Bentong, Pahang - my home for a few months

Work takes me to some amazing places and on a visit one time we headed to this quaint little town called kampung lama bukit Bentong and it was simply devine. About 45 minutes from KL, this village is surrounded by banana plots, vegetable gardens and fresh river fish resysursnts.

There were a few stalls selling a variety of amazing fruits including passion fruit, red skin bananas, buah nona, and vegetables  (some I have never seen before) such as purple spinach, a type of watercress thats less pungent, baby french beans and fern shoots. The vegetable lady was so kind to explain how to cook everything..and was intrigued as to why I was so interested. It ended up with me having to explain I was blogging about good food online. She didnt quiet understand so I found myself explaining to her what a blog was and me getting my phone out to show her. she loved it! and said, back in her day you got to spend time in the kitchen to document how to cook things. nowadays you can get your phone out and write it down. 'Gila' (crazy) she said with a huge smile on her face.
Simply amazing! its so awesome to be back in Malaysia :)

Today I cooked all day :) part 2 - an array of dishes and steam rice

Soy chicken with potatoes, grilled baby aubergines, stir fried water spinach with sambal belacan served with fluffy white rice...
yummm!!!

Today I cooked all day :) part 1- Pancakes

1st dish of the day was Pancakes!!!

I started by separating 2 eggs (yolks in one bowl and whites in another), 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of milk, half a cup of sugar and to add more zest, vanilla concentrate, coco powder and rainbow sprinkles.

Start by beating the beeze knees out of the egg white until stiff. In a separate bowl, add egg yolk to flour and sugar and mix well. Add the milk bit by bit until its smooth and lastly a dash of the amazing vanilla concentrate.

NOTE: depending on your preference you can make it slightly runnier if you wish to make crepes (thin pancakes) and slightly thicker if you want american style pancakes (which is what  I made today)


Once your happy with the consistency of your batter fold in you egg whites to make it fluffy!! I then separated the batter into 2 batches and added the cocoa powder to one batch :)

To cook: start by placing a flat pan on a low heat and rub butter all over it. Using a round ladel or spoon, drop the batter into pan. how do you know if its cooked on one side? wait until you see bubbles appear (see picture below) and you know its time for you to flip it onto the other side. Add sprinkles on the bubbling side to add some colour :)

Enjoy with maples syrup, chocolate spread, lemon and sugar, fresh fruit or on its own :)

The BEST peranakan restaurant! Amy's Heritage Nyonya Restaurant Melaka

There are no words to discribe how amazing this restaurant is. It felt like home cause your served by an 'aunty' and an 'uncle' who welcome you with warmth and hurrys you to finish so they can go home by 11pm. Super cute. Its part of the charm so just go with it..

The location of this amazing place is
75 Jalan Melaka Raya 24 | Taman Melaka Raya, Melaka, Malaysia
+606 6 286 8819

We had:
Steamed rice
Asam fish - Sour, tamariniee, spicey fish broth with firm fish, okra, fresh tomatoes
Kangkung belacan - water spinach cooked in fish paste and dried small prawns
Chicken Pongteh - chicken cooked in an oyster sauce and broen bean paste garnish with dried shitake mashroom and potatoes
Prawn sambal - fresh plump prawns cooked in a thick chillie paste

Pictures to highlight the awesomeness..

Melaka day 1

Sometimes all you need is a great friend, a car and a place to go to to eat great food.

Here are 3 meals we had on our first day in Melaka for lunch. We did the typical tourist thing and hung out at Jonker street. We started with chicken rice balls and an assortment of side dishes which included kailan in garlic and otak-otak (fish fillet cooked in spices and coconut milk) yumm. We then headed over to have the ever so famous ABC. Its a mixture of asorted jelly, sweet corn, red bean, topped with shaven ice and drizzled with syrup, melted palm sugar and evaporated milk.. refreshing and sweet!!

After walking around we found this quaint little shop where this old lady was making onde-onde. Its basically tapioca flour mixed with pandan juice rolled around a palm sugar rock. Its boiled in salty water for no more then a minute and tossed in fresh coconut shavings. The sensations of eating this dessert/snack is like a poping bursting  sensation in your mouth of a creamy, sweet, slighlty perfumy silky and salty ball. Its amazing!!

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Malaysian Markets

Aubergines all shapes and sizes. Great for curries, vegetables stews, grilling with some olive oil or even eating raw in a salad (Small white rounded ones)


An array of chinese greens, long beans, bak choi, bitter gourd, spinach leaves, water spinach (or kangkung)

Salted fish! yummy! these are sliced so thinly that when you fry them they become so crispy. Its amazing just to crush them ever so slightly and sprinkle on hot warm rice as it gives it so much flavour...

This is what we call Bunga Kantan or Ginger Flower. It almost acts as a perfume for any savoury dish. Used manly in Asam pedas dishes but i like to slice the flower up thinly and add it to salads as it give the additional aroma and the tender flower petals add a nice texture to the salad
Tropical fruit is a delight as there is always some sort of fruit in season at any given time of the year. Rambutans (red fur ball type fruit, left of picture) have an amazing white flesh that is usually juicy and sweet, Mangosteens (purple hard exterior fruit, Middle of picture) which had a tangy sweet white flesh and of course we have mangoes, both sweet, sour, creamy, firm. The versatility of Malaysian Tropical fruits enables us to use it in both sweet and savory dishes. i.e. Mangoes can be used in curries or salads