Dinner for 2 in Seremban for under RM35

I've been lazy. I'd like to cook dinner for two of us on a daily basis but I just can't seem to do it consistently. Of course, my cooking ain't that great and I can only cook limited variety of dishes.

So we eat out fairly regularly.

And as a pair of retired couple, we have to budget ourselves and try to get good and tasty food at the same time.

I try to set benchmark at RM35 for two of us. The number is arbitrary but I thought that's a reasonable amount.

Last week we went to 3 places and there were hits and misses.

Those makan places that we like will be recorded as PTB, "Places to return". Once we have 15 to 20 places that can be considered PTBs, then we are all set as we don't have to go to the same place more than twice a month. Add on to the fact that I will make dinner at home at least once a week, I think we are ok.

The bad one first.

We thought this place will be promising based on the signboard.

It looked fairly established and it wasn't situated in some pricy neighbourhood. So what could go wrong, right?

So we ordered some fish porridge and a claypot braised pork with black fungus mushroom.

Verdict:

1) Porridge was a bit watery
2) The fish slices were very very thin. My guess is they are trying to short change to pump up the margin.
3) They dropped in so much cilantro and chinese parsley that you might as well call it a parsley porridge. I meant, come on man, the condiment is not supposed to be so overpowering! Dumb fuck.

This braised pork was not bad but it cost RM20!!

WTF, this is not Shangri-la Hotel la, this is some shitty suburb in Seremban. OK?

And the bamboo cane drink they served was like coloured water, no taste.

Total bill: Porridge = RM16, Pork = RM20, Drink RM1.50 = RM37.50

Over the budget and felt being ripped off. Two thumbs down.

Kedai Makanan & Minuman Fu Rong
Lorong Permata 4/1, Taman Permata, 70200 Seremban, Negeri Sembilan

Next was a Vietnamese place nearby.

This place is run by a local guy with Vietnamese wife. Ingredients and baking machine are imported from Vietnam.

The curry has a very nice and different taste from the local Chinese curry or the Indian curry. The star is the homemade baguette. I like the Vietnamese's take on the French baguette. They made it light and fluffy and crispy on the outside as opposed to the traditional "heavy and full" French version.

This dish in only RM10.00. Very good value in my book.

My wife had the pork sandwich with the same type of baguette. Also RM10.00.

At the table, they give you authentic Vietnamese sauces.

Total bill: RM27.00 with drinks. Within the budget. Two thumbs up.

They have many other dishes including steamboat. Must come back and try the other dishes.

They also run a little convenient store next door selling Vietnamese stuff.

This sotong jerky is very very good. You have to try it.

I can safely say that this will be our regular dinner place in the future.

Mother Dung
Taman Permata, 70200 Seremban, Negeri Sembilan

Note: This place is a bit tricky to find. You have to go behind the huge Seremban Chinese Assembly Hall to the row of shop houses. Otherwise you will overshoot to the other side of Taman Permata.

The last time we went to One Eleven Food Court, we were disappointed by some stupid hawker.

I blogged about it here: Dishonest Hawker

We noticed a steamed fish head stall the last time but they were sold out when we wanted to order.

Last week we went back again and we tried their fish.

It was great.

The "Sung" freshwater fish was fresh and tasty. They put on lots of ginger to steam the fish and thus balanced out the muddy taste of freshwater fish.

Although it was a bony fish was it wasn't too troublesome to eat. Half of such a large fish was good enough for both of us.

Best part was the price. The fish was only RM25.00.

Total bill: 29.20 including 2 bowls of rice and drinks. Two thumbs up and within budget.

There are actually more things to try at this food court. But I think this stall is the best.

Telstra facing the same trouble as Starhub?

Big shake up in the telcos around the region. It's no secret that data/mobile consumption has skyrocketed and will continue to grow.

So companies are betting big on buying spectrum licenses. And the incumbent telcos will have to face new competition to take away their customer by among other things cutting prices.

Good for the consumers, not so good for the telcos.

I wrote about Starhub here (Starhub's price has dropped further to S$2.83)

Starhub: Is it time to buy?

Telstra in Australia is also a telco and facing new competition.

It's stock has been hammered real badly.

From the 52-week hight of A$5.83, it got trashed down to A$4.00.

That's incredible and I certainly think the market has over-reacted.

It still remain to be seen how Telstra will fight the competition but for sure the fat lady is not singing yet.

Telstra & TPG, Who Will Win Share?

But at this point the market has at least temporarily declared that Telstra is the loser.

And I disagree.

So my investment theme for mid-long term punt for 2017 are

1) Gold ETF (because US market has over-enthused about Trump's economic policies)
2) Distressed Telco Stocks

Huat ah!!!

Best Steamed Chicken (Pak Cham Kai) in Seremban

Heard from a little bird that there's this place that serves really good steamed chicken (Pak Cham Kai)

And apparently, they only opened at 6pm and finished selling whatever they have by 9pm.

I was like "sure or not???"

Sound like a bit strange to have a restaurant and only operates 3 hours a day.

So I had to give it a try.

I went out of the house around 6:30pm and reached the place 20 minutes later.

They only serves two different things.

1) Steamed Chicken Rice
2) Porridge with pig's "insides" or "spare parts", (intestine, stomach, briskets, etc)

When we arrived, the rice has sold out!!! WTF?

So we ordered 2 bowls of spare parts porridge 

and a plate of chicken.

Verdict:

Porridge is tasty and the spare parts have no funky strange smell.

The chicken is very very very good. This is the best steamed chicken I've had so far in Seremban. It's not the same as the soy sauce chicken at Continental Hotel. I will write about that one in the near future.

Price was reasonable at RM24.00 for two of us.

They took a long long time and brain stormed for many many days before they came up with the name for this restaurant.

1) Seremban Chicken Porridge
2) Chicken Porridge (Seremban)
3) Seremban Chicken Porridge and Rice
4) Seremban Porridge with Chicken, Intestine, Brisket, Stomach, and any shit inside the pigs.
5) Seremban Restaurant

Two of the family members almost got into a fist fight because they were arguing over why no pork was mentioned in the name of the restaurant.

Some argued that the religious gangster might come and give trouble if spare parts were mentioned.

Anyway, they ended up with the name in the picture above. Can you see that the Chinese name for the restaurant is actually Po Kee. I wonder why they never just gone with that name.

And yes, it's true. By the time we left around 7:30pm, they are almost sold out.

I can't figure these people out.

Restoran Seremban Chicken Porridge
295G, Templer Commercial Centre, Jalan Tun Dr Ismail, Taman Suria, 70200 Seremban, Negeri Sembilan

Quit smoking sucks!

I have quit smoking for the sixth or seventh time.

It's been a month since the last time I smoked.

Life sucks without my cigarettes, especially when I no longer get blowjobs from my knuckle head wife.

If you are as old as me, you will know what's a biddie.

When you're 15 years old, and you only get allowances, that all you can afford. And they were actually really fragrant.

Or you would have to steal your father's cigarette. My dad used to smoke Consulate menthol cigarette and I think I stole my first cigarette when I was 10 years old.

In the old days, they are even sold in a tin can. 50 sticks in a can and men like my uncle used to chain smoke, like 40-50 sticks a day.

My lungs are probably shit now and I have no doubt one day I will die of lung cancer. That's life.

Dishonest Hawker

Honesty.

Definition:

a :  fairness and straightforwardness of conduct
b :  adherence to the facts

Today my wife and I went to this really large food court between town and S2 area.

We decided to order a few things to try.

One of the things we ordered was Hakka Yong Tau Foo. Now if you are Chinese, you know that is a special kind of food introduced by Hakka people and they have their own style of cooking.

So when you advertised your food as Hakka, it has to be authentic Hakka food. Otherwise you just advertised as Yong Tau Foo. You can even call it the world's best Yong Tau Foo, but not the Hakka variety if you are not producing the food according to Hakka style.

Fair?

I picked 7 pcs, without any noodles or rice.

When the bitch delivered the bowl of YTF, she asked for RM9.30!!! (This is not Singapore, London, or Tokyo. This is Seremban!)

I was shocked. I asked how much per piece and she said RM1.30. And excuse me, 7 x 1.30 is 9.10.

How the fuck did you arrived at RM9.30??

I said "This is so expensive!"

Guess what the bitch said? "Other places also charge the same!"

It doesn't mean if other people charge that price, you in turn can charge the same, that is even if the what you claim is true.

and what kind of attitude is that?

That wasn't the part that got me angry.

What got me angry was that the bitch WASN'T even Chinese!!! She spoke Cantonese with a foreign accent. She's probably from Vietnam. You fucking cunt. I want to punch her in the mouth.

Not only you are not Hakka, you are not even Chinese. And you dare to say you serve Hakka YTF?

I bet she got her supply from some YTF supplier. In case, you are wondering. The YTF tasted like shit.

See what I meant about honesty???

The other question is how is it that she is allowed to stay in our country, operate a store and rip off our people? The fucking monkeys in Immigration Dept took bribes to approve her visa.

Ya, you can say she married a local. But her husband who is working at the same stall IS NOT Malaysian!!

I know my insignificant blog will not badly affect her business because this food court is very popular.

I can only curse her.

May you die in a horrible accident, you bitch!

One Eleven Restaurant
43b, Jalan Veloo, Taman Saga, 70200 Seremban, Negeri Sembilan

People don't really change very much.

A long time ago, I used to work with this guy.

He has always been a pompous asshole. We used to hang out quite a bit.

Well when you were young you probably weren't very discerning about people that you hung out with.

I reconnected with this asshole through Facebook and sometimes I see him posting pictures of him at expensive dinner and smoking cigars. All these posts are clickbaits looking for people to complement him. I find that to be quite typical of his character.

Maybe he is overcompensating. The thing is he is extremely ugly. I mean, just one look at him, you will find him to be slimy regardless of whether you know him or not.

So I guess he instinctively acts out like an asshole so that people will overlook his ugliness. Instead people just kinda amazed by how big an asshole this person is. Not that makes a lot of sense. But that's what I think is his deal.

So anyway, I have only met up with him once recently, and I thought, maybe we are all getting old and people become mellow as they age.

But I was wrong.

Yesterday, I had found out that Stevie Nicks is going to perform with Fleetwood Mac for the first time in 14 years. There are going to be 2 concerts featuring some old bands like Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Earth, Wind & Fire, etc.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/arts/music/classic-west-classic-east-fleetwood-mac-eagles.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

I was really excited about it and posted some remarks and news links on my FB about my going to go all the way to Los Angeles to attend the concert. I wasn't bragging. I was just excited.

And this asshole had to butt in and throw some asinine comments.

I mean dude, why the fuck do you do that for?

Did I ask for you opinion?

Anyway, I unfriended him immediately on FB.

At this age, I don't need to tolerate assholes.

Whew....

Restaurant in the Rasah area

I haven't been to the Rasah area that much since I moved to Seremban.

3 days ago we decided to go to the area and look around and end up at Weng Keong Restaurant. We actually came here in the previous week but they were closed.

The food is not bad.

We didn't try many dishes because it was just two of us but the menu on the board looks promising. So I guess we'll be back to try the other dishes.

My favourite vege with fermented bean curd.

My wife wanted tofu so we got that. This dish is not bad but you have to eat it while it's hot.

Braised chicken with chinese wine.

I didn't like this one. I think if the chef took it easy on the gravy and kept it light, the taste of the Chinese wine would have come through more crisply. Instead this dish was just a mess in terms of flavour. Confusing even.

Anyway, overall it was fine. The bill was not cheap  but not expensive either.

Restaurant Weng Keong 
Jalan RJ 6/8, Rasah Jaya, 70300, Seremban, Negeri Sembilan