ROJAK AND GADO GADO FROM THE CHICKEN RICE SHOP

I went to the Chicken Rice shop recently with a friend. My friend ordered the chicken rice set which was the restaurant most popular item in the menu. I had tried their chicken set meal previously, it was just ordinary in taste; nothing special. I wanted to try something different, so I picked the Rojak and Gado Gado set meal. This set meal is only available during the week days and it includes a cold drink – the cost of the set meal was RM8.90 ( excluding taxes and service charge). This meal was named ‘ Ladies Good Lunch set ‘ in their menu but don’t worry – you still can order it for lunch if you are a guy.

Gado Gado at The Chicken Rice Shop

If you are sick of eating meat for lunch, then the Gado Gado and Rojak meal would be perfect for a light lunch meal. It is mainly vegetarian except for the hard boiled eggs in the Gado Gado. The serving portion given for this set meal was small; but it was definitely sufficient for me. The Gado Gado tasted good and the peanut sauce was not too sweet and generously spread around the bean sprouts, long beans, tofu and eggs. I liked the bean sprouts as it was fresh and not overcooked.

Gado Gado meal

The Rojak tasted sweet because of the sweetness in the fermented prawn sauce. The Singapore version of Chinese Rojak is normally sweet and spicy; but the Rojak served here was sweet and non spicy. The Rojak consists of mainly cucumber, pineapple mango and vegetables. For those who liked it spicy, I guess you have to add some cut chillies or chillies sauce onto the food. My friend loved the Rojak  and she ate half the portion of it. Overall, I did enjoyed this vegetarian meal at The Chicken Rice Shop. And not forgetting to mention –  the complimentary cold drink was a regular size Pepsi.

Rojak served at The Chicken Rice Shop
Rojak
Braised Tofu and Egg. This is part of the Chicken rice set.

BUYING MOONCAKES AT CITY SQUARE MALL JOHOR BAHRU

Went to City Square Mall in Johor Bahru for the purpose of buying mooncakes. I saw that the renovation of the City Square Mall was progressing quite fast; as many shops were now opened. I think they could probably complete the renovation of this mall by this year end. Anyway, the moon cakes festival fair is currently being held at the ground floor atrium area. It seems that there are more vendors participating this year – which is good because now consumers have more choices.

Moon Cakes Festival Fair at City Square Mall Johor Bahru

I saw many aunties  browsing and tasting the free samples of mooncakes at different stalls. Strangely this fair have the tendency to draw in more ladies than guys; perhaps guys don’t enjoy shopping for mooncakes. I didn’t browse or tried out the sample mooncakes from the different vendors because I know what I wanted. Every year I would simply walked to the same vendor to buy their mooncakes – it is almost a ritual for me.

Want to know which particular vendor got me hooked to their mooncakes every year? The name of the vendor is Yong Sheng Gift Shop – seems liked a strange name for moon cakes vendor. This confectionery company has been around since 1952 – that is 60 years of history. Anyway, what I liked about their mooncakes is that it is not too sweet and heavy in taste. I cannot tolerate moon cakes that are overwhelming sweet; I would throw it away without hesitation.  They have a wide variety of mooncakes flavors such as coffee, green tea, red beans, green beans, mixed nuts, the usual double or single yolk, fruits, etc.

This is the stall that I patronize every year.

There is one particular product which I liked from Yong Sheng Gift Shop – it is the Teochew Delite. It looked liked Tau Sar Piah or Tau Sar biscuits but it is made of winter melon, glutinous rice, preserved vegetable, lotus seed, etc. For those who enjoy Teochew style confectionery, this is a product that you should buy and try. I bought above RM300 of mooncakes from them and I was given one box of mini moon cakes free.

This is the Teochew Delite which looked liked Tau Sar Piah. Very delicious.

The MoonCake Festival fair would be opened till 30th September 2012, make some time to visit this fair and tried out some of the best mooncakes from Malaysia.

Different flavors of Moon Cakes.
Beautiful reusable metal containers for storing moon cakes.