Bites: Bintang Cafe @ Victoria Park

This little Indonesian diner located in a small square in Victoria Park along Albany highway just a kilometre or two from the Cannington side entrance has been one of my usual in my 3rd year.  Even then, it was until today that I decided to give it a modest thought.   No camera no thoughts, so yeah I definitely remembered to bring my trusty companion of 2 years with me!

From what I recall, they used to occupy two shop lots but today I see a different place altogether.  It seems like they’ve reduced their restaurant by at least half! Aikzz!  Next to it is some burger cafe called V burger.

Bintang revamped its interior but its nothing shout about really.  Still reeks of a bad odour from god knows what.  But fortunately, they have a few decent seats outside the cafe.  My staple diet here was the Nasi Goreng Special Extra Spicy.

Priced at $8.80 its a pretty cheap eat.  It has quite a fair bit of food that comes with the fried rice!

Looks pretty good doesn’t it ahah.  Most of the time, all would good except that I hated green peas as my tummy would feel hell weird after eating those peas(fresh peas fits my preference better).  Other times bad things that could happen includes not cooking the dish to order.  It wasn’t even spicy today :(! Being Malaysian, I feel its a let down when the food you expect to have some kick in it doesn’t have any at all. bahhhhh!  But overall it was still edible.  And you could add some chilli if you wanted to.  But in Malaysia the chilli would be “tumis-ed” before being fried with the rice and that makes a whole lot of difference.

Another thing my sister and I ordered today is the Kangkung Belacan:

Mmm this was yums.  Probably one of the better ones in town!!  But being kangkung, there isn’t always enough of the yummy leaf.  Always all those vegetable stalk only! Ackkk @,@!!

Overall Bintang is an “ok la” place to eat.  Nothing to shout about. Mediocre!!  And with it being Indo/Malay food, I’ve experienced countless of times where the food cooked always lacked consistency.  And this practically applies to all Indo/Malay food I eat.  Either I’m just out of luck or god knows what else.  And it seems like I’m not the only one with such comments out there. ahah Oh wait hmm Manise@ Northbridge is not like that ahaha.  Ok exception made.

Wen

Bites: Tong 86 @ Perth

Drive along Roe Street past its intersection with William Street and you’ll hit the police station.  On the same row as the station house you’ll see an eatery with almost no sign of existence.  There is no sign board or whatsoever really.  But looking at the walls you’ll see Tong 86.

@.@ Tong 86/?  Who in the world would even call their place “Tong” 86.  Apparently the Koreans would if you wouldn’t.  

Their location is pretty damn good on second thoughts.  With Indians being set on fire, this location next to the police station was nothing less than perfect!

It’s interior depicts its name pretty damn well really.  Not in any pictures but their table stands are made from empty barrels also known as “TONG” by Malays.

Their interior was pretty sick as well.  See the weird thingy all over the ceiling and pillars. Yeah it looks something like err? Korean newspaper =S! Really made me go crazy.  Couldn’t take my eyes of those shit for awhile. 

The menu! It’s my second time in this hideous eatery where you would expect to find nothing really. When we first came here I was expecting disappointment as most of the things on the already limited menu were not available :(!!  But it wasn’t all that bad.

This place serves ultra cheap Korean barbecue along with various meat stew.  And when I say cheap for Korean barbecue it would fit in the range of 15-ish +/- .  Fairly cheap as most of the Korean Barbecue places often go wayyy beyond 20 bucks.

@ Tong 86 there was this really cute waitress that turned up to serve us.  All the guys were like fckin horny dammit!  Chee Rong would give her this smile which was like omg. @@!  I would have freaked out if I were the waitress!  And whenever their horniness peaked.  IT was the “HI CALL”  session:

Press the button and BAM you number shows up on the wall and the waitress comes.  We were like the only  nut heads pressing the button.  Or more like “THEY”. Not “WE”.

BARBECUE KOREAN STYLE rwarrrrrrr.  We had beef and pork slices.  Had at least 6-7 rounds of barbecue that night.

I really like the place.  William thinks its pretty good too.  Jim loves it as well.  Or maybe it was the girls that they liked more.  Not to mention they would play super chick MVs. SDNK, Wonder Girls. Etc. Super drool for all guys hahaha.  Yums!!  Their  authenticity is 100% legit.  We were minorities in the place.  Imagine.  30 tables. Only 1 occupied by non-Koreans.  @@

Another main highlight was the meat especially the pork which was tasty without any marinade not to mention it was odourless as well:).  A well deserved thumbs up from us.

Wen

Australian Day: Jim’s Thai Feast.

Yesterday citizens, non-citizens and all living things were celebrating Australia’s national day.  Don’t we all just love to celebrate?  What gets better than kicking back, and booze up instead of suiting up on a weekday?  Australian day is also known as “Invasion day” which is likely to be a portrayal of the day the Brits brought the Beatles to the land down under.  Now not only the Brits have arrived, Jim has bragging rights too.  Jim has officially become a citizen of Australia in what I would describe as a bitter-sweet occurrence.  Now who’s going to hook me up with Thai chicks? jkjk! ahah

Jim’s mom was nice enough to invite us to have a small celebration in his apartment located in East Perth.  It was going to be my second time here and I just couldn’t let Jim’s mom do all the cooking again so I suggested that we all should cook a bit and bring over anything.  But alas in an inevitable outcome, Jim’s mom pretty much did 80%. lol.  From his balcony which is super shit big, we were guaranteed a view to the firework display.

The peeps chilling.  Vil, Elizabeth, Vanessa, CR, Sister, Jim and I hmm felt like there was more?? Oh Yobi too!! Rwarrr!

A summer day’s elixir of cool-downs.  Booze? Checked! Soda? Checked! Juice? Checked! Chilled? Checked!

While I was snooping around the balcony, my sister went around shooting pictures of the plane about the size of a fly buzzing all around the sky.

Can you see the smoke? eheh!  After drinking and chilling we were all starving and yeah we got the food out and it was time to eat! rwarrr!

Tacos, Salads, Noodles and sort!

Sister’s guacamole was gastronomic with the tacos.

My crumbled chicken was no lesser either! Had approx 25 pieces or more for 20 sheets of tacos.  But by the end of the meal there were 0 chicken and 10 sheets of tacos left =.=!

Jim’s mom made for us Thai style fried kuey teow which was pretty damn yums!  But the pickled radish that packs one hell of a flavour was absent.  I guess they just don’t use it for this dish.  But the last time Jim’s mom used it for the pad Thai, it was orgasmic! For all that matters, I recall having 4 Kingkong sizes when Jim’s mom made it!  After our meal we were typically lazy to do anything.  Sat around, kick back and chatters of ridiculous jokes could be heard.  With me contributing some pretty lame dirty jokes @@!  I’m pretty sure I was having an awesome time considering I had to think twice about what day it was.

Fireworks was up next when the sun switched off.

30 spectacular minutes of fireworks with several intermissions where Vil went like “Oh, finish already!” and seconds later the fireworks would go on as if defying Vil on purpose ahah.  But fireworks being fireworks, there really isn’t too much to shout about.  Not to mention my skills to take firework pictures really suck ahah.

What there was to shout about is dessert that came after the fireworks :D!!

Slurrpss!!

Jim’s mom did her ultra awesome sticky rice for us!  The savoury glutinous rice infused with coconut milk was insanely flavoursome which each spoon urging you to take the next till you can’t even stand up! MMMMMh! It really was sooo yummy! noooooooooooooooooooooooo @.@!! Jim gets it every week once!!

The glutinous rice went with Durian paste as well as mangoes but because the mango came when I was halfway through it, it didn’t have a picture from me ahah.

Durian flesh cooked with coconut milk to dawn an orgasmic paste that even the heavens of Australia would cast its jealousy upon. Slurps! The durian flesh seems to be the real deal here.  Not sure whether it came canned or did Jim’s mom make it out of frozen Thai Durians!! Loved every bit of the sticky rice regardless of whether it was a durian or mango combination!  Brings back memories in Thailand where the night is often filled with lovely desserts like this one!

By the end of the day, I left happy, fat and tired!  Glad to have a holiday like this in the middle of a working week! Really works to keep the mind free from boredom.   Oh and how much did I eat? Well I pooped 4 times in the last 12 hours since I finished my meal @ Jim’s place.

WenY

Twos a pair: Nudie Jeans

Ever since I got my first pair two years ago, this jeans has always been my addiction.  Perhaps its because in M’sia there was this trend  for me to wear oose jeans which really didn’t feel fitting or stylish unlike slimmer straights or slims which always felt debonair.  Loose fitting jeans always felt sleazy if you don’t have to body to go with it.  The body to go with it?  The BECKHAM body does well in that really. ahah.  Not HK-Malaysian skinny chicken body definitely.

Oh I’ve  grown.. I guess? lol I remember dad commenting on the jeans the kids wear nowadays all being not trendy at all and I was like “oh no! Its cool! Its cool” ahah fckin hell @@!  Dad was happy with me rockin my nudies along with some nice Court Force or AM.  Even allowed me to get more new ones ahah. Yeaaahhh!

Side by side! 2 year old Average Joe along side the 1 day old Slim Jims.

The phenomenal Nudie orange stitching never fails to complement the ultra chic dye!  Can’t believe both of my jeans have the same colour! lol.  But its ok.  With one almost 700 days old and its 14.25 oz dye bleeding very so heavily before this, you wouldn’t even guess they were of the same colour. :)!

Now I’m on a lag anticipating to welcome more Nudie greenhorns.  Probably we’ll have Jasmine  & Jim poppin in soon ahaha.  Nudie has really lovely fits and can never have a cover.  Having Levis doing Nudie jeans would be like Vanilla Sky singing Under My Umbrella a Rihanna cover.  Bloody gay.

WenY

20 dollar Monster: Harry’s Bar @ Northbridge.

I’ve been eyeing this place for quite a while already since I saw it on Perth – Sixthousand a fortnight ago.  Hmm, but since we all have fairly tight schedules we only managed to make some opening yesterday!  Plus we were occupied with Caesar’s last week  mmmm lol.  Harry’s have this really good pledge to their customers every Wednesdays where you can get unlimited ribs for 20 dollars per person.  Pretty damn cheap no?

Found the interior very comfortable.  Very clever in space despite having so many proper seated places.  The booths had especially relaxed cushion to the extent that after our meal, the guys were like “..can I have a nap here” @@!

There to is this waitress here that really looks like Penny from the big bang theory! Chick stuff hoho!  I ordered myself a cocktail for the warm summer but I drank less than half! Too full from the main that came after! 

Tequila Sunrise.  Was ok but felt really bitter :S! Maybe I didn’t give it  proper stir when I started!

Had some time to get pictures of the guys who refuse to give me a normal pose bzzzzzzzzz.

Hobo Yobi

Feng the Engineer.

3 hungry stomach were rumbling! Where’s our meal I wondered.  And bammm the ribs started rolling out.  Saw the large family opposite us getting their serves. And I’m like omg this is insane.  Really big ass.  After 10 more minutes of waiting the ribs were in babehhhhh!

Ribs with coleslaw and spud! Finally arrived.  Seeing the food that was on the plate had my eyebrows raised without hesitation! Hunger was about to be axed.

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP..

Bone yard.

Hmmmm Hmmm The coleslaw was disappointing :(  Dry and the cabbage wasn’t juicy :S!  The spud didn’t taste too good by itself too.  Definitely needed some meat from the ribs to help it out.  But more vital to the very reason we had our meal here was the ribs.  If you’re not to particular about your ribs lined up nicely with meat swelling about the bones evenly then you’d probably be fine with these.  The meat was hell of a lot.  Biggest ribs I’ve every eaten.  As for the taste, there was a bit of draught happening on the plate.  Too much meat but not enough sauce so we got the waitress to get us a small serve of sauce.  The sauce was a mix of barbecue and herbs if my taste buds recall correctly.  And the ribs weren’t barbecued, instead if was more of braised.  I however would prefer my ribs bogged down with delicious sauce.

My verdict is that if you’re a meat lover than you’re a Harry’s lover. They probably butchered 1000 pigs just for Wednesdays.  So BE KIND! DON’T WASTE. Oh and they could do with some improvements to the side.  More mayo to the coleslaw? Perhaps a squeeze of lime for increased acidity?

PS: We tried to have seconds but god that second serve was insane.  They gave us one slice of pork belly about 10 cm thick + 2 ribs. @@! It’s been 24 hours and I can still imitate the texture and taste of pork by rubbing my tongue about. Ackk! 

WenY

Sister’s Birthday!: Spaghi’s @ South Perth

Yesterday night I celebrated my sister’s birthday with Jim, Feng and Vil.  She’s so lucky to have 4 capable engineers with her that night.  But on our side, she gave us the honour to celebrate it with her ahah.  Felt funny xD! Four of my buddies hanging out with my sister, but truth to be said she knows them very well since we normally have dinner together on Fridays, Saturdays and whichever days that are suitable!! And really, with her getting younger each year, there really isn’t any evident age gap between us. 

Jim and I met up in the city before pickin up some icy cool drinks.  I had a Strawberry Daiquiri mocktail from Boost juice while Jim got some BBT from Utopia.  Definitely a must have on a scorching summer’s day!  We then headed down to the pier near the Esplanade to catch a ferry across the river to South Perth.

Delicacies hmm WenY Wonders..

We were the first to reach the restaurant, but of course with the requirement of having all guests present before being seated we were pretty much left stranded on the other side of Perth @@!  Not much of a problem, Jim and I just chatted the 20 minutes advantage we scored against them for being early.  Feng was next, while sista and Vil pretty much got there the same time!  When we went in the restaurant, we were greeted in a respected manner which is quite different from what I’ve heard from the internet which claims that the lady boss is unfriendly.  Really decent if you’d ask me.  But then again I mean coming from Italy if they were a bit showy I guess I can’t blame them.  The green-white-red flag nation hosts the origins of great designer stuff, automobiles and super chic models ahah.  Their daughter was uh-ohhhh! Chick material!  But Feng thought she looked weird ahah.

5 of us shared an appetizer called Pizza Bianca, something that definitely doesn’t fit into your typical everyday pizza description;

I lol’ed even though I expected it to look like that ahah.

My sister’s pasta:

A super strong resemblance to the clam filled spicy pasta @ Zanmai but this one was different.  Generous on clams this dish actually looks good. Didn’t really ask my sister how was it @@!

Jim’s;

Hard to make out what his dish actually is.  But its actually sunflower shaped pasta filled with bacon, bla bla bla! Had quite a lot of things in it.  Asparagus was also used.  Hmm now that I think of it, I really didn’t ask the peeps how the meal was today omg @@!

Vil’s';

Crumbled Veal with roasted vegetable and savour rice or was it saffron hmmm?

Shao Feng and I ordered the same thing;

Pollo Alla Griglia (half chicken marinated and charcoal grilled)

On mine, I think the chicken was pretty good and I really like the roasted vegetables and the rice.  But the chicken needs more marinade.  The breast meat is totally bleakkkk! OK only. Could have been better ahha.  But one thing is for sure, their half a chicken is really large than a normal half a chicken.  Generous serving!

And ok since most people say my blog is mainly dominated by food pics I’ll get some human pictures up too! :P

Vil & Feng

Sista & Jim!

The End!

P/S: Sherlock Holmes is omg, not as good as I expected it to be!

WenY

HK Trip Final: Old Spice.

Time to wrap up the last part of my trip to Hong Kong.  To help ensure a smooth transition from holiday to reality, we made sure that our trip would have covered as much of this small country as we can to avoid regrets that is.  Being said that this country isn’t all that big, it really shouldn’t be too hard to visit most of the places within a week. That is unless you’re too caught up with shopping ahah.  To finish off the last day in Hong Kong, we had a choice of either visiting Macau or Lama Island.  But a trip to Macau is quite ripoff and having heard there isn’t much to do, there really wasn’t a point for the ladies to suffer a 1 hour boat ride considering they both suffer from sea sickness.  So Lama Island it was.  Just had to take a train to central before getting on to the jetty for a 20 minute boat ride.  It was quite short really and my sister was already dying ahaha. 

Just got off the boat @ the Lama Island Jetty.  The architecture is pretty well aged in Lama Island.  Loved how there would be mosses growing on the buildings.  There was also a certain effect on how the houses were positioned as if they were arranged on terraces to especially provide this “effect”.  This place is really a good change of environment when you’ve been in the concrete jungle for too long.  Sometimes in the city all you see is metal framed boxes that really just get you nauseous especially with loud mouth people everywhere, 360 degrees.

Lots of bicycles just outside the jetty.  Most of the roads here are no more than 3 metres wide.  Obviously there won’t be any cars here at all.  But there were some other pests that looked like an ATV “pick-up” truck version.  They were roaming all over like stray dogs. SO annoying.  But I guess they didn’t have much of a choice considering they were upgrading the infrastructure on the island.  Then there were this three ladies sitting by the jetty showing their fine fishing artistry.  Approx 1 small fish every 10 seconds. @@!

It didn’t take long for us to feel hungry!  We were looking for food and started looking around the restaurants near the jetty and let me tell you its a fckin rip off!  But at times like this I somewhat felt like succumbing to their ridiculous pricing.  O well, at least my mom had her principles right.  280HKD for 2 miserable mantis prawns lol.  And just because this is an island, it doesn’t mean the seafood is fresh. It’s shit FYI.  So we headed towards a beach area to see what we could find. Walked through all the small lanes which really feels so nice for some reason :S! Am I a village boy? omg.  Walked for like err 2-3km and we finally reach the beach but there wasn’t any seafood barbecue happening because we didn’t know they only have it at night unless you’ve booked beforehand!

The beach!

However, although the restaurant did not have decent meals for us, they did have something else :)!

The cheapest and smoothest tau foo fa mmmmm! It was like err 6hkd or 7hkd per bowl.  Really cheap as I remember the one @ the Buddha statue was at least 10! Put some cane sugar powder and yumms!!

Walked around Lama Island for awhile and we didn’t really know where our destination was.  Just pretty much walked where the roads would take us. And by the time we know it, we were kinda lost.  But dad and I just kept on walking while mom and sister panicked a little ahah.  Walk through to some lanes which we saw large machines putting large rocks by the shore to prevent additional erosion.

Wicked machines!  Imagine them suddenly transforming into those big badass robot in Transformers!  Probably sink Lama Island hehe!

I didn’t get too many pictures of this trip to Lama Island.  There wasn’t really much to take truth to be said.  Not to mention the weather was cloudy with cool moisture streaming in from China.  This place however has a good environment to get absorbed into for awhile ahah.  After walking for a super long time, we headed back to the jetty for a rip off meal which was crap! O well.  Learnt our lesson :P!!  We headed back to central to check out my jeans @ Harvey Nichols but disappointingly there weren’t any.  HK is too Japanese inspired.  I don’t see those low-key cult European brands in HK!  A bit disappointing but it’s fine.  Now that I’m back in Perth I can indulge in denims I want! Ksubi? Nudie? hmmm.

WenY