Go-Ji-Ra @ My Burger Lab – All hail the kings!

14, Jalan 21/22, SeaPark, 46300, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

I’ve not done a post on My Burger Lab till now because, honestly, what’s left to say that’s not already been said by other, better food bloggers?

We’ve visited a bunch of times but I never felt like I had anything significant to add. Their legendary service is great as always. Despite the opening of a new outlet in OUG, the queues are still as long. And we’re sure many a fan has felt Lady Fartsalot’s frustration on our most recent visit when the burger she wanted had sold out by the time she got to the head of the line. Okay, they now have additional seating upstairs but that’s hardly big enough news to merit a post.

What IS big enough was the monstrous Go-Ji-Ra burger I just had.

This thing is staggeringly huge. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was what caused Godzilla’s widely talked-about weight gain.

This must be one of those posts I’ve heard about that ‘writes itself’. Having had the Go-Ji-Ra, I suddenly noticed a jumble of words jostling around in my head demanding to get written down. Or typed out, as it were.

The words in my head insist that I tell you about how the King of Burgers and the King of Monsters have finally come together in a glorious explosion of flesh and flavour.

There were three (THREE!) satisfyingly thick and meaty beef patties that literally fall apart in the mouth. I had previously expressed mild dissatisfaction that My Burger Lab burgers had a rather small meat-to-other-ingredients ratio. This burger demolishes that complaint as completely as Godzilla demolishes buildings.

Damn near knocked me over as well, as the massive amount of meat almost put me in a food coma.

The mustard-grilled patties had an appetising sour zing, as well as a refreshing kick from wasabi. Absolutely delicious, and certainly enough to satisfy even the biggest of meat cravings.

I would have enjoyed the Go-Ji-Ra even more if not for the subtle aroma of the blue cheese that was added to it. But that’s completely my own fault for not knowing how to appreciate blue cheese, and nothing to do with My Burger Lab.

And because I don’t foresee another My Burger Lab post in the near future, I’m taking this opportunity to also publish all the burger pictures we’ve taken during our previous visits there.

Can't remember which burger this is. Cthulhu, probably.

Nope, this one doesn't ring a bell either.

This appears to be a chicken one that Lady Fartsalot had. Maybe she remembers... nope, no luck there.

A quick note to wrap up before I go off to collapse under the weight of all this meat inside me. I don’t know whether the Go-Ji-Ra is a permanent item on the menu. Maybe, like Godzilla, it will disappear back into the sea once it’s caused sufficient destruction to enough digestive systems. If you’re interested, you might want to go try it soon, just in case.

And if you’re not a big eater, for goodness’ sake bring back-up.

Old picture of shop interior. It's less packed now with extra seating upstairs, but only by a tiny bit. It seems that at My Burger Lab, with greater seating capacity come greater numbers of hungry fans.

Bite-sized review

It’s the My Burger Lab everyone knows and loves. This post is about how meaty and delicious the massive new Go-Ji-Ra burger is. Don’t know how long it will stay on the menu, so go check it out quick. And bring someone to help you eat it.

Stats

Price: About RM30 and worth every single sen.

Nosh – Too… much… black… peppAAACHOO!

7, Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar Baru, 59100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We went to Nosh in Bangsar for Christmas dinner and found it to be refreshingly quiet and uncrowded. We even found parking within seconds of turning into the Telawi area.

Guess most of the people who frequent Bangsar partied too hard there the night before and were all at home nursing hangovers and feeling sorry for themselves. Great for me, since I am not too fond of crowded places.

So, the food at Nosh. It seemed that they were a little heavy-handed with the black pepper, and this was particularly noticeable for someone who doesn’t like black pepper, like me.

The taste of black pepper dominated my chicken roulade, to the point where I could hardly taste anything else. Besides this, the chicken itself was nice and tender, with what looked like spinach in the middle and a thin, crispy crust. There were some nicely cooked and beautifully carved pieces of vegetables and a huge amount of sweet and extremely heavy pumpkin mash. Fortunately, the tart tomato sauce helped cut some of the mash’s sweetness, and also counter some of the pepperiness of the chicken.

They should have called it black pepper chicken roulade to warn people like me.

Lady Fartsalot’s tagliatelle carbonara with smoked duck was a lot better. It landed on the table in a swirl of amazing smells: cheese and salty ham and deliciousness… topped with a single, beautiful, runny egg yolk. Once everything’s been mixed and given some time to dry out, we were left with a nice, thick sauce that tasted every bit as good as it smelled. There was just the right amount of sauce, too, and it coated the firm and chewy tagliatelle nicely. Everything was great except for an occasional pepper-heavy bite of food. Maybe we didn’t mix the pasta thoroughly enough to spread the pepper out.

An amazing carbonara spoiled slightly by the pepper bombs buried within.

Fortunately, the last item we’ll be talking about is blessedly free of back pepper. The Passion Shy mocktail was a bit like a mojito, and tasted of lime and passionfruit, with a very slight hint of mint. Very refreshing indeed.

One of the few things containing mint that I actually like a lot.

Overall, the food at Nosh is pretty good. The black pepper thing is probably a very personal gripe based on my own taste preferences. I am curious to go back again to try other items on the menu, perhaps on normal days when the cooks are less likely to have been out getting hammered the previous night.

Bite-sized review

Good food, ambience and service. The food seemed to have a little too much black pepper, but that could be because I don’t like black pepper and am particularly sensitive to it. I would go back again to try other stuff on the menu.

Stats

Price: Mid-range for Bangsar. The two mains were RM34 each. The drink was RM12.

Hours: Closed on Mondays. Opening hours on other days vary. Check their website at nosh.my/theplace.html for details.

MyKuali Penang White Curry Mee

Many people I know are already fanatical devotees of this instant noodle brand. For those of you who have yet to discover it, here’s a quick summary of the MyKuali legend so far.

There are a few sections with sub-heads, so you can skip the parts you’re already familiar with.

About The Ramen Rater

Before anything else, I guess I should tell you about The Ramen Rater, since I first heard about MyKuali on his site. Who is he, you ask? Well, he’s an American guy who has loved instant noodles since he was a kid, and is now probably the world’s foremost authority on instant noodles.

He’s so influential, his opinion so respected, that when his top 10 list of 2013’s best instant noodles did not include a brand from Taiwan, the story was featured on Taiwanese TV and many Taiwanese expressed outrage at the notion that their instant noodles are not considered good enough by the big man.

People and companies send him products to review. He’s been featured on TV and radio shows in multiple countries, including Japan: where instant noodles were invented.

What I’m trying to get across is, he’s not just some chubby white guy crapping out arbitrary opinions nobody cares about from his mother’s basement. No, when this chubby white guy craps out his arbitrary opinions, it affects people, incites strong reactions and could create shockwaves half a world away.

And here’s a picture of this instant noodle icon – so you can spot him and ask for an autograph or something.

He’s reviewed over 700 unique instant noodles to date and I’m just flabbergasted by two things:

1. How the heck is he still alive??

2. Why hasn’t he gotten a Wikipedia entry yet?

MyKuali got onto a Ramen Rater Top 10

As I said, I first heard about MyKuali when their noodles made it onto The Ramen Rater’s Top 10 Spiciest Instant Noodles of All Time 2013. I know, I know, the ‘2013’ is contradicting the bit that says ‘of All Time’ – but I’m not about to argue with the world’s leading Instant Noodle-ologist.

It came in at number 7, but it was the first time an instant noodle from Malaysia made it onto a Ramen Rater Top Ten list, and it received a perfect 5/5 stars to boot! Certainly something to be proud of.

  

Side note, because I’m still really sore about the state of things

Goodness knows I need things to be proud of, living as I am in a situation where a big group of us put money into a pot, only to have 99.5% of it stolen by a tiny group of rabid dogs. Said dogs then aggressively brandish kangkung in our faces and scream insults at us because we’re not sufficiently grateful for the 0.5% they left us.

Yeah, I just had to get one more in.

Sorry, moving on.

MyKuali, the seriously elusive

I don’t know if the Ramen Rater listing made demand for MyKuali explode, or if the noodles had been hugely popular all along before he did his review and top ten listing. All I know is, by the time I got round to Googling MyKuali, their Facebook page has already been inundated by frustrated fans crying out for their white curry noodles, demanding that they step up their production and improve their distribution network.

People willingly endured KL traffic to get to Sogo, where MyKuali claimed that the noodles were available, only to find them already sold out. A friend told me about spotting a last case of it in a sundry shop while running an urgent errand, and immediately stopped to buy the lot, errand temporarily forgotten until he could secure the noodles. They were being snapped up, not by the packet, but in bulk by the case – whenever anyone is lucky enough to get their hands on some.

Take a good look – memorise what it looks like. Make sure you tell me if you spot it anywhere.

As more people get a taste, the frenzy intensified. Rumours would spring up about where it can be found – sometimes proven true, other times not. Someone or other would know a guy who knows a guy who knows an agent for MyKuali who could secure a shipment of the stuff. Enterprising individuals would re-sell it at nearly a 50% mark-up.

And no doubt at some point a few of us would look up from our obsession just long enough to laugh about how ridiculous it must appear that we’re going to all this trouble over what, ultimately, are just instant noodles. But do not doubt that those same people would cheerfully punch you in the throat if you get between them and the last packet on the shelf.

Rumour has it that a movie is being made about the fanaticism of MyKuali lovers - they're calling it World War Mee.

  

So it’s a big deal. But really, how does it taste?

Short answer: it’s good. It’s really good. It’s fantastic for an instant noodle, and even holds its own against the curry mee you get from hawkers in Penang. Definitely a damn sight better than some of the curry laksa we find here in Klang Valley.

Don’t let the less-than-premium look of the packaging design turn you off. This stuff is legit!

For the long answer, well… let’s start with the contents of the pack. You immediately get a sense that this is not your regular Maggi mee because along with the noodles and seasoning powder, you also get a huge packet of potent-looking chilli paste that looked like it was freshly made by your grandma in her own kitchen; and they even managed to include the richness of santan in the form of a powdered ‘non-dairy creamer’.

MyKuali Penang White Curry Mee unboxing.

Then you start cooking and the smell just takes over the kitchen and spreads outward in an intoxicating wave that conjures up images of long-simmering claypots of seafood curry with 15 ingredients in them.

Now you pour the noodles into a bowl, and sinuous tendrils of aroma rise up out of the soup, caressing your senses and whispering salacious promises of the pleasures to come… soon, so very soon now.

I just want to dive into a vat full of this stuff.

You scoop up a spoonful of soup and bring it to eye level. It’s the deep, rich colour of saffron robes, with globules of chilli oil and dark flecks of pulverised herbs and spices floating on the surface. It’s also thick, with an almost sauce-like consistency that helps it to cling to every noodle strand.

We couldn’t wait long enough to carry it to the dining table, and ate it right there on the kitchen counter.

You take your first sip and your eyes close involuntarily as your senses are overcome – the richness of coconut milk and the briny sweetness of seafood crashing together on your tongue and filling up your entire mouth. Then, at the back of your throat, a subtle spiciness that gradually grows in presence, making your tongue and lips tingle deliciously, reminding you it’s there but never intense enough to make you uncomfortable.

You realise you’d been holding your breath all this while and sigh contentedly, and you get the heady aroma again in your nostrils – softer now, a fond farewell and an invitation to take your next spoonful.

Rinse, repeat, lick the bowl. I did.

Do I add anything?

The noodles are perfect and don’t need anything else. But you can always add boiled prawns and fish fillets, maybe a perfectly boiled egg with runny yolk. And replace water with a tasty seafood stock for an extra flavour boost.

I wouldn’t recommend doing anything more than that.

Most importantly, where can I score some?

Well, I don’t know of a steady supply source in Klang Valley or even in Penang. But if I did, well, I wouldn’t share it. Yeah, I’m selfish like that. But I’m really not all that big of a douche because…

Here’s your chance to win some MyKuali!

To thank you for reading this far, here’s an opportunity to win a bag of MyKuali with 4 packets of noodles. Just tell us which post in this blog you like most, and why. Submit your answers via e-mail at burpstang@gmail.com by 14 Feb 2014.

Just one term: winners MUST collect their prizes from The Curve @ Mutiara Damansara.

All the best!

NOTE

We’ve not been paid by MyKuali in any way to promote their product. Although MyKuali, if you’re reading this, a few packs of free noodles would be greatly appreciated. :)

Sungai Petani mamak mee gorengs – Thajudeen VS Alaudin

When done right, a plate of mamak mee goreng – much like char koay teow (which, to me, is the undisputed king of Malaysian stir-fried noodles) – is a glorious creation. Its complex, multi-layered flavours and textures make it a meal that is deliciously, magically, so much more than merely the sum of its ingredients list.

But, also like char koay teow, not many people are able to do it right. Most of those I’ve had in Klang Valley have been rather poor approximations of what real mamak mee goreng ought to be.

The good ones I know of are all up north. In Penang, Hameed does a pretty good and unique spicy version with sotong; and the stall at Bangkok Lane with its reddish noodles is not bad either. Even further north, in Sungai Petani, I’ve found another two stalls that have been serving up good mamak mee goreng for many years.

Having tried both, I find myself preferring Thajudeen just a sliver more. But they are very close in terms of taste and quality, so here’s a showdown/comparison that will hopefully highlight why each of them deserves their respective groups of loyal fans.

Taste

Both have a similar salty-sweet-spicy flavour that is distinctive to mamak mee goreng. I find that Thajudeen has slightly stronger and saltier flavours, hence my preference.

Texture

Alaudin cuts its ingredients in bigger chunks – you can clearly see and taste the skin-on potato wedges, fritters and beancurd in it. With Thajudeen, the ingredients are cut significantly smaller so while you still get various distinct textures as you eat, it is more difficult to visually discern the different ingredients in the dish. Advantage to Alaudin on this one.

Mee Thajudeen is like creamy peanut butter... everything practically pureed together.

And Mee Alaudin is more like chunky peanut butter, with distinctive pieces of its various ingredients.

Noodles

Both use the yellow noodles that appear to be unique to Sungai Petani. They’re thinner, lighter in colour and have a firmer, chewier texture compared to the yellow noodles found elsewhere. To me, these noodles give Sungai Petani hawkers an overall edge over their counterparts elsewhere in Malaysia, even – though it pains me to admit it – those in Penang.

How to eat

Both noodles tend to be a little moist when it arrives on the table. I would recommend stirring and tossing them around a bit to let the moisture dissipate and allow the noodles to dry out a bit. I find that the flavour is best when the noodles are slightly warm – rather than when they are piping hot.

Price

Thajudeen noodles are RM3.30 a plate while Alaudeen’s is a little below RM3.00.

Shop

Like Improved Pickup Radius on Diablo III items or the points on ‘Whose line is it anyway?’ ambience doesn’t really matter but I am including this here because I suspect it may help explain the slight price discrepancy between the two stalls.

Restoran Taulat where Thajudeen is located is off the main road, large and has spotless, gleaming metal tables and chairs. It has a large open-air kitchen with a team of about 3 or 4 cooks.

This shop looks like it belongs to a max-level artisan on Diablo III.

In contrast, Alaudin is in a smaller, slightly more run-down location next to a big main road with lots of cars zooming past nearby. Its stall is a single pushcart outside a mamak shop that supplies the plastic tables and chairs and drinks. 

While this stall looks like another destructible object in the game that players couldn't even be bothered to smash. 

Conclusion

You know which one I prefer, but the ultimate decision on which one is better is very much a matter of individual taste. Next time you roll by Sungai Petani, be sure to give both a try and decide for yourself.

Mee Thajudeen

Restoran Taulat, No. 214-B, Jalan Hospital, 08000, Sungai Petani, Kedah, Malaysia

Mee Alaudin

Mee Alaudin Stall, Jalan Kampung Baru (Bakar Arang), 08000, Sungai Petani, Kedah, Malaysia

Johnny Rockets – Worst. Burger. Ever.

Hello all. We take a break from my ramblings about Bangkok food to have a big rant.

The first, most important, and most distressing thing about Johnny Rockets is that the headline was not an exaggeration. Not one bit. The piece of crap I ate there really was the worst burger I have ever had in my life.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Let’s backtrack a little.

I’ve seen the lot in The Curve under renovation for quite a while, and was rather looking forward to trying out what looked to be a real-deal, all-American burger joint.

In November, they finally opened and all the signs were highly auspicious. There were dancing waiters and cute uniforms and cheerful-looking décor that made the place look every bit like a classic American deli. Plus, the queues were massively long. We tried going there for dinner one weekend in mid-November and had to pass because the waiting list was too long and we needed to go watch the God of Thunder kick some dark elf ass.

Then, a few days later, I happened to have a morning meeting near The Curve which ended around lunchtime. I decided I should have lunch there and even got a co-worker to go with me. I don’t know if he will ever forgive me.

Despite it being a weekday, we still had to wait 30 minutes for a table. And despite the huge team of cooks in the open kitchen, we had to wait almost 45 minutes for our food.

The plateful of what can only very loosely be termed ‘food’ that finally landed in front of me was nothing short of vile.

The burger patty looked and tasted like it had spent a week being incinerated on the surface of the sun. Grossly overcooked, it was a disgusting hunk of dry, tough, rubbery meat utterly devoid of any flavour, save for the taste of copious amounts of pepper. And, inexplicably for a busy, packed restaurant, it was also cold.

The bun is a whole other nightmare. Its inner surfaces were two thick, hard, greasy crusts that looked like someone had slathered butter on them, toasted them for too long and left them to go stale for a couple of weeks before serving them to me. Again, how do you achieve this in a busy restaurant?

They managed to totally f*ck up the sides as well. The fries were soggy, limp, overly starchy abominations that no amount of ketchup or chilli sauce could save.

And with the coleslaw, the food quality went from horrific to borderline criminal. It was about half a handful of completely wilted purple lettuce that appeared to have been discarded vegetable trimmings salvaged from the dumpster behind a third-rate restaurant, crudely shredded and scattered unceremoniously on the plate with barely a few drops of disgusting-looking dressing coated in congealed oil.

And for this they had the gall to charge almost RM30!

The worst beef burger I’ve had at McDonald’s is 50 times better than this. Even the crappy McRib is better than this. Heck, a piece of old tyre rubber slapped between two sheets of cardboard and sauced with used engine oil would probably taste better than this unmitigated piece of utter crap that has no business calling itself ‘edible’, much less a burger.

We had to get back to work and didn’t have time to demand replacements that very likely would have taken another 45 minutes to arrive. So we just choked down the least disgusting bits on our plate and left, never intending to return.

Dammit, I wanted to like Johnny Rockets, I really did. Now all I want is to see its hordes of curious first-time customers shrink to nothing, and for the restaurant to die a well-deserved death – the sooner the better – so that the space it currently occupies can be filled with a shop that’s not a total affront to its entire industry.

Texas Chicken – The sides that stole the show

G02, Empire Damansara, Jalan PJU 8/8, 47800, Damansara Perdana, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

I like fried chicken.

For many years, I was a hardcore fan of KFC and would try every single new thing on the menu at least once. But I’ve stopped eating there for a long time now because I am violently opposed to the fact that they hire rempits who gleefullycontaminate the food and throw flying punches at customers.

I still like fried chicken, but because of this self-imposed abstinence from KFC, I am always on the lookout for good new fried chicken joints to try. So I was very happy when I found out that a new fried chicken franchise has opened in Malaysia.

Could this be my new go-to place for fried chicken?

It’s located just 5 minutes’ drive from where I stay, at the shiny new Empire Damansara. I’ve been there 3 times in the space of a week, and have tried almost everything on the menu. Here’s my take on Texas Chicken, with comparisons (where applicable) against the long-established fried chicken king: KFC.

Original chicken.

We start, of course, with the main event: the fried chicken. My first thought upon looking at it is: Well I’ll be a double-dog-darned tumbleweed… they weren’t kiddin’ when they said everything’s big in Texas. (apologies for my inept Texan)

Compared with the pathetic, shrunken chicken from KFC, the pieces of fried chicken at Texas are massive. And they don’t cheat by adding huge amounts of batter like KFC does with Hot & Spicy. It’s all meat with a very thin coating of batter. Even the wings have a substantial amount of meat on them, and don’t disappear in two bites.

Spicy chicken.

They got the meat to be tender and juicy – even the breasts – something which KFC seemed to have forgotten how to do in recent years.

Flavour-wise, though, the chicken at Texas is very mild. Their original chicken doesn’t have a distinctive flavour like KFC OR, and even their spicy chicken (though they say it has been seasoned with a potent blend of 5 different spices) seems to lack much punch in the flavour department. I really hope they will adjust their recipes to suit Malaysian preferences for stronger flavours… and soon. In the mean time, there’s always chilli sauce… :)

Okay, so the chicken is good but not great. But all is not lost: as the headline says, the sides are awesome. Before we get to them, though, I thought I should do a quick run-down of all the things I ate there which were – like the chicken – good but not great. Would be a shame to have gained all those calories and not write about the food, no?

Chicken Tenders. Thick, meaty strips of tender, juicy breast meat. Like the fried chicken, not very flavourful, but the creamy jalapeno sauce has a nice tangy taste that boosted the flavour quotient considerably. The darker one is the spicy version.

Nuggets. Don’t like this one. Taste and texture remind me too much of chicken meatballs. Barbecue sauce is nice and thick, but a little too sweet for my taste.

Regular wrap – chicken tender with some green veggies and nice sour cream. Could do with a little extra sauce.

Tex wrap – regular wrap with tomatoes and shredded cheese added. Again, some extra sauce would be good.

Classic burger. Sort of like the McChicken (which I’m not fond of) or a Colonel Burger (which I absolutely loathe). But at least in this one, the patty has a nice crunchy crust.

Mexicana burger (which technically should be called a sandwich). Quite big, with a thick piece of boneless chicken. Like the wrap, could use a little more sauce. I would say the KFC Zinger is just slightly better than this.

All right, we’ve gotten all that out of the way… let’s finish strong with three fantastic sides.

French fries.

These are perfect: crunchy outside, light and fluffy inside. They are so well-seasoned that it actually felt wrong to dip them in chilli sauce or ketchup. Hands-down better than KFC Fun Fries; better even than McDonald’s fries; they’re every bit as good as the top-notch fries at Carl’s Jr.

Mashed potato.

The last time I had whipped potato at KFC, it was atrociously bad, with the texture of congealed wallpaper paste and a tasteless sauce. It was such a pleasure to taste the soft, light and creamy mashed potato at Texas chicken with its tasty brown sauce. The coleslaw next to it is not bad either.

Honey butter biscuits.

In my opinion, this is the best item on the menu. It has a nice crunchy crust on top that’s sticky with a honey glaze. The middle is so soft that it starts falling apart as soon as you pick it up. The texture is smooth and light and almost creamy, and there is a delicious buttery flavour that’s sweet and slightly savoury. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give the KFC bun a 1, the Popeye’s biscuit a 5 and the Texas honey butter biscuits a 10.

Final verdict: the lack of flavour in the fried chicken is a pretty big issue for a fried chicken joint, but it’s worth a try just for the biscuits alone. And one more thing…

Go now while it’s still good!

I remember when Wendy’s first returned to Malaysia. I went to the branch at Sunway Pyramid and tried the ridiculously massive burger. The patties were juicy and tasty and overflowed the bun so much that I had to take 3 massive bites of all-meat before I reached the bread. Now, the patties are a lot smaller and fit neatly inside the bun and are a lot drier.

Currently, the staff at Texas are enthusiastic and polite and the food is prepared well. I of course hope this doesn’t change. But just in case it does, I’ll be eating at Texas quite frequently.

Snack-sized review

Good-sized and beautifully cooked fried chicken which unfortunately is a bit lacking in flavour.  The sides are awesome, though; it’s worth trying out just for the honey butter biscuits alone.

Stats

Hours: 10 to 10

Price: About RM10 per person.