KY cooks – Black Pomfret with sauce recipe

Now that CNY is over, it’s time to get back to do some cooking, and boy did it feel great!

Other than all those pictures and memory of yummy hawker foods in Penang over that period, mom also gave me a fridge full of fish/prawns/pork/chicken all nicely frozen, and they are now sitting in my fridge here in PJ. Basically over the next few weeks, my grocery shopping only consists of fresh vegetables and some spices.

Gotta love mom!

black pomfret with sauce, rice, and some vege

Anyway, today I’m going to share with you this fairly simple recipe of black pomfret with sauce that I improvised from the classic Malay dish that’s often referred to as bawal hitam ber-sos.

You can usually find this dish at Malay restaurants, but it is also fairly common in the repertoire of Penang Nyonya cooking.

Unlike normal pomfret that’s best steamed, black pomfret has harsher and leaner meat that isn’t as flavorful, a stronger tasting sauce makes a good compliment to this fish. So here goes:

oyster sauce, dark soya sauce, and a bunch of other ingredients

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

this is how you prepare the awesomesauce

You can start frying the fish, and in the mean time, prepare the sauce with another frying pan side by side. They should be done at just about the same time.

cooking instructions (fish):

cooking instructions (sauce):

fry the pomfret separately, then pour on the sauce

Pour the sauce over the pomfret and consume while hot. Best served with steam rice.

Happy cooking!

KY eats – Ikan Bakar, Chicken Wings, and Cuttlefish Kangkung at Song River, Penang

Penang is a heaven for supper lovers, and if Gurney Drive is your destination, there isn’t a better place for these few yummy late night dishes than at Song River, one of the old school bangalow turned kopitiam eateries that has been gracing the 1-mile sea side road for decades.

ikan bakar stall does offer quite a few choices of fish, Haze & my sister

During our stay at Penang over Chinese New Year, we were lucky to be within walking distance from this place, the photos on this post were compiled from a few visits. Though I’d love to eat all these in a single seating… only my limited stomach space saves me from doing that.

The first must-have at Song River is the ikan bakar/ikan panggang (grill fish). As with most other places, you get to choose from 3-4 different types of fishes as well as prawns or squid. My go-to choice is always sting ray.

ikan bakar – positively hot

The wait time at this stall can sometimes be quite substantial, but the honest (or sometimes very blunt) operator will usually tell you up front: “have to wait 30 minutes wan”. Fine with me.

The grill fish here tastes almost completely different from anywhere else. The fish is covered in a special sauce that has a strong presence of fermented beans, belacan, chili, and shallots. The flavor is so intense that very little of the sauce on the side (which is probably made from similar ingredients) is needed.

This will leave the weak with inflamed tongue, but definitely worth it!

Song River bbq chicken wings

While waiting for the ikan bakar, you should grab some bbq chicken wings as appetizer.

For RM 2.20 a pop (or was it RM 2?), this is also one of the best chicken wings in town. The operator has perfected the BBQ timing to give the skin that crispy texture that you get just before screwing up and burning the whole thing (I usually mess this up).

This while the meat is tender, juicy, and the accompanying chili sauce is yummy too. They also serve BBQ drumstick and thigh.

cuttle fish with kangkung, classic Penang “junk” food

And while you’re at it, why not some cuttle fish with kangkung too?

The version here is not shabby either. This plate was RM 10 and came with plenty of cuttle fish with kangkung soaked in delicious prawn paste and chili sauce, good stuff.

You usually won’t need to wait for more than 5 minutes for this dish.

and this is how you have supper in Penang

All that is missing from these supper is of course, some ice cold beer. Damn it I am missing Penang food again.

Address:
Song River Cafe
65 Persiaran Gurney,
Georgetown, Penang
GPS: 5.432392,100.31738
Tel: 012-488 8275
Tel: 017-477 7938 (chicken wings)

Underwater Video from Similan Islands Diving Trip

Here’s a short video compiled from the video clips I took during the dive trip to Similan Islands. Looks like I’ll need a video light or shoot almost exclusively on shallow water under bright lit condition to make this better.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/JXD4r0ooUwA ]

Most clips were shot with Olympus E-PL3 (except those not underwater, shot with Sony Xperia Arc), using Inon wide angle converter with dome port, no red filter (which I had and probably should have made good use of.. gah!)

Hope you enjoy!

When in Thailand, Eat Like a Thai!

It is always a mystery to me as to why there are so many people who insists on eating the things they are used to eating at home while traveling to another country. The phenomenon must be very prevalent, so much so that at most touristy places, there are more Western restaurants than there are local Thai places.

Khao Lak is more of the same, the small resort town (approximately 100 km north of Phuket) where we spent the day after liveaboard to Similan islands for degassing purposes. For us, that was of course a perfect opportunity to eat everything Thai.

Fire in the hole!

motorbike is the best way to get around

While Khao Lak is relatively small and there are cabs available pretty much everywhere, the best mode of transportation is a scooter. You probably don’t even need a license to rent one, but do make sure you know what you’re doing.

Our scooter cost 200 baht per day, and you can refuel from plenty of places by buying bottled gasoline for 40 baht per liter. If you value your life, ask for helmets, they provide them without extra charge.

som tam by the roadside, I had it last year too

If you love sour & spicy stuff, som tam is a must try. Made of unripe papaya or green mango, bean sprout, peanut, chili, dried shrimps and more. Comes with a kick, we paid 40 bath, would be cheaper if this stall wasn’t parked right outside hot tourist spots.

breakfast was this rice/noodle with extremely spicy broths

On the day of departure, we decided to forgo hotel breakfast and try something a Thai would have. After riding around a bit we arrived at this kopitiam with a couple Thai ladies operating a stall that offers rice or noodle with a selection of dishes with broth.

Thai: spicy haa!
Me: we kon Malay, spicy no problem!

I was mistaken. These shit was tasty, and really, really hot. Lucky for us there were fresh cucumbers & a variety of vegetables on the table to cool things down. It was a good meal, what do you call them anyway?

noodle soup is the yums, choices of beef, chicken, or pork

A day prior to departure, just before dinner, we stopped by one of the road side stalls right on the main street at Khao Lak for some “snacks” that turned out to be really delicious noodle soup.

Here you get to choose any combination of 3 ingredients: pork, chicken, and beef. I had mine with chicken & beef while Haze opted for pork and beef. This reminded me of Vietnamese pho, and had the same basil/bean sprout on the side too, but as with anything Thai, the flavors were stronger. Yums.

50 baht for each, water was free. 100 baht well spent.

pad thai wasn’t bad, the fried oyster tho, disappointing

Our last meal there was at this little restaurant a couple kilometers away from Khao Lak (scooter brings you places!). We had pad thai with prawns & squid, and another plate of fried oyster to share.

The pad thai was rather average, and the fried oyster.. well, after the experience at Penang’s version, this was a complete disappointment. Each plate was 50 baht, with 15 baht each for coca-cola t hat comes in those classic glass bottle.

Yes, my stomach is still recovering from all those chili overload, but of course it was worth it.

Teasers from 2012 Similan Diving Trip

Just got back on another excellent live aboard diving trip at Similan Islands, as with last year, the experience was nothing short of awesome. The photos are now transferring onto the computer and waiting to be processed, in the mean time, here are a couple photos from the trip.

dive buddy Dave in picture, at Koh Bon

Proper blog post on the trip, more photos, and perhaps a video is on the way soon as I get some time to work on them.

moray eel in full view, Koh Bon, Thailand

Back to the office tomorrow, been an awesome CNY holidays away from work, and the dive trip made it so much sweeter.

Hope your holiday was well spent too!