Fai Kee Restaurant (辉记小食馆)

1). By the name Fai Kee, it sounds like any other ordinary Chinese Kopitiam. However, not many people know that Fai Kee has been a family restaurant inherited for three generations. However, the main reason that kept the customers coming back is their signatured Fish Head Rice Noodles.

2). Originally Fai Kee was selling stir-fried noodles, porridges and fish head rice noodles. However, fish head rice noodles is the only dish they are selling now, when it was taken over by the third generation of the family.

3). Traditionally Fai Kee used deep-fried the fish head and make into fish head rice noodles. The restaurant uses Groupa Fish, deep-fried into golden crispy while maintaining its texture. Finally, either a freshly made sweet, sour and salty broth or a rich milky white soup is poured into bowl to complete the fish head rice noodles. 

4). Besides the signatured fish head, Fai Kee also has a wide variety of fish meat available for customers to choose. Customers can always add-on Groupa fish meat or fish belly. In order to satisfy the taste buds of a wide range of customers, the owner has been added in the bland milk cooking, Dory fish, etc.

5). The Cantonese believed that the essence of the fish bones can only be extracted when a fish broth is boiled into milky white colour. Therefore, the milky colour has become an indicator of the fish broth. The reason behind the sequence of deep-frying the fish head first, then only cooked into the fish head rice noodles, is due to the shortening the boiling time of the fish broth and at the same time minimizing the fishy taste of the bones to make the fish broth to retain its freshness and tastiness.

6). You can have a choice of Fish Meat Rice Noodles, which gives you bite after bite of fresh meat.

7).  Or the all-time favourites, Fish Head Rice Noodles, if you're not much of a carnivore.

8). On the other hand, I don't think there is a choice, when it comes to the selection of noodles available.

9). Usually, tomatoes and pickles, even orange juices will be added into this type of milky fish head rice noodles.The sour and salty taste not only will increase your appetite, it will also reduce the blandness of the milk in the soup. However, the fish broth is still not up to my standard, in terms of milkiness, as compared to the other compatriots in KL.

11). The originator of Fai Kee Restaurant was the current owner’s grandfather, which has been running the business since 1919. Even though the grandson has just taken over the business from his father 11 years ago, he has never neglected the century old traditional, which is the heart, effort and time to sturdily boil a fish broth worthy of an heritage that lasts for generations to come.

Fai Kee Restaurant (辉记小食馆)

Address : 28, Jalan Seenivasagam, 30450 Ipoh, Perak.

Business hours : 7.00am - 4.00pm

Tel. : 012-4546111

GPS Coordinates : N 4°35.931'    E101°5.228'

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Unboxing Fujifilm Finepix X100

After making my reservation on the most highly anticipated camera of the year, I finally received my order in three weeks time. I couldn't be more happier!

1). The camera comes with a mysterious black box, which is abnormally large for a non-DSLR. The word "Finepix X100" is printed awesomely onto the box. Can't wait any longer to open the box!

2). Inside the box, there are two separate smaller boxes, I presume one is for the camera and another one for the accessories.

3). The first box to come out is a leather-like nicely finished box, with "Fujifilm" logo labelled on top of it.

4). Once opened up the box, you will find a polystyrene wrap around the camera, and a "X100" embedded on top of the box.

5). After opening the wrapper, the range-finder look-alike camera will appear sexily in front of you. The lens is covered with a metallic cap with "Fujifilm" wording.

6). (The Front View) After opening the lens cap, the Fujinon f/2 lens immediately popped out in front of the camera. The optical viewfinder is located on the top right of the camera; the built-in flash in the middle of the camera; a viewfinder switch leveler and AF illuminator on the left; and two microphones located inside the two black hallow dots.

7). (The Rear View) A large 2.8" LCD screen on the back of the camera; the optical viewfinder on the top left corner; playback and view mode selector on the left; while menu and quick access buttons on the right.

8). (The Side View) The Focus Selector is the left side of the camera, where you can select from manual focus, AF-S or AF-continuous. In manual focus mode, you can do so by just grabbing the focus ring at the front of the camera and rotating clockwise or anti-clockwise.

9). (The Side View) There are 2 connector ports on the right side of the camera. The upper one is a Micro USB to USB port connector, which allows you to transfer your photos to your computer; where as the lower one is the HDMI connector to any output source such as TV. 

10) (The Top View) The upper part of the camera houses the Hotshoe at the middle; Shutter Speed selector, On-Off Button, Function Button and Exposure Compensation Button are located on the right side. The Aperture Ring and Focusing Ring located at the protruded lens.

11). (The Bottom View) The Battery and Memory Card Chamber is located at the bottom of the camera, as well as the Tripod Mount Connector.

12). The second black box from the packaging contains all the documentation and accessories.

13). The accessories included are (from left to right) Charger Cable, Camera Strap, Battery Charger, NP-95 Battery, Strap connector and Micro USB to USB port connector.

14). The documentation included are Warranty Booklet, Warranty Card (valid for one year international warranty, world wide service centre location, user manual and a CD-ROM for transferring photos and RAW file convertor.

Barely used it for 10 days or so, but from my limited usage I found the X100 is a pretty user friendly camera (if you have previously used a DSLR before). Once you got the hang of it, there's nothing to stop you from shooting at the street, which is what it did best. Just like what a popular reviewer said, "It's a camera you buy with a heart, not your head!"

More X100 reviews here. here. and here.
Here is the official X100 page from Fujifilm.
 

Nagaria Steak House at Taiping (龙城餐厅)

Taiping, a.k.a. "The Town of Rain", has its fair share of local traditional cuisines, Malay, Chinese, Indian, you name it. However, today we take a detour from the ordinary meal, to take on one of the historical steak house in Taiping - Nagaria. This is the first post captured by my newly acquired Fujifilm Finepix X100, a lovely little gem!

1). Located at the intersection between Jalan Pasar and Jalan Ong Paik. (This photo was taken using the built-in ND filter, which reduces my ISO by 3 stops)

2). As with any other traditional Western restaurants, the Set Lunch menu is displayed on the outside of the restaurant. So, what do we have today?

3). This restaurant occupies a corner shop lot, and houses 20 odds tables for dine-in customers. The decoration is pretty simple yet classical as with any other traditional Western restaurants.

4). For the starter, two slices of Buttered Toasted Bread are served promptly after we ordered lunches.

5). Quickly followed by a bowl of Cream of Mushroom. Glad to find that the cream of mushroom doesn't taste like average canned soup. Unfortunately, I accidentally spread too much of pepper on it, ouch..

6). The bread tasted evenly good with the soup or even on its own. Compliment has to be given for the bread, as it is very crunchy and strong taste of butter in it. Simply just nice!

7). For the main course, we are given a choice of Sesame Seed Chicken, Piri-piri Fish or Sweet & Sour Fish Rice for the set lunch. Guess which we choose? The Sesame Seed Chicken, of course.

8). Never tried a chicken chop, which is served thin as paper, and dry like a hay. Sesame seeds are sprinkled all over the chicken chop and deep fried into golden crispy finish. The aroma given by the sesame seeds did make the taste more appetizing, however the portion is just too small for me. With the aid of my favourite sauce, Tomato Sauce, I am able to finish it in minutes.

9). After main course, we are given a choice for the dessert, either a cup of tea / coffee and a scoop of ice-cream OR 2 scoops of ice-creams. Why not take the best deal of both?! A cup of tea for me, please! Two sachets of Coffeemate creamer and White Sugar each are given. 

10). As for the ice-cream, too bad we weren't given a choice for the scoops of ice-cream. Otherwise, we will take all the yam flavours they have.

11). For the price of RM9.50 without any taxes, the set lunch offers rather irresistible price, as compared with other ala carte dishes on the menu. However, a rather disappointing subsequent visit to the restaurant, after the first visit last year. Ought to come back to try other ala carte dishes to test real culinary skills of the chef, who acquired numerous certificates as displayed over the cashier.

Nagaria Steak House Restaurant (龙城餐厅)

Address : 61, Jalan Pasar, 34000 Taiping, Perak, Malaysia.

Business hours : 12.00pm - 11.00pm daily

Tel. : 05-8069032 / 019-5417948

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Sum Sum Yi Fatt (3328) Restaurant

There are aplenty of restaurants located in my neighbourhood. Many of them just came and gone with a wind, without having the chance to try them out. However, only handful of them managed to cling on their business for several years until this very day. Sum Sum Yi Fatt (3328) Restaurant is one of them. 

Sum Sum Yi Fatt (3328) Restaurant is located by the road side, same row with Fresh Hotel, en routing from Falim to Ipoh-Lumut Expressway. 

Occupied a two storey shop lot, 3328 houses up to 20 odd tables. Do not be midjudged by the "emptiness" of the restaurant, this is a jammed, packed place for dinner for the locals, especially during weekends and Public Holidays.

Suck up a glass of refreshing Lime Juice, while ordering our dishes for the night. Self-prepared Sugarcane is not bad either. By the time you taste the drink, the dishes are already on the table, that is the promptness of their service, on a weekday night of course.


Steamed Snakehead (清蒸油浸生鱼)

This is the 1st dish made out of Snakehead (生鱼), a type of local fresh water fish. I had to compliment the freshness of the fish where it is skinned from a living fish, and the accompanying soy sauce isn't too salty too, just nice! This dish would easily be my favourite of the night.

Stir-fried Snakehead (姜葱生鱼)

This is the second dish made of the same Snakehead, where the meat is skinned out and stir-fried with ginger and scallion. This dish comes with richer flavour, but less tenderness as compared to the former dish. The whole plate was gone, minutes after it was served, need I say more?!

Stir-fried Snakehead with Bitter Gourd (生鱼炒苦瓜)

 Snakehead Soup (生鱼滾枸杞叶汤) 

Soup is one of the must-have dishes in our usual Cantonese meal. The left over meat and bones of the fish are boiled together with Wolfberry leaves into a bowl of soup. The soup is refreshing and the leaves are crunchy. No wonder the trio of dishes are their signatured dishes.

Cripsy Roasted Duck (脆皮烧鸭)

Boiling oil is splashed onto the roasted duck before serving, which makes the skin crispy and also the name of the dish. However, it is still under-achiever compared to the next shop's roasted duck, especially in terms of the dipping sauce.

Steamed Tilapia (酱蒸金凤鱼)

One of the regular dishes ordered during eating out in Chinese restaurant. The fresh water fish is steamed and topped with sweet & sour bean curd sauce.First and foremost the fish doesn't tasted muddy, that's a relief!  

Mongolian Pork Spare Ribs (蒙古排骨) 

The spare rib is one of the dishes listed on their Special Daily Menu. The ribs are chopped into bite-size and topped with Mongolian sauce, which tasted sweet, sour and milky too. Not bad either, one of the recommended dishes by the waitress.

Deep fried Squids with Salted Eggs (咸蛋鱿鱼)

Fried stuff is always one of our favourite dish during eating out. Anything goes well with salted egg. A great combination of deep fried and salted egg, however the squid would taste even better if it was cooked with a smaller ones. No doubt it is an unhealthy food, yet everyone seems to like it.

Chili Pepper Squid (椒盐炸苏东)

Deep Fried Soft Shell Crab (炸软壳蟹)

Stir-fried Kai-lan with Roasted Pork Spare Ribs (芥兰炒烧肉)

Kai-lan a.k.a.Chinese Broccoli, although I don't see any resemblance, is pretty crunchy after stir-fried; the roasted pork are slightly fatty to my liking though. Just a so-so average Joe.

Claypot Pork Belly with Salted Fish (咸鱼花腩煲)

Sliced pork belly is braised together salted fish, which the fragrance to the dish. However, it still isn't no way near the standard set by Oversea Restaurant, which is one of their signature dishes.

Salad Chicken (沙律鸡)

Stir-fried Paku vegetable (炒蕨菜)

Paku is a type of fiddlehead fern, where it is widely used in Asian culinary. Paku is slightly stir-fried and topped with lime juice and soy sauce. This dish is very appetizing and refreshing, not to mention crunchy, the only texture I preferred when eating vegetables.

Stir-fried Potato Leaves (清炒薯苗)

Sambal Prawn with Stinky Prawns (叁笆臭豆虾)

Freshly plucked stinky beans from Cameran Highlands are cooked in sambal style with prawns, but still haven't perfected as good as the Thai restaurant. 

3328 Restaurant served as one of the favourites among the locals, where you will find it full house during weekends. Of course, the restaurant offers a very reasonable pricing for Chinese Restaurant meal. However, what you pay is what you get, don't put too high expectation on it, if you're comparing with the high end restaurants.

Sum Sum Yi Fatt (3328) Restaurant

Address : 14, Jalan Mas, Taman Mas, 30100 Ipoh, Perak.

Business hours : Lunch hour until dinner hours daily.

Tel. : 012-5336121

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