Sleepy Hao, Akiraceo Jian and I headed to town for a more decent (Anything better than Sushi King or maybe Sibaraku is considered decent.) Japanese food. Actually, I have nothing to blog anymore, so I dragged these two scapegoats along so that I have more pictures to be used in my post.

I read about this particular restaurant from Yung.’s blog and decided to give it a try. Who knows, I might have another place to have my all time favourite unagis whenever I feel like I want to.

Wa Zen 和膳 Japanese Restaurant, located not too far from Portuguese Hotel, operates quietly in Melaka Raya. It’s relatively easy to find and parking is ample. However, do take note the lane opposite the shop is drawn with yellow lines, so, try not to park there during the day time.

There aren’t many tables in the restaurants. A glance at it, there could be less than 10 tables, with separated cubicles on the left and a private room at the back. Warm lighting and fully air conditioned.

My complain is that, they actually allow their patrons to smoke inside the air conditioned restaurants. Not very wise, I would say. Ample space between each tables and still comfortable to sit in. I think the restaurant is quite popular in town, as we had to wait for a short while before being seated as all tables were occupied. There were a lot of Japanese customers having dinner there too, to my surprise.

Then, I noticed this cat again. Its in every Japanese restaurant, I believe. I seen it here, Sibaraku and also Sushi King. Meow~

Upon seated, hot towels are served to all patrons. However, with three photographers around, hot towels ended up being cold by the time we use it. As usual, pre-packed wooden chopsticks and chilled green tea.

While waiting for our food to arrive, I played with the stuffs available on the table. The Japanese soy sauce, chilies flakes and tooth picks.

For starters, Hao and I had the fresh salmon handroll and soft shell crabs handroll. Taste wise, it was edible but definitely lost out in terms of taste. The seaweed used to wrap around the ingredients were not easy to tear off, making it quite a little troublesome to eat and with all the egg roes falling off. I wonder the seaweed got “stiffed” because of our photo taking time. The waiter did remind us to eat them quickly.

We ordered the sets, which come with a bowl of white rice, salads, steamed eggs, two slices of watermelons and whatever you ordered main dish. It was really disappointing to see a small pool of water after I finished the bowl of salads, which could only mean they didn’t drain the lettuce properly before serving. The steamed egg contained too much water and has lost its texture. A failed cawanmushi.

Hao ordered tori rose katsu set (deep fried pork chop) while Jian ordered teriyaki chicken rice set. I don’t know how it tasted, so let it be.

As for me, definitely and nothing else but unagis. Yummy! I was telling May Gin this early evening that I was having cravings for unagis.

The unagis were much drier compare to many other unagis that I have tried in other Japanese restaurants. However, the taste was there albeit not that strong. The delicate white meat was cooked to perfection, retaining its firm texture and yet soft and smooth enough to glide down my throat. Again, some sweet sauce onto the white rice would be nice, for its too dry, the whole set that is.

In Malacca, there are only a few Japanese restaurants, with Sushi King dominating the market. However, with Wa Zen around, the locals have another options. I would definitely come back again, especially when I feel like having a more proper Japanese food rather than the sucky but still edible Sushi King. There’s another Japanese restaurant that is about to open soon in Dataran Pahlawan, but that will be another post.

Wa Zen Japanese Restaurant
38, Jalan Melaka Raya 15,
Taman Melaka Raya, 75000 Melaka.

06-2823882

It has been residing in my notebook for quite sometime actually. While some of you would recognize who she is, some won’t. She’s JiNz / Jinlan. Do download the PDF file if you want to see a series of pictures of her, in full glamour.

I am not even 1/3 as popular as most celebrity bloggers out there.
My traffic barely touches the 1,000 visits per day mark.
10,000 unique visitors per month always seem to be a dream for my blog and me.

Like it or not, I don’t see myself as a celebrity blogger like Kenny Sia, Ringo Tan, Timothy Tiah, Shaolin Tiger, Kimberlycun, Fireangel, Suanie and the many more heavy weight bloggers in Malaysia blogsphere.

However, I think I am blessed with a lot of loyal and nice readers who never stop reading my blog over the years, treating me as good friends, buying me meals, baking me cookies and muffins, writing me snail mail and cards and even buying me gifts or souvenirs.

I woke up feeling drowsy due to insomnia during the previous night and saw a package sitting on top of my notebook. It was from Chong, a relatively new reader of mine who happens to use the same camera as me, Canon EOS 40D. We never meet up before.

Looking at the fragile sticker behind, I carefully opened the parcel and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the writings on the box.

B+W Circular Polarizer Filter for 67mm. This piece of glass, I estimated it to be somewhere around RM250 +- RM50.

The function of a CPL filter, an illustration I grabbed from Wikipedia would explain it clearly.

For the uninitiated, B+W is probably the best filter manufacturer around since the early age of cameras. It is considered a branded item and very well known among photographers. It is made in Germany and using brass. Hence, the excellent built quality and weight.

Inside the box, was a short note that reads, “Souvenir and be-late-d birthday gift from Singapore. Cheers, Chong.”.

Friend, while I truly appreciate the gift you got for me, isn’t the gift a little too expensive? I even feel guilty about it. I was merely joking about getting one for me as a souvenir while you were in Singapore. Honestly and seriously, thank you very much. It could probably be the best birthday gift I ever received so far. I owe you one, big time.

Sim Koa Yen is not just a durian orchard farm located somewhere near Durian Tunggal. It is a durian orchard that uses minimal pesticides, only organic fertilizers and was awarded SALM (Farm Accreditation Scheme of Malaysia). Those are not the important facts, the important thing is that they serve durian buffet for only RM35 per adult, RM18 per child below age 12 and F.O.C for child below age 5.

Unlike D’ Paradise that served low quality durians or none at all (Read Jesslyn’s first hand experience of D’ Paradise by clicking here.), Sim Koa Yen up a notch by serving high grade durians such as “Red Prawn”, D24, “Jiabili”, “Cibei”, “Raja Kunyit” and etc.

They had such good reputations that Singaporeans would organize tours to pay the farm a visit. He even had customers from Taiwan too!

Finding the “entrance” was easy, but from the main road to the orchard, the 2.5km route took us almost 30 minutes, passing by rubber plantations, dragon fruit plantations, vast fields, lakes and chicken farm.

Finally, we saw some really big durians, waiting for the “ripe” time to drop. At the “station”, piles of durians were gathered at one corner, which were to be served later at a private function. Come to think of it, it could probably be my first visit to a durian orchard. Heh!

Instead of using chopping knife to open the durians, the owner has created a specially crafted “device” to pry those durians by just pressing down the handle. Seriously, opening a durian is as easy as ABC and probably takes less than 30 seconds to fully open it.

Since it was a buffet, we were served with a huge varieties of durians. From the dry to wet type, sweet to bitterish type, branded species to kampung species, you name it, they serve it. Considering that I didn’t manage to eat a single pulp of durian last year, I whacked as many as I could. My favourite got to be “Raja Kunyit”, sweet and creamy. My mum would probably prefer “Horlor”, wet and slightly bitter kind though.

Seriously, I never eat so much durians at one go in my life. I was there from 12.30pm until 3pm, all I ever did throughout my time there was, eat, eat, and eat. In fact, by the time I left the orchard, I already felt the heat inside me and my throat was acting funny.

Some artistic shot. :D

If you are a durian lover, like me, you should give it a try. One needs to make appointment before paying visit as they need to collect the durians before that.

Sim Koa Yen
MC-2-34 & MC-2-35,
Jalan SB Utama, Taman Seri Bayan,
76100 Durian Tunggal,
Alor Gajah, Melaka.

RM35 per adult.
RM18 per child (below age 12).
F.O.C per child (below age 5).

012-6816895 / 012-6786895 / 06-5532500 / 06-5532600 (Reservation is a MUST!)

My boss, Allison, Pelf Yeen and myself so happened had to go to a place together and after finishing what we were supposed to do, we headed out for lunch.

Seeing that we needed to pass by Cheng and recalling that there’s a bah kut teh restaurant that I wanted to try but yet to, I suggested it and most of us agreed, except for 50%-vegetarian Pelf Yeen. She only eats chicken and fish, the white meat. Sad, right?

SH (Shun Fatt) Bah Kut Teh Restaurant, said to be a branch from somewhere else, and this particular branched could be the 17th or 19th. Why not 18th? There’s a branch in Bachang and that branch is the 18th, according to the signboard, that is.

As it was lunch time, there were quite a lot of customers, occupying most of the tables at that moment.

Garlics, cili padis, dark soy sauce with red chilies. A must, in every bah kut teh meal, together with a pot of Chinese tea.

Since the invention of gas stove, many has ditched charcoal fire but in this particular restaurant, they use charcoals to boil / cook your pot of bah kut teh. Yes, old school style. While using charcoals will give you a smoky smell to your already fragrant dishes, it is not easy to control the heat and fire. Slightly bigger, there goes your food. Anything too small, you get uncooked food.

The pot of bah kut teh, surprisingly, tasted nothing like bah kut teh. The soup was way too clear for bah kut teh, it was almost like those noodles soup. Taste wise, it was more of herbal soup with somewhat slightly stronger angelica (当归) taste. Honestly, after patronizing a few bah kut teh stalls, I wouldn’t call this as bah kut teh.

However, my boss like the soup though.

For the non pork eater, we ordered a small pot of chicken cooked in sesame oil.

The aromatic sesame oil was simply irresistible and I quickly dug in once I took my photos. While it wasn’t the best, it was definitely delicious. Just the right amount of oiliness, with thick soy sauce for the flavour and sesame oil for the fragrance. Yummy! However, it is either they used a very skinny chicken or they simply chopped the meat. There were bones everywhere, I found myself chewing on the bones more than the meat itself. Probably they should have diced it into chicken cubes instead of chopping it like minced meat.

While it wasn’t entirely disappointing, their bah kut teh is definitely not my kind of bah kut teh. However, I got to applaud them for using pork ribs instead of those pathetic sliced meat and meat balls yet proudly declaring it as bah kut teh. It always give me the WTF-feeling whenever I order bah kut teh yet seeing meat balls floating on the soup like some fish balls.

Will I return? Nope.

Just not my kind of bah kut teh lah! It’s an acquired taste kind of bah kut teh. You can try, if you want to. Probably, you, like my boss, would like it!