MY FIRST SHELL OUT FEAST EXPERIENCE: SEAFOOD MAT ROCK DER, KUALA PERLIS

In December last year, my friends and I were in Arau, Perlis. We were there for a quick one-night pit stop at our friend’s place, Syuk before making our trip to Hat Yai. Before our visit to Perlis, Syuk had already settled on to take us to Mat Rock Der Restaurant at Kuala Perlis for a highly-rated seafood dinner.

1.    Getting There

It was just a 20-minute drive to get us from Arau to Kuala Perlis. So if you are from Arau, distance shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Restaurant Address:

2 Gerai MPK, Persisiran Pantai
02000 Kuala Perlis, Perlis
Malaysia

2.    Parking

No proper parking is available there. So you just have to park your car at the side of the road but make sure you park properly as the surrounding area is quite dark and vehicles seem to be moving quite fast.

3.    The Restaurant

It is just a medium-sized stall with small number of tables available. When we were there it was fully packed. I suggest that you make a reservation first before dining, just like Syuk did.

4.    The Food

Portion? We ordered the portion for 6 people. Our small table was piled up with quite a huge spread! We were barely able to get every plate on it. But we were hungry and it looked like it wasn’t enough LOL. #NafsuMakanLOL  

Fresh? Oh, yes it definitely was!

Taste? The seafood were prepared in a balanced flavoured, not overpowering spices. Not spicy and not too salty, not too sweet. Everything was well balanced. I prefer it that way as it draws out the fresh sweet flavours of the seafood itself.

One of my favourites

Yummy!

Love this!

Crispy fried squid! 

5.    Price

For the seafood set for the portion of six people plus rice for 8 servings (YES WE NEEDED MORE LOL), everything was totalled up to around RM 120 inclusive of drinks. So that’s about RM 20 per person. For me, with the quantity and freshness of the seafood, THAT was cheap.

6.    Rating

7.5/10. I have not experienced any other shell out dining elsewhere so I have nowhere else to compare to. But I really enjoyed the food there and totally recommend for others to try whenever they are nearby. Thanks Syuk for bringing us there!

SPICY FRIED RICE – NASI GORENG CILI PADI

Fried rice is a very common dish throughout most parts of Asia. It is the best way to reuse leftover cooked rice. There are no limits on what you can put into the dish. You can choose to put any proteins or vegetables you desire that will make this dish as one complete meal. Fried rice has so many varieties. Some are mild in flavour, and some are spicy – just like how many Malaysians love to have their fried rice. This spicy fried rice recipe is one of Malaysians favourites. It is spicy of course but what’s best about this recipe is how easy and simple it is for one to cook. There are of course other more ingredients can be incorporated into this dish to elevate it to the next level, but this is for us lazy bums out there who want to have something delicious but very simple to make.

INGREDIENTS

• Cooked rice – from a cup of uncooked rice
• 1 shallot, 7 cloves of garlic and 7 bird’s eyes chilies - pounded/blended
• 1 tsp of fish sauce
• 1 egg
• Few strips of boneless chicken – chopped
• Half a handful of dried anchovies
• Cabbage – roughly chopped
• 4 tbsp of oil
• Salt and pepper for seasoning

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cook rice and let it cool down for a bit.
2. Heat wok with vegetable oil on medium heat.
3. Fry the dried anchovies and once cooked, take it out and let it sit on a plate to be used later.
4. Put in your pounded/blended shallot, garlic and bird’s eyes chilies into the wok and stir for a couple   of minutes.
5. Add in the chopped chicken and stir until they are cooked. Pour in the fish sauce and mix.
6. Set the chicken to one side of the wok. Add in one egg.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Put in the cooked rice and mix.
9. Add chopped cabbage and the fried dried anchovies and mix everything together well.
10. Serve and enjoy.

Watch the video on how to make this HERE!

• This recipe is for 2 portions of serving.
• Suggestion: Have this dish with an additional fried egg and some fried fish crackers!
• Bear in mind, that this dish is quite spicy. So if you can’t handle the heat, please omit or reduce the use of the bird’s eyes chillies. You can add more if you want it to be spicier!
• You can always use other kinds of vegetables such as carrots and green peas.
• It would be nicer to use prawns instead of chicken.
• If you want a touch of sweetness to the dish, you can include about a tbsp of sweet soy sauce.

Langkawi Holiday Day 2, Part 2.

11^th August 2017. Day 2, Part 2.

At the motel, it took us quite a while to shower, pray and rest for a little bit before going out for lunch. It was only until around 2.30 pm, that we were all ready to head to Laman Padi for lunch. And as I mentioned in my last post, the island hopping activity that morning made us extremely hungry.

We arrived at Laman Padi and noticed there were not many cars parked at their parking space. We were quite baffled, whether it was still open or whether we had driven to the wrong entrance. Luckily I saw somebody there and he confirmed that the restaurant was located at the back of the building.

The entrance

FYI, Laman Padi does not only consist of a restaurant but actually the main attraction there is the museum. More information on the location and reviews of Laman Padi could be read here.

At that time we were the only ones there. I was feeling a bit doubtful. I asked myself; “I thought this is a popular spot to eat in Langkawi. Why aren’t there anyone around? Is the food any good?” Well, this was most probably because we were there at 3 pm for LUNCH – who eats lunch at 3, right? Haha.

The place looked nice and cosy. It had an indoor area where you can enjoy your meal but the main attraction there was the small ‘huts’ (I don’t know the actual term for it) located outdoors. The ‘huts’ were placed over the green paddy field. The view was lush and the ‘huts’ were perfect for families or group of friends like us (could fit up to 8 people) to have a private meal together. So we chose to have lunch at that spot!

The main dining area

Path leading to the 'huts'

We picked this one! Had a fan too!

We ordered a set meal and it cost us around RM80 for it. The food looked delish! Also, we love how they put everything together in a huge plate. With the ambience – sitting on the floor, surrounded by the green paddy field with the wind blowing softly made us feel like we were in the kampung (village). I loved it. However, the management should really think of refurbishing the place to make it well maintained and stand out a little bit more.

Yummy!

Would be nice to have meals with this view once in a while :)

We ate like cavemen that had been out hunting since dawn LOL. Don’t judge us! The last time we ate was the 7 am breakfast! The dishes were simple, but tasty! With a little bit of this and a little bit of that, we really liked it. They were all dishes of what we usually have at home. Like I said just now, we didn’t feel like we were eating at a restaurant, but at our kampung backyard! It was indeed a very nice experience.

Minutes later, we were all full and satisfied! The next thing to do was to get to our next destination: The Upsidow.

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The Upsidow is an upside down concept house and one of the latest attractions in Langkawi. My ex-colleague, Ayu who moved to Langkawi mid last year, had been working there and been directly involved with the establishment of Upsidow.

Initially I just wanted to make a quick stop and see her for a bit. It was a working day and I didn’t want us to get in her way doing her job. But, knowing that I was there on the island, she invited my friends and me to check the project out.

Upsidow!

As we arrived at there – easy to find once you spot the big white contena with a huge Upsidow signboard written across it, I immediately looked for her. She was at one of the stalls and she came out once spotted me getting out of the car. I hadn’t seen her in months! I missed her. She was the person that I used to talk a lot with when I first joined the company that I am working at. So her departure from the company was a bummer.

I smiled and gave her a hug! Ayu, being her usual self was so welcoming and friendly. She could be a bit direct as well and she didn’t seemed to change – except that she had gotten a little bit tanned and thinner.

She then took the time to explain a little bit about Upsidow – how the work started and all. She also shared some stories about living AND WORKING in Langkawi which I didn’t intend to share here. Hehe.

After catching up for about 20 minutes, she invited us in to the building. The ticket price was RM 25 per adult – I know it may seemed a bit pricey but honest to God, it was worth it! When we got inside I was just amazed with how everything was structured and set out. It was consisted of two levels and the decoration was like a really nice home.

There was also a family who were there with us and the kids seemed really excited with everything they were seeing. I totally recommend to visit this place. A nice activity rather than just enjoying the beach hehe.  

My first time entering an upside down concept house. I was hoping none of these would fell off on me LOL

The interior of the house was cool! Even more lavish than mine LOL

One of the staff really caught my attention. She was an intern from the International Islamic University. She was very friendly and she really took the effort to make sure we were enjoying ourselves there. She even ‘forced’ me to get some photos taken. Hehe I even put up a good word for her to Ayu. I wanted to acknowledge the good and positive things done by her so that others could follow.  

It was taking us longer than I had planned for us to be there. I was excited to see the Upsidow but my friends…. my dear friends acted as if they had never seen anything that was upside down before! They were like kids. Maybe they had forgotten that they‘re in their late 20s :P. But that was just a proof that Ayu and her team made a really good job working on the project. For more information and feedback on Upsidow, you could read here.

I should learn how to use at oilet properly :P

Snap ...

... and rotate twice. Btw this is how I feel everytime I'm sleepy at work. Bed... unreachable...

Snap ...

... and rotate twice. My favourite part of the house.

We had nothing planned after that. But it was getting late so we thought it’d be best to head back to the motel and rest a bit before dinner time. But we decided to make a quick stop to shop a few gamat (sea cucumber) products to bring home. If you are not aware of what gamat is, you can have a quick read here.

Sad to say goodbye to Ayu. Proud of what she did with this place!

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“Hmmm the shopping begins,” I said to myself. There were tonnes of products from soaps, shampoo, to male enhancement products. I had a few stuff to buy for my mom and girlfriend. Buying stuff for my mom was easy – she told me specifically what she wanted. But I had to make a couple of returns to the shop as my girlfriend kept on adding the products for me to get her – initially she asked me to buy 2 – 3 items, but I ended up buying 7 different items. Hehehe #SheControlsMe #IAmPowerless #GrumpyIlyEqualsDangerousIly

This size will last for 5 zillion years I guess

I know what you're thinking: No, the pharaohs did not build this.

Minyak Belacak - google what this is for. Go ahead.

Minyak Lintah - google for this one as well. 

After shopping we headed back to the motel to change and pray. Around 8.30 pm we all got together again and took a walk in Chenang again. No shopping that night. Just enjoying the nightlife a bit. We even entered Chenang Mall just to see what it was like there.  

We had no dinner plans – we weren’t really that hungry as we had a late lunch. But we HAD to eat or we’d starve in the middle of the night. We thought it over McDonalds’ Sundae Cone (somehow it cost a few cents more in Chenang compared to KL). Before that in Chenang Mall, we were contemplating whether we should just settle for KFC, but no one budged to make the first move haha. We then crossed by a Ramly burger truck and agreed to have dinner there. Once in a while, when you had no idea on what to eat, a Ramly burger would always be one of the best choices for food. Quick, simple and delicious!

After dinner, we walked back to the motel and before we call it a night we sat down together to share photos taken for that day – as per the night before.

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The second day was very productive and the most definitely fun. I really enjoyed every bit of the activities we had gone through. If I were to leave Langkawi that night, I’d be all satisfied and happy. But, we still have the third day. The final day. We saved that for a lot of chocolate shopping. Trust me. More on that, later.

To be continued …

Melaka Getaway 2017

Melaka Getaway 2017

So it was that time of the year again – the CL annual getaway had finally arrived. After months of long and indecisive discussions, we had decided to spend it in Melaka again, for the second year running! LOL But hey, after all, like we always said, it’s not always the place that matters, but the people you’re with ;) Unfortunately Zack, Syasya and Syuk were not able to join us this time so fingers crossed that next year we’ll have the complete group together!

Day 1, Saturday, 15^th July 2017

Kamil, Yun, Zi, Ezad and Yan agreed to have a brief meet up and breakfast at my place supposedly at 7.30am. Knowing them so well I knew 7.30am was just a little bit too ambitious, no, in fact, surreal. But, that was fine, it eventually gave me some time to rest a little bit longer as I was still exhausted from the busy day I had the day before. Saoxy, Dinie and Nazri were not with us that morning but joined us sometime later in the afternoon.

Kamil was the first to arrive among the rest and as promised he brought some packets of nasi lemak He was even sweet enough to have brought along his homemade fried noodles as well. Those, alongside with everything else prepared by my ever so lovely mom, were our breakfast for that day. I was just hoping that Zi was happy with the spread as earlier that morning she stressed that she was really hungry. She’s small but oh my, she definitely has quite an appetite – unusual even, nasi lemak with soy sauce? Are you kidding me? :P

Lovely!

Happy faces :)

Right after breakfast, we then headed straight to Melaka but actually had nothing much planned out till we could check-in to our accommodation. So, we all decided to visit Dataran Pahlawan where on that day, the Ekspresi Negaraku carnival was held. Kamil, a generous lad he is, saw a booth for blood donation. Okay, I couldn’t get my head around this fact because I was not paying much attention when he told us this, but somehow his blood is kind of rare, so he feels he should always donate whenever he has the chance – a vampire’s dream companion, don’t you think? But, that’s good of him!

Kamil donating his rare superman blood?

The event

Dataran Pahlawan. Actually my second time here.

One of the displays that caught our attention

A group of dancers performing the traditional dance.

I was bored the fastest compared to my friends and thank God as soon as Kamil had completed his blood donation we all drove on to Tesco supermarket to buy some groceries. Nazri had also agreed to meet us there. Zi, our elected event treasurer was ever so scary being so diligent with the list of things to be bought - come on Zi, it’s our holiday, loose up a little would you? :P But glad that she was strict and meticulous as we had almost everything that we wanted and spent below our budget. Good job Zi!

All of this – just over RM200!

So, shopping’s done and we went straight to our accommodation at Klebang. Well, the rest did – some of us needed to grab lunch!

The house

When I first arrived at the house, I was delighted to see that it was clean and everything seemed to be exactly as described from the site we booked it. The price was affordable as well – RM400/night and it can accommodate around 15 people max. The only thing I would like the owner to improve on in the future is installing an air-conditioner at the living room – we were all complaining on how warm it was in the living room! Oh, the other thing is to replace the old stove to something more user friendly. We do not want to risk our eye brows to get burned off every bloody time when we try to switch it on using matches/ lighter.

Don't be fooled

One of the shared toilets on the upper floor

Pretty spacious

One of the bedrooms upstairs

Change this FGS!

We all had our lunch and chat a little bit before taking some rest while waiting for Saoxy and Dinie to reach the house. Then, once both of them had arrived, we did the most cliché thing to do when people go and visit Klebang.

Coconut shake

Yes, that’s right. We tried the coconut shake. It was my first try and to be honest, for me it didn’t taste that amazing. It was not terrible, don’t get me wrong but it wasn’t something that I would get excited about. According to Yan, the best coconut shake could be found somewhere near Batu Berendam but usually they are sold out by 3pm – so, maybe next time.

We then strolled a bit along the beach. The beach was calm and people seemed to be enjoying their time, relaxing and everything looked so at peace – well, then, entered us lot LOL. We took photos and ran around like bunch of kids and I constantly needed to remind myself to behave and that we’re in our late 20s. But who cares? We’re just enjoying ourselves and blowing off some steam!

Glad it was not scorching hot. The breeze was rather pleasant

Our group photo. A couple of the visitors there had to take 5-6 shots of us on 2-3 different angles. Felt sorry they had to bear with us LOL

Yan’s #hipster-ish sign. After a few tries, this was the best she could do. Seriously Yan? SMH :P

I really enjoyed the time we had on the beach. I kind of wished we could hang out a little bit longer but it was almost 6 and we all agreed to have an early ikan bakar dinner at Alai. It was a sound decision to have reached there early as we did not had any problems finding the parking spots for our cars. Glad we didn’t waste time on that else the longer we would have to wait to get to eat and some of us (Zi in particular) will get angry if that were to happen.

So, here we had the choice of eating the seafood dishes with either normal plain rice or nasi lemak. I never had ikan bakar with nasi lemak before so I decided to give it a go. It was good but I just had one teeny – tiny complaint – in this case the nasi lemak was in fact teeny – tiny! Why are they so freaking small?! I think even a two-year old could eat 10 of those and still be starving. Okay, I might be over-exaggerating but you get the point, right? All in all, we were satisfied with the food and for me it was amazingly cheap. Everything we ordered only cost us around RM160. Our tummies were happy and we headed back to our accommodation.

Since I don’t consume other seafood we ordered, this fish was my primary target!

Before

After

Overall we had a good day and a pretty decent evening to end our first day. But then, at home, we sat down together and started playing MONOPOLY. That, guys, changed everything. Enemies created, backs stabbed, nightmares and tension occurred. Monopoly…. will be continued in the next post.

We didn’t know what we’re getting ourselves into

To be continued...