Home delivery from Penang Culture

We've been experimenting with Oddle, an online food order platform. So far we've tried Brotzeit Go and Valentino's. Still trying to figure out if the food/delivery experience is merchant dependent or does Oddle determine the most of it. Valentino's had notification when the food was dispatched so that you had an idea when it would arrive. Penang Culture had no such dispatch notification and even delivered late.

Delivery charges can cost quite a bit for the merchants on Oddle. I don't know nor care who makes money from that but since they've slot you into a window for delivery and actually charged for it, I assumed that it's a manageable schedule and tardiness hints at the attitude of the management.

We pulled the trigger on the pretty expensive "premium" crab meat and salted egg kuey teow. Look at the menu picture above. Shelled prawns, chunks of real salted egg and the crab meat looked misleadingly chunky.

This was what we got. The crab meat came in the form of sad little bits. No sweetness like the menu described, no texture either once you've tossed it up with the rice noodles. Prawns weren't shelled to the tail like their menu misled. Not much salted egg flavour going on. Not to mention that the fried kuey teow wasn't even on par with the ones from Tangs Market.

But wait there's more.

Pineapple fried rice was disappointingly bland. Rice was a little mushy with no wok hei. The crunchy honey cashew they boasted on the menu was turning rancid and wasn't crunchy at all. Unlike what the menu described, the infused sweetness in the rice didn't come from the fresh pineapples because there wasn't much of them. Sweetness came from the sultanas in the rice. This was simply mediocre.

Not worth even half of what they were charging for the food. Will not patronize again.

Home delivery from Ristorante Da Valentino

It's been a while since we've eaten at Valentino's. In retrospect, eating at the restaurant has its advantages. Service charge can be less than delivery and while at that, there's a free round of their tasty focaccia with their pesto/anchovy dip. Which one would have to order separately and pay for with delivery.

Liked the Bormio salad from the last time I had it. It's the apples, pine nuts and ricotta that brings it together. Survived the delivery transit pretty well if I might say so.

Their prawn and squid pizza looked good on their menu online. One could reasonably construe the image as deliberately misleading. 

Because the real thing looked like this. It was an okay pizza. Tasted like how it looked. Squid-y, a little prawn-y with a flat crust that's not Neapolitan styled.

The specials/recommended section of their menu had this beef and truffle sauce spaghetti. Came with tender slices of beef, garlic, mushrooms and an egg. That beef and truffle sauce had a profile like Marmite but with less saltiness and a truffle-y undertone. Nice one this.

Tar pow-ing from Seng Kee Vegetarian

I normally find this a little too greasy and heavy but it's been a while, I was in the vicinity and made the decision in hunger.

While it looked like it was a foam box just full of fried stuff, this was the same as what I ordered the last time round. $4 of mee with their regular mix of gluten rich mock meat with the add on of a bean curd stick and nothing much of real vegetables but the cabbage. Not healthy at all. But it was quite satisfying.

Take away bee hoon from Ivan's Porridge

A happy breakfast from Ivan's. Especially when you get eggs with molten yolk. It's not always molten though. Love the savoury chilli packing respectable heat. Remember to ask for more chilli.

Home delivery from Dian Xiao Er

These days gives us little choice but to explore food delivery options. These are a bunch of stuff from Dian Xiao Er which I have mixed feelings over. Not everything was as good as I had imagined.

The duck for one was disappointing. Roasted ducks were their signature item. They are normally not bad when we eat in at the restaurant. For whatever reasons, the meat was tougher than I remember it. I don't know if it's because of the delivery time or simply lowered cooking standards. Wouldn't order it again for home delivery. 

That's the kailan stir fried with with salted fish and lime. Not enough salted fish. A bit more lime would have been nicer. The colour of the vegetable looked a bit faded. As a stir fried kailan dish, this was mediocre.

Seafood tofu was not bad though. The broccoli looked much healthier than the kailan.

The pleasant surprise was their dish of chicken and black fungus in Chinese wine. This was delicious. Gravy was awesome with rice. Every few mouthfuls had a surprise sweetness from the bits of red dates in the dish.

Home delivery food from Brotzeit Go

I ended up trying what Brotzeit Go has for the current "circuit breaker" season because I stumbled upon their advertisement by chance and saw that there's a bunch of stuff they didn't have previously. Perhaps these were designed for easy takeaway consumption since it was mostly their burgers and fladen. In fact, the only food item that wasn't those was their pork knuckle.

There was a pork knuckle fladen. It's not bad. Caramelized onions, cheese and a drizzle of sweet balsamic vinegar to cut through the fat. Came with a nice beery sauce. If there was anything I didn't really like about it, it'd be that this might have been better if you ate at the restaurant so that the fat from the knuckle was warmer, softer and the rind would be more crisp rather than hard.

Tried a porky cheeseburger because it was a pork burger - something a lot less common than it sounded. Patty was pretty salty, dry and mostly flavoured with rosemary. Bread added to the dryness. Good thing there was the sauce from the fladen.