Steamboat & Tofu @ Hooi Kee Steamboat Restaurant, Bukit Mertajam, Penang

This place sounds like your usual Chinese steamboat restaurant. However, they do have some of their signature dishes which I think was pretty good and worth trying. Depending on the amount of people, you can choose the sets at different prices. One thing worth trying is their 'starter'; deep fried tofu. Really plain, simply tofu but when dipped in their special dip (not sure what's inside but seems like alot of green onions, chilli and, seasoning etc), it was brilliant. 

Deep fried tofu with special, delicious dip

We had the half-half steamboat (half tom yum / half clear soup). They offer some really fresh seafood, meatballs and bean curd (which I really like :). The soup tasted quite perfect; not to bland, not too salty to the point you felt it's loaded with MSG. We also had a plate of their special Teochew fried noodles (I'm not too sure what it is called but there's a picture here I'm sharing); something I've never really eaten before.

Tom yum soup / clear broth 

The simple, yet tasty Teochew fried noodles. Perfect for sharing :)

Overall, this place is worth trying; if you happen to be in Penang mainland. In fact, I've heard of people from the island that drives all the way here for a good steamboat;) A huge shop with many ahjummas (aunties) as servers. Quite efficient as well. 

Address: Tingkat Binjai 12, Taman Sri Rambai, 14000 Bukit Mertajam, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Opening hours: 5.30 to 10.30 pm (Close on Mondays)

Nyonya kuih @ Baba Charlie's Nyonya Cake, Tengkera, Melaka

Probably, every Nyonya in Melaka would know of this place or at least who Baba Charlie is. I remembered my mum used to get our regular Nyonya food from him at the night market. Anyway, this place is probably not very easy to find unless you are a local. They have however done a good job of putting an obvious sign at the entrance of the alley (yes alley, a small alley which can be easily missed). Look for Tranquerah Mosque and directly opposite, there will be an alley leading to a few houses inside. Walk in or drive into the alley, and you will see this place. 

Ahjummas (ladies) working on the nyonya delicacies.

You can really get practically all Nyonya and Melaka local delights here

I need to say this though. A majority of the items here are made with some form of sweet coconut. So, you've got to like coconut to like these delicacies. It's easy to get carried away with the wide variety of kuih, so make sure you know what you are buying in the first place. Prices are surprisingly quite reasonable as I thought they would have hiked up the price considering majority of their customers are probably tourists.

Hard time choosing what we want. They looked so tempting!

Some family favourite! Pulut tekan (Steamed glutinous rice with kaya, coconut egg jam)

Colorful..colorful...

Absolutely good place to bring a tourist here!

Our nyonya kuih 'haul' ;p

Kuih ketayap (sweet coconut stuffed pancake roll) and ondeh-ondeh (coconut dumplings)

Overall, this is a wonderful place to bring your guest to experience what Nyonya delicacies and of course to savour some of them. Apart from the famous Nyonya Colours cafes in KL that I've been to, it's really not easy to find a place with all this local sweet delights eventhough Melaka is supposed to be a Nyonya place. Tastewise, I will not say they are the best around for I've eaten better ones somewhere else. Even the ones in Nyonya Colours I felt were better, again it might be personal preference. 

Address:72, Jalan Tengkera Pantai 2C, 75200 Melaka
Website: Babe Charlie Nyonya Cake
Opening hours: 10.30 am to 3.00 pm

A Malaysian dinner @ Tropika (Southgate), Edmonton

I finally had a chance to try out Malaysian cuisine in a proper Malaysian restaurant in Canada! I was in Edmonton, Alberta over the weekend with sunbae for Michael Bublé's concert at Rexall Place. Tropika is a Malaysian-owned restaurant group and specializes in Malaysian and Thai dishes in Edmonton. Currently there are two restaurants; Tropika West and Tropika South (location). Being a little bit biased this time, we decided to go to the one at South due to the better reviews;p. A large, nicely-decorated interior awaited us when we got there close to 9pm (they close at 11pm on Sat!).

Loved the ambience

In case you wanna know more about the restaurant…apparently the restaurant won a couple of awards previously.

A nice menu with pictures and lots of varieties

Being Malaysians, we were excited to try out some of their spicy dishes so we basically ordered everything spicy (and tambah pedas / higher spicy level ;p). For appetiser, we had Gado-gado, Malay salad with bean sprouts, deep-fried tofu, egg, lettuce and topped with peanut sauce. This salad is generally not spicy (though you can request to make it spicy), and sweetish. This dish originated from Indonesia but its rather famous among Malay restaurants in Malaysia. Of course some ingredients were altered to fit the different taste buds. I personally like this dish (basically due to the fact that I've not eaten this for quite some time and also thought that they were charging slightly high for the other vegetable dishes;p).

Gado-gado, Medium $8.00

Instead of having individual dishes, we went for steamed rice and ordered two seafood dishes (ps: for Muslims, this restaurant is not HALAL). The waitress recommended us a few of their famous dishes beforehand, so we had the Daun Pisang Rendang Fish, which is sea bass filet with coconut juice and sambal sauce (Malay chilli paste) served on a banana leaf. As of now, they only have fish filet-based dishes and no whole fresh fish. Although the name of this dish sounded tempting to us, I thought it was just ok. The deep-fried filet was quite fresh (although I'm not sure whether the fish pieces were fried beforehand in the kitchen for easy preparation when dish is ordered) but lacking in taste. The rendang (coconut sambal sauce) was so little that it seemed like a topping rather than a sauce cooked with the fish as with how original rendang chicken should be. Perhaps, they wanted to maintain the crispiness of the fish pieces (or maybe because they know most people here can't take too spicy food) but I really felt they should be more generous with the sauce so that it had more rendang taste to it as the name implies. 

Daun pisang rendang fish, $17.00

The other main dish we had was Sotong belachan (calamari fried with Malaysian shrimp paste). Again, the level of spiciness can be adjusted and we requested for it to be more, more spicy (lols). This dish fare better than the fish I though it felt like some chilli powder was used to make the paste rather than fresh blended chilli. The taste of belacan (shrimp paste) was not that strong, we would have prefer it to be more but I believe that this has to be mild over here in Canada (some people might find it too pungent!). They were quite generous with the calamari and lots of vegetables as well. One thing lacking is the taste (and not spicy enough, no kick!) but overall, this dish is quite ok. Blends quite well with rice while the fish dish was way too dry. 

Sotong belachan, $16.50

Steamed rice $2.50/bowl

Sunbae (cheery face even after 6 hours of driving and 3 hours of shopping @__@)

Overall, food was ok (considering the fact that its sooo difficult to even find a Malaysian restaurant here). Ambience was lovely and servers were attentive. Lots of varieties on their menu, I'm sure you'll find something that will fit your taste bud. Table beside us had the satay and pineapple fried rice (looked appealing) while Pad thai was…so-so. Price-wise, some dishes were slightly on a higher side especially the vegetables. Also check with them the price for some of the seafood before you order as prices are seasonal. We would have enjoyed it even more if they had make it spicier for us though ;p. 

Address : 6004 104 St NW Edmonton, AB T6H2K3

Website : Tropika (Southgate)

Opening hours : Monday - Thursday, Sunday & Holidays 11:30 am - 10:00 pm; 

Friday & Saturday 11:30 am - 11:00 pm