Monday, October 30, 2006
After staying home the whole of Friday, I got up on Saturday morning with no plans whatsoever, but itching to go off somewhere on an adventure. All adventures start with a hearty meal, so I called up my foodie friend, Darren aka Jack aka Magic Wok. He told me he was off to extend his social visit pass (as he is actually malaysian), and then just randomly asked if I was up for a trip to J.B. Once I had confirmation we would be risking his car (and not mine), I readily agreed, and we set off to the "other side".
My family and I go to JB for one reason and one reason only! Beef ball noodles! Pandan Beef Balls they are called, and heavenly is the only word to describe how they taste. In the navigator's seat, I led the way only to discover as we approached, that the main branch was closed :-( We were about to make a U-turn and head off to their second branch, when a massive brand new structure came into view. A shopping centre that could have passed off as the Vivocity of JB.
Being singaporeans, we simply could not resist the draw of a mega mall, and the thought of ALL that stuff in ringitt just fuelled our resolve. Tebrau city as it is called is owned by Jusco, recently renamed Aeon. There is a massive hypermart inside, from which I bought some fruits for the family (Jambus cost 1 dollar singapore in Singapore per piece!)
The place actually had a decent tenant mix. And we got to shopping immediatly, happily converting our savings. Got a new book, on penang hawker food! It seems everytime I go to penang, Tiam has a problem finding places to eat (he's not so much of a foodie, any place with foo chok is good with him), not anymore babyzzz! I'm a man on a mission! I'm going to try every single hawker in this book! YATTAAAA!!!!
If you love penang food, and are heading down there anytime soon, you should definitely buy this book. Lots of info, from colour pictures, location maps, descriptions of the hawker down to whether the place is noisy or not!
We also finally found our gate remote controls! These little suckers can only be bought via the gate servicing companies in Singapore, and they cost 100 bucks a pop! In burglar friendly malaysia, all it takes in a quick trip down to your local mega mall, 50RM and you've gotten yourself a duplicate. And the damn thing works too (I told darren we would drive back down and vandalise the guy's store if it din't work, saved us some trouble!).
After we had spent a fair proportion of our ringitt (we spent until we had just enough for lunch), we set off, feeling very satisfied with our purchases. Mwahaha.
With some help from my father on the phone, we found our way to the other branch of pandan beef ball noodle, and sat down to systematically murder a cow.
I've been coming to eat this beef noodles since I was a teenager. Literally, my mum would give me half an hours notice, and we would head off, just to make it in time for lunch. The texture of the kway teow, noodles or beehoon is excellent. Very smooth, and refined. Not too heavy, not too light. The soup, is clearly laden with MSG, or magic powder and you get a tingling sensation on your tongue for a while afterwards, but boyyy is it tasty, and come on, you only live once! But really, its all about the beefballs which has just the right "bounce" and is full of flavour. Truly ... good stuff cannot bluff! Approval from the foodies of all foodies (Seetoh of makansutra fame is his disciple) does not come easy, but here you see him giving his two thumbs up!
The beef ball stall is going to paste up this photo with magic wok's signature as proof of it's culinary greatness.
The beef ball noodles (heavenly as they were), and our buys for the day while grossly satisfying did little to ease our desire for some adventure, so we decided to go for a car ride. But where to though?
