Passionate Pei: April 2011

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Rainforest Bakery Penang

Rainforest Bakery, it's very well known bakery in Penang which serves healthy bread and buns.

The main shop is in Chulia Street. they have another branch in Sungai Ara. It was managed by a friendly twin brothers, named Jesse & Jerry Tan.

The special thing about Rainforest Bakery is that they do deliver the freshly made breads and buns to your doorstep. They have regular customers, local and those expatriates who lives in Penang who ordered from Rainforest Bakery. Besides this, they do have deliver their breads to most of the International schools and also a few prominent hotels.

As explained by Jesse Tan, the breads and buns are freshly made daily. They would not keep their bread and buns overnight. Those balance left at the end of the day, they will send it as a charity.

As for Easter Day celebration, they do have special buns served during this season.

it's called the 'Hot Cross Bun'.

It's a fruity with some superior spices that they imported from Germany. There are 8-9 types of spices ingredients. And the topping is thin layer of some sugar glazing. Rainforest Bakery breads has no preservatives.

The bun is soft yet dense and heavy. It has the taste of the spices with some butter flavoursome. If you wish to have more buttery taste, you may apply some butter as additional filling in the bun. All depends on individual liking.

Next, comes my favourite English Muffins. It's a plain buns and plentiful if you have even one piece of it. It comes with 4 pieces in a pack for Rm4.50.

The traditionally made kind of English Muffins are seasoned with semolina. This semolina originally is soft, and when we baked it, the semolina becomes crunchy. And that makes it unique.

Normally for method to have English muffin is to have various type of toppings and toast it. Then, it's near to perfection, as you will feel the softness of the inner side and the crunchy feeling at the outer side..

This is ideal for breakfast and tea time. We can mix with scramble eggs, with butter and jam or with egg benedict and ham. The below is the muffin with egg benedict, it has Hollanese sauce on top of the egg and also ham.

We may also mix with Honey Roasted bacon with melted red cheese. This combination had slight salty taste..

Besides the above 2 items, they do have other healthy bread, like the Raisin Twist, Bagel Sesame and Bagel Poppy..

Foccacia bread..my favourite too..:)

We had a try on this Chewy Nut Trail Cookie...it's crunchy yet not too dry..it's Devilicious..

Nice to have it during teatime to go with your favourite coffee or tea..

Some freshly made muffins on the shelf too, like the Plum Muffin.

They also have some sweet pastry like the Apple Crumble, Yogurt Limonata cake, Butter Cake, Banana Cake and Brownies.

Other breads and buns are like the Maize Bread, Sour Dough, Malt Bread, Chelsea bun, Walnut Raisin, Scones, French Baguette, Grainy Baguette, Ciabatta, English Bloomer and many others.

Thanks to Jesse and Jerry Tan for the hospitality given to us...:)

To those breadlovers again, i would encourage you all to visit Rainforest Bakery houses.

Feel free to visit or call for delivery at:

1. 300, Chulia Street 10200 Penang

Call: 04-2614641

2. 1-A-1 Tingkat Kenari 6, Sungai Ara (at Taman Desaria)

Call: 04-6469727

Delivery time: 2pm onwards

Delivery days: Monday- Saturday

FREE delivery

Monday, April 25, 2011

Weissbräu German Bistro & Bar at Straits Quay Penang-Part 1

Looking for German food in Penang? Yes, there’s one in Straits Quay called Weissbräu. The interior design built up with wooden frames and stacks of bricks on the wall gives a classical feels about the restaurant. It’s a good choice for family gatherings or friends gatherings.

While waiting for the dishes to be served, we had mineral water called ‘Acqua Panna’ from a natural source from Tuscany, Italy. It’s really refreshing and balsamic…

Here are the dishes we tried and would like to share with you all.

First came the German Sour Bread has the briny taste which maintain the bread moisture. We may just eat it plain or spread some butter on the bread. I would prefer with some butter on it. A rare taste yet it’s appetizing, or I would say it’s the german taste.

Another dish we had is the Mussel Seaman, boiled in a hot pot with some white wine, garlic, shallots and vegetables. When you bit the mussels in your mouth, you could feel that it’s still succulent. Moreover, adding the white wine in the soup does enrich the taste of the Mussel Seaman. This is Weissbräu specialty.

Next, we had the Honey Baked Ham Sandwiched with a German Laugen bread accompanied with a deletable soup Cream of Pumpkin. It’s a all time favourite for most of Weissbräu clients according to Denver.The soup were made from only pumpkins itself; with no additional artificial flavoring in it. Thus, having a bite of the sandwich and a mouthful of the soup was delightful.It combines very well. Besides this Cream of Pumpkin, they have Tomato Soup with Basil leaves for those who loves sour flavorsome. For the bread, you could choose from the list options from the croissant, French baguette, Italian ciabatta, white bread or wholemeal bread.

Introducing this scrumptious meal called the Spaetzli, it’s a homemade german egg noodle tossed in butter flavored. Choices are either had it plain, with ham, with cheese, with mushroom, with ham & cheese or carbonara. We had the it with ham & cheese. After the first mouthful, you won’t resist the second spoonful of the spaetzli..As explained from the manager, the egg noodle were done manually instead of using a machine. This makes the Spaetzli special.

Next, we would recommend the Emmentaler, which is pork sausage lightly crisped skin filled with emmental cheese.

This comes with 2 side dishes with a few selections; One option will be either with potato salad, garlic mash, Spaetzli or Roesti. Another options for vegetables will be either Buttered vegetables or Sauerkraut. You could choose 2 from the above options. If you wish to additional side orders, rm9 will be charged. We had the Potato salad and the buttered vegetables. The potato salad filled with mayonnaise and some vinegary flavoured gives good combination. I like the this. Besides these two, we had a try on the Garlic Mash(refer to the photo below). It is not machine made, as we could still ate some bits of it.

Before that, you may asked what’s the specialty of using this emmental cheese and not others. Answers is because this emmental cheese it’s an aged cheese and it savoured well with other herbs to produce a mouth-watering pork sausages. The thin skin of the sausage is crispy and the inside has the sour tasteful. Those who like the acerbic taste may try this.

We definitely had a try on the Crispy Pork Knuckle.Majority of us would never missed this dish in any german restaurant. The pork knuckle skin is crispy, just the way i like it. The Roesti was appealing too. Its stir-fried slices of potato is indeed delicious. Another side dish, Sauerkraut, the german way of sour cabbage. The shredded cabbage are lacto-fermented. However, this Sauerkraut is mild sour as to accomodate asian taste buds. The one i have tasted before in Germany were stinging sour where many asian won't like it.

To be continue Part 2...

Monday, April 11, 2011

The Sire Museum Restaurant

Had a cozy friday dinner at this The Sire Museum Restaurant.

While waiting for our drink and the main dish to be served, we have the garlic bread. It was crispy, just the way i like it..although there's a lil' burn at the edge.

So, here is what i ordered:

I had the Mango Ice Blended...the fruity smooth icy blended had quenched my thirst after a hectic day at work...

For the main course, i had Pan-Sealed Red Snapper. It fascinated me when the dish arrived. The presentation were great and definately it look very appealing as well...

The fish were seasoned with salt & pepper, with my favourite garlic cooked with olive oil..Quite worth the price, it was rm29.80.