Endless Delight 味中味

The first time I mentioned the Szechuan restaurant Endless Delight (Wei Zhong Wei) on my blog was when we went there for Jo and HC’s birthday dinner. Back then, we already found the dishes tasty except for the odd tasting cumin lamb dish (have never ordered it since).

Since then, I’ve frequented Endless Delight many times and to my delight (pun intended) their dishes have remained consistently tasty and good.

This is their 口水鸡 a.k.a. as Yummy Chicken on the menu. This famous Szechuan cold chicken dish is laden with oily, spicy and really well, yummy. The chicken is always tender and smooth, the tingly spicy chilli gravy is ‘mouth wateringly’ tasty and fantastic with steamed rice.

This 辣子鸡 Fragrant Chicken is another favourite Szechuan dish and was recommended by the waitress when they ran out of Yummy Chicken. Deep fried chicken pieces fried with great amounts of garlic and dried chillies. It’s mind numbingly hot, salty, crispy and yums.

Another must order which we always have is the 水煮鱼 which is poached fish fillet in very very spicy chilli oil. It’s one of those lip throbbing, tongue hanging spicy stuff that is just addictive.

You’ll notice that all the dishes I’ve mentioned so far have the words ‘hot’ and ‘spicy’ in them. Whenever I feel like some really spicy and tasty (and somewhat greasy) Chinese food, Endless Delight is where I head to. However, they actually do non spicy dishes very well too. This 家常豆腐 is a simple tofu dish which heads off some of the spiciness.

Our must order vegetable dish there, the 荷兰豆 Snow peas are garlicky, crunchy and delicious. If only all vegetables tasted this good.

We’ve recently discovered that Endless Delight have pig intestines on the menu, I know it’s yucks for some, but for those kueh chap deprived people like us, it’s fantastic. Again, this dish is super spicy.

Endless Delight is not for the feeble stomach, your stomach starts making fiery rumblings after a few bites into the meal and sausage lips are almost guaranteed. I’m not sure whether the Szechuan food is authentic since it was Endless Delight that introduced me to Szechuan dishes, but if this is Szechuan cuisine, it’s really addictive and tasty!

Service at Endless Delight can be patchy at best, the waitresses aren’t impolite, but service can be a hit and miss and you’ll find yourself having to wait for rice while the dishes have already arrived etc. Otherwise, I’m impressed that despite having returned quite a fair few times, their affordable dishes have always remained consistent in terms of flavour and texture, I would be hard pressed to find the same consistent quality in many restaurants around Perth. It’s just comforting to know that at the end of the day, you can always return to this restaurant, order your favourite dish and know that that’s exactly what you’re going to get, everytime, anytime.
Endless Delight Chinese Restaurant
145 Newcastle Street
northbridge

Celebrating Jo & HC

I’m so sad, Easter is almost over (T______T). Luckily there are still two days left, I shall savour every minute.

It was also Jo and HC’s birthday this Friday. We had a double celebration, it started on Thursday night at Sebastian’s with Gill and co. Lots of yummy Italian food and nice taro birthday cake to finish with. What a nice way to start the Easter holiday.

The happy  and smiley Swarovski clad  (they received lots of Swarovski as bday presents) couple.

The next night we had their second birthday dinner at Wei Zhong Wei (a.k.a. Endless Delight), a new Szechuan restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try for a while. It was very busy and the dishes were spicy and tasty except for a lamb dish that tasted very bizarre.

Jo and HC’s birthday cupcakes from Velvet Cupcakes. We had them for Jo’s birthday two years ago when Jan and Andy were in Perth and they were gorgeous. They’re still very pretty two years later, but somehow the taste didn’t taste as good. Haha, maybe coz Jan and Andy aren’t here.

The cute couple  outside the restaurant. Everyone’s always very surprised to discover that they’re born on the same day, same month and same year. But I guess that’s why they’re made for each other ? Hehe. Happy birthday both, hope it was a good one this year.

CNY eve

I wish there was some way to bring Kuching food back to Perth.

We’ve been eating out a lot, so much that we had to take a break yesterday and stayed at home with maggi mee  and sausages for lunch. I’ve had two kolo mees to date, still good.

My favourite is kolo mee straight ‘bang ang’ (added char siew sauce). Can’t really describe the springiness of the noodles, the slightly sweet, salty, garlicky oil mixture.

Had my first char kueh today, it was very nice. There’s usually a choice of sweet or salty char kueh, I had the salty one today, very yums.

One of Jo’s cravings ticked off the list, she’s been wanting to eat really good satay for ages and the ones at Hui Sing are always very good.

My sister Jan is busy counting out money for the angpows she has to give the little ones this year. It’s the first year that she’s giving out angpows. She says that she’s going to start a new trend and start greeting everyone with ‘Happy CNY’ as in ‘happy cee nee‘. I think it might turn out to be the catchphrase of the season.

You know Chinese New Year is here when pretty pots of flowers start appearing around the house.

Our mini pot of mandarin oranges which I think is much cuter than the big plants.

Traditional chinese wall decals are making a comeback, I love them.  We’ve been sticking them all around the house.

Our little lion with his little mandarin. All the decorations are up, we’ve given the house a spring cleaning, the cars are washed and waxed and our new year clothes are ironed and hung up. I can hear firecrackers banging in the background. I think we’re reading for Chinese New Year 2011.

Xin Nian Kuai Le, Gong Xi Fa Cai folks!

Kuching style breakfast

I love having breakfast in Perth but nothing beats breakfast in Kuching!

Especially if it’s breakfast with my parents, which is what we used to do every Sunday during my childhood and teen years. Here’s Jo with my Ah Pa. We had breakfast at our favourite bak kut teh place in Kuching, a very familiar haunt from our old days. The kopitiam ppl all recognised us and gave us warm greetings, they love Jo best because she always chats with them and told the uncle that she’s waited a whole year to eat his food.

Pork leg rice with loh egg, pickled cucumbers and intestines. What Jo has been waiting for the whole  year. (^__^)

Bak kut teh, you just can’t make it like that back in Perth even with our trusty packs of A1 bak kut teh. Everytime I come to this stall  I think of Jaso and his look of ecstasy when he had his first spoonful of this bak kut teh.

Washed down with big mugs of sweet teh c peng. Surely the best way to have breakfast?

Hillarys and good chicken rice

I can’t decide which one is worse, Sunday nights or Monday mornings. Perhaps it’s Sunday nights because while there’s still a night ahead, you know you’re wasting precious time dreading the coming week. Ah well, at least it was a good weekend while it lasted.

Hillarys was prettier than when I last visited. The new Breakwater restaurant was impressive and the weather was perfect.

It was burgers and milkshake sort of weather. My FAB burger was pretty good, but I think Grill’d burgers are possibly my favourite out of all the gourmet burger joints popping up around Perth.

Surely the weekend is all about comfort homecooking, watching TVB dramas on end and just lazing about doing nothing?

I am reluctant to reveal the whereabouts of this little gem with some of the best chicken rice in town.

Only I think everyone knows about it already because we met Calvin’s family whom were also there for the first time having heard about the famous chicken rice. And it was good! Generous portions, affordable pricing, great presentation, juicy tender chicken, fragrant rice and great salted veg/tomato soup. The soup reminded of my mum’s kiam chye duck soup so much, we went to the grocery shop afterward to buy ingredients to make our own at home.

I love discovering new foodie places (^__^).

Now it’s back to mourning the weekend (-____-), hope everyone had a lovely weekend as well.

 

Jason’s birthday @ Royal Seafood Chinese Restaurant

I hate summer. I really really do. It’s a horrible 42 degrees day today and I’ve been wilting from the heat all day. When will autumn arrive?!

On a cooler day last week, we had a belated birthday dinner for Jason’s birthday at Royal Seafood Chinese Restaurant. We like going to Royal for their dimsum and I’ve heard good things about their dinner fare so it was a good occasion to try it out. Most of the boys were there including Richard, Ming Sian and Calvin.

The food was really quite good. The chilli and pepper squid was deep fried perfectly and the squid was still bouncy and tender with a light batter coating. Sizzling Japanese tofu is always a favourite and this one was thicky sliced and yummy. I can’t quite remember the Gui Fei chicken but I think it was alright but not the best chicken I’ve had.

The deep fried honey prawns were quite nice, but I think prawns are wasted if they’re deep fried. Perhaps the most special dish of the nice was the pork trotter which I expected to be braised in soy and the like but it came in a bowl of peppery soup and reminded me of the pork intestine soup that my mum used to make, very flavourful.

I love everything yam but while I liked the yam in the yam duck, I couldn’t really taste the duck at all. The vegetables in crab meat sauce was a nice change from the normal oyster sauce ao I enjoyed this. I was told that the mei chai kou rou (pork belly with preserved mustard greens) was a must order but for some reason, our pork belly didn’t come out in the usual tender glutinous texture but was kinda dry and hard like barbequed pork, perhaps that was what was special about ? I’m not sure.

Everything was beautifully presented similar to their dimsum fare. Royal will probably fall into my category of better and more refined Chinese food in town.

Daitaoha ratings:

Food: 6.5/10

Service: 6.5/10

Royal Seafood Chinese Restaurant
91 Aberdeen St
Northbridge WA 6003
Tel: (08) 9328 7738‎

Birthday cake time. We bought a chocolate blueberry cake from Utopia which looked really pretty and had layers of pudding, blueberry and chocolate.

I really liked the candles that Wendy bought, so cute and colourful.

It even had a cute birthday boy candle, I guess because Jason bought a birthday girl candle for Wendy’s birthday.

They’re a really sweet couple.

Wendy even bought a birthday badge for Jason but only remembered to pin it on when the singing was over. Ah well, better late than never right? Hehe.

Gerry and Mingsian in front of the restaurant. Royal has really nice and elegant surroundings.

The group!

The birthday boy. Jason always impresses me with his maturity and patience and devotion to Wendy. It’s been a real pleasure getting to know him and Wendy throughout the year, happy birthday Din Yaw, let’s hope it’s a smooth sailing and fantastic year ahead for you.

Shop till you Drop

I’m back in Kuching! I haven’t had my first kolo mee yet but I did have fried kolo mee for dinner.

Singapore was really fun, the itinerary ran like this ‘ eat, shop, shop, put down shopping bags in hotel, go out again, eat, shop’.

What did I eat? Chicken rice. And I mean every single day.

I also ate Breadtalk pork floss buns. Every single night. Why can’t they have bread talk in Perth? Why?? Or really good chicken rice, or chwee kueh, or Gindako takoyaki…

Or really fresh sashimi. This sashimi was melt in the mouth good.

For my last meal in Singapore, I requested that we have old fashion kopi with kaya and butter toast and soft boiled eggs. My mum really enjoyed her kopi and said it reminded her of her childhood where her grandmother made her this for breakfast everyday. The kopi-o is as far removed from Velvet flat whites as possible, but  so fragrant and gorgeous in its own way.

It’s so nice to be back in Kuching. One of the first things I did was visit my grandparents which was so nice and yet sad in a way because they’ve grown so so old. My grandmother was delightfully predictable, saying the same things ‘mama ju lao ju eh, lu ju lai ju guang’ (grandmother gets shorter as i grow older, wheras you’re growing taller and taller). She also told me that I could afford to cut off some of my long hair because it ‘eats blood’ which is something she says every year. (^____^).

So far the holiday has been fantastic. But I have a phone interview tomorrow (T___T). The last time I had a phone interview in Kuching, last year there was a thunderstorm and the electricity went out so I had my interview in darkness. Surely it won’t go as badly this year? *fingers cross* Wish me luck ok? Because I really need it!

Ok I shall be good and try and read my notes for the interview tomorrow, goodbye and good night from Kuching!

The Grey Hoodie Boy Part 11 : Dinner at Festive Kitchen

The title is misleading because it’s not really a Grey Hoodie Boy post, more of a review of Yao Yat Jam a.k.a. Festive Kitchen restaurant. I  thought I had better blog about our dinner there before  he the dinner completely slips out of my mind.

This time it was my turn to bring him to dinner and I wanted to let him try Hongkong style Chinese. Festive Kitchen is the new kid on the block in terms of Hongkong style cafes, I was tossing between Festive Kitchen and Red Teapot but since I’d been to FK several times and really liked the food, Festive Kitchen it was.

We started off with an entree of Deep Fried Chilli Salt Squid, the Westerner must order at every Chinese kitchen. This one was crispy and tasty but a little bit too salty for my liking. GHB liked it I think.

Since it was only two of us, we couldn’t order many dishes. Our meat dish was my normal order at Hongkong style cafes, the Peking Sparerib with Mayo. Festive Kitchen does a really nice version of this dish, the pork is tender on the inside and yet has a crispy coating, not overly sweet, tangy and creamy mayo. Yums.

Our vege dish was the eggplant claypot. GHB mentioned that he really liked claypot dishes so we thought we would order at least one claypot dish. This is one of my favourites ways of eating claypot, spicy salty eggplant, minced pork, piping hot in a claypot, great  with rice.

GHB and I didn’t order this dish but I had this dish when we went to FK for Gerry’s graduation. It was highly recommended by Ming Sian and is one of their Chef’s Special, the japanese style beef fillet which was drizzled with a wasabi mayo sauce. Just a hint of wasabi, not overly thick mayo and tender beef fillet. Cold pickled vegetables to soothe the palate afterwards.Very nice. Festive Kitchen is fast becoming my favourite Hongkong style restaurant in town, the prices are on the high side (in comparison to other similar restaurants), but the food is really quite delicious.

GHB and I only ordered two mains and an entree but it was still too much for both of us and we had loads of leftovers which really bothered GHB because he was taught by him mum not to waste food , hehe. We walked over to Tea Fusion for bubble tea afterwards where he greeted friends at almost every corner. That boy is a social butterfly. I showed this picture to Gill (he is a lot cuter in real life) and she said ‘I know him!’ Perth is a small world.

Lots of laughter and chatting, it was a nice night with Grey Hoodie Boy. After this dinner, we saw each other frequently on the bus and he asked me out a few times but our schedules kept clashing. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen GHB for close to a week except for yesterday when he couldn’t catch the bus again *slaps forehead*

I’m not sure whether they will be any more Grey Hoodie Boy posts in the future, but I’m glad we had these couple of dinners and got to know each other a little better.

Daitaoha ratings:

Food : 7/10

Service: 6/10

Festive Kitchen
Shop 1/297 William St Northbridge
Perth, 6000
Tel: 9328 3899

Four Seasons Roasting Duck Restaurant

The dinner at Four Seasons was probably a month back. So long ago that I don’t remember the prices or the names of the dishes, I remember that everything was quite affordable though, around the $18 – $22 price range. I’ve been talking about trying out Four Seasons for a long time, when it first opened, I went there for dimsum and wasn’t overly impressed. But then, the name kept cropping up in blog reviews, newspapers and articles, they were winning awards left and right,some even said that they had the best roast duck in town.

You know how I get when people start saying something is ‘the best’, the foodie flowers start floating and I started thinking ‘ was it only good in terms of Westerner’s version of Chinese food?’(since Aussies were raving about it) or was it actually really good? I just had to try it for myself.

First up was soup on the house, I think it was pork ribs soup, sweet and tasty. I always like the complimentary soups served at Chinese restaurants, I can’t seem to recreate the same comforting taste at home.

We had to order the roast duck at the ‘Roasting Duck’ restaurant. I am told that their Peking duck is one of the most awarded in town but we didn’t order that. The roast duck was really quite good, tender, juicy and moist. I think some of my foodie gang said they prefer the duck at Good Fortune (the other best roast duck in town restaurant) but I personally preferred Four Seasons roast duck.

Toothfish, probably my favourite fish besides salmon. This was was well done, crispy on the outside and tender juicy fish on the inside. But I think the sauce wasn’t flavourful enough and I would have preferred it pan friend instead of deep fried.

The healthy dish for the night, seafood tofu hot pot. I can’t remember whether this dish was any good, it definitely wasn’t bad and I love everything tofu.

The crispy chicken was surprisingly good, the skin was crispy thin and the chicken flesh was juicy and tender. I was actually quite impressed and thought ‘ok, maybe it’s really is good after all’.

Pork belly with yam, I expected this dish to be very oily and rich, but the flavours were surprisingly tasty but  light, not oily, the yam was soft and went really well with the tender pork belly. Since I have tons of pork belly at home, this is a recipe that I will try to recreate in the near future.

Overall we were impressed with Four Seasons and the food was a lot better than I expected it to be. The service while not impeccable was alright and passable. I thought to myself that I would return pretty soon.

BUT…. a couple of days later, I went into Four Seasons to takeaway some char siew and the service was atrocious, as in unforgivably rude and deserving of a walk out. I think Richard who was with me wanted to walk out immediately but only stayed because I was the one purchasing the char siew.

So now I’m having second thoughts about returning, maybe for the food, but the service… nah, I don’t think I could.

Daitaoha ratings:

Food: 7/10

Service :4/10 (I am averaging based on 1st and 2nd visit)

Four Seasons Roasting Duck Restaurant
Shop 8-9
375 William St
Northbridge 6003 WA
Phone: (08) 9228 9883

A Week of My Life : Day 4 Thursday

Err I don’t know whether you all have noticed, but the number of pictures of my posts are diminishing by the day (=___=). BUT it’s FRIDAY tomorrow, so hopefully there will be lots of things to do and blog about this weekend, friends who are reading this, quick ask me out!

The sunny weather in Perth has disappeared and it was cloudy and raining all day. This was taken from my seat at the bus (I was way up front), can you see Perth city and spot BankWest tower in the horizon?

I almost forgot about my breakfast meeting this morning. My manager, A and I traipsed in the rain to a little cafe nearby where they had breakfast while I had a latte. I tried to take a picture of my coffee by stealth but no one could miss the sound of the camera. ‘Di, are you taking photos? This is a violation of my intellectual property rights!’ my manager joked. I had to explain that my sisters, Heri and I are doing the meme, they both thought it was a lovely and cute idea. (=^____^=) so shy.

It was a crazy day at work which had me working till past 6pm. By the time I walked out of the office, the sky was dark, so no evening sky photos today. Sigh, couldn’t make it in time for swimming too.  The terrace looks very different at night.

Jo greeting me in front of my bus stop. Jo called me while I was on the bus and said ‘where are you? I came to pick you up at Woolies’. She was worried that I would be walking home in the dark so drove to the nearby shopping center (where my bus stops) to pick me up. Haha, so sweet right?

Since we were already out, I suggested going to Carousel shopping center to pick up my colleague’s farewell present of a gift voucher from Myers. After what felt like an eternity, we finally got a parking space. An annoying thing happened while we were at the cashier, my coins fell on the floor and I took a step backward to pick up the coins. And stepped onto this young woman’s foot. I truly felt bad and kept apologising, Jo said sorry too. But this girl acted like we sawed off her foot and was groaning and grabbing on to her foot like we ran a truck over it. She made such a HUGE fuss and debacle that the cashier even said ‘do you need me to get the first aid people?’ which she declined. While we were paying she stood behind us with this huge scowl (funny how she recovered after people stopped looking at her). When her mother asked her something she said rudely ‘NO, I AM IN PAIN’. At first I was thinking of apologising again, but her attitude was so bad and rude that Jo and I decided to ignore her. In hindsight, she was wearing clunky leather boots and I was wearing flats, how could it be that painful? What a drama queen.

There’s a new donut store in Carousel called Dreamy Donuts. It reminds me of the Big Apple chain and Krispy Kreme with flavours like passionfruit, strawberry cheesecake etc. We didn’t buy any since donuts in Australia are much too sweet for me (but Krispy Kreme is too sweet too). Sigh, if only they had Mister Donut here, oh I miss those green tea donuts with red bean filling, so yummy!

I feel quite bad posting this up after Heri commented that my dinners are all so healthy looking. Because Jo and I sinned and bought takeaway for dinner! She had honey chicken with fried rice while I opted for Indian butter chicken, curried potatoes and rice. Haha, see, we’re not so healthy after all!

What can I say? Sometimes you just need a curry.

Friday tomorrow, so happy Y(^_______________^)Y!