Saturday, May 21, 2005

FeAsT

Recently we had a "makan" (malay for eat) session with my family as one of my cousins came back from Australia. It was held at Sam You (Chinese for three friends) restaurant in Petaling Jaya New Town. The restaurant is extremely popular for it's value for money Chinese food and has three other branches in Petaling Jaya and Seri Kembangan.

Traditionally, a Chinese banquet has eight courses which is served one by one (this one had nine courses as dessert was two courses). The rice or noodles dish is usually served at the end. If it's a birthday dinner, there will be noodles as it signifies long life for the birthday gal/guy. These dinners are quite popular at restaurants as they come in sets with a fixed price which is cheaper than you ordering each dish piece meal. That night we had the dinner, the place was packed with people. There was a few birthday dinners as they sang birthday songs, cut the cake (one even served durian cake as we could smell it!) and the traditional red eggs. The
red eggs is meant to symbolise good luck and roundness.

You usually start off with an appetiser platter which is like your Italian antipasti where they serve a variety of small dishes. The rolls at the back are quite similar to the futomaki rolls you get in Japanese restaurants as it is bound with seaweed. However, futomaki has rice as a filling while this roll had fish paste,
otak-otak, celery and a crab stick. The roll has also been coated with a batter and deep fried. The white mound next to it is the vegetarian albalone, looks like the real thing but is made from fish meat. Then you have the deep fried fish balls in a bean curd skin with a sweet and slightly sourish sauce. Next to it is the mushrooms of different varieties with baby clams wrapped in a bean skin pouch. In the middle is prawns fried with kerisik (Malay for toasted shredded coconut)

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Traditionally the next dish is always the sharkfins soup. It comes in a huge bowl so it's easier to ladle to the individual bowls.

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Besides sharkfins in the soup, there are chunks of crab meat. You can opt to take your soup with some chou (Chinese for black vinegar) or some take it with mustard to give it an extra spicy kick.

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Next dish is the steamed white pomfret. The waitress will cut it up for you once it is served so you can enjoy it piece by piece depending on your preference. Some go for the middle bit as there is no bones while there are others who love to crunch and chew on the head and the fins.

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This is my cousin's favourite dish, she loves choi yuen kai (Chinese for village chicken) which is similar to the free range chicken. It is steamed with rice wine, kei chee (Chinese for
wolfberries, those red berries on top) and dong quai (Chinese for angelica). This dish is very moreish, must eat with white rice and my cousin's Aussie husband ordered one bowl for this dish.

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This dish is called Yin and Yang prawns, as there are two varieties served; fried with a dark soya sauce and some honey while the other one is tossed in a thousand island dressing with shreds of chillis and onions.

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This is the Double Flower Lor Hon Chai, the vegetarian dish. The double flower refers to the cauliflower and broccoli flower at the two sides. There is a variety of mushrooms (button, straw and Chinese ones), tau foo, corn, carrots, gingko nuts and some shirataki noodles in the dish.

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This is the last savoury dish, the Braised Perfumed Lotus Leaf Glutinous Rice. There is a sprinkling of tiny fried ikan bilis (Malay for anchovies) on top. Usually this dish will come together with the vegetarian dish.

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Dessert was these Steamed Little Rabbits and Little Gold Fishes. The little rabbits are actually lotus paste buns which they cut little ears and put two red dots as eyes. Very cute! The gold fishes are ping pei (Chinese for snow skin) mooncakes with a red bean filling.

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Splashie Boy caught these different variety of the lotus paste buns which were shaped in the form of peaches. The
peaches are meant to be a symbol of longevity.

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Besides the buns, they also served this dessert which was Snow Fungus, Water Chesnut and Gingko Nut in a coconut milk broth. I thought it was a tad too sweet but Splashie Boy loved it.

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Restoran Sam You
Lot 56/58, Jalan 52/4
Section 52
46200 Petaling Jaya
Telephone: 03 - 7955 1197/7955 1179

1 comment:

Krystle Chelsea said...

Awww! I love these dessert. I only get to eat when I attend a Chinese wedding in Malaysia! Online Credit Score

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