Hakka Restaurant, KL

Hakka Restaurant in KL is located in an old building behind the Pavilion. If you're not familiar with the area, driving there can be a nightmare. The food was okay, with some dishes making the mark and some not. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal, partly because we were so sick of Shanghainese food by then. It was also the first time in 10 days that we ate rice, as we didn't eat a grain of rice (except for rice wine grains in dessert soups) on our Shanghai trip, and it was so comforting.

Hakka Restaurant's food leans more towards simple and unfussy home-cooked dishes.


Bittergourd omelette, a refreshing dish after all the fancy dishes we ate in China.


Steamed chicken with salted fish. Are you drooling yet because I am.


I thought Hakka kiew nyuk is always with taro and five-spice powder so I was disappointed when they served a plate of kiew nyuk with mui choy.


Restaurants always cook veggies dishes so well , and this plate of water spinach with fermented bean curd was yummy.


A delicious claypot of taro and pork.



This was disappointing because the 'abacus' hardly had any taro and tasted like ordinary flour dumplings. I've always wanted to try Hakka 'abacus' which is similar to gnocchi except the 'abacus' has taro instead of potatoes.  Although the Chinese in Sabah are mostly Hakkas, this dish is not found here probably because Sabah Hakkas are different from the 'abacus'-eating Hakkas in the Peninsula.  

Next up is another tasty meal somewhere in Kepong. I'm leaving for Melbourne first thing tomorrow morning but do check in and say hi because I have scheduled some posts.

Volpetti & Testaccio Market

We had a choice of going to the most famous Roman market, Campo dei Fiori, or to Volpetti, a fine foods store recommended by Europe expert Rick Steves. Unfortunately, I chose Volpetti because it was late when we got ready to go (and I didn't know that the market in Camp dei Fiori lasted through the day) and I thought the Testaccio market next to Volpetti wouldn't be much different from that in Campo dei Fiori. I was wrong, because the Testaccio market was small and Volpetti, although a wonder store, was overpriced.




Black truffles and salami.




We preferred meat suppli to rice suppli.


Pizza rossa (tomato pizza) is lovely but I found Volpetti's pizzas not as good as those in the regular pizza shops. Pizzas in shops are usually sold by weight.


On the left, toppings were anchovies and zucchini flowers and on the right, potatoes. Superb flavors!

We spent hours in Volpetti, picking up parma ham, black truffles (I bought two only for about 30 euros each; Hub was to bring them home while I stayed back in Europe for another 6 weeks), truffle salts, a couple of cheeses and unusual canned food. After the damage to our credit cards, we walked by the Testaccio market again (only 1 block away from Volpetti) and I realized that everything we bought in Volpetti was more expensive than those in the market. The prosciutto hams especially were much cheaper and the locals all shopped in the market. They seemed to prefer prosciutto crudo instead of parma. I sampled both prosciutto crudo and parma and couldn't tell the difference. I must tell you about the salami. Since I wasn't very familiar with cured meats, I bought two kinds of salami, one with a white coating and another without. The salami without the white coating was excellent, fresh, sweet and wonderful but the white one was too hard and strongly flavored. If I knew that salami can be so tasty, I would've saved all my luggage space for it. I also picked up excellent grana padano, pecorino and Parmesan in Pisa, my port of exit. The grana padano especially was surprisingly savory-sweet and smelled fantastic, without the stink of baby vomit like the ones we get at home home. Good grano padano is only about 9 euros per kg in Italy and it was an Italian in Pisa who told me that a good grano padano is just as good as any other fancier Parmesan. That was quite a tip for me. The cookbooks always tout prosciutto parma and parmigiano reggiano but the Italians themselves use proscuitto crudo and grano padano, which are cheaper.


Tomatoes from Sicily are the best, I was told, and this stall in Testaccio market sold only Sicilian tomatoes. I asked for the best, and the friendly Italian guy gave me a couple to sample. So sweet of him.


I love the fountains in Italy where you can drink from and wash your fruits and veggies.


I bought enough to last me a year or two.




Did you know that rocket (arugula) grows wild in Italy? Seems like the only Italian veggie we hear and read about is rocket but, just as in China, there are so many other types of veggies that we don't know about.


Poor guy had to hand cut (I preferred thicker slices) 3 kgs of proscuitto crudo for me. I left Italy with 5 kgs of prosciutto, 1.5 kg of sun-dried tomatoes, 1/2 kg of dried porcini, 3 kgs of cheese, a couple of salami,1 kg of pancetta, a bottle of limoncello, a bottle of vin santo and 4 jars of white/black truffle salt.

If you want to visit a market in Rome, make sure it's the one at Campo dei Fiori. I hear it's as good as La Boqueria, if not more lively, because Campo dei Fiori is an open piazza.

Tashreeb Dijaaj And Tabbouleh

Tashreeb, an Iraqi chicken and chick peas stew.

I'm reading 'Best Food Writing 2009' and on page 187 is a recipe for an Iraqi chicken stew with chick peas which also appeared in Saveur sometime ago. When I found that sumac, a spice from the fruits of the sumac plant widely used in the Middle East, is one of the ingredients in the recipe,  I immediately got into action. I got some sumac in Dubai earlier this year and am unsure how to use it. Sumac, btw, tastes slightly sourish but is quite pleasant. It doesn't have a strong flavor and if you don't have it, it's not the end of the dish.

Tashreeb is a curry stew but it isn't Indian or Caribbean or Chinese or Malaysian curry. It's Iraqi, and it's milder and thinner than the curries we are used to. Which is why I get annoyed when people ignorant of other cuisine compare new food unfavorably to whatever they are used to eating. My hub thought this was my worst curry dish (and that's bad news because I'm not good at curries) because the curry flavor was so mild. But I liked it because I didn't think of it as our regular curry. Like I said, it's annoying when people compare.

Anyway, since I like it, I will blog about it. Tashreeb is served over torn pieces of flat breads such as naan, which soaks up the sauce. I didn't quite like the canned chick peas (bland and too soft) so next time I cook this, I will use dried chick peas. I served the stew with tabbouleh, a refreshing parsley salad that appeared at every meal I ate in Dubai. To be truthful, the tabbouleh scored better than the tashreeb. Tabbouleh is Lebanese in origin but is eaten all over the Middle East. You must make this salad. It is SO good and super easy to make. The ingredients are simple everyday ingredients that you have in your kitchen so you needn't run out to get them. I used parsley, mint and spring onions from my garden. I couldn't find bulghur and thought of substituting it with couscous or quinoa (which I dislike) but I couldn't find those either and didn't bother to try other supermarkets. I think that along with eating seasonal, we should improvise sometimes, and so I used--I know this'll make the Arabs mad--fine vermicelli pasta, those you find in chicken soup. What to do, I live in Borneo.

I suppose you can add more spices into the stew if you like the curry flavor more intense. Like I said, be open, this isn't curry curry.

Tashreeb Dijaaj

1/4 cup canola oil

6 cloves garlic, chopped

3 small onions (I used red onions), sliced

4-6 medium waxy potatoes, peeled & in large chunks

2 bay leaves

2 T curry powder (or 3 T if like)

1 T tumeric powder

1/2 T salt (to taste)

4 chicken legs

4 chicken thighs

1 19-oz chickpeas*, drained

1 lemon, quartered

1 T sumac (optional)

*or use chick peas but they have to be soaked overnight and cooked

1. Heat the oil in a medium-sized pot and fry the garlic, onions, bay leaves, curry powder, tumeric powder for a minute. Add the chicken and the potatoes, continue frying for about 8-10 minutes over medium heat.

2. Add 3 1/2 cups of water/chicken stock, stir through and let simmer until potatoes and chicken are tender, about 25 minutes.

3. Add the chickpeas and heat through, about 2-3 minutes.

4. Put a couple pieces of torn naan onto a plate and ladle the stew over. Sprinkle some sumac over and serve with the lemon wedges.

Tabbouleh. My sous chef that night had cut everything too thick and I couldn't get hold of bulghur but still, this salad was a hit.

Tabbouleh

1/4 cup bulghur

2 cups finely sliced flat leaf parsley

1/2 cup finely sliced mint

1 large ripe tomato, diced

1/2 onion, chopped finely or 1/4 cup finely sliced spring onions (I prefer the latter)

1 cucumber, preferably Lebanese, diced

juice from 1/2 lemon

salt & freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup EVOO

1. Soak the bulghur in very hot water for 5 minutes (depending on the brand; some are parboiled) and drain well.

2. Mix everything well and serve either at room temperature or cold.

The Vatican: St Peter's Basilica

A short walk to the other side of the Vatican City is this entrance into St Peter's Basilica. Although the church is closed to the public on Wednesday mornings because the Pope addresses the crowd from the church balcony, by early afternoon, the church is open again.




This is the scene when we got in. Hub suggested we leave because the line wound around the whole square. But if we left, we wouldn't have any other day to come again so we stood in line. Surprisingly, the line moved very fast and within 30 minutes, we were at the entrance of the church. That just shows how efficient they could handle the lines and how big the church is. St Peter's is the largest in the world with a capacity to hold 60,000 people. Because the line was a few people thick, many people just cut in and it was hard to tell them off when it was so rampantly done.

Entrance is free of charge but be sure you are decently dressed. I was stopped at the Basilica entrance because my arms were bare. I put on my sweater and was allowed in but about half a dozen men were standing to the side, bounced from entering, and their transgression seemed to be their flip flops.




There's so much to see in the Basilica, from tombs of popes and saints, to famous paintings and sculptures. You need more than a day to cover the whole church and the dome.


This baroque structure, called a baldachin, was designed by the Italian sculptor and architect Benini. Under the structure is the tomb of St Peter.


I didn't expect the Basilica and everything inside to be so massive. The statues, paintings and sculptures are just awesome. I think everyone has to visit St Peter's Basilica at least once. My trip to the Basilica preceded my visit to Sagrada Familia. Personally, I prefer the interior of the SF even though it is still not completed. St Peter's is too Baroque for me, to put in simply, but the statues and the paintings are hard to beat. I have met at least 3 people who went to the SF and didn't go inside. It's like looking at a luscious chocolate cake and not eat it.


Of all the statues in St Peter's, this pieta by Michelangelo must be the most important and most highly acclaimed.




When you get closer, you see that all the paintings in the basilica are made of intricately pieced mosiac, each the size of your pinkie nail. Maybe that's why they can last so long unchanged.


Do not visit the Basilica and not go up to the dome or Cupola. That would be, to say the least, sacrilegious. Most tourists go up the elevator (7 euros each, I think it was) and then climb the 300-odd marble steps, unchanged for hundreds of years. If you want to prove you're fit, climb the 500-odd steps up. Should anything untoward happen, at least you died in St Peter's even if you can't be buried among all the saints and popes. The line going up is again very long, and waiting time was like 45 minutes. Be prepared for very narrow steps in passages that become more and more narrow and tight, almost claustrophobic. I had to stop many times to recover my breath.


The elevator stops here and you start walking the steps up to the dome.


View of St Peter's Square from the Cupola. The line had disappeared but about 4 hours before that, we were standing in line near the white banner on the columns. The basilica entrance is under the statues, so imagine how long the line was.


The view from the Cupola.


Going down the spiral narrow stairs, different from the flight of stairs going up. When going down, you can't use the elevator.


The steps have not been changed although the walls have been re-tiled.


The Vatican exists like a mini-country, with its own police and administrative systems including judicial and postal.


"You going to work dressed like that?"

Vatican City: Sistine Chapel

Frankly, I thought the Holy See was the Pope. I didn't know that it is the sovereign entity, headed by the Pope, that governs the state of Vatican City. In fact, I didn't know (and still don't) much about the Vatican City, except that that's where the Pope lives and also that's where I can see Michelangelo's The Last Judgment and The Creation Of Adam. You may, like me, remember The Creation Of Adam as a painting of God and Adam's ET moment.

Some trivia I picked up regarding the Vatican City: the guys in clown costumes are the Swiss Guards, the population of Vatican City is less than 1,000, the Pope rides in a motorcade around St Peter's Square on Wednesday morning and addresses the crowds from the balcony of the St Peter's Basilica, St Peter is buried in the church named after him, the art collection of the Vatican is comparable to that of The Louvre (my opinion) and Italians/Europeans/tourists in St Peter's Square jump queues all the time.



This is the line for the entrance into the part of the Vatican that leads to the Sistine Chapel. Although it was a Wed morning, none of us wanted to meet the Pope. I had a change of heart about 5 steps from the entrance into the Sistine Chapel but that meant leaving the line and walking to St Peter's Square (entrance is a short walk behind the end of the queue on the left of the photo). It would have been quite exhilarating to be part of the thousands in the square, judging from the photos taken by someone who was there on the same day. So remember that, the Pope says hi on Wednesdays and there are two entrances, one into the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel and one into St Peter's Square.

The perfectly manicured gardens of the Vatican museums with the Cupola of St Peter's Square in the background. You can't get to St Peter's Square from the Chapel. 

The museums of the Vatican are astounding in their collection of art and masterpieces. There are thousands of sculptures and paintings in the museums. Hundreds and thousands of them, some surprisingly not what you think the Church would own. Made me realize again how wealthy the RC Church is. Just going through the museums will take more than a day. Those who don't like art and paintings can skip the museums (but what a pity) and go straight to the Sistine Chapel. At least do a quick stroll like what we did, although that left me with a dissatisfied feeling.

Famous statues.


The many statues of gods and heros from Greek mythology in the museum grounds.  Charismatic Christians, proceed with caution.   


Beautiful, elaborate and intricate mosaic floors.


Don't miss the ceilings, which are all painted beautifully.


Besides the awesome paintings on the ceilings, the maps of Italy on the walls drawn by a band of brothers hundreds of years ago were also amazing. Don't forget that there were no airplanes, no GPS, no computers and little navigational tools in those days.


The Last Supper on the walls. What did they eat, other than bread and wine? There's fish and there's...


...a little lamb? Whatever it was, Jesus liberated us from kosher and halal food, didn't he?


A pieta (pity) is a piece of art, usually a sculpture, showing Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus.


You must be familiar with this: Men's brokenness becomes whole through salvation.

Finally, you are in that room. The room is packed tight. Everyone is looking up, trying to see among all the paintings and drawings on the ceiling. And there it is, The Creation Of Adam. A thrill runs down your limbs. A deal was struck with the restorers and the Vatican whereby no photography is allowed of the restored painting. The guards are shouting "No Photos!!" but people continue to click away because the room is so crowded. One of us managed to take this photo. Trivia:  God's finger and Adam's DO NOT connect.

The Last Judgment, the most famous painting in the Sistine Chapel, covered the whole wall behind the altar. Nobody dared to take any photos. It was a goosebumps and tight scalp moment for me. The painting was huge and there were lots of naked bodies. Michelangelo was truly amazing, finishing all the paintings on the ceiling in four years, balanced on scaffolding. Why did the renaissance period flourish so greatly and no other art and cultural movement since then has come close to it? Whatever the reasons, European countries are still reaping from the movement. Michelangelo and his peers wouldn't have known then that they would contribute so much to the income of Italy and Europe.

Do not miss the Sistine Chapel and museums of the Vatican when in Rome. Next time I'm there, I'll get a local guide and spend a few days going through the art collection.