Category Archives: Festival

Fukuya Authentic Japanese Cuisine – Valentine’s Day

14 Monday Feb 2011

Posted by in Festival, Gastronomy, Local Restaurants

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To avoid the crazy crowd on Valentine’s Day.

My hub decided that he would celebrate it with me in advance.

Hub woke up early to ran out and buy nasi lemak from the little road side stall.

This stall has been around since I was a wee lass. Today, it is being run by the lady’s children. I have to say the rice is not as fragrant as before. Packet is smaller. Chicken is smaller. But, I still love it. Perhaps it is for fond memory’s sake. For a road side stall, it is very popular with the neighbours. So, if you are not there early to grab it, it will probably be gone by 9am on the weekends. On weekdays, it will be finish by 8:30am.

After our Nasi Lemak breakfast, hub surprise me with a couple’s massage in Bangsar. A nice little spa place along Jalan Bangkung…

We were ushered to our herbal foot bath. Halfway thru that, the whole place went into pitch black. The electricity tripped. The owner not knowing what to do ran up and down the building. Luckily, hub was around to help the boss locate the master fuse box. They manage to locate the faulty problem and viola, the whole place got electric again.  (No – we didn’t get discount) ;p

The massage for ok (not fantastic in my opinion – maybe just a bit strong for my liking… hehe)

After that, we head down to KL.

Hub brought me to this nice little quaint Jap place, Fukuya.

The Outside of the restaurant is deck with the RED cloth, interesting. ..

The place is so nicely decorated. Perhaps it was the time we reach there (around 2pm), the place was practically empty.

(I checked with hub – he didn’t book the whole place for us, hahhaha…)

Anyway, hub ordered their mini Kaiseki, which is basically small meals of a few variety.

The First course is some appetizer thingy. The best part of this dish is the Uni tofu. So.. good.

The tofu is smooth and cooling with a touch of Uni (Sea Urchin) taste to it.

Next, is the Chawan Mushi. Hub like it but i still prefer the ones from Hokano.

 

Shasimi is OOO- SO-FRESH. REally good !!

Cod fried in miso served with preserved papaya and ginger stalk. Overall ok dish. Not much surprises – except the ginger (redish thingy) is REALLY spicy !!

Some stew taro thingy in seaweed. Yuck. Don’t like it at all. so fishy…

Tempura Chilies & Crabstick wrapped in some leave (I don’t know the name but it is like a cross between betal and mint leaves)

Yummilicious Rock Melon !! So sweet..

The Meal also includes a bowl of rice with salmon flakes & Miso Soup. The service is THUMBS up !! They bought us 2 spoon for all the dishes. :p

And I topped the order with some other side dishes .. and these are all mine.. MINE !!! muahahaha

Deep Fried baby prawn.. done really well. LOVE the crispy-ness.

Kanpachi Carpaccio with fish roe (ok – but I think I like the Kanpachi shasimi style without any additional flavouring)

Don’t get me wrong. The flavour is quite good but takes away the sweetness of the Kanpachi. Kind of like destroy the real fish taste to me.


Tempura Wild Garlic…. very interesting.

Abit dissapointed with their agedashi tofu…

Yummilicious Pan seared scallop top withFoie Gras in sweet sauce. good combi. If I were to eat the foie gras by itself, the taste would be not as good. Together with the scallop.. Perfect. 🙂

Now, for the finale, the BEST dish (in my opinion) is their Cha Soba. I have tried many Cha Soba in Malaysia… This is definitely my favourite. Noddle is nice and cold without being placed on ice (hate that as it makes the noodle wet and dilutes the sauce). The sauce is really good (not to salty) with heaps of sesame and spring onions !!

Overall, I had a GREAT valentine day.

This is our FIRST valentine’s day as husband and wife… 🙂

Hub Hub !! I can’t wait for the many many more we will celebrate in future !!! Thanks dear.

BAH – Chang Festival – TODAY !!

28 Thursday May 2009

Posted by in Festival, Gastronomy

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Bah-Chang or DuanWu festival is a traditional festival celebrated in the Chinese community around the world. It is also declared as one of the public holiday in China, but not in Malaysia (where Chulet stays). The DuanWu festival falls on the 5th day of the 5th month (Chinese calendar) and this year, it is on the 28th May (which is TODAY!!!)

Bah-Chang (in hokkien – one of the many Chinese dialects) translates to meat-dumpling. It is also known as Zhongzi (in mandarin).

yummm yumm Yumm

yummm yumm Yumm

So, how does one describe the Bah-Chang? Pyramidal-shaped dumpling wrapped with bamboo leaves filled with fatty pork, duck egg, mung beans, dried prawns, mushrooms, chestnuts and the most important of all glutinous rice. (In some recipes, ingredients such as dried scallops, abalone, and others are added). After that, the dumpling will be boiled in slow fire for 5-6 hours!

Did I mention that all the ingredients have to be pre-cooked and marinated before the actually filling and wrapping stage? (Checking thru the upper page …) Yupe – all the ingredient have to be carefully marinated overnight and then the cooked to about 60-70% cooked. The glutinous rice will also need to be marinated but not cooked. The rice would be the MAIN ingredient to this dumpling.

Chu-mama just got back from Thailand and with her she bought some top quality glutinous rice for this occasion… Yes – she actually lugged about 10kg of rice back. After 2 days of hard-work, she and my aunty manage to wrap and prepare 50 dumplings only! 😛 Unfortunately, this would means that there won’t be much to go around. The solution ? Chu-mama only limit everyone from the family to take ONE !! haahahhaa..

Luckily, she was kind enough to hide some extra for us kids. So, chulet ate 2.

Bah-Chang

Chu-mama’s version of the story about this festival is to celebrate this famous poet (Qu Yuan) who drowns himself on the 5th day of the 5th month. He is supposed to be some sort of high officer until he was accused of treason and was placed in exile. At that time, he opposed to an alliance decision (to a neighbouring country) made by his king.

Later, when this neighbouring country conquers his homeland, he drowns himself. As the people love him very much, they prepare the dumpling to throw into the river to feed the fish so that the fish do not eat the body of Qu Yuan.

 

There were also villagers that row their boat to where he drown and start hitting the water surface in order to scare the fish away. So, apart from eating the Bah-Chang, some countries also have the Dragon Boat festival to commemorate this festival.