Rocky Road Mochi

Remember that I told you in the previous post that I'm currently at Dunkin Donuts? I ended up buying a donut, the one that they don't sell in Indonesia. I couldn't help it! The name is "Rocky Road Mochi".  It had chocolate syrup on top, drizzled with roasted peanuts, and topped with some mini marshmallows. I expected it to be dry and airy because it was rather cold when I got it from the staff. Turns out, I was wrong.

The donut was very chewy and squishy and nothing near dry, nor airy, just like how mochi is. True, it felt cold when I first touched it, yet it seemed that it was only at room temperature at which the room was cold and beamed by a nearby air conditioner. I love the combination of chocolate and peanut, both of them are like a match made it heaven. The marshmallows, on the other hand, didn't steal the spotlight of the chewy dough even though they were tasted very nice on a donut.

Definitely buying this again when I got a couple of hours ground time at Kuala Lumpur.


Dunkin Donuts
Kuala Lumpur International Airport
Departure Gate (accross gate Q7)

The Wedding Cake

As I was browsing through google and Instagram on where to eat at KLIA2, this particular article had my full attention. A small Chinese cake shop named Mr. Siew Bao is located on the second floor of KLIA2 mall, serving a wide varieties of traditional Chinese pastries and cakes, one of them being the Wedding Cake, or as the local like to call it Xi Bing.

I was very very curious about this so called wedding cake. What is it made of? What does it taste like? Why is it named "wedding cake"? What's the story behind it? Not having any second thought, I bought a piece, the one with the pink pastry and a lotus filling, that costed me 6.50RM.

I searched the answers to all of the questions I have regarding the Wedding Cake on the internet and, thank God, I found this article that explains everything in very much detail. I shall put the link here so that you can read it, but I'm going to tell you the whole explanation in my own words as well.

So, this wedding cake named Xi Bing is one of the many traditional Chinese pastries that holds a big part in a Chinese wedding. The cake itself is basically pastries with fillings. What kind of fillings, you may ask. Well, that depends on the bride's family's ancestry. The surface of the cake will then be stamped with a Chinese character, which is basically a wish for the bride and groom, along with the whole family. The one that I bought had a 囍 on it, which means "double happiness".

It is the groom who will bring the Xi Bing to the bride's family, as a symbol of gratitude towards the bride's parents for taking care of her the past years before she is married. The Xi Bing will then be eaten by the bride's family; her father, her mother, her aunty, her grandma, every single one of them, but not for the bride herself as the old folks believe that the bride will have a failed marriage if she eats the Xi Bing. It's merely a superstition, but some of us Asians do believe in those kind of things, right? If she feel like having a Xi Bing, she has to buy one for herself at any store that sells the particular traditional pastry.

With hesitation (because I didn't know the story behind the cake back then. I was afraid that I might get cursed for not eating the Xi Bing at my own wedding, resulting in a series of mishaps along my journey of finding my true love), I cracked open my share of Xi Bing. The lotus filling was very unappealing as it was greenish yellow in color. The pastry was very flaky and crumbly.

I had a bite and all I could taste was the dryness of the dough and the powder-like butter from the pastry itself. The lotus filling was sweet, but I didn't like it. It is actually a great snack to munch on, but I think it would taste better with chocolate filling instead of lotus filling. The whole cake reminds me a lot of Bali's Pia Legong.


P.S. Do correct me if there's anything wrong with what I write regarding the history of the Xi Bing. #newbiealert

Mr. Siew Bao

Kuala Lumpur International Airport

Arrival Lane, 6400

Sepang, Selangor

The Comforting Pappa Rich

I have safely arrived at Kuala Lumpur and the first thing that crossed my mind the minute I got off from the plane is the Hainan Fried Chicken Rice from Pappa Rich. Yum. I did a semi run through the arrival gates of KLIA2 to the immigration, then paced even more to the gateway to find me the famous Malaysian cuisine restaurant. Finally, there it is.

I know what I wanted to order, so it didn't take long for me to place them at the counter: a plate of Hainan Fried Chicken Rice, a bottle of water, and a couple of half boiled eggs. My late lunch costed me 31.90RM (around Rp115.000,00) which is a good deal because Pappa Rich serves such good comfort food for an upset stomach after a long haul. 

My set of meal comes with a bowl of soup and a small plate of sautéed bean sprouts. I immediately pour the soup onto my rice and dig in. It's a bit odd knowing myself the type of person who spoon rice and dip it into the soup, instead of the other way around, but it worked out just fine. 

The rice is well cooked, while the chicken is deep fried to perfection. Loving how the sweet rice and the savory clear soup combined, making it very delectable and flavorful. It was still warm, hence adding a plus point into the meal. The chicken, oh boy the chicken, had crispy brown skin on that goes crunch crunch crunch when you bite into it and very tender and juicy meat. On the one hand, the sautéed bean sprout was oily and slightly spicy, giving another flavor into the meal that went very well combined with the other ingredients. A spoonful of everything from the plate can really make you happy. 

The egg though, didn't taste that good if combined with the other food. I ended up finishing the egg first, then continued with my lunch. They were very runny as they were only half boiled. Dash a little pepper on it and bam! you got yourself a good old telur setengah matang like the one you usually have at a warteg (Indonesian warung, or humble eating spot, that serves food and snacks). 

Pappa Rich

Kuala Lumpur International Airport

Lot No. S2-3-L05

Jl. KLIA2/1, S6400

Sepang, Selangor

Opening Hours:

MON: 9AM - 9AM

TUE - SUN: 9AM - 5PM 

(Hours might differ from time to time)

Contact:

(+62)3 8787 8280

Street Churros of KLIA2

The one thing I love about KLIA2 is the food they have in the terminal. Either it be at the departure terminal, or the arrival terminal, the food stalls are just plain amazing. You can get yourself a gua pao (chinnese term for steamed-bun), a yuotiao (we Indonesian are more familiar with the term cakwe), a bucket of popcorns, a dozen cans of Arizona (damn, baby, I love you), a full course meal of hainanese chicken rise from Papa Rich, and many more. A few days ago, when I was transiting from Hong Kong to Jakarta, I found this newly opened food stall at the arrival terminal: Street Churros. Thank you, Lord!

When your order is ready to be taken, your queueing number will showed up. 

My bag full of churros, yay!

Even though it was almost night, this particular booth was (thank God) not that crowded with customers. Quite a large stand, located strategically in the center of the building, you can’t missed it as it has this big shiny “Street Churros” written at the top of the food stall. Even I spotted it from a mile away. 

The churros at Street Churros are always freshly made.

Left to right: chocolate sugar coating, cinnamon coating, and salted egg coating.

My chocolate-filled churros and cream cheese-filled churros.

They have quite a wide range of food and beverages in their menu, starting from churros with fillings, to salted egg flavored churros. I didn’t get any drinks from Street Churros as I was too excited for the munchies instead. 

The whole menu of Street Churros.

I got myself a cinnamon street churros, and a couple of churros filled with chocolate and cream cheese. It only took around 15 minutes for my churros to be ready, and while I wait, I managed to shoot some frames.

The length of every churros in Street Churros is a span of a hand.

Fill 'em good!

It's overflowing with cream cheese!

My first bite was the cinnamon street churros, which tasted super delicious and crunchy and sweet. The dough is fried to perfection, golden brown in color, then coated with sugar and cinnamon on all of its’ surface. Just a simple churro, that’s it, but the flavor and the texture of the munchie is to die for. It didn’t take long before I had my last bite and continued to the next churro: the chocolate filled churro. 

The cinnamon street churro

Compared to the street churro, the churro that had fillings in it was rather larger in diameter. I think the length of the churros were all the same because I saw one of the staff, who was in charge of frying the churros, measure the dough with his hand and he was making a span. 

My chocolate-filled churro was coated with sugar and cinnamon as well, and it had a hint of chocolaty sugar on it as I took a big bite. I love how the chocolate filling was not dripping and stayed intact with the fried dough. Sweet, but also had this bitterness of a dark chocolate, and not sickening. The whole thing was bursting with delicious goodness and the fact that it was still warm made it taste even better. 

Want some? Get some!

My last item was the cream cheese filled churro, which I forgot to take picture of since I was that excited to have my last churro and I was slightly hungry at that time. It had the same presentation as the chocolate filled churro, only the filling was broken white in color. 

Savory, yet sweet. The cream cheese did not melt, even though I ate it an hour after the purchase. Plus, I put the churro inside my bag, and it didn’t get smushed by all of the things I stuffed in my bag. The texture of the churro got slightly different, a bit more airy compared to when I ate the whole thing fresh from the fryer, but it still tasted good nonetheless. 

I have a schedule to Kuala Lumpur in three days and I’ll make sure I get me and the whole crew some churros during my transit. Hopefully, I’ll have enough time. 

Street Churros

Kuala Lumpur International Airport 

Lot No. L2-104

Gateway KLIA2, Arrival Terminal

Opening Hours:

MON - SUN: 10AM - 10PM

Contact:

03-87878797

Bits of KLIA2

My trip to Malaysia got me searching the web on how to forget bad memories. It may not be the worst memory I can recall, but it definitely is one of them. I found an article on WikiHow that made me feel somewhat supported by its' step-by-step ways on how to banish the unwanted bad memories and reducing the anxiety I'm having every time it knocks on my door. One of the ways says, "Focus on happier memories" so that's what I'm doing now.

It was last week when I went to Malaysia, departed on the 7th and got back to Indonesian on the 11th. I wasn't on a vacation, instead a full day of SEP Training and a set of ZFTT simulator that started in the middle of the night and lasted for four hours straight. To be honest, I enjoy the new experiences, but it was dreadful to say the least. I managed to survive and found bits and bobs that flicker a light inside this my black void of mine. So emo, I can't handle myself.

I stayed at Tune Hotel, accompanied by my Mom, and didn't travel far for food. We ate mostly at KLIA2, depending on the chains of fast food restaurants and groceries that provide food that we were familiar with. It varied from Burger King's crispy fried chicken, Paparich's Nasi Hainam with Ayam Goreng, Aunty Anne's Cheese Pretzel Dog, to imported grocery snacks such as Pop Tarts, Cheetos, Arizona, and Milo Cubes.

I bought a couple bag of Milo Cubes at Jaya Grocery for less than RM10. Each bag is filled with fifty cubes of compressed Milo powder, which confuse me on why this snack is highly demanded in Jakarta when it's just a regular Milo with different shape.



I was exited when I stumbled upon Arizona Green Tea on the beverage aisle. I am used of seeing this fancy canned drink on Tumblr posts and could only imagine how the drink taste like, until last week.

A can of Arizona Green Tea costed approximately RM5.50 and I finally bought one on my second day after contemplating on how expensive it was. It was an okay deal though because the can was large, 600-something mL in volume.

I was in doubt about the flavor of the green tea as it contains ginseng and honey. The honey was fine, but it was the ginseng that I wasn't sure of. I don't think I have tried ginseng before, hence I'm not familiar with the flavor at all. I had my expectation regarding the taste of the beverage, but as I open the can and took a sip of it, turns out it didn't taste like how I thought it would be. Not in a bad way, but somewhat good, a bit in the middle, and rather okay. It tasted odd at first, but then it became good after the next few gulps. I ended up finishing the whole thing on the next day.



On my last day, Mom took me on a train ride to Putrajaya to meet some friends of our family. We met up at the train station, where we got picked up and drove to this dining place near their house that serves Roti Canai. I was full at that moment, as I had my share of Aunty Anne's Cheese Pretzel Dog earlier, but I ended up digging most of Mom's plate of Roti Canai. It was thin and savory, filled with eggs and cheese, and accompanied with a not-so-generous portion of spicy chicken curry. I usually prefer my Roti Canai with sweet condensed milk, or sugar, but this one was exceptionally good.

A couple of the last few things I had on my last day was a Baskin Robbin's Junior Double Scoop ice cream, that consisted of Maui Brownies and Caramel Turtle Truffle, and a small bag full of Garrett's butter popcorn. I used to think that there is nothing an ice cream can't fix, but I stand corrected. Ice cream may not be able to fix everything, but it sure can give us a wee bit of happiness in our hearts during hard times. 

And that's the end of it.