Homemade : Sticky Date Pudding By Vivian

Sticky Date Pudding is one of the favourite Australian pudding especially in the Southern climates in the winter months and its also our favourite pudding ever since we tried it locally. Hence, I decided that since we all love it so much (especially my husband who hates pudding but likes this one so much), i went and search for the ultimate recipe, LOL

Ta~da.....Here's the recipe i found and it tastes as good to some & better to others. Oh yah, you need to serve it with "better quality" ice-cream to enjoy it more =D


Food Review by "CEO of QC Food & Beverages - Mart"

Food Type: Western Dessert
Address: Not given
Tel: Not given
Price: Price~less..LOL (You cant value something this GOOD!)
Operating Hours: Whenever she feels like making it..LOL

Taste Rating: 10.1/10
Ambiance Rating: Not Rated
Service Rating: 11/10
Value Rating: 100/10

Overall Rating: Exceeding Ratings..LOL

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Buonasera Restaurant @ SS2, Petaling Jaya

Looking for some good food in SS2 is pretty damn easy, there are many Kopitiams, cafes, restaurants and food stalls to choose from. If you are in for Italian food, you should pay a visit to Buonasera Restaurant. Chef Enzo (An Italian Chef, nice guy) who is in charge of the kitchen/restaurant and locate next to the biggest duck in SS2.

Buonasera has modest décor, bright lighting and different music (Lionel Ritchie and a collection of the greatest love songs from the 80s is not something you expect to hear in an Italian restaurant) greets you as you enter it.

For starter, tried the Buonasera’s Caesar Salad with parmesan cheese, egg and pork bacon. Looking at the picture below, it’s quite good (vege is fresh and toast garlic bread is crunchy) actually with generous amount of bacon and parmesan cheese…. Yum yum…
Next, the Linguine Sakura Pork Pasta…. The Pork is grilled perfectly and using pomodori sauce, roasted capsicum, onions, garlic and add some wine to the pasta, it tastes so nice. Furthermore, a bit of about pomodori sauce. It is a lot like the marinara sauce only it's thicker, but still liquidly. It feels a lot like minced tomatoes in your mouth rather than the chunks you get with marinara sauce. It's cooked a little longer so it's darker in color but not much. Marinara is made from canned tomatoes, pomodoro is made freshly.

The Breaded Pork Chop served with garlic sauce, rocket salad & rosemary potatoes. This dish is a must try. Deep fried breaded pork chop is so tender and juicy. The combination with the garlic sauce is so good. Go try it! Oh ya, additional info, this dish is not part of their regular menu. Chef Enzo likes to change the special menu on a daily basis.

Then the Sakura Pork Rib, its ribs marinated with Chef Enzo’s special sauce (maybe some sugar, salt, garlic powder, pepper, Italian herbs and some wine) and served with mash potato and leaf salad. Again, this is another must try dish…….hahahaha

The Sakura Roast Pork, this is roast pork in Italian style garnished with Chef Enzo’s special sauce again. Comes with leaf salad, rosemary potato and mushroom jus. The pork is alright but a bit on the dry side.

The Capriciosa Pizza with tomato, ham, egg, pepperoni, mushroom & mozzarella is a good pizza. It's always a delight to see that the topping fully covers the pizza when it arrives and that's certainly the case here. YUMMMMMM….

The Rosemary Chicken, its oven roasted chicken served with salad, rosemary potato & mushroom jus. Sad to note that it’s not that good actually. It’s dry but the chicken is tender.

Dessert of the day was Buonasera Lemon Tart served with lemon sorbet. The tart is tasty and crunchy, but they served it cold. It would be better if they serve it hot. Oh, the lemon sorbet is great too.

Last but not least, the sticky date pudding, served with an addictively good butterscotch sauce. Beware, this is not a dessert for dieters. It’s a sinful dish, you couldn’t stop digging into the pudding.

Conclusion, with only some minor quirks here and there, Buonasera is still a decent place to go for some authentic home cooked Italian food. The pork dishes fare better than other western restaurants and the desserts are to die for.

Food Review

Food Type: Western, Italian (Non-Halal)
Address: No. 42, Jalan SS2/66, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: +603-7877 8586
Price: Average RM30-35 per pax
Operating Hours: Monday-Saturday (11am-3pm, 6pm-10.30pm), Sunday (9.30am-3pm, 6pm-10.30pm)

Taste Rating: 9/10
Ambiance Rating: 8.5/10
Service Rating: 9.5/10
Value Rating: 7/10

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

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Soon Lei Restaurant (Kedai Makanan dan Minuman) @ Taman Kuchai Jaya, Kuala Lumpur

In Taman Kuchai Jaya, many patrons know that here is famous for one thing and that’s Fish Head Noodle. There are 2 restaurants which are quite famous for it, Goon Wah and Soon Lei. This post is about Soon Lei.

Even before the dish is placed on table, patrons could smell the aroma of the wine simmering in the bowl of seafood broth. Inside were thick chunks of fried fish head, preserved vegetables, tomatoes and yam. Fleshy fried fish pieces were aplenty as well. Yummy…

The following dish is the stir-fried potato noodle; they use mashed potato and mix together with flour (very interesting way to use this matter). Using this sort of noodle, the chef fried with minced pork meat and dried fungus. Result, quite tasty lar….

One of the better dishes is the stir fried noodles with pumpkin and salted egg yolk. It’s never easy to cook tung fun for they stick together easily, given their starchiness. A strange combination, no doubt, and perhaps the generous portion of pumpkin is bit too much, and perhaps less is more, but still very good…

Another one of their best dishes is stir-fried mee sua, the overall taste is slightly bland, as compared to their other dishes. But this dish comes with generous amount of ingredients like scrambled eggs, prawns, scallion and pork.

Then this normal Cantonese Stir Fried Hor Fun, taste wise is quite standard (normal lar) but if you refer to the picture below, they are very generous with the ingredients, plenty of vegetables and prawns.

Saving for the best is deep fried chicken wings marinated with Guinness Stout (have to marinated for over night). The taste is very sweet and you can smell the aroma of the Stout which gives tenderness to the chicken wings. Delicious!

Food Review

Food Type: Chinese (Non-Halal)
Address: G7, Blok KP1, Jalan 3/115C, Taman Kuchai Jaya, 58200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +6016-608 7282
Price: Average RM13 per pax
Operating Hours: Monday to Saturday (8am-4.30pm), Closed on Sunday

Taste Rating: 7.5/10
Ambiance Rating: 5/10
Service Rating: 6.5/10
Value Rating: 8.5/10

Overall Rating: 6.9/10

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Bricks Kitchen and Lounge, Jakarta

What do you get when a breathtaking view is paired with fusion cuisine? Enter 'Bricks Kitchen and Lounge' (BKL).

BKL, along with its sister restaurant, Skyview Terrace is strategically located at the top floor of a mall and provides diners with a view of Jakarta's skyline and an aerial view of the macet (local lingo for 'traffic jam').

The management of Plaza Semanggi has converted its rooftop into a food emporium and offers a mixture of various cuisines and food establishments, one of them being BKL. We were part of a spillover effect as the initial restaurant that we wanted to patronize was full.

The view from the other restaurants were better as it offered the 'Kuningan' skyline, but enough about the view. Let's eat.....

The ambience was great, had it just rained and the air was cooler than usual. It was a tad hard to see what was offered on the menu as the only lighting provided was from a table top candle.

Prices were reasonable (about Rp25000 to Rp80,000 per main) and the menu offerings ranged from local Indo delights to pasta to steak.

Rp1000 = Rm0.30+-

I ordered the Prawn Balado while Mary ordered their 'Custom pizza', containing ham, roast chicken, salami and sausage strips.

The pizza was a medium-sized portion was still too big for Mary, giving me a chance to try a slice. It was well worth the Rp30,000. It was juicy and oven-baked to perfection. Definitely one of the best I've had and a must-try, if you ask me.

Then came my order, 'Prawn Balado.' The presentation was simple and nice. There was a '1 chilli' rating for this dish, indicating that this dish was 'spicy'. I literally cried when I ate this dish as the amount of chilli used was just too much to bear. I had to abandon the dish halfway and down a glass of ice-water. Good thing Mary couldn't finish her pizza and lucky for me, I didn't order dishes that had 2 or more chilli ratings.

Great place to bring a date but it gets extremely packed on weekends. But I went with my mom and wife...

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Xin Yi Dai Seaport Restaurant @ Renmin Road South, Shenzhen, China

Xin Yi Dai Seaport Restaurant is situated in a shopping plaza; this restaurant serves excellent, reasonably priced dim sum and a variety of local seafood dishes. It's a huge restaurant that sits on the second floor of a shopping centre in a busy area of Shenzhen. The interior decorated with oriental pictures, statues and plants. You see nicely dressed chefs cooking the main dishes in front of you. Each table has at least two waiters serving you.

For starter dish, the Wasabi Cucumber. It’s crunchy, sweet and as expected, you'll taste the wasabi spiciness.

Then the soup for the starter, it is Boiled Chicken Feet Soup. Actually the taste is appetizing and you wouldn’t stop at first sip.

To the main courses, the “Siu Mei” (consists of roast pork, char siew, roast duck and roast pork shoulder) is the generic name, in Cantonese cuisine, given to meats roasted on spits over an open fire or a huge wood burning rotisserie oven. It creates a unique, deep barbecue flavor that is usually enhanced by a flavorful sauce (a different sauce is used for each meat). Shops selling these meats are commonly found in Chinese-speaking regions in East and Southeast Asia. Here in Xin Yi Dai, the Siu Mei is very mouth-watering. All are perfectly roasted and not that fattening.

Next, Fried Tok Fun (glass noodle) with pan fried scallop. The way the chef fried tong fun is excellent. Not too oily, is tasty and you can taste that wok flavor. Furthermore, the scallop is pan fried and still able to maintain the freshness of it. And using the scallop shell as décor dish, the overall score for this dish is splendid.

Following dish is the Wolfberry Soup with lean pork meat, this soup is actually good health especially for the eyesight. In brief, Wolfberry, commercially called goji berry, is the common name for the fruit of two very closely related species: Lycium barbarum (Chinese: 寧夏枸杞; pinyin: Níngxià gǒuqǐ) and L. chinense (Chinese: 枸杞; pinyin: gǒuqǐ), two species of boxthorn in the family Solanaceae (which also includes the potato, tomato, eggplant, deadly nightshade, chili pepper, and tobacco). It is native to southeastern Europe and Asia. It is also known as Chinese wolfberry and a common use in the health food market for products from this plant. End result, the soup and the vege is tasty......Supreme!

Last but not least, fried noodle. Here the fried noodle, dry with loads of wok hei, juicy pork meat, mushroom and spring onions. It is pretty decent tasting. However, this dish is quite oily.

Overall, this is a posh restaurant serving luxurious food and the best of it, it's cheap.

Food Review

Food Type: Chinese (Non-Halal)
Address: 3/F, Jianingna Friendship Plaza, Renmin Road South, Luohu District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
Tel: +86-755-8236 2888
Price: Average RMB90 per pax
Operating Hours: Daily

Taste Rating: 8/10
Ambiance Rating: 9/10
Service Rating: 9.5/10
Value Rating: 8/10

Overall Rating: 8.6/10

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Sanbanto @ SS2, Petaling Jaya

People & food - that's a combination that works every time. Every weekend, friends meet up, start having some conversation and it always seems to turn towards food. "Yo, where's a good place for lunch/dinner?" and end up trading recommendations. One of these recommendations turned out to be this interesting place - a meat shop cum café/restaurant. This 4 month-old café located in SS2 is a quite interesting place to visit. Customers probably would end up purchasing some fresh prime pork meats after having their meals here.

Here, Mr. Eddie (one of the owners), explained that Sanbanto's tag line "From our Farm to your Table", refers to their 1st class handling of the prok all the way from their pig farm to being served in the restaurant. Theirs is the only pig farm in Malaysia that has ISO food safety management system. Sanbanto's pigs are grown free from growth hormones, which is what most customers prefer nowadays. Furthermore, Sanbanto's farm in Johor utilizes mineral water straight from a well, which ensures that the pigs get the extra nutrients from the mineral water. In addition to that, these pigs also fed on homegrown bacillus (Japanese technology) which gives them a healthier gut system, minimizing diseases and the use of medication or vaccines. Based on these facts, it’s recommended that customers buy their pork meat to try it out themselves.

Enough said about their fresh pork meat and let’s talk about their food. First of all, the Sanbanto Bacon & Cheese Burger. They make their own patty and crunchy straight cut fries. Must say that the bacon taste great and juicy, and not oily (surprisingly). Nice!

Then the Pork Bolognese with Home-made Pappardelle. The pappardelle is freshly hand made and taste good. Maybe some don’t know what Pappardelle is. It’s a large, very broad type fettuccine. Its name is derived from the verb “pappare,” to gobble up. The ones made here are two to three centimetres (¾-1 inch) wide and may have fluted edges. Dried egg pappardelle have straight sides. This traditional noodle, a cousin to the smaller tagliatelle, was traditionally paired with wild boar sauces and rich hare sauces. With Pork Bolognese sauce and some deep fried lard, it blends quite well together.

Carbonara Spaghetti with wild mushrooms and bacon. This is another pasta you should try which is made with a rich creamy carbonara sauce and (lots of) bacon bits inside. Yummy!

Next is the Short Ribs Spaghetti in Brown Sauce and Basil…. The brown sauce and basil spaghetti is tasty but overall is average. The short ribs are great though! The ribs are tender and well marinated and able to maintain the sweetness of the meat. Fantastic!

This dish, the Braised Pork Knuckle served with Garden Greens & Mash Potato. It comes nicely braised and the meat is very very juicy and tender. Unfortunately, it also came with a lot of fat, which one has to discard or else it will pose a hazard to one's health. Still a dish to recommend to patrons who love pork knuckles.

And every weekend, their chef comes out with some weekend special dishes such as this English Roast with Wine Sauce and Egg Yolk served with potato wedges, aubergines, broccoli and carrots. The English roast meat is very good. You should eat it with the wine sauce and some egg yolk (powdered), you get a piece of heaven in your mouth. It’s so good and delicious. Yum yum…..

Overall, the place is cozy and comfy. Don't expect much in terms of decor, as the place doubles up as a shop to sell the meat in the front and a large open kitchen takes up almost half of the space. The whole set up is relatively simple with mirrors on one side, to give an illusion of a bigger space. Here, tables and chairs are also quite limited; hence it’ll be quite difficult to get a table during peak times.

Food Review

Food Type: Western (Non-Halal)
Address: No. 32, SS2/63, Petaling Jaya, 47300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Tel: +603-7876 1728
Price: Average: RM20-25 per pax
Operating Hours: Daily (11.30am-3pm, 6pm-10pm)

Taste Rating: 8.5/10
Ambiance Rating: 6.5/10
Service Rating: 9/10
Value Rating: 8/10

Overall Rating: 8/10

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Tao Heung Restaurant @ Fu Hua Road, ShenZhen, China

This is another post about Tao Heung, not only they have branches in Hong Kong; they have expanded to most parts of China mainly at the eastern coaster areas. This post will be about their dim sum dishes.

The Mui Choy Porridge with minced pork meat. Overall taste is good (ok oklar)….

Next is the Meat Bun, the bun is very fluffy and soft. The meat is well minced and cook with oyster sauce. Together, you get some really good meat bun….yum yum

When you come to China/Hong Kong, you should try their lettuce. Boil with hot water, then serves with soya sauce; you can taste the freshness of the lettuce. MMMmmmmMM

The Deep Fried Fish ball. As said earlier in the other post, you can get this dish in China/Hong Kong. Blend with vege, herbs and fish paste (then deep fried), the taste is very delicious and the fish ball’s texture is very bouncy.

The Steam Prawn Dumpling, nothing to say about this dish except that the prawn is fresh!

Next dish is the steam beef ball with vegetable. It’s very tender and juicy. So appetizing!

Steam Pork Ribs, also another dish that nothing shout about. A normal tasty steam dish…………….

Finally, the Steam Pork Dumpling (Siew Mai), it’s juicy, tender and tasty. But nothing special about it, you could get it from Malaysia too.

Food Review

Food Type: Chinese (Non-Halal)
Address: Level 1, Yi Jing Zhong Xin City, West of Da Zhong Hua Trading Plaza, Fu Hua Road, Fu Tian District, Shen Zhen, Guang Dong Province, P.R.C.
Tel: +86-755-8280 1180
Price: Average RMB25 per pax
Operating Hours: Daily (8am-11pm)

Taste Rating: 7.5/10
Ambiance Rating: 9/10
Service Rating: 8/10
Value Rating: 9/10

Overall Rating: 8.4/10

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BT Restaurant @ Bandar Bukit Tinggi, Klang

It’s not hard to find some nice restaurants/cafes in Klang. There are plenty of new food joints you can try every day. No joke! This (not-so-new) Chinese restaurant located at Bandar Bukit Tinggi offering modern contemporary Chinese cuisine. Their chef is just only in his mid 20s that likes to explore and do mixture in his style of cooking.

The dish below is Spinach Soup, very delicious soup. You can literally taste the sweetness of the spinach by just drinking the soup only. Nice!

Then the Steam Fish with dried mui choy (it’s a preserved mustard cabbage, this is the salty type). The fish is nicely done at the right time and with the salty mui choy garnished on top of the fish, you can scoop out the gravy and eat it with rice. Yummy!

Another steam dish, the steam pork ribs with mushroom. The meat is juicy and succulent. Overall the dish is tasty.

For dessert of the day, you can get the Water Chestnut with Egg White in paste. It’s serve hot and quite good.

Food Review

Food Type: Chinese (Non-Halal)
Address: No. 9-00-1, Jalan Batu Nilam 1, Bandar Bukit Tinggi, 41200 Klang, Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: +603-3323 3282
Price: Average RM20 per pax
Operating Hours: Daily (11am-3pm, 6pm-11pm)

Taste Rating: 8/10
Ambiance Rating: 6/10
Service Rating: 7.5/10
Value Rating: 7.5/10

Overall Rating: 7.3/10

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