles look so pretty.
Bukit Padang stalls
Cha kway teow. Stir fried flat board noodles. The half-cooked cockles are known to cause mild food poisoning.
Cendol. Shaved ice, coconut milk, gula melaka (palm sugar) syrup, and green cendol. Enough said. It gave me brain freeze when I tried to eat it really fast.
Others
Hokkien noodle. I love this dark sauce thick noodles. And the fried pork fat. Mmmm.
Pearl milk tea. Or also known as “bubble tea” in Singapore. Black chewy tapioca drowned in milk tea.
YOYO’s the best pearl milk tea branch in Southeast Asia, according to me.
Cooling water, or what we call “rhino horn water”. I do not think the drink has actual bits of rhino calcium. But it was selling like hot cakes (if they were liquid and cool) at my parents’ store.
I learned from a customer that they use it to cool down after eating heaty durians.
Swiss roll. I bought this cake because I mistook it for another bakery’s milk cake. There’s custard in between.
Fish soup bee hoon. Sluuuuurp. (OK, I’m not that big a fan of pale fish.)
Pot luck! My mom and her friends had a pot luck on new year eve night. It was dinner after mahjong. Later we went to the beach for our ritual feet washing.
Tokyo’s Tsukiji is the famous fish market. Some guidebooks recommend visiting early in the morning at around 5 a.m. to catch the tuna auction.
Being the lazy glutton, I didn’t wake up that early. I did visit Tsukiji, but only for the sushi which was slightly disappointing.
As I didn’t want to walk around with an open guidebook, I roamed the outer stalls of Tsukiji and missed the inner market.
Tamagoyaki
I broke my fast with a tamago-yaki, or grilled egg, on a stick from Yamanaga. It wasn’t the most famous tamago-yaki stall in Tsukiji but the egg tasted yummy.
I ordered the warm tamago-taki which came on a styrofoam plate. There was some shredded white radish with sauce which gave the sweet grilled eggs a balanced flavor.
Sushi at Tsukiji
It is sacrilegious to visit Tsukuji without eating sushi. So after my tamago yaki, I went off to find my breakfast.
I stopped at the main chain of Sushizanmai. I had to wait outside before I was ushered into the restaurant before I was seated at the counter.
I ordered a sushi set which was disappointing. I was not as yummy as I thought it would be. I suspect I ordered a lower quality set.
From my side of the counter, I saw the chefs work. One took a fish out of the tank, sliced the flesh off its bones and served the slices on a plate.
It was a bit horrifying watching the fish die in front of my eyes. But I forgot about it after I bit into my piece of onigiri.
Ramune
When I walked back to the train station, I passed by a stall selling drinks for 100 yen. I picked ramune which tasted like ice cream soda. At the top of the bottle, there is a frustrating marble rolling around which sometimes blocked my from enjoying the drink.
I never figured out how to get the marble out. But some people have videos of how you can do it.
I visited the Tokyo Municipal Building around noon. As it was a Sunday, most of the shops under the skyscrapers were closed.
Luckily, the noodle shop was still open.
Naoku at Tokyo Municipal Building
Tsuke men, or dipping noodles, is another way of eating ramen. Instead of a noodles in a bowl of hot soup, I got cold noodles and a small bowl of thick stock.
Take the noodles, dip into the stock and slurp loudly. I find this way of eating ramen fun because I rarely get this type of noodles back in Singapore
Tsuke men
For an extra 100 yen, I added on an iced coffee. yums
Iced coffee
Udon
I visited the guidebook-famous Sankoku Ichi at Shinjuku for dinner before heading to the onsen theme park. Sankoku ichi at Shinjuku
The interior had a vintage Japanese restaurant feeling with low ceiling, wooden floor, tables and chairs.
Katsu udon miso soup
Separately I love tonkatsu (fried, breaded pork cutlets), udon and miso soup so I ordered the Nagoya-style udon which was a combination of all three things.
Unfortunately, the sum was not bigger than the parts.
My pork chop sat on top of my udon in a shallow dish of miso. The crispy fried battered skin was soggy because of the soup. The udon didn’t have much soup to go with. The soup was tainted by the salty tonkatsu sauce. The veggie which I don’t eat was left as decoration.
If I ever go to the restaurant again, I will chose a plain udon.
In case you don’t know. I love Japanese food very very much.
During my short work trip to Japan, I had a few days to roam around eating.
Instead of flooding everyone with too many yummy food, I’m splitting the meals into different days.
For today, we’re having meals from Day 1: Lunch at Kamakura and Dinner in Tokyo.
Day 1
Zaru soba at Kamakura Karari
Zaru soba with ten-don set
I took a side trip to Kamakura on day 1 because my N’EX and Suica package includes the Kamakura stop.
I was really hungry when I walked on the streets of Kamakura. But I did not dare pop into casual-looking but surely expensive cafes so I wandered around.
I found several people waiting outside Karari. I entered the doors but was asked to wait outside and write my name on a piece of paper.
Karari restaurant kitchen
It was an open kitchen concept restaurant. The chefs fried tempura while the customers watched. The second floor was for tour groups so I was stuck downstairs.
The meal was great. I loved the free flow of cold tea as well.
Yayoiken at Minami-senju
Yayoiken at Minami-senju
The restaurant near my hotel at Minami-senjuu had coupon machines at the door (like Nakau!).
Katsu set
I chose a pork chop set because Japanese katsu is delicious! There’s even unlimited refill of rice if you’re hungry.
Unfortunately, my pork smelled in a bad way. At least the miso soup was ok.
But I only have myself to blame. Despite all the research on food in Glodok, I didn’t really jot down the locations nor print out a Google Map of Chinatown.
Well, not everything was terrible so here’s a less hunger-inducing version of the Glutton series.
The Good
Indonesian Nasi Bali
The restaurant/cafe at our hotel served quite tasty nasi (rice dishes). Since I’ve never been to Bali, I ordered the Nasi Bali.
The portion that came was quite small but D reminded me that what we have back home are actually supersized.
The whole dish was slightly spicy but tasty. I even had a fish paste on a lemongrass stick which was cute.
Cold seafood
We did a very un-budget traveller thing in Jakarta and splurged at the buffet restaurant of a 5-star hotel. Hotel K. Our handbags needed to be checked and we had to pass a metal detector before we could go in.
The main mean spread was alright. The sushi counter a bit too stingy–salmon was gone and never to appear after one hour. The cold seafood was fine, although I would love to have raw oysters instead.
The redeeming feature were the desserts. My favorite was the sticky toffee pudding.
What I enjoyed most at the restaurant was gawking at the lifestyles (and hairdos) of the rich and famous.
A toast at Blueberry Pancake House
When we were walking in search of the illusive Jalan Jaksa, we passed by this little restaurant. (If it’s in Lonely Planet, I’m not sure how little it is.)
They had a buffet breakfast spread so we got that. They served fried rice, fried eggs, fried chicken, fried potato patty, non-fried fruits. I had a lot of the coffee and tea as well.
Pre-buka puasa set up
While we were at Blok M, the hawkers were preparing to operate after the fasting period. The stuff looked tasty but we had more important food to tend to. Maybe we can come back next time.
Creampuff and strawberries
Not quite an originally Indonesian dish but I enjoyed my cheaper-than-Singapore Bread Papa creampuff at the airport. The organic strawberries I got from the supermarket were a bit too sour.
Drinks
Teh Botol, less sugar
A colleague of mine introduced me to Teh Botol (literally “bottled tea”) before I went to Jogjakarta. The full sugared Teh Botol is too sweet for our liking but the Less Sugar version is like Goldilock’s last porridge. Just right.
Ice coffee
Also from our hotel cafe/restaurant. The ice cream and coffee went really well.
Kopitiam Oei
While walking aimlessly after finding Jalan Jaksa, we stumbled upon this faux-vintage kopitiam. It has a 1960’s feel to everything.
The menu was a fake newsletter, telling people the origins of the place. (“No, it did not really exist in olden days. The coffeeshop is a recent creation”.)
I had two coffees there. The kopi jawa was a really “manly” drink with its dark liquid and coffee grounds while the Vietnamese-styled coffee lack the buttery taste.
I had one too many cups of coffes, as I found out an hour later. I was feeling nauseous for a long time after that.
The Ugly: Why is Bakmi GM popular?
Horrible food at Bakmi GM
I was looking forward to bouncy bakmi and huge meaty siowmay which I had in Jogjakarta. The flavor, the chewiness of everything!
Unfortunately, we visited Bakmi GM. It was the only visible (meaning a HUGE sign) bakmi place around and we thought the quality would be good.
When we reached the first floor of the building, we found ourselves with plenty of other Indonesians. This must mean that the food is good.
Our order was taken and paid on the spot. However, it took a really long time for our change to come back. In fact, our food arrived before the change did.
The avocado juice was incredibly good (as expected of Indonesia). However, the main dishes were not as tasty. D liked her veggie with oyster sauce but the rest were a joke.
My noodles were limp and all stuck together when I poked them with my chopsticks. It was not a good sign. I nibbled on it and discovered it tasted exactly like the terrible noodles I had as a kid.
Flashback of terrible noodles: It was a road trip and mom’s friends drove us to Kinabalu Park. We stopped by a shop for noodles. The dish was too disgusting that we children didn’t have much of it. Mom’s friend (Auntie L) insisted that the noodles were packed and brought along with us to eat later. In the end, I “accidentally” left the gross bad of soggy dough in the changing room. End of flashback.
Our fried siowmay followed. Instead of a fried meatball, it tasted like turnip cake. I felt like sobbing over the meal (mostly caused by caffeine induced overdrive of emotions).
We had to order another glass of avocado juice and pangsit or fried wonton to get the taste of noodles out of our mouths. The pangsit was ok with the meat as sidekick to the fried dough.
Overall, it was not a good meal. I’m sorry for being disappointed.
Can you share locations of good eating places in Jakarta? I promise to write them down when I visit next time.
YQtravelling 