Adventure on the Legend of the Seas - Part VII : Outing to Kuala Lumpur

*** Excursion to Kuala Lumpur, Part II ***

The clock struck 11 and the KL blogger friends magically appeared at Lot 10!

Aha! Familiar faces! Mei (@agentcikay) and Meena (@llemongrass) appeared separately while Catherine and I were fiddling with some 4G broadband by YES! (What else would techies do? YES was some super fast broadband just introduced in Malaysia)


This was so funny:
Meena and Mei gave each other a hug when they met. But when they walk towards us and wanted to give us a welcome hug, we gave the 'ahem, we are not the touchy, feely, huggy, kiss kiss type' people. They got the hint. LOL...





We met up with the the three other food bloggers later. We got into their cars and they drove us all the way to Restoran Sek Yuen at Jalan Pudu. They decided to bring us to somewhere with some old school charm, something not so easily available in Singapore. More importantly, somewhere with great food!




Sek Yuen happens to be one of the oldest restaurants in KL. One of the places that has not been torn down and rebuilt. Things are done the traditional way including using firewood to cook!

We entered via the backdoor and saw new stock of firewood being unloaded. Wow!

* the KL food bloggers *

Let me introduce the KL bloggers we met. There were 5 of them who met up with us.
The @names in brackets are their twitter ID. Follow them to find their blogs names and other interesting details that is tweeted out daily.

That's Jon (@alilfatmonkey) with the camera with Meena (@llemongrass) and Nigel (@nigelskelchy).
Guess what they are doing? They saw a standee of the famous TV personality Jason and they were so eager to take a photo of themselves with him!




The famous baker also known as Fat Boy Bakes (@fatboybakes). See the book he is holding, that's a cookbook that he has a few recipes in it. He was autographing the book for me!




This is Mei. (@agentcikay) She recently visited Singapore with her husband and we brought them to Tiong Bahru Food Centre for lunch.



This is Nigel. (@nigelskelchy). He's the heavenly cake man!

* the super old school restaurant *

Some photos of the old charm restaurant. Look at the big mirrors. That old clock on the wall. The tables and chairs...

Don't you think it looks like the set in the "Growing Up" series? The super old Mediacorp series is still being shown on Channel 5. If you watch that series, do you remember a character who stammers named Ah Guan? He happens to be acted by Darren my roommate on the cruise!




You will notice that they walls are all stained with soot, that's because of the firewood they use.
Soot, steam, grease.... somehow produces exotic and delicious food!




Keeping the fire going...

Everything is old school, except for this uncle's shoes! He's wearing sneakers! Wah seh, with reflectors some more!

* the food *

I read somewhere that in the early days in KL, when Chinese wedding dinners were held here, they were the envy of the town!

The KL folks ordered so many things! It's almost as if it's a wedding banquet too!
Here's what we ate:




I have no idea what's the name, but I remember when I was young, I remember eating this.
I think we call it Imitation Sharks Fin Omelette when we were young.
(Imitation i.e. no sharks were killed for our sake)




It was a great dish! Eggs, crabs meat and glass noodles and some other ingredients. It was so fragrant. I wrapped it 'kacang putih' style with the lettuce leaf and pop them in my mouth. Simply excellent!




The next dish was the deep fried fish head with lots of hidden treasures. You can see the fish head that's split into two and the cavity filled with the 'treasures'. The fish had lots of flesh so it was fun picking with your chopsticks.



Another angle to let you see it's really a huge fish head on the metal plate. The treasures inside were onions, ginger and mushrooms. The savoury gravy poured over the crispy fish made it so wonderful. The fish is still crispy, yet not so dry, the gravy gives it that extra uumpph!




Oooo... Deep fried Char Siu. It's char siu that's has not totally lean, so that mean it has more flavour and a nicer bite. It also means it was not dry when you eat it. Deep fying it gives it a crispy outside and that extra drool appeal to the dish, don't you think? Bite a piece and you might feel out of the world!

Talking about out of the world, look at the UFO like dish it was served in! Do you all remember such serving dishes?




This was the Eight Treasure Duck we ate. You got to pre-order this. Our friends pre-ordered it the day before it seems.


So sorry to show you the backside of a duck. Because the duck's bishop nose was facing me, when the duck was finally surgically opened up, I unfortunately pick that bishop nose and put it in my mouth. Ooo. it was so fowl! Arrgh. I quickly but inconspicuously spit it out. I think none of them on the table knew it. I was thinking to myself, how can you call this fowl thing nice? Sigh, why did I pick that 'duck butt'? Yes, laugh at me.



It was until I pick a piece from the middle that I started to appreciate this dish. The duck was lean and tender. The treasures and the duck seemed to have lived a symbiosis relationship that their flavours of each ingredients have enriched each other.

The gravy was the kind that you pour on rice and you can wallop the whole bowl without eating anything else! Just pick the right part of the duck to enjoy it!




The mixed vegetable dish. A simple homey dish that I think most mums will prepare at home. The only difference, most mums do not have access to a wood fired stove!

I think they used the wood fired stove to cook it?  For I saw they had those huge zhi char gas stove as well.

Black Fungus or some call it Jews ears are good for lowering cholesterol. Perfect for the dishes we were eating.




Some minced meat (probably prawn mixed with something else) wrapped in tofu skin and deep fried. I am just wondering, there's one piece that is different from the rest. Why?

Was it because it was reserved for the 'queen'? Meena's know as their queen. I don't know the full story, but they always joked about it. ;-)




We were so full. We were kind of glad when we were told this was the last dish. Roast Chicken served with Keropok! Of course with keropok to end the whole meal, it had to be good!

After the long meal filled with laughter and such nice fellowship, we headed back to Lot 10 area. Our drivers zig-zagged across the busy streets of KL and got us back in time, in fact we had extra time that we could have a drink at National Geographic at Lot 10!

I was so glad we picked the 'on your own' option for the excursion with Catherine. It was fun! 
What an marvelous meal we had too! Thank to the KL bloggers for the treat! Come to Singapore and it will be our turn to feed you. :-)




Restoran Sek Yuen
313, 315 Jalan Pudu
Kuala Lumpur

Tel : +603 9222 9457