Suddenly Johor Mini Food Hunt

 

Few words: With Dwight Howard trade to Rockets, they are a promising 2014 championship contender. But wait, Nets just got massive upgrades too. God Bless!

 

Here is a spoiler for you: Dinner Crab.

If you are looking for what to eat or photo of good foods, please proceed to other food blog. This is merely a food hunt log with good friends.

 

It all started when three curious men babbled on the recent food victors of Singtel hawker foods challenge, we then came up with a rough idea to go food hunt for all these hawker foods that beat Ramsay in Singapore. That already sound attractive enough for me. Plus I haven’t had any nice food hunt recently, so why not?
 

But how we actually ended up in Johor, I have no idea.

 

To keep my story short - our friend, Mek who is a frequent traveler to Johor and also our driver that day decided to change course to his favorite makan place in Johor. We were told beforehand that the area is famous for their Bak Kut Teh (BKT) and Crispy Duck Rice. Of course we couldn’t have both for lunch, that would be too intense for our stomach to handle. So judging by the number of customers, we opted for BKT which has a larger crowd instead.

But how we ended up eating both, I have no idea too.

  

Anyhow, the foods weren’t really something to brag about. The BKT broth was really dilute, even it is safe to say to the extent of typical herbal chicken soup or perhaps we're way too used to the richer and more concentrated BKT herbal broth back in Perak. Meanwhile, crispy duck rice is just crispy duck rice, despite all the hype and publicity.

  

From my food hunting experience, the trick to good food hunt is to not set expectation too high. The point is to enjoy the ride and accompaniment, and the second is to always stay positive and hopeful for more good foods. With that being said, of course there is time when I came home frustrated with almost none good foods to share but the great accompaniment alone is already worth the shot.

Thus, with a hopeful heart and after a whole afternoon of burping, we arrived at Restaurant Todak for a scrumptious seafood dinner. The whole place is actually a fishing port or a port near a fishing port (whichever make sense to you) which is a good sign for fresh seafood. The crowd there were really no kidding; if you want a comparison, it would be at least 10 times the crowd in BKT.

This is actually my second visit to Restaurant Todak, so I do have a little experience on how to order fast. Upon arriving, first stop is to check their fresh catches of the day at the back of the restaurant. Then find the lady in yellow shirt with notepad and ask for her recommendation for fresh catches. Order everything there. Also, don't forget your table number. In the end, we ordered 2 kilos of crabs, a proclaimed absolute vodka drunken prawn by Mek, handful of escargot and suspicious snail, some mussels, stir-fry vege, butter sotong (squid) and later a top up of sambal crawfish and lala (small white clams).

 

Although the foods were overally good, one thing that annoyed us the most was their slow serving especially for the crabs. The crabs were literally cool when it reached our table, in fact the meat was a little soggy too. We suspected that the crabs are all cooked in advance and simply pan-fry with sauce prior serving to customer. Another thing is their magenta light which I guess is to keep the flies away. It distorted my camera white balance massively – foods turned to be not very appealing in photos. Thus, there are no photo of the foods. Blame the light!
 

Lively ambience, fresh catch, great seafood and that summed up our amazing seafood experience in Restaurant Today. It was by far, one of the best dinners that I had in Johor and was of good value. The damage was around MYR 60 per pax which I assumed still in a considerably cheap region. We left with a full stomach and a cheerful mind. In fact, Mek regretted for ordering so much.
 

But how we ended up in another place for burgers half an hour later, I really have no idea.

The burger was equally good as the seafood, nonetheless.

As I said, great accompaniment alone is already worth the trip. This is, after all, a very good food hunt.

Another Year

Few words: Listen, listen, listen...and I knew she has no idea what she about to say. Animals' problem, Pffft!

 

So… the Mayans were wrong about the end of world, which is totally a good thing and life move on to 2013.

……

Craps! I’m totally clueless on what to write after few months of not writing. If that's the case, I’ll just scribble down whatever on my mind then. Speaking of 2013, it's that joyous time to dump your old girlfriend calender and start a new one. Am I the only one that feel the clock ticks faster last year (by the way Happy New Year) and as cliché as it sounds, a brand new year do need a brand new resolution. Hereby, I’ll list down my 2013 NY resolutions.

1. Delay no more

 

Recently a friend of mine asked me to recommend her place to have seafood in Sitiawan. With a hidden motive of promoting my blog, I asked her to refer to my blog. But she later complains that she couldn’t find any in my blog. To my surprise, I even checked it myself and (gasp) she is right; no seafood post to be found anywhere in my blog. You see, I have visited most of the famous eateries in Perak but I had hang fire my blog post for quite some time until one point I wasn't sure whether it is uploaded or not. But the last time I checked, there was at least 1GB worth of photos in my Dropbox pending for me to blog. My friends whom at first rushed me to blog were eventually given up. So my first 2013 resolution is to try to blog at least 50% of my current Dropbox content.

 

And also more food hunt this year. Maybe also to blog a bit bout Ipoh underrated makan place (eateries).

2. Stop comparing

 

I considered myself as a fairly competitive guy. One thing bad about competitiveness is you will try to compare everything. I had been doing that a lot for a very long time but at one point I started to feel pointless. Face it, a sedan car can never outrace a sport car and the same apply to comparison. The more you compare, the more ‘pariah’ (inferior) you become; for the reason, you’re forcing yourself to become a sport-car-wanna-be. Eventually I learned that rather to force myself to become something I’m not belong to, I choose to remain who I am. If you know you can’t beat a sport car on straight road, why not try changing the course? After all, it worth a try.

3. Start with what you hate

 

Despite I play basketball on regular basis, many didn’t know that I actually hate doing cardiovascular (hereafter refer as cardio) exercise. I’m quite a gym rat myself but I never once spent more than 15 minutes on treadmill, cycling or rowing because I couldn’t understand the fun part of cardio exercise - I mean like running without purpose or rowing without goal. But when I found out that my body fat rocketing with high cholesterol on the verge of attack, I knew I have to do something with my gym routine. So I started to jog and today marks one month of me jogging before lifting weight in gym.

4. On-time

 

My life was a mess - waking up in the afternoon and sleeping early in the morning had totally compromised my lifestyle. Just imagine having dinner at 11pm or so. Nonetheless, I’m actually pretty comfortable with this lifestyle until my skin start giving me signal to stop my current lifestyle. That rang another bell in 2012. Hence in 2013, I vow to sleep on time – maximum tolerance by 1 am. *crossfinger*

5. Spare time for what I like

 

I may not be the most religious person on earth, but I figured if God give us a two sided brain with each to play and to work respectively, it will be utmost sinful if we only know how to work. In 2013, I vow to spend more time on what I like – play a new song with my guitar, shoot more with my camera, finish a latest PSP game and hell yes blog more. Also, an oversea vacation would be great too – sometimes you just need a break to take care of other things important in life.

6. Be initiative

 

The first time I am being initiative, my superior ask me to see him in his office. You see, when you were working as a team, being initiative to customer simply equal to suicide for your team. That was the last time I being initiative. Fast forward to 2013, this time I’m not working as a team but more on a one-man-mission. I guess I would like to be initiative this year, at least to me, initiative means I’m able to reach my goal one step closer each time.

7. World Peace

 

Every resolution has one. Seriously, Miss World does it all the time.

As much as NY resolutions motivate one to achieve certain goals instead of wasting his/her 12 months doing nothing fancy in that particular year. There is one inevitable fact that we will most probably look back at our resolution list by the end of 2013 with a sorrow face and bucketful of remorse for not completing even half of them. 

 

Well, don’t worry! Just add them to your next year resolution list. That is the main reason people always have resolution every years. After all, I almost squeezed my brain out just to come out with 7 resolutions this year. It will be a big help to make up the number really.