After showing my father the photos I took the other day during the review, he was pretty interested to eat there. So we took the opportunity to celebrate Father's Day earlier :)
This time around I am more confident in stating how the dishes taste when they are still hot as well as ordering new dishes to try.
After looking through the menu, we decided to order mainly dim sum dishes. Mean while, we sat down and take in the environment.
The place is bright with plenty of sunlight like I'd mentioned before. This restaurant is quite comfortable actually. Their chairs are huge and comfty, nice to sit on. It was a quiet afternoon as there were not many customers.
I would think the quiet environment is an advantage if you are looking for a place to sit down and online. Yes, according to the management, WiFi is available. No one to disturb and there are a number of electrical points throughout the restaurant :D
First up, Porridge with Century Egg and Shredded Meat, 皮蛋廋肉粥 RM4.00 per bowl.
The portion was relatively the same as what you would normally get in dim sum places, maybe slightly more. The porridge was mild in flavour (cheng cheng tei) and very smooth. This porridge do have pork meat/bones added during cooking so they taste better. Nothing really spectacular about it and not exactly pack with meat and century egg pieces.
Canton-i's plain porridge comes in a huge bowl although priced at RM4 and they are cooked with conpoy. Now, that's something to think about.
Pork Dumpling with Fish Roes (鱼子烧买皇) RM5.50 per basket (4 pieces).
Siu Mai wasn't good surprisingly. It doesn't taste as fresh as the one I had during the review. The slow weekday sale could be one of the reasons. When siu mai is stored too long in the fridge, it loses its freshness.
We also had har gao but I didn't take any picture. Same case with siu mai, not as fresh as the ones I had during the review. That's why it is very important to keep the customer flow as it will ensure the quality and freshness of the dishes. More people, more sales, more fresh dim sum.
Minced Squid with Crab Claw (百花酿蟹钳), RM6.90 per basket (2 piece) Little did I know, this dish was actually the signature dim sum dish of Shang Palace Shangrilla Hotel (currently Shang Palace is no longer there and hotel has changed to Trader's Hotel). When dad knew Ko Fu Loft serves them, he ordered a basket.
The steamed crab claw was good. It's fresh and smooth. No weird fishy smell. The fish and squid paste they used were of good quality. The sauce was less starchy too. We had to finish up this dish quickly while its still hot to avoid the fishy smell.
So to clear things up, what Steven commented was partly true. The dish had a fishy smell because we ate it cold.
Then came Prawn Joint Meat Crsytal Bun, 鲜虾菜肉水晶包 RM5.00 (3 pieces per basket). Although named bun, its placed under the 'Steamed Dishes' section in the menu.
The prawns they used were fresh and of the large variety. On the first bite, its very crunchy and it doesn't have the weird prawn smell. Very similar to har gao (虾饺) but the skin was softer, something like Chai Koay.
Despite the quality, there is nothing special with this dish. Like I said, same with har gao.
Steamed Homemade Fish Ball 清蒸鱼丸 RM3.50 (3 pieces per basket).
The fish balls were fresh and smooth but it is not the bouncy variety. Nothing special with the fish balls.
Ko Fu Sesame Seed Ball (口福芝麻球)， RM10.90 per plate (5 balls).
Because of the photo I shot during the review, dad wanted to have this. Now I am sure that the spicy like heat actually comes from the finely chopped gingers. Ginger taste was heavy but the meat was fresh, firm and smooth. Again, the sesame ball is still not my favourite.
Deep fried Yam Paste with Mince Pork, 炸芋角 RM4.50 per plate (3 pieces).
This time around, the wu kok's filling was not moist with sauce. Although it was fried nicely and did not absorb oil, the wu kok came up short.
Now here is an interesting dish. Golden Prawn with Fresh Mango Dumpling (金黄香芒虾) RM6 per plate (3 pieces).
The prawn dumpling was perfectly fried and not very oily. Prawns were fresh and bouncy paired with warm mango slice in it. A savoury dish with some hint of sweetness from the mangoes. Not bad. The mangoes wasn't used excessively to retain the prawn flavour.
The only time I'd tried a dish as interesting as this was during a dinner in Jade Palace. One of the Four Season Platter's item was Deep Fried Fish with Banana Dumpling XD Hahaha!
This is Steamed Scallops Chicken Glutinous Rice (干贝糯米饭) RM4 per plate. The lo mai kai was tasty and fragrant. Its glutinous rice was chewy and not too soft. The flavours of other ingredients are more flavourful than the glutinous rice so they match quite well. As for the scallop, they added the small China dried scallop which the size is smaller than our Malaysian 5 sen. I think it doesn't make any difference if the scallop was added or not.
Whenever we go yum cha, we would not miss Honey BBQ Meat Pork Bun, 密汁叉烧包 RM4.00 (2 buns).
Char siew bao tasted normal. Fresh but slightly heavy on flavouring for the pork filling. The bun does not stick to our teeth. Definitely not classic HK char siew bao.
Wahaha now comes my favourite bun, Signature Steamed Custard Creamy Bun, 美味流沙奶皇包 RM5.50 per basket (3 pieces). Like the picture, its custard filling was bursting out on my first bite. For this round, the custard's taste was heavier on butter instead of salted egg yolk. Either way, I still love it but I did sense a little that the buns were not as good as the first time I had them.
I'd also mentioned to my parents that the roasted duck was ok, so we ordered a Roasted Duck Rice Set RM9.90. I couldn't understand why they do not offer only the roasted duck. Anyway the set comes with pickled vege, boiled vege, a bowl of soup and a bowl of white rice.
Rice was nicely cooked. Soft, smooth and fragrant but I personally prefer the rice to be a bit chewy. The soup was salty and pepperish, not nice :P Similar to wantan noodle soybean soup. We left the soup untouched :P
We forgot to ask for the drumstick part, so we were served with duck breast :S The skin smells good but the breast meat was quite tough and rough. Apart from that, its very salty too. No wonder it still tastes good even after being dipped into the pun choy for so long.
This is the chilli sauce being served. Sourish and not very spicy. Somehow I did think the fragrance came from an ingredient, kaffir lime leaves?
To finish off the meal, we ordered 2 dessert of the day. After hearing out what they were serving for the day and making sure its not what I had during the previous review, we decided to try it.
Dessert of the day RM3.50 per bowl.
Cold dessert would be Watermelon Sago (西瓜西米露) . First time I heard of watermelon sago! LOL There were lots of watermelon cubes, some nata de coco, papaya cubes and sago. They are served with chilled clear sugar syrup. Refreshing for current hot season. Unfortunately the syrup was too sweet.
Hot dessert was Boiled Papaya with Silver Fungus and Red Dates (木瓜雪洱唐水). The silver fungus maintains its crunchyness while the papaya chunks and red dates were clearly boiled sufficiently. Too bad that this tong sui was also too sweet.
This dessert is considered HK style? HK people like to use papaya as the part of the soup's ingredients be it savoury double boiled soups, regular boiled soups or tong sui.
Overall, the dim sum was not favoured by my parents. I guess the restaurant had to buck up quick as later on there would be more competitors. They are coming up with a new menu in a few weeks time.
One thing I wasn't sure about was the tea serving. Can't I just order 2 pax of tea and ask for more cups? RM15 for 5 pax is a lot of tea money :S
Total damage = RM106.37
Happy reading~
Location:
170-04-59 Plaza Gurney,
Persiaran Gurney,
10250 Penang, Malaysia.
Business Hours:
9am - 10pm
(Dim sum would be available from 9am to 5pm)
(Ala carte items are avaiable all day)
Contact:
Tel - 604 2295011
Fax - 604 2294011
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Yupz, those are tubs of fresh prawn paste and sweet bean paste. Besides here, she also sells at SMK Air Itam on alternate days but its uncertain which day is for which place.
These are regular rojak ingredients i.e. cucumber, mengkuang, pineapple, jambu batu, sour mangoes and cuttle fish (in the red pail). The aunty uses a plastic sheet to cover the fruits to avoid flies hovering over them.
When you stand beside the aunty's stall, you would see that her rojak sauce ingredients are kept in a steel case. There would be sweet bean paste, prawn paste, grinded roasted peanuts, chilli and grinded charcoal roasted belacan. Yupz, belacan (dried shrimp paste).
Normally we would ask rojak aunty to separate the sauce from the fruits so we can keep the leftover sauce and dip in our own fruit cuts.
So thick, smooth and rich. Her rojak is okay. Well at least nicer than the ones I've tried at other places. Shrimp paste and sweet bean paste was well cooked, thus both do not have raw smell lingering around. Its not so much on the sweet taste but it also has the salty belacan bits and shrimp paste (har kou) to balance it.
