Paru Power! cow lungs chips

Paru chips? Why not?! 😋

Never realized such a thing even existed. They're spiced, crispy like fish crackers and has a beefy flavour like paru. Not bad at all if you like paru.

Found them at this shop (#01-42 Golden Landmark Shopping Complex, 390 Victoria Street).

Two Sons Bistro, Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur

Lunch at Two Sons Bistro (Lot 6.44.00 & 6.45.00, Level 6 Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, 168, Jln Bukit Bintang, Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur, tel : +60 10-222 8282) while waiting for our tea from Chagee next door. Restaurant exuded a vibe that seemed to convey that it was once popular but they're no longer so much. Like a fading star. Or maybe I'm just over-imagining.

Nasi lemak sambal paru petai.

Rice was decent. A little dry, some lemongrass and adequate salt. Sambal's sweet from the onions and infused with flavour from ikan bilis as was expected; just like how the textbooks would have described. Just like the textbooks as well, it felt uninspired. 😂

We were mostly intrigued by the paru goreng petai dish on the side with the nasi lemak. Flavour was sweet and salty but the lungs weren't marinated much. Not tasting any of the spices I normally taste in paru goreng nor did they taste beefy. Also noticeably more chewy than I think is appropriately done like.

Laksam Kelantan.

Broth had plenty of coconut and fish flavour. What bothered me was the raw tau gay. 😅 Rice rolls had the texture of a composite with more rice flour than other flour but the flavour didn't taste particularly rice-y. Not a bad tasting dish but the tau gay was almost overpowering everything else and the sambal belachan on the side definitely helped us get through the plate.

Lontong with paru and begedil for breakfast at Nusa & Tara

This lontong from Nusa & Tara was so satisfying. Savoury lemak from the coconut-y gravy, saltiness from the paru goreng and some spiced sweetness from the serunding.

Surprise update 5/5/2024...

No begedil or extra serunding today. Just paru goreng. Another satisfying lontong breakfast. 

Hajah Maimunah Restaurant, Jalan Pisang

An old friend of mine which I hadn't met up with for a while gave me a call one morning and pulled me down to the vicinity of Arab Street for an early lunch. I didn't have any idea where we would be going to until we reached the place (11 & 15 Jalan Pisang, S199078, tel : 62917248) and for a momentary couple of seconds, the place rang chimes of familiarity even though I was quite sure I haven't been there. And no, it wasn't from a strange dream that led to this déjà vu. Lol. It was YouTube and I remembered it from an episode of Anthony Bourdain in A Cook's Tour when he was here back in 03 and was eating nasi padang. And I believe that I sat on the table just next to the one that he did back then.

Even though nasi padang had been something that I've eaten since a child in one form or another, I've never really given much though to its origins until today when I was told that they originated from the people in the city of Padang in Sumatra. But I'm not going into that topic here.

tauhu telur

I haven't eaten tauhu telur that often. So I'm likening this to be one of the best ones I've had since it wasn't over fried into a shrivelled gnarly lump and the eggs that covered the bean curd weren't excessively chewy. This was better than the ones served in the Riverside Indonesian Restaurant or Sanur as I can recall.

mutton rendang

Their mutton rendang was quite good. Tender chunks of mutton in a nutty spicy gravy. While it might not have been an apple to apple comparison, I felt the rendang mutton here was much more note worthy than a certain beef rendang which many people claimed to be very good. This was more tender. Liked this rendition of the rendang better. Renditions aside, this topped the other hands down.

paru belado

Paru belado was something that I've become fond of over the years since I was introduced to it. The paru, or beef lungs can be found in Malay food stalls/restaurants are sometimes fried to death. The results are dry chewy pieces of lung jerky which can be a pain to eat. This rendition here was instead tender and chewy which I very much prefer over the dried and chewy ones.

begedil

Begedil - deep fried egg washed potato patties flavoured with pepper. Yummy!


I don't know the name of this dish, but it's not an otah. It's some fish with curried paste cooked in banana leaf and there was a little too much lemongrass in the curry paste than I liked. The fish too came with quite a bit of bones which made them tedious to eat.


The rice wasn't quite as fluffy as I thought from appearances but I was willing to overlooked that on the account of the gravies on the side. Had to exercise some restraint here since there was quite a number of tasty looking dishes to be had. I spied lemak siput sedut (small sea snails in coconut curry) in one of the troughs so that's something I'll be looking forward to the next time.

Queenstown Lontong, Tanglin Halt Food Centre

Ahhh....finally. Been trying to get to Queenstown Lontong (#01-21 Tanglin Halt Food Centre, 1A Commonwealth Drive) for their lontong for a while. Now that the kuih jongkong season is over, they're open for regular operations again.

Asked for extra serunding which the proprietress cheerfully obliged. That added a spiced richness and sweetness to the already creamy coconut gravy. Enjoyed how deliciously salty and savoury their begedils are. That and the mild heat from the sambal. I don't know if one can actually imagine the combined bunch of flavours without having had these before.

Of course I had some paru goreng on the side. Didn't realize these came with more serunding, sweet sambal and fried ikan bilis. So here's a new experience here. Ikan bilis + serunding  or ikan bilis + sambal = nice. Layer those on the paru, also delicious.

Hajah Maimunah this year

sayur lodeh

sambal goreng

gulai nangka

siput sedut

paru balado

This was a pretty good lunch down at Hajah Maimunah except for one little thing. The rice was kinda dry in spite of appearances and couldn't even quite absorb the curries or sauces well. But the paru belado was tender, sambal goreng was surprisingly creamy and the siput sedut was kinda fun to suck out of their shells up to the point that the lemak gravy was burning my lips. Those begedil were delicious too.

Maria's Corner, Tanglin Halt

Venerable looking unassuming stall (Guan Kim Coffeeshop, 47 Tanglin Halt Road) that piqued my interest enough to get me down for breakfast.

Got a plate of nasi lemak. With fried fish, fried egg, bergedil, some paru and abit of serunding beside their sambal. First the rice - soft, moist with a discernible coconut base, salted sufficiently and unexpectedly the aroma of lemongrass. I usually find lemongrass a disruptive flavour in non sour food but this was harmonious. Sambal was moderately spicy and sweet. That sweetness wasn't annoying though.

That presented to me a first world problem. Each mouthful of rice was a decision between sambal, sambal and serunding, serunding or just rice.

I liked the paru. Don't know how it was prepared but it didn't have jerky like texture that many paru goreng does. These were tender, chewy and beefy chunks of lungs enveloped in spices. Fish was okay, bergedil was ok. It's the nasi lemak as a whole that'll be getting me to come back.

Pu3, TripleOne Somerset

We first noticed Pu3 (#02-20 TripleOne Somerset, 111 Somerset Rd, tel  +65 9272 0034) back when they were located at Bencoolen Street. Was curious about their food but never gotten the chance to visit until now. The name is presumably derived from the word putri - which could mean daughter/princess/woman in Indonesia/Malaysia. What they are known for is nasi ambeng - nasi padang on a platter with an assortment of dishes. Definitions may vary from person to person.

That's their nasi ambeng. This portion serves two. There's opor ayam (chicken with spiced coconut milk gravy), beef rendang, sambal goreng, brinjal with sambal merah (red sambal), paru goreng (fried cow lungs), serunding (spiced grated coconut), begedil (mashed potato patties) and urap (salad) with rice.

Not bad but not as well done as I had been hoping for. Some of the paru goreng were super chewy and the beef rendang was kinda tough. The rest was pretty good. Loved the mixture of heat from their sambal belachan, the savoury lemak gravy from the opor ayam and the sweet from the serunding on the rice. 

Topped up the order with ikan caru sumbat bakar. Hope I got the name right. Grilled fish stuffed with rempah. Moist and warm but I think it was reheated in the microwave. Everything was a symphony of Asian flavours, how could I have stopped myself with the rice?

Nasi padang from Hajjah Mariam Cafe

I decided to go a la carte at Hajjah Mariam since I've already tried their nasi ambeng previously. Nothing too special or exotic a selection. Some paru goreng, sambal goreng and ayam goreng. Yeah, it's all goreng there with a lemak gravy and some sambal belachan for invigorating heat. You know what? It's kinda pricey at $9.50. If I had to put in my two cents, I prefer a slightly less chewy paru and thought that the chicken while deliciously spiced had lost some of the crisp after staying out in the trough for a bit. Still, there was a very competent representative of each of the dishes I had even though I have favourites elsewhere.

Hajjah Mona Nasi Padang, Geylang Serai Market

Believe it or not, this was our first time at the current Geylang Serai Market. My last memory of the market was the old single storied place by the road - which if I remember correctly was at a different site? Anyway, since it was a first time, we were a little overwhelmed by the options. As chaos theory fate would have it, we ended up at Hajjah Mona (#02-166, Geylang Serai Market and Food Centre, 1 Geylang Serai).

Which also lead to my first urap. Aside from my first urap that is. This salad was more raw and herbal. There were bean sprouts, wing beans, something that looked like sweet potato leaves and some herbs which I couldn't recognize. I don't think all that rawness worked for me and it was precisely because there was some cooking of the vegetables that enjoyed it previously. But we managed to finish up the whole plate with help of the nutty sweet and spicy gravy from the quail eggs.

We had curried tripe - a curry that was rich and flavourful with coconut. That gravy was awesome with rice.

There was paru goreng too. In case anyone didn't remember, these are fried cow lungs. They aren't weird in flavour or texture and are more delicious than the looks suggest.

These were the quail eggs I mentioned earlier. Just quail eggs in a nutty/sweet/spicy chilli sauce.

$5.50 nasi padang at Oxley Bizhub Part 2

Following up from my previous mention about the nasi padang from FoodHub @ Oxley Bizhub, here's another. Similarly packed and a better look at what was actually in the box.

Scooped the chunks of paru goreng aside so there's better perspective on how much I had gotten. The portions of the paru with bronchioles tends to be chewier.

Sayur lodeh also plentiful. Though I don't know why I get tau kwa sometimes. Gotta be a random/mood thing.

Yanti Authentic Nasi Padang, Keong Saik Road

I've seen this nasi padang shop (45 Keong Saik Road, tel : +65 6324 9268) countless times. They're another one of those I've been meaning to eat at and has never happened until recently. 

The ordering was a little worrying because they had gotten one of my dishes wrong and forgotten another item in spite of appearances of having diligently written them down on a notepad. On top of that, there was an obviously angry delivery driver who looked like he was on the verge of lashing out because they had packed orders with missing items to him and he as the messenger delivery person had been blamed for the mistake and had his time wasted by the return to correct the order.

Food's not bad. 

Opor ayam was quite coconut-y and had chicken thigh meat that was slurp off the bone tender.

A decently done sotong hitam. What was strange was that towards the end, there was a burst of lime flavour in the gravy. I had no idea where that came from.

Paru belado was moist and tender. The chilli wasn't as fiery as appearances would suggest.

Sambal goreng nice.

Sambal petai packed a bit of heat, was slightly sweet and also savoury. Liked the flavours that the ikan bilis added to the sambal. Delicious with rice. Not much petai in it though.

I liked their garlic-ky and savoury stir fried kang kong but the dish was very stem-my. After a while, the chewing got tiresome. 

The rice that we had to have to go with the food. 

I'd rate the experience of the food at eateries like Sari Ratu, Tambuah Mas and Rumah Makan Minang to name a few to be better ones than Yanti. So while Yanti is like not bad, it's also not exactly on the top of the list for nasi padang in my books.