Rice Dumpling (粽子)

Last week was Dragon Boat Festival （端午節）. My mother in law makes rice dumpling every year. This year she made it twice. I told her I would like to learn so this is my first time making them. When I was young, I remembered my grandma who used to make very delicious rice dumpling. All her daughter in laws would gather at her house around this time and they make lots and lots of dumplings together. I was too young then and my hands were too small to wrap the dumplings.

I can't give you the recipe because I think the vegetarian version can be improved. Perhaps next year. Anyway, these are some pictures of the lesson.

Chestnuts

Mushrooms

Glutinous Rice

Wrapping and Tying the Dumpling is the hardest

Done!

Savouring my fruit of labor

Deep-fried Bitter Gourd

Few days ago, hubby and I went to grocery store right before dinner to get something to cook. We've always been a big fan of deep-fried bitter gourd from Indian restaurants and I thought of trying those. I bought a few young bitter gourd and that's all I need.

I have no idea how I was going to cook this but I try to put in as much spices as possible.

Ingredients:
6 young bitter gourds sliced

For batter:
Self-raising flour
Corn flour
Tumeric powder
Coriander powder
Cumin seed
Salt
Sugar
Five Spice Powder
Water

A dish full of spices. It turned out really yummy although not as good as those in Indian restaurant. Next time, I will try to check with my Indian friends how to perfect it.

Moon Garden, USJ Taipan

Last night, hubby and I decided to try out Moon Garden restaurant in USJ 10 (also known as Taipan). I've been there a number of times when I was still a non-vegetarian. I remembered the food was good so I thought of bringing hubby there to try.

Our first dish was... Fried G Ken with Wasabi

It's quite interesting but I don't think it taste like real fried chicken. But still, it's tasty. Next time, I won't bother to get the Wasabi version. It's just an additional pack of Wasabi Pepper, which was terrible. The pepper kept going up my nose and I sneezed uncontrollably.

This Mushroom Donburi was very yummy. It's savoury and has a strong mushroom taste. Mushroom lovers like myself will enjoy it.

The salad was nothing to shout about. Actually, I felt kinda of duped. In the menu, it looked like this....

I thought the salad was going to be as big or green as it was in the picture but no .... and it's RM6.90 for that small miserable salad.

After dinner, we were tempted to try the cakes in their bakery. But we were disappointed to find out that their cakes are eggless but it has dairy. We left the place and drove all the way to Sky Garden for their vegan cake. I forgot to take pictures as I was so into the cake I just had to taste it right away. :P

Next time I'll take pictures for you as I foresee myself going there to fix my cake cravings pretty soon.

Yishenshu Second Round

Just got back from Yishenshu again. Hubby and friends arranged for my birthday gathering there. We had a lot of fun chatting and the dishes we newly ordered are just as delicious. However, I felt that the Yishenshu staff needs to beef up on their customer service. They look so unhappy and unwilling to serve. We were waiting for all our friends to arrive before we ordered and it seems that one particular staff was agitated. Perhaps she thought we're not ordering anything. Or perhaps I just misread her facial expressions and actions. Whatever it is, it sure didn't make me feel comfortable.

Four Heavenly Kings (四大天王) - delicious!

Tofu with Shimeji Mushroom - This is quite good. Could be better.

Vege Mutton Rendang - So so only. I had better mutton rendang.

Such a lovely night. We went for chocolate fondue in Paddington House of Pancake after that. Nice!

Yishenshu

The other day a Yichenshu 50% deal from Groupon came online and I immediately bought it. I've been the the restaurants, both One Utama and Bukit Tinggi, before and thought that the food is okay.

Anyways, last night, hubby and I went to claim our Groupon at the One Utama branch.

First dish ...

House Signature Emperor Tofu - pretty good.

Second dish ...

Braised Mushroom with Broccoli - also quite good... can't get enough of brocolli

Third dish ...

Vege Crispy Goose - This is very good. I think it is honey glazed. Really crispy and fragrant.

While I'm not a big fan of mock meat, I must hand the award to Yishensu for the most amazing mock meat. Look at the details of the mock meat.

Eating mock meat as a vegetarian is a controversial. Some people are against it, some are not. Some people said it's contradicting. Why try to make food to taste like meat when you are against meat? To my hubby, he said it is an art. For me, I don't see any harm in that. No animals died for mock meat to be created. Even for non-vegetarian, there are people shaping their food to look like vegetables or non-edible items. There are toilet themed restaurants around. What's the deal then with mock meat? It's just to have more variety and still be animal friendly.

I would definitely go back to Yishenshu. :)

Fried Mushrooms

Oyster mushrooms were on sale in Tesco and I bought a few packs last week. After using a pack for my mamak mee, I decided to try frying the second pack for lunch. I used self-raising flour with corn flour, salt, sugar and a little bit of pepper for the batter.

It was very crispy and delicious. However, I've learnt a lesson this round. I should dry the mushrooms with towel before I mix them in the batter next time. There were water in the mushroom causing the oil to burst.

Oh well, it's still very delicious. Also, next time I'll add some fermented red bean curd (nam yee) to spice it up.

Vegan Eggless Non-Dairy Cake

Yesterday was my birthday. Happy birthday to me! :P

My sister arranged a family dinner at Sky Garden Restaurant. I forgot to take pictures of the food. Sorry. The food was nothing to shout about. In fact, they are quite bland. I really didn't enjoy them so much and my family thought the same too. Seriously, I have had much much better vegetarian food, which I will share with you the next time I go.

At the end of the dinner, they surprised me with an eggless and non-dairy cake. Now this cake was really delicious. It's hazelnut chocolate cake. The texture of the cake was fluffy and the cream was fluffy too. Can't believe a vegan cake can taste so much better than normal cake. Yummy.

Later, my sister shared with me about her horrendous experience with the waitresses/management staffs in the restaurant. Their customer service really sucked. Initially she wanted to give up on the place but someone called to apologize later and she has decided to give them second chance. Last night, we weren't served very nicely. Took them a long time to get the food served most of the time.

I don't think I'll ever go back to the restaurant for food. Maybe only for the cake... Or maybe, I will learn how to bake a vegan cake myself. :) Yeah. That's more like it.