Soo Ser Yen Vegetarian, Kuantan

A couple of weeks ago, hubby and I traveled to Kuantan for a business meeting as well as to enjoy a short vacation in Cherating. In Kuantan, we tried looking for vegetarian restaurants.

We came to this shop and was amazed to find it packed with customers. So we thought this could be a good sign. The food was okay. But I wouldn't say it was exceptionally good, just good enough. I think if you'll let me choose, I still prefer vegetarian restaurants in KL. But things have changed now as I have decided to cut down substantially on mock meat.

Vegetarian Char Siew

Fried Mushroom with ..... (I can't remember the sauce)

Vegetarian Mutton Curry

My VG Vegetarian Shop - Setia Alam

Every since I tasted the wonderful curry laksa from this shop, I still can't get over it. It's creamy texture and flavor is very addictive.

Other than the curry laksa, I also like their bah kut teh. Now, I stopped eating the bah kut teh as frequent as I used to because there are many mock meat inside.

Unfortunately, other than the bah kut teh and curry laksa, the other dishes that I've tried have been disappointing. Don't bother ordering the fried mushroom or prawn. Their frying batter is so thick and oily. I've had much much much better fried mushrooms in other vegetarian stores.

Loving Hut, Kota Damansara

We bought another Groupon coupon again. This time is with Loving Hut. Kota Damansara is a little far from our house and that's why it took us so long to redeem this coupon.

The items included for Groupon coupon was limited. In the end, Hubby and I both ordered the same thing.

Forgot the name of this. It's Basil Fried something with rice. This is good but nothing special.

Lin Chee Shuet Yee (Lotus Seed + White Fungus) dessert. I enjoyed this. They separated the sweetener (If I guess correctly was brown sugar water) and we can add the sweetener based on our liking.

Overall, we'll be visiting the place to try their other stuff soon.

Moon Garden, USJ Taipan

Whenever Hubby and I had to run errands in USJ Taipan, we'll always take the opportunity to grab a bite at Moon Garden.

Tonight, we ordered...

I really can't remember this dish but it's one of the baked rice. I felt that this dish is so-so only. I didn't like the texture of the rice, it's too hard. I had better baked rice during my non-vegetarian days. This one just doesn't even come close.

Curry Noodle. Hubby ordered this and he finished the soup. Go figure :)

We can't resist ordering Fried G-Ken. Yes, we are aware that it's not that healthy but it's not like we eat it everyday. Hehe.

Amata Restaurant For Anniversary

Two days ago, hubby and I celebrated our anniversary. He wanted to give me a break from cooking and brought me out to one of our favorite restaurant, Amata in Klang Town.

Feeling very hungry, we ordered a lot for two.

Crispy abalone mushroom - delicious!! Best dish of the day

Curry Mutton - This is slightly lower than average. I didn't really like it. I had better.

5 Vege. I kind of enjoy this. It's quite refreshing.

Hubby ordered the rojak we always have. He likes it a lot.

With RM41 for all these dishes, hubby and I left as two happily satisfied people.

Assam Curry Vegetarian Fish

Yesterday, after finishing my work at the shop, I came home feeling super hungry. On my drive home, I remembered that I have a few pieces of vegetarian fish, tomato, carrot, straw mushroom in my fridge. I was trying to think of something to cook so that I don't have to visit the grocery stores.

Here's what I came up with. Tadaaaaa!

It was good!!! Trust me. It really was. I used a lot of garlic, shallots, lemongrass, tamarind, curry powder and some coconut milk for this. It was a little sour, slightly spicy and the sauce was condensed. I've never used coconut milk for assam curry before. I got the idea when eating banana leaf rice in some indian shop few days ago. They had this sour curry which had thick coconut milk. It tasted very good too. Hubby praised that I'm really good in cooking curry. :)

Sun City Vegetarian Restaurant Visit 2

Hubby and I liked the food so much. We went there again. This time round, I wanted to try their noodles.

Hubby ordered fried zi hun gen (fried tapioca noodle)

I chose curry laksa

I have to say that their noodles are nothing that great. I didn't like my curry laksa at all. I was struggling to finish it. The soup was sweet rather than savoury. Hubby's noodles were a bit better but still not that good.

We ordered the sweet and sour fried mushroom also but it wasn't as delicious as our first visit's. I guess maybe the chef was different. Really hope they will be more consistent. No more noodles from this shop for us next time.

Tamarind Tofu

I tried to cook this dish again. Haven't been able to perfect it.

This time, I added orange juice and used less tamarind. I also let the tofu gets sauteed longer. It's delicious even though it doesn't look that good in the picture. :)

Success!!

Sun City Vegetarian Restaurant

Last night, I was too tired to cook. I had a long day so hubby suggested that we go out for dinner. Getting tired of all vegetarian restaurants around our house, we look into foursquare for more options. We drove over 20 kilometres to this restaurant in Port Klang called Sun City Vegetarian Restaurant.

The restaurant had a few tables occupied so this is always a good sign. I asked the waiter to introduced me to some of their special dishes and these are what he recommended.

Grilled Vegetarian Fish

四大天王 (famous chinese dish. direct translation is: Four Big Heavenly Kings). Yummy!

Sweet and Sour Crispy Mushroom. This was the yummiest of all. Hubby and I walloped the whole dish within a few minutes. Very good!

The best part was that all dishes were only about RM8 which is very cheap. I guess it is because of the restaurant's location.

I definitely want to go and try out their other dishes. Just going back for the crispy mushroom would have been worth the trip too.

Yam Cake

One morning, I woke up and heard a lot of noises in the kitchen. In case I didn't mention in my earlier posts, I am currently living with my in-laws while waiting for our house to be done constructed. Anyway, back to the noises in the kitchen. It turned out to be my mum-in-law cooking yam cake, a wonderful Malaysian delicacy.

She used yam (cut in cubes), rice flour, water to make the cake and added fried onions, chili and scallions for the toppings. Since my mum-in-law isn't a vegetarian, she also used dried prawns for taste. But because hubby and I are vegetarians, she passed all the ingredients to me and taught me how to make the yam cake (minus the dried prawns).

Look how yummy it was!

If you want to know how to make it, please comment and let me know. I will try and get the ingredients measured and come up with the recipe. :)

Vegetable Curry

The other day I was craving for curry. I didn't feel like having mock meat so I cooked curry vegetable instead. This is the first time in my life to cook vegetable curry. All this while, I've learnt how to cook chicken curry only. I've used the same method (minus chicken and plus a lot of veges) and voila...success!

Question: How to know if the curry is good?
Answer: My hubby finished to the last drop and even licked the bowl (no kidding!)

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

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.

Sweet and Sour Vege Fish

Three nights ago, hubby and myself were too lazy to go out for dinner after a long day of work. I checked my fridge and cook up something with anything left. There were tomatoes, lemongrass, laksa leaf, ginger, big onions, garlic, green vege and half piece of vegetarian fish.

Guess what I came up with?

Stir fried mustard green with garlic and shallots

Sweet and sour vege fish

Both dishes were taken with rice.

The sweet and sour fish was really nice and simple. Here's how to do it:

Ingredients (rough estimates)

5 cloves of garlic chopped finely
2 lemongrass chopped finely (only the end of the lemongrass used - the whitish part)
5 laksa leaves
1 big onion (cut into rings)
10 pieaces of vegetarian fillets
3/4 cup self-raising flour
1/4 cup corn starch
olive oil
black pepper
salt
sugar
tomato sauce
dried and fine basil leaves (optional)

1) Make a batter with self-raising flour, corn flour and water.
2) Dip all the vegetarian fish fillets into the batter.
3) Add some olive oil into the non-stick pan and fry the fish fillets. Remove from pan when golden brown.
4) Leave the remaining oil in the pan and fry garlic, lemongrass and laksa leaf until fragrant and add big onions.
5) Add in tomatoes, tomato sauce, black pepper, salt, sugar, basil leaves, add some water and let it simmer for a few minutes
6) Taste the sauce and adjust accordingly.
7) When you are satisfied with the taste and the tomatoes are soft, add in the fried fish fillets and turn off fire.
8) Mix the fish fillets in the sauce evenly and transfer to plate.


This dish actually turned out to be very delicious. Next time, I will try adding in some chili flakes, pineapple and capsicum.