Tokyo Secret Hanjuku Cheese Tart & Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart

Cheese tart craze hit the town! Saw a super long queue at Tokyo Secret, 1 Utama when they newly open. The queue is as long as when McD giving out Free breakfasts. These cheese tarts craze is started from Singapore, when Bake Cheese Tart from Hokkaido opened it's first store at ION Orchard and create a 3-hours long queues just for their cheese tarts. Wonder how delicious it is, and I get to try when we spotted that there is about 5 peoples in the queue. No kidding, after I started to wait in the line, the queue begin to get long again. 

Originate from Hong Kong, Tokyo Secret is selling Japanese Hanjuku Cheese Tart (Half Baked Cheese Tart) with high quality cheese imported from Japan. There are 4 Flavors available~ Hanjuku Cheese Tart (Original flavor), Matcha Hanjuku Cheese Tart, Hazelnut Hanjuku Cheese Tart,  and Coffee Hanjuku Cheese Tart. It is freshly baked and hot from oven! There are few ways to enjoy the unique taste of cheese tart:-

1. Consume right after it was baked under room temperature! 

2. Refrigerated it, and it will taste like you are eating cheese cake

3. Freeze it in freezer, and it will turn into a tasty ice-cream 

We bought Hanjuku Cheese Tart (RM7.90) & Hazelnut Hanjuku Cheese Tart (RM8.90) each home as our tea time. I reheat it before eat as per advise. Thrilled to see the creamy cheese melting and flow down slowly from the Hanjuku Cheese Tart  after took a first bite. The biscuit layer is so crispy and buttery, and the creamy cheese inside is milky, rich of cheese flavor! Love it! Since we are sharing, I feel like one is not enough as he always took a bigger bite than me! The Hazelnut Hanjuku Cheese Tart filling with chocolate cream cheese, sprinkle with crunchy toasted hazelnut bits has a buttery crispy just like the original flavor. And, my heart goes for the the original flavor, unforgettable! It might be pricey, but I think it is worth for it. 

Few days later, before starting my journey back to Penang via Aeroline from One Utama at 10.30am, I went early and walked all the way up to Tokyo Secret store hoping to buy some cheese tarts to bring back for my family. However they only open at 11am (sad~). Since I disembark at Queensbay Mall, I then decide to get Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart instead since I also never tried before. Just like Tokyo Secret, when I started to line up there's only 2 to 3 peoples but it gets longer right after that. The cheese tart is selling at RM5.80 per piece, buy 5 free 1 @ RM29.00. Cheaper than Tokyo Secret's. I end up bought 6pcs x 2 box at RM58.00 in total. 

Judge from the outlook, I already could tell why Tokyo Secret half-baked cheese tart is more worthy although price is a little higher than Hokkaido's. First, Hokkaido's cheese tart size is smaller, crust is thicker. not buttery and crumbly as Tokyo Secret's. And, it's not half-baked cheese - the cheese filling is not cheesy enough too! More like Portuguese cheese egg tart for me. I would prefer Tokyo Secret's if I were to get half bake cheese tart next time. By the way, Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tarts is not from Hokkaido, it's a Japanese-styled Cheese Tart is made in Malaysia by Secret Recipe. They have been aggressively expanding the cheese tart store lately and up to date there are already 24 outlets in Malaysia. Good news is our Muslim friend can enjoy the cheese tart too as their cheese tart is certified Halal by Jakim.

Gan-Jajjang, Jjampong & Tangsuyuk~ Hong Kong Ban Jeom, Solaris Mont Kiara

This is NOT a franchise of Hong Kong Ban Jeom chains in Korea. The restaurant register a similar name but logo and signage is different (without Baek Jong Won's head). However it doesn't really matter because the food is as good as what Hong Kong Ban Jeom offered. For those who don't know Hong Kong Ban Jeom, it is a restaurant chains selling low price but delicious Jajjangmyeon founded by Baek Jong Won. Baek also runs several other chains under his own brand including the Paik's coffee well know with cheap and good coffee! We keen to give a try since their opening because there's only one Korean-Chinese restaurant left so far in Mont Kiara, at Desa Sri Hartamas. Order a Gan-Jajjang, Jjampong and Tangsuyuk! Their Jjampong (Korean spicy seafood noodle soup) is better than those Jjampong we had before. The amount of seafood that use to cook this bowl of Jjampong definitely worth the price we are paying for!

Gan-Jajang is dried version of Jajjangmyeon, where the black bean sauce is stir-fried with oil and cook without starch, together with cube pork meat and chopped yellow onions. The noodle and jajjang sauce are serve separately. It comes with a sunny-side up fried egg too. The runny yolk works just well to balance the saltiness and easy to mix the sauce and the noodle. I personally prefer Gan Jajjang than normal Jajjangmyeon, And, how can we miss out Tangsuyuk when we eat Jajjangmyeon? The sweet and sour crispy pork gravy is slightly different than the usual one we had in Buldojang. Glad we have another choice of Korean Chinese Restaurant now in MK.

Prawn Phad Thai & Thai Combo platter~ Absolute Thai, One Utama Shopping Centre

We had Thai food again! In fact last week, we just had Thai food at the newly open Thai Hou Sek in the same shopping centre. Can't help but think about Thailand and Thai Food lately as most of the FB news is about Thai King is ill and Thai peoples are praying for him by wearing pink. Sadly, after we placed our order, we were browsing FB for news while waiting for meal to be serve. That's when the news of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej has passed away were announced (M'sia time 4.52pm, Bangkok time 3.52pm).

We had their Absolute Thai Combo Platter and Phad Thai with prawns. The combo consist of 4pcs each of Golden Royal Money Bags, Thai Fish Cakes, Crispy Spring Rolls & Prawns wrapped with Wanton Skin served with Mango Salad & 2 types of dipping sauces. And, we order 2 Phad Thai since we both want Phad Thai and not willing to share. The Thai stir-fried rice noodle with prawns is blanket with stir fried egg when it is served. It is a little early for dinner, plus it's weekday, the restaurant is empty and not many customers unlike weekend it is always full house and have to wait for table. We have a peaceful and quiet meal moment before the restaurant begin to busy again.

Kimchi Pancake~ Kimchi Jeon 김치전

Kimchi Jeon, also known as Kimchi Buchim-gae 김치부침개 is a best comfort food for rainy day. Koreans like to make jeon on raining day - which I not sure why but I myself like to do that too. So sometimes I would make jeon on a rainy day for us as snack. Among the Korean Jeon, Kimchi Jeon is our favorite so far. I've tried out many recipes so far, from my personal opinion, there is no need to have many ingredients to make a delicious Kimchi Jeon. All you need is the fremented kimchi, kimchi juice and korean pancake mix. If you don't have the korean pancake mix, you may also use all purpose flour and add a pinch of salt & sugar to substitute it.

Ingredients

1 cup of Fermented Cut-Kimchi
2 stalk of Spring Onion
1/4 cup kimchi juice
1 cup Buchim-garu (Korean pancake mix)
3/4 cup cold water
cooking oil

*This recipe can make 2 or 3 Kimchi Jeon depending on the size of the pan.  

How to cook:

Step 1. 

In a bowl, first add in the 1/4 cup Kimchi juice and 3/4 cup cold water onto the Buchim-garu (pancake mix), follow by cut kimchi and chopped spring onions, mix all well.  

Step 2. 

Heat up a non-stick pan with one tablespoon of cooking oil over medium heat. Pour in one spoonful of soup ladle size pancake batter into the pan, spread evenly into a round thin shape. Pan fried the pancake batter until the edges turn light golden brown - normally it takes about 3-4 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium low if the pancake turn browns too fast to avoid burn. 

Step 3. 

Flip the pancake over, add another 1 tablespoon of cooking oil around the edge of the pancake. Continue to pan-fried the other side of the pancake batter for another 3-4 minutes, over medium low heat. In between, use the spatula to press down the pancake to make it flat so it can cook evenly. Cook until it is light golden brown then it is done! Repeat the same steps until all pancake batter use-up. 

It's crispy at the outer layer but soft inside. We like to eat it without any dipping sauce, so we could taste the original flavor of pan fried kimchi jeon. Also, it is more healthy without salt and soya sauce since the fermented kimchi is savory enough. What about you?

泰好食~ Thai Hou Sek, One Utama Shopping Centre

Newly open Thai Cafe in One Utama old wing. We have a great time dine in here because of the super friendly and attentive waiter. From the menu, you can tell the cafe is selling Thai Chinese Porkilicious meals. We had Babi-Q Pork Neck - a Thai-style grill pork neck, served with fresh cucumber slice, and a soya based sauce with chopped green onion, slice shallot & chili flakes. The crispy fried garlic and garlic oil that sprinkle on top of the pork neck meats taste so homecook! Ya, crispy fried garlic and garlic oil is one of common condiment in our home! Also order a Seafood Tom Yam - with prawns, squids, fish fillet and oyster mushrooms inside Plus 2 additional Steamed Jasmine Rice to go with the pork neck meat & Tom Yam soup. Also order an extra Banana Fritters with Ice Cream as our dessert, Asamboi Lemon Grass and Coconut Lychee which is very very refreshing!