Many people talk about where we can have the best char koay teow and etc. Some say stall X is good, some say stall Y is good. Well, I just cannot understand why people flock to Sisters Char Koay Teow, Sin Hwa and Lorong Selamat.

The unconventional choice for me would be Padang Tembak Market and Reservoir Garden. Reservoir Garden has 3 coffeeshops. This char koay teow stall I am about to mention is at Golden City Coffeeshop (opposite Keat Seng Coffeeshop). The area is just located beside Ayer Itam Road Shell petrol station, near a traffic light junction.

This aunty still uses charcoal to fry her koay teow. Oohhh firing hot...

The char koay teow was full of wok hei and delicious. Very difficult to find stall which uses charcoal these days and gas stoves can never replace charcoal ones. I guess my personal conclusion is "no use charcoal, no eat char koay teow" :P

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I tell you, I haven't had that much prawns in my life O.o After all the walking and trips, time for DINNER! If you recall the picture of an uncle squatting at the back of the house cutting mantis prawns...yupz its there on the table all ready to be munched by us :D :D :D

I can't remember the names of the meat balls but it has a powdery texture (yam?) to it with some 5 spices powder scent and wrapped together in beancurd sheets. I didn't see the process of making it because we were still out...somewhere in the forest haha...By the way, the aunty is a Teochew (as well as the rest of the villagers) so its a Teochew appetizer?

Here is one of the main characters...yummy yummy~ Boiled freshly caught prawns. How fresh? They were hauled up at that very evening :D Bouncy meat with no weird 'water' smell. For that I could only think of these words... 鲜味 I walloped half of the tray :)

This, I also walloped half of them :D We were lucky to have them :D During the week (few days before we get there) there were no sign of the mantis prawns but fortunately B's dad manage to catch them on the day we arrived.

It was also very fresh. When we peel the shells off, the flesh was intact (as a whole) and FIRM. All of us enjoyed sucking and biting the meat off. The curry mantis prawns was B's mother's special and she had mercy on us by making it less spicy... Hahaha!

I wasn't planning to stop until YC told me that her friend turned allergic to prawns due to prawn overdose :S So much for telling me that...I dropped my prawn immediately after hearing that LOL!

It was a cooling night and fortunately no rain. We decided to ride around the small pekan. Some were on bicycles, some rode the motorcycle. We stopped over at the market area for some ais kacang and there were so many people.

I saw a stall selling prawn noodles and the other sells curry mee. My friend told me the curry mee there's famous but I was more curious about prawn noodles. I could only stomach 1 bowl of noodle so I picked prawn noodles instead :)

Well, I didn't regret. The prawn noodle soup wasn't as murky as the ones in Penang and my mouth doesn't stink after having them. It's like having a slightly diluted version of my friend's prawn noodle. Interestingly, they don't use fried shallots. Instead they add in fried 'tim chok' (甜竹) and the owner was pretty generous with the prawns. Although tiny, but every bite of the noodle has a prawn or two stuck on it. Haha. The prawns didn't seem to be fried with chilli like the ones in Penang but they are good on their own. Before I forgot, their soup wasn't sweet base but 鲜甜 and more to the savory side :) I slurped the bowl dry. After that, I realised there wasn't any sediments beneath the bowl which you would normally find when having Penang prawn noodles.

All that was washed down with a bowl of ais kacang....I was extremely satisfyingly bloated ~ *burp*

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I think it's a coincidence that the trip was arranged in a chain manner LOL! We spent less than 20 minutes at the charcoal factory and headed over to the Matang Forest Reserve, the place where Green Wood/Bakau Minyak grows. The ride took no more than 5 minutes to reach there. We were a bit in a rush because the day's getting darker.

After we took a form (some survey form required to fill in when we enter the area) from the office, we were immediately greeted by these trees :)

Visitors can either choose to park near the entrance and walk in; or ...

drive further more until you see the structure below. This is the starting point of the forest walk. Pretty long distance. If not mistaken, we spent around an hour and half which includes stopping a while, sight seeing and most important of all...taking pictures!

Visitors can choose to rent the chalets and stay over for the night. Not sure of the price though and at this point my friends were feeling mosquitoes wheezing all over them. Perhaps less mosquitoes during high tide?

I haven't been on a long walk for quite some time so I was sweating beads haha!

At some point of the walk, you would see the river...

and a docking area where the boats (for fire fly trips) parked. Yupz...there are fire flies at Kuala Sepetang too, besides Nibong Tebal. But no one was there and we forgot to ask the officers about it before we left.

More trees... I say evening was the best time to visit the park as its not so hot.

Another place which I'd seen only through television so it felt really good for me to be there finally :)

Let's head home for dinner!

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Whenever you are visiting kampung areas, its not unusual that you see people riding motorcycle without helmet and driving around without putting on seat belts :P How else you gonna squeeze in more than 3 people at the back of the car eh?

A couple of minutes driving and we are standing at the one of Kuala Sepetang's famous charcoal factory. I am pretty sure this site is talking about the one I visited. Anyway, when we were there the area was dead silent. Probably you would hear cars passing by or dogs barking. Other than that, the place looked as if it'd been abandoned LOL...

Baking process had started and transporting logs only takes place during early morning, when the tide is high. The place below is where the boats carrying logs come in. The water level was very low when we were there.

So I guess no point having so many workers around right? Only saw the lady boss there and she was kind enough to let us in ;)

Not a single part of the tree is wasted because leftover of the chopped trees were used to fire up the kiln and they are neatly placed outside the factory (near the entrance).

It was my first time visiting a charcoal factory :D Previously I onlyget to watch it from television. The moment you reach the place, you wouldbe able to smell the charcoal. You can sniff out the difference betweenthe charcoal there and the regular ones back in Penang.Yeah la, still smokey smell but it doesn't smell 'choking'. No wonder the charcoals produced at Kuala Sepetang can make it all the way to Japan.

Lucky to be able to see some remaining logs outside the kiln. I am only a head taller than the logs hahaha!

I think one of the food to look out for should be satay. Obviously they would be using locally produced charcoal right? Aih...I only thought about it at time of writing this post. My brains are getting slower these days...

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Moving on from Taiping, we quickly head over to Kuala Sepetang, my friends hometown. Not exactly great weather but at least there was no rain. Before reaching Kuala Sepetang Town, one has to drive past this road. On the left side of the picture is the famous Matang Mangrove Forest or to some "红树林". A long straight road with dense mangrove forest on the side, very scenic indeed.


A couple of minutes later, we reach the town. It was an interesting experience to me because I have never been to this part of Perak before. I could only see hills and rubber trees back at my father's hometown.

My friends and I were very excited. One of them thinks this place is 'photogenic'. Hahaha...I have to agree with him. 这地方很有味道...

The bustling Kuala Sepetang Town roads are much more narrow compare to Pekan Lenggong. Thus not having a feel that its a pekan. Hahaha. It felt more like a housing area with mini grocery stores and coffee shops instead XD By the way, a quick check on wikipedia, this place was previously known as Port Weld. So there is a history behind this town but I guess my friend didn't know about it LOL...

We were just in time to catch the scene below. The workers were gathering dried prawns after sun drying them on cement floor for the whole day. The premise next to my friend's home is a small factory producing dried prawns and salted fish. That's why when we got off the car, the area smells of dried seafood. 海的味道... LOL!

We hanged out here for a while to take some air. Light breeze swifts by with swallows chirping.

My friend's dad was cleaning the Mantis Prawns for our dinner later in the evening! I think there's a kilo of it in there! Wahahaha...I shall leave it for the next post.

It only took my dad's friend awhile to finish up what he was doing. And he threw us a surprise by telling us we are getting a short boat ride along the river! Woohoo! The jetty was a stones throw away from my friend's home.

Houses in Kuala Sepetang were built closely together. They remind me of my previous visit to Penang's Mixed Surname Jetty.

Walk through the alley and here we were.

The jetty faces the mangrove swamp. Pretty much like Nibong Tebal but I think the Kuala Sepetang's river view was much nicer.

Somehow the sky cleared a little but it wasn't hot. It's been a while since I hop onto a boat.

Sorry for the blur picture. Haha this is the best my (lousy) camera could take in maximum zoom mode. Unfortunately it got maximum-ly blurred too :P

Spent several good minutes on the boat taking in the view and a sky full of eagles. Very happy :D The day was getting late. Already 5 pm when we returned from the boat ride.

Not to waste time, we quickly change our transportation mode to car and head off to our next destination, Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve :D

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I am dedicating this Nescafe Raya card to all my Muslim friends and fellow readers~ Wishing you guys a safe journey back to kampung and ber-Happy Raya!

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Finally a trip with my friends! That's about time...No pre-plans because the trip was decided the night before. That is how crazy my friends can be :P

The day started out cloudy followed by heavy rain for an hour or two but after that, the sky cleared when we wanted to head over to Weld Quay.

Bright sun + blue sky = smooth trip :D

We had to take ferry over to mainland Penang's bus terminal because there were no bus (to Kamunting, Taiping) available at Sungai Nibong Bus Terminal. Its been ages since I'd been on a ferry...5 years?

The bus arrived at 1.30pm. Fortunately there was still some time to spare because we are unsure of the bus schedule. We happily hopped into the bus, snored for 1.5 hours and there we were...Kamunting, Taiping.

And guess what? I our first stop was actually Taiping's Tesco not cendol stall... LOL! But of course we didn't simply drop by the hypermarket for fun. We had to pick up some stuff to BBQ at my friend's place later when night falls.

Later on, we tried our luck to see if Bismillah Cendol was still open. My friend said it finishes early and it was 4++pm already. The stall was located at Jalan Barrack (Taiping) behind a secondary school. Indeed, the stall was still open when we reached.

Because we were late, they had run out of red beans and 'pulut' (Malay term for glutinous rice).

This was the uncle behind the stall that day. He was packing several packets of cendol. I noticed that take-away cendol's portion was huge. The mug he used was a standard container to contain shaved ice and other condiments before pouring them into a huge plastic bag.

A cooling bowl of cendol... It was a bit to my disappointment because the santan was not as thick as I thought. The santan did not have the slight salty after taste. I guess the coconut milk was freshly prepared daily as they don't last very long without salt. The black sugar syrup had sharp but light taste compare to Penang's. The cendol strands was interesting because it has a distinctive pandan flavor to it, not just the color. Too bad they were too soft for my liking.

After eating, I asked if I could visit the back to see the place they prepared the cendol. They gladly allowed :)

They had already made the cendol so we only get to see the finish product, one huge container of it. The machine below was the machine they used to cook the cendol.

How I know about the place? I clearly remember an episode of Ho Chiak (8TV) aired about 3 years ago. They introduced this place towards the end of the show. Hehe...

Okay...Taiping famous cendol, checked. More post coming up :D

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Soorrryyy peeps for the long hiatus. Had a really bad backache and the only thing I could think of was 'PAIN' >.< Jason and Gill for the little 'field trip' and making us feeling like kids again :D Having tried gelato by another gelato vendor, now I can make a fair comparison between the two.

This is the only Gelatissimo outlet in Penang. One can easily spot it along Gurney Plaza's Alfresco area. Originating from Australia (Italian owners) and has reached our shores for quite some time. Now, they made it to Penang.

It was a joy looking into the gelato chiller...So colourful and there were all sorts of flavor :D The gelatos are all made using imported natural ingredients. These were the flavours of the day and would change frequently as Gelatissimo has over 90+ flavors. However only portion of them were made available in Malaysia as not all of of the flavor suits our local taste buds.

They really live up to their tagline, 'The Real Taste of Italia". The gelatos (ranging from premium sorbets to premium dairies) were very smooth, fresh and not too sweet. Each has their distinctive taste and I kinda like the idea of having cake flavors in gelato version such as Profiterole, Tiramisu and Strawberry Cheese XD

But the top seller gelatos would be Belgium Chocolate and Mango. Truly, they taste great. Belgium Chocolate flavor was super intense and the super smooth mango sorbet gave made me feel as if I was munching on a frozen real mango.

It doesn't matter what I say here actually because you can taste of the gelato of your choice before buying except for Chocolate with Chili. Not spicy and the chili flavor only appear as a subtle aftertaste.

The Passion Fruit Blood Orange sorbet were good too but the seeds were a bit annoying.

Currently they are serving those gelatos in paper cups and small wafer cone. Soon large wafer cones would be available at the store. Actually, its much fun to have gelato with wafer cones. One bite gelato, one bite wafer. Everything ends up in your stomach...very environmental friendly LOL!

Below are the pricing for cups and cones:

• 1 Flavour Cup RM 8.90
• 2 Flavours Cup RM 12.90
• 3 Flavours Cup RM 16.90
  

• 1 Flavour Cone RM 9.90
• 2 Flavours Cone RM 13.90
• 3 Flavours Cone RM 17.90

As for take aways, Gelatissimo offers 2 types of packing:

• Regular 650cc 2 flavors RM35.90
• Large 1300cc 3 flavors RM65.90

Blogger's Gelato Choice: Belgium Choc and Mango?
Many of us pack 650cc of the mentioned gelato tho...

While waiting for the other group to finish their field trip, we get to taste some Mango Shakes. One word...Good :D I just love the Mango taste...

Below are the pricing for the shakes:

• Regular - RM14.90
• Extra thick - RM16.90

If one prefers something more 'adult', there's Affogato (Italian word for 'drown'). The management thinks its best to source the espresso premix from Illy for convenience.

The item that was drowned would be a scoop of Biscottino.

The espresso was rich and aromatic. Although it came in powdered form, the taste was pleasant and smooth. Probably the Biscottino gelato soften its taste a little. I gulp down the rest after some of us tasted. Hehe...

This is Mei Yi's cup of gelato, consisting Green Tea and Belgium Choc. Good choice as Green Tea was one of my favorite too :)

Thanks again to Mr. Hong the Marketing Manager who was willing to patiently explain to us the process of making those lip smacking gelato.

Another great day meeting the blogger geng....

Happy slurping~

Add: G-45A Gurney Plaza, Penang.
Contact: +604 2280822

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