Trip to Koh Samui, Thailand

This is such a long awaited blog post. Too many things happened in the month of December until I really do not have the time to update about my trip to Koh Samui in December 2013.

Visiting Koh Samui was my third beach holiday in year 2013. The "Koh" in Thai means Island, so this is Samui Island in English. I only get to know about it when I was on a tour by the locals. This island is well known for it's beautiful scenery and sea.

I gotten the offer to travel to Koh Samui from a Matta Fair 2013 promotion. It was a promotion by Bangkok Airways. Flying with Bangkok Airways is really satisfying. Seriously. It's a boutique airline in Thailand. Not budget. Yay! How cool isn't it? This airline has some collaboration with Malaysia Airlines and so it departs from KLIA.

Being a boutique airline, even though it is just a an hour and a half journey, they strive to serve us with good food too.

As we reached Samui International Airport, the airport were quite small and do not have a modern terminal gate for the passengers to walk through but have to walk down the stair case from the plane. But we are not required to walk to the terminal by our foot. They have a buggy ride for us!

At the airport, there are booths set up. I immediately got a local sim card in order to get connected to 3G internet whenever I go. Okay, I know I sounded so desperate. That's what the current generation like isn't it?

At the arrival hall, we waited for our hotel's airport transfer to pick us up. The guy who came and picked us was quite friendly. He talked to us throughout the journey. He explained to us whereabout of the place we were passing by. It took us just a 10 mins journey to arrive at our hotel - Chaba Samui Resort at Chaweng Town.

This hotel has two wings, being the lake wing and the ocean wing. We stayed at the ocean wing by obtaining an upgrade as we have got less one person to stay at the hotel. The two wings are actually separated by a narrow road which is only one way street.

At the back of ocean wing is the Chaweng Beach.

Beautiful, ain't it?

Koh Samui is a very small island. I suppose they have a very small population as well. I see tourists everywhere! The tourists from the west love our eastern islands and sunshine I guess.

The things we did in Koh Samui were shopping, massage, island hopping, sightseeing and last but not least food feast of course!!

Our shopping destination revolves around the Chaweng Town, being the biggest town in the island. We were really glad that we are staying right in the middle of Chaweng Town. How strategic huh! Going up north, we have various shops and stalls along both sides of the road. Among one of the Thai restaurants we have tried is Will Wait Restaurant.

The restaurant is quite crowded with tourists during our visit.

We are a dual person trip and so we have ordered few dishes to share.

The Sing Ha beer! Being the local Thai Beer. The beer there serves at low price. I see everyone drink beer all the time.

Thai coconut! The most expensive coconut I've ever had! It costs 80 baht!

Our main dishes, Tom Yam Kung! The spices are really good!

Pad-Thai!

Pineapple fried rice!

Drooling? LOL! The bill from Will Wait Restaurant was quite hilarious. Seriously, I was expecting lower priced food but apparently I'm wrong.

Luckily enough, we have found another place which served much tastier Thai food and at a much cheaper price, i.e. 3 times lower price than that! It's at the Chaweng Walking Street.

Chaweng Walking Street is located down south in Chaweng Town. We have to walk until we saw Krungsri Bank. The Chaweng Walking Street is just along the ally next to the bank.

The Chaweng Walking Street has food stalls as well as stalls selling various items.

This is such a crowded place. We have had the best food we found in Samui here. We ordered our food from a stall in between.

That was the best tom yam kung we've had seriously. No doubt that's the most recommended place to visit - Chaweng Walking Street!

Drooling? Alright. No worries, I'll stop my post here. I'll post another time on other stuff we've visited in Koh Samui. Stay tuned!

老油鬼鬼 I love YOO!

I was having a sudden cravings for porridge. Guess it's because I was a little unwell but wish to have some good food. I was in Mid Valley Megamall and I remembered seeing a porridge stall at the LG floor and I decided to head for it. 

It is a stall located in between all the food stalls. It is next to the ShiLin stall.

It's specialty is to serve You Tiao, which is also known as Chinese Cruller or Chinese Bread Stick. It is commonly served with porridge or bak kut teh. To be honest, this you tiao and porridge served by I love YOO! is quite tasty. I do like it but for such a small serving at the price of RM4.30, I think it's a little overpriced as I'm pretty sure we can get a tastier and bigger portion porridge and you tiao at the hawker stall centre at cheaper price. However, I think it's somewhat still worth the value as we are having the food at the cleaner and more comfortable environment.

Stall location:

LG-K-16,

The Gardens Mall,

Linkaran Syed Putra,

59200 Kuala Lunpur.

I love YOO! is also located at various locations. Do visit their website for more details.

小霸王 Xiao Bar Wang

The commonly known Taiwan Mee Sua in Malaysia is by 士林 ShiLin. In recent years, another Taiwan Mee Sua store has come up with few branches in the country.

The mee sua served by Xiao Bar Wang is with pork meatball rather than oyster. The chilli sauce added in the mee sua is hilariously spicy. Try request for the chilli sauce to be served separately instead of mixing it into the mee sua in order to adjust the spiciness in the servings. The mee sua is also less starchy. I thought this is more healthy.

The Xiao Bar Wang store which I've visited is in 1 Utama. A small little shop serving few other kinds of food in their menu. I've not tried them all but I suppose the mee sua would be the best.

Xiao Bar Wang 小霸王
LG118,
1 Utama Shopping Centre,
Bandar Utama.
Contact no: 03-7722 2950

Mama Kitchen Restaurant @ Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI)

I was introduced to Mama Kitchen many years ago and I visit this place quite frequently. I finally decided to have a review on this restaurant. 

As the label of the restaurant suggest, it serves good loh see fun. I seriously come here for only one or two dishes.

More often than not, my family will start to order without looking at the menu as we have known what is good here. What I want to give a praise here is the sambal chilli sauce. I personally think it's really good and matches the taste of the loh see fun well.

I'm a garlic fan and often request for garlic and mix them with the sambal chilli sauce.

Here comes the big sized pot of lou see fun! Look at the freshness of the egg. The pot comes with minced pork and some prawns.

Other than loh see fun, my mum just loves having cantonese fried noodle. Their cantonese fried noodle is not bad actually.

These two dishes are actually up to my expectation. One bad thing about this restaurant is they can be inconsistent at times. One time may be very delicious, the other time may be disappointing. But I still will revisit the place after some time hoping that there is some surprises. In fact, this time of my visit, with the above photos, they taste good and satisfying.

The restaurant is located in TTDI.

Mama Kitchen Restaurant
48, Jalan Datuk Sulaiman,
Taman Tun Dr Ismail,
60000 Kuala Lumpur.

(Closed on Thursday)

Nyonya Restaurant at SS2

There are few restaurants in SS2 serving nyonya cuisine. I recently visited the Nyonya Restaurant at Jalan SS2/24, Petaling Jaya.

The ambience of the restaurant gives me a very calm feeling. Guess that's the effect of their colourful Nyonya arts in the whole space.

 We have ordered a few dishes and they came by to have all spicy dishes. Woah! Such a tongue tester to me.

Sayur Paku dish with shrimp. To be honest, I rarely have the chance to eat paku and I never know how tasty this greeneries is until I have this plate of dish.

Here comes the Curry Kapitan. Look at the gravy! Oh my gawd! Best of the best! This is the type of gravy I love.

Sambal Petai. I seriously want to give a thumbs-up to the owner of the restaurant. Petai comes with two different species, one is Petai Padi and another is Petai Papan. Both have the pungent smell which many people dislike but Petai Papan actually taste less strong than Petai Padi. The owner of this restaurant uses Petai Padi for their Sambal Petai. This really gives me a great satisfaction to my cravings.

Brinjal or we call it Eggplant. I never like eating Brinjal. The slimy texture of the vegetables is quite disgusting in a way. But honestly, this dish is well cooked. I've eaten even a few slices of it. But again, it's spicy. Perhaps that's the reason why it doesn't tastes as disgusting as I thought.

 Last but not least, Assam Fish Head. Thinking of this dish, I'm drooling already. The sour taste together with the spiciness of the gravy.

We had the Cendol as desserts. This is quite disappointing. Guess it's because I have had the best cendol before this.

Overall rating of this restaurant, I will give 8/10. The fact is the dishes served are genuinely tasty with good ambience. On the pricing, I think that's what PJ prices are. I believe it could be cheaper. I'm not sure. But it's worth a place to visit.


Nyonya Restaurant (Pork Free)
52, Jalan SS2/24,
47300 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor

Business hours:
Monday to Friday
Lunch: 11.30a.m. to 3.00p.m.
Dinner: 6.00p.m. to 9.30p.m

Saturdays and Sundays
Lunch: 11.30a.m. to 3.00p.m.
Dinner: 6.00p.m. to 10.00p.m

Malaysian Satay

The Malaysian Satay is amongst the most popular food in the tourists' eyes. Indeed, satay is really delicious. 

This is the recent satay which I've had in Ipoh. Nothing special from the tastes. I am still in search for the best satay in the country.

:)

Restoran Goon Wah @ Jalan Kuchai Lama

Two years ago, I was introduced to try the special XO Fish Head Noodle at Restoran Goon Wah @ Jalaln Kuchai Lama by a friend of my dad.

I've always love to go to this restaurant to enjoy their fish head noodle but their operating hours has been on weekdays only. I will look forward to a public holiday which falls on a weekday so that I could enjoy the meal over there. But sometimes, it's hard... oh wells. And, today, I was on leave and decided to make a trip to the restaurant with my family. I'm so happy! :)

The fish head noodle from this restaurant is very tasty in the sense of the materials they used for the dish. They use sea water fish instead of fresh water fish. This is always at the advantage as some fresh water fish will carry a weird muddy taste depending on where the fish being bred. On the other hand, I love their soup base! Seriously! The taste of sour is just nice. That's awesome.

The noodle comes in two types - thin or thick noodle. I prefer the thick one but today we had the thin one. We could hardly see any noodle from the top. So many pieces of fish today! YUMMSSS!!!

They have other speciality as well, such as Claypot Lou She Fun, Honey Chicken Wing, etc etc. Many more. But we only had the fish head noodle with big portion. Oh, they come in small, medium and big size. The staff there will recommend you on how much to order depending your head count and how many dishes you ordered.

They do serve desserts too! Their desserts menu varies from day to day. We had Barley with dried beancurd today.

Lovely right? It wasn't too sweet. Although I'm not sweet-toothed, but I like how it was cooked.

Here's one good news to everyone who had the same feeling as I do (always looking forward to public holiday on weekdays). They are opening on Saturdays too starting from November 2013!

I saw this notice as I walked out from the restaurant. Wow! I was excited! Nice! I no longer need to wait till a public holiday to come! YAY!!

Restoran Goon Wah
G13 & 14, Jalan 3/115C,
Block KP 2, Taman Kuchai Jaya,
Off Jalan Kuchai Lama,
58200 Kuala Lumpur.

Do pay a visit to this restaurant if you are a fan of fish head noodles!

Good stuff are meant to be shared. :)