Salt N Pepper

Ever try Weekend Dim Sum Buffet Lunch @ Toh Yuen, Hilton Kuching?  Toh Yuen is a Chinese-themed restaurant located in Hilton Kuching.  The weekend dim sum buffet lunch is only available on every Saturday and Sunday starts from 11.30am to 2.30pm.  The lunch is inclusive of free flow of chinese tea. 

Entrance to Toh Yuen

Interior Look

The table where we were seated

Let us bring you to have a tour of the dim sum on offer.  The appearance of all the dim sum and foods look very nice.

Chicken Roll

Prawn Salad

Steamed Barbeque Chicken Bun

Hong Kong Style Congee with Century Egg and Chicken

Steamed Squid Ball

Steamed Beancurd Roll

Steamed Seafood Dumpling with Pacific Clam

Chee Cheong Fun

 

Steamed Baramundi Fish

Fried Yellow Noodle with Prawn

 

Steamed Beef Tripe with Spicy Sauce

Wok-fried Mixed Vegetables

Steamed Chicken Claw with Spicy Sauce

4 different types of sauces

 There is a special stall setup to prepare Peking duck, the signature dish of Toh Yuen.

The chef prepares the Peking Duck wrap

Peking duck wrap

The slices of Peking duck

Golden Sesame Roll

Spring Roll with Assorted Meat

Chicken Dumpling with Almond Slice

Pan Fried Carrot Cake

Yam Pie

Crispy Prawn Dumpling with Mayonise

Here comes the desserts....
 


 
While enjoying your buffet, you can also view the beautiful scenery of Kuching Waterfront from inside out.

Fancy for Malay and Indian foods? Head over to Rumah Hijau Cafe (literally means Green House Cafe in English) to have a try. What is unique about this eatery outlet is that it is setup from a few units of detached houses and one can easily recognize the cafe due to its external paint colour. Guess no further as it is painted in green. Maybe that's how the cafe got its name from. But interior wise, there are quite a few of other colours such as brown, pink apart from green.

Below were what we have ordered on the day we visited. Salt originally wanted to order Nasi Lemak Ayam Penyet but unfortunately the nasi lemak was out of stock already. Instead Salt just ordered 'Nasi Ayam Penyet' (i.e. Crushed Chicken with Rice) without the 'lemak' (i.e. coconut cream) on the rice (i.e just pure white rice).

Nasi Ayam Penyet

Whereas Pepper tried out the Indian delicacy 'Nasi Briyani Kambing'. It was not bad as the kambing (i.e. lamb) did not have heavy smell which Pepper usually dislikes when eating lamb meat and the meat was tender as well.

Nasi Briyani Kambing

We have also ordered the 'Roti Bom with Planta and Cheese'. It is another variant of the roti canai.

Roti Bom with Planta and Cheese

This was not Salt's first visit to Rumah Hijau as he has visited before and during that time he ordered the 'Nasi Lemak Ayam Goreng' and a piece of 'Roti Canai with Planta'. The Nasi Lemak was to Salt's liken as the sambal was not very spicy and just nice. The fried chicken that came with the Nasi Lemak was flavourful and juicy tender.

Nasi Lemak with Ayam Goreng

Roti Canai with Planta

Rumah Hijau Cafe opens daily from 8am till 4pm except on Friday. It is located along Rubber Road and one should not miss it by its outlook as mentioned above.

Anyone of you ever heard of Top Hill Kitchen? First thing that comes to mind would be the restaurant is located on top of a hill... :P..  Well, the actual location of the restaurant is indeed nearby a hill. If you are a local, you would have known where is SRB Chung Hua No. 1. The shop is just at the corner lot of a block of shop located beside the foothill of SRB Chung Hua No. 1.

This is our first visit to the restaurant. We have been driving past it quite often but somehow never gone in to try but on this particular Saturday's afternoon, we paid a visit. When we reached, the shop is almost empty with only one table occupied by a couple. Not a good sign though.. :P However since we have reached and couldn't really think of another eating place if we were to switch location, we just went in.

We were served immediately and the waiter passed to us a Set Menu's menu. First thing we checked out was the pricing and the meals are priced reasonably. Secondly, we checked out what are on offer.


Salt ordered the Deep-fried Chicken Cube with Marmite Sauce and Rice. The plate used to serve the set menu is big but not the portion. It also comes with a piece of keropok (cracker) and fried egg.

Deep-fried Chicken Cube with Marmite Sauce and Rice

Pepper ordered the Deep-fried Prawns Meat with Salted Egg Sauce and Rice. Same serving style.

Deep-fried Prawns Meat with Salted Egg Sauce and Rice

Halfway eating, Salt felt like ordering another side dish and asked the waitress for the main menu, which is another menu that shows all the available dishes from appetizers to desserts. After browsing through, he ordered the small sized Oyster Omelette (beside small, there are medium and large size too). When the dish was served, we were surprised by the size as it didn't look small enough to what we thought and the price is only RM8. It is quite worth it.

Oyster Omelette

Drop by and have a try yourself at this restaurant.

Recently during one of our weekend lunches, we went to try out a new dining outlet which is located inside our most happening shopping mall in Kuching, the Spring. The dining outlet is opened not long ago, if not mistaken only a few months back.

It serves taiwanese cuisines so if you happened to be a fan of taiwanese foods, can consider giving it a try. The name of the shop? It is called Xian Ding Wei, which is the pinyin for the shop's name in chinese characters 鲜定味.

We glanced through the menu outside the waiting area before entering the restaurant to have a rough idea what is served and the pricing. But judging from the appearance and decoration of the restaurant, it seemed quite high class so the pricing one can guess that it is more or less reflected by that.


There are quite a large selection of dishes to order from but we decided to just give the set menu a try first as it is served with soup and appetizers. We too have trouble choosing which set menu to order as there are around 20 plus set menu to choose from. In the end, we ordered the menu with the recommended sign.

Side Dish of the Day

Salt ordered the Deep Fried Pork Chop Marinated with Wine's Grain. He was curious about the taste of wine's grain so give it a try. When the meal was served, both of us smelled something of strong odor, something smelly!!! Anyhow, the meal was served and Salt made his own decision to order this dish, there was no other choices but just to eat it. However upon eating the first piece into the mouth, it tasted not that bad. The smell was gone, directly opposite as when before it was in the mouth. This reminds me of stinky tofu (smelly beancurd), another popular delicacy found in places like Hong Kong which has this characteristic, smells bad but tastes nice.

Deep Fried Pork Chop Marinated with Wine's Grain

Meanwhile, Pepper ordered the Taiwanese Supreme Chicken in 3 variety of sauces (三杯鸡). It smelled nice and the meal was served in a claypot. This dish is one of the highly recommended and signature dish. As the name suggests, the dish is cooked using three (3) different kinds of sauces. To the exact details, we have no idea what are those sauces.

Taiwanese Supreme Chicken in 3 variety of sauces

This restaurant is not only available in Kuching but also available at Penang and KL. Do drop by if you happen to come across one around you. The place is not really only for heavy meals but you can try out their varieties of desserts and drinks as well.

It has been a while since our last post. Sorry folks for the dormancy. Although Chinese Lunar New Year celebration has just officially ended on 17.02.2011 (i.e. Chap Goh Meh), Salt n Pepper would still like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a Belated Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fatt Chai.

Recently during the CNY holidays, we went to have one of our lunches at Imperial Duck Restaurant. Coincidentally, the day we went was also their first business day of the lunar new year. We have had this opportunity to witness the lion dance show as the 'taukeh' (i.e. owner) of the restaurant invited the lion dance troupe to perform as this would bring about an auspicious beginning for the year.

A short video clip of the lion dance show.


Let's move on to the foods here. As the name suggests, the signature dish here would arguably be the roasted duck. If not mistaken, there are three (3) different methods of serving styles but we could only remembered two (2) so far as we only ordered these two (2) before. The two (2) are Roasted Duck in Hong Kong Style and Roasted Duck in  Mango Sauce.

Roasted Duck in Hong Kong Style

Roasted Duck in Mango Sauce

Although the roasted duck is their signature dish, we think that the roasted pork served here is also one of the best in town. This dish without having any difficulties easily became our most favourite order. However, the percentage of we managed to order it is not high as it always run out of stock. So the tip is to reach early (best is before 12.30pm) in order to have a taste on this dish.

If you order specifically just the roast pork, the way they served and cut it is in big and thick piece with nine (9) pieces per plate. There is also wasabi sauce served as condiment for this dish.

Roasted Pork

If you are ordering a combination of roasted duck meat and roasted pork, the roasted pork is cut in thinner slices.

Combination of Roasted Duck and Pork

Salt especially likes the fried rice here. There are two types namely Yong Chow Fried Rice and Imperial Duck Fried Rice which both are as nice. Yong Chow Fried Rice would need no further introduction but the Imperial Duck Fried Rice contains some special ingredients such as small piece of duck meat, salted egg yolk and anchovy.

Yong Chow Fried Rice

 There are also other meats and vegetables dishes on the menu but we have yet to tried all of them.

Pork Rib With Pepper & Salt

Kailan with Oyster Sauce

Apart from foods, they do serve dim sum as well. Overall, it is a nice eating place and is also one of our favourites eating places. The restaurant is located along the row of shop houses that housed the infamous Lok Thien Restaurant. For those of you who do not know, Imperial Duck Restaurant's owner is also the same owner of Lok Thien Restaurant. Maybe that's one of the reasons the restaurant is located nearby with Lok Thien.