Guang Zhou Trip

Before flying to GuangZhou, my friends helped me to search for places of interest for my short trip this time.
I stayed at LiuHua Road, Guang Zhou. It’s quite a strategic place for me to go around.
There’s 2 Lake & Garden there, Liu Hua Lake & Yue Xiu Lake Garden. First day there, I had a walk around Liu Hua Lake.

Next destination were Beijing Road, recommended by the hotel receptionist. Took a cab there. Wow, the streets were so crowded. Lots of people were having their Sunday weekend there. There were the promoters standing in front of the shops to welcome & attract customer to enter their shops. It’s quite competitive as there were many shops there. You could spent the whole evening till 1030pm there to shop for clothes, accessories, snacks and many more. Over there, you could get the best price if you area good bargainer ;P
A reminder, you will need to remember a landmark where you begin, coz you might get lost after walking many stretch & a few corners.




The below shop has a huge crowd buying snacks. I observed that it has quite a numberof outlets in Guang Zhou and most of the time there were crowds buying the snacks.

And everywhere in GuangZhou, you see the Asian Games 5 Goats sculptures.

Some of the shoplot boutique sells clothes at a moderate price, with quite good quality of the clothes.
After a hectic walk around there, I drop by a café to have my dinner. I ordered Fried Noodle; sort of fried Udon I would say. Quite nice however it’s very oily.
I had Yin Yong Drink.

Night time, the LED lights were light up on the trees, very beautiful…:)

Observed there were Coca-Cola stalls selling many different kinds of Ice Blended Mango, Strawberry and others..It would be nice if Coca-Cola does have variety of drinks selling in Malaysia too..

Surprisingly, the staff had a short briefing before the starts of the biz at nite.

In the middle of the Beijing Road, the remaining stones from many different Dynasty were conserved with transparent glass on the road itself; of course with lighting during the night. This attracts many people from local and foreigner like us to have nice view during our walk there….

There’s this brand 361 degree, 1 of the main sponsors for the 16th Asian Games Guang Zhou 2010, which ended on the 27 Nov. 2010.

When I went off around 10pm, there were still a lot of people there.

That's my first nite in Guang Zhou.

Got to know that there's this photography event organized by the Penang Butterfly farm.
Those who are into macro photography can join this...

Read about this event and looks like the prize is attractive.
Prizes are in cash. And it seems based on last year the prize given were more than RM6K.

It's divided into a few sessions:
Session 1 (23 Oct 2010) - Beetles, Reptiles, Invertebrates & Others
Session 2 (24 Oct 2010) - Phasmids, Mantises & Grasshoppers
Session 3 (30 Oct 2010) - Beetles, Reptiles, Invertebrates & Others
Session 4 (31 Oct 2010) - Phasmids, Mantises & Grasshoppers
Session 5 (6 Nov 2010) - Beetles, Reptiles, Invertebrates & Others
Session 6 (7 Nov 2010) - Phasmids, Mantises & Grasshoppers

Why not give it a try for those potential photographer?
You could logon to : http://butterfly-insect.com/register/photography.html

Crab Village Restaurant at Tanjung Bungah and Coffee Island@Gurney

My friend’s friend had this restaurant at Tanjung Bungah & we decided to have a try.
Their speciality are crab dish, we had it roasted. It was indeed very fresh, the crabmeat stuck to the shell.

It’s delicious…Next is the Prawn, we steamed & would like to taste the original taste, it was also
fresh..

We had the fried squid, it’s a small portion only. It’s not crispy enough. Next, we ordered 1 plate of the fried fish. We finished it up quite fast though, coz' it's hot from the wok. 1 was not enough, we ordered another plate.

We had some Scotch Whisky whilst having the seafood..Wow, satisfied :p

Finally, before we left, we managed to take photo of the boss..

As the night is still young, we had our 2nd stop at the Coffee Island. It was crowded.

My friends had 1 round of beers, 1 bucket of Tiger beers. Imagine what will happen after taking liquor, then this soya drink, and then beer...

whilst I just had Hot chocolate..

We had some snacks too, potato wedges n Fried Wantan..

My friend's own recipe of the chili sauce which are added with pepper..Not so bad actually..;p

The Red Garden @ Leith Street

Had a try at this Red-Garden at Leith Street, recommendation by my aunt. The ambience was quite nice there, it has many different style of dishes. There are Japanese style, Western style, Philipino, Seafood, Chinese local food and lots more.
My mum & aunt chose the Japanese dish ‘ Saba Fish Rice Set’, it comes with the Jap style soup..It was quite good..My Aunt likes it..

My dad tried the Frog Porridge, the content of the frog meat was not much, maybe it’s a bit expensive, that’s why...However, it was kinda of too big portion for 1 pax. Would recommend to order 1 Claypot of the porridge for 2 pax at least.

I had the Filipino Style..opps cannot remember the name of the dish…the pork was a bit hard for me..would recommend to order chicken for the same sauce. The spaghetti has the elasticity, it’s not too hard nor soft..And the salad was indifferent from others, it has the breadcrumbs on it..

My 2 cousins had the Western Dishes, he ordered the Black Pepper Fish. It came with a plate of salad before the main meal came. The Dory Fish meat was tender. Quite nice & worth the price..

The Fried Oyster was OK.

We did ordered Loh Bak as well. When the seller came with the Loh Bak, he said to us ‘ My specialty Chili sauce sure delicious, if not nice you may return to me’. Wow! Haven’t met such a confident foodstall owner..However, when we all tried the Loh Bak & had a dip on the chili sauce..It was indeed special & a nice combination though. A bit spicy & it has sesame in the chili. You should try it..

They even have a website :

http://www.redgarden-food.com/location.php

Address: No. 20, Leith Street, 10000 Penang, Malaysia

Xuan Xin Ramen Kitchen @ Gurney Plaza

Had a weekend lunch at Xuan Xin Ramen Kitchen with my cousin sister. We wander around to look for nice food in Gurney Plaza, and then we came to the Ground Floor (right when you get down the escalator, you’ll see it right in front of you) and saw this Xuan Xin Ramen Kitchen. She recommended me to try this.
And after that, when I was there for a few weekends at Gurney Plaza, saw that this Ramen Kitchen were normally full house.
We had our seat at a corner table. Although it’s not so spacious, the food was good.

I ordered the Ramen with Stewed Pork Ball.. The ramen was soft and it’s just the right texture. Ramen itself doesn’t have much taste normally, and when it combined with the stewed pork, it was just delicious. And there were pieces of the garlic in the soup which bring out the aroma of the soup...

My cousin sister had the Fried Ramen with Pork Belly in Dry Chili Sauce. The taste was great, you could feel that the sauce did absorbed in the ramen & real yummy yummy…

Umm..all the photos taken here were from my Nokia phone...Not so nice..

Caffe Strada@Krystal Point@Penang

It's already in my plan to try out Caffe Strada after Alan send out the email on the short review on the Grand Opening of Caffe Strada on 11 June 2010.

And timing was good, Thanks to Alan & wife for the invitation for the review last weekend.

We were welcome by all the warm bloggers when we reached there. And i do felt comfy as the owner & the employees are friendly too.

This is important for customer to feel comfortable while dining. These days, most of the people would prefer to go for good service; besides of course to have delicious meals.

As explained from the owner, when they want to start this Caffe, the idea was to name it as 'Strada', which they would want Italian style kind of restaurant. Originally, Strada has a chain of Italian restaurants in the UK. The origin Strada restaurant do serves freshly prepared dishes using seasonal produce. The menu offers hand stretched pizzas, fresh pastas, risotto and grilled meat and fish dishes. That's how & why they name it 'Caffe Strada'.

This is the menu for the review:

First of all, the owner gave some welcoming speech & introduction.

There goes some snapshots of the dishes.

Start with the Appetizer:-Green Garden Salad. As explained by the owner, the salad sauce are special mixed by them.

This is nice.

Seafood Chowder in Bread Bowl..

The chowder does have the seafood taste; however the bread is super-hard for me..

Those like to try Asian meal, this Salted Fish & Chicken Fried Rice is recommended.
Yummy yummy, you could even taste the nice aroma of the salted fish even on the first scoop of the rice...and the combination with their signature BBQ Chicken Wing is nice...

moreover, we could dip the BBQ Chicken wing with the house special hot sauce.

It goes well with the chili sauce & it's quite spicy..and actually 1 piece of the chicken wing is not enough. You could actually order more, Caffe Strada's Fried Chicken Wing.2 pieces for RM5.90 & 4 pieces for RM9.90.

For Western dishes, I would recommend Mongolian Chicken & Grilled Butter Fish(refer to below photo).


Those who like a bit salty taste, you could try this Cheezy Grilled Chicken...

Club Sandwish..Those who just want some light snacks, you could try this.


The interior design of Caffe Strada is nice....Thanks to Allen for the nice photo..


Fluffy Hot Chocolate...

I would say that the chocolate is not so strong, not the usual hot choc we expect it to be..

However, we do asked the owner about their hot choc drink. He explained that the hot choc doesn't use powder form to mix the drink. They uses caramel syrup from DaVinci Gourmet; that's what make the difference. That is the origin taste.

Strawberry Kiss Frappes & Choc Banana Frappe...


For Frappes, i loves most is the Mango Frappes...


Cappucino...

Quite nice..

I prefer the Cafe Latte..and not forgetting, a must order dessert 'Caffe Strada's Ice Coffee Slush' ;p

Thanks to the Alan again for the arrangement.I do enjoyed myself there.
Another half of the bloggers went off already. Left a few of us..

Caffe Strada is a nice cozy place for gathering for family & friends. I would recommend you all to go.