Review: Wellness Recipe

Venue: Wellness Recipe, Kg Kayu Ara
Occasion: Food tasting
Overall comment: A refreshing & healthy alternative to our usual "heavy" meals as food here gives me the 'tummy-satisfied feel' & mentally, I feel that it's a 'lighter' meal - but I'm full! Simply said - not so fried/oily, spice-infused, nor meaty.
Halal: Yes

Ever thought of having a fully "organic meal"? Let me guess what's your first thought when you heard that question...did I hear an "Eeuwww..."? Haha...Most people may have the misconception that organic food = vegetarian food = uninteresting. Wellness Recipe is here to prove you wrong & you'll be spoiled for choice with the variety that they have to offer :)

Thanks to Vivian Tan from Wellness Recipe & Tan KC who extended the invitation, I had the opportunity of tasting some organic dishes for pretty much the first time early last week! Located at Boulevard 10, a relatively new commercial area right in front of Kampung Kayu Ara area, facing the Sprint highway, you'll find this neat & clean looking cafe/restaurant that speaks of a healthy lifestyle through healthy eating.

As you would have noticed from the photo below, the Wellness group consists of 3 parts:
1. Wellness Concept, a spa & health-screening place
2. Wellness Recipe, the restaurant to indulge in a healthy organic meal
3. as an Importer for organic whole-food supplements (all in one goodness) - they import their organic goods from Canada, Japan, US, & Australia, & the goods are currently placed at Wellness Recipe for sale

Back to Wellness Recipe, this restaurant is getting rather popular with the office lunch crowd & serves the neighbourhood more during dinners. They even have a steady flow of regular customers, some of whom pops by everyday for dinner after their time at the spa/Wellness Concept! *wow, so healthy*

Wellness Recipe started in Penang (this is their 2nd outlet) & adopts the LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health & Sustainability) 'culture', if I may call it a culture. It aims to educate the community to eat more greens for a healthier lifestyle, although the outlet does serve organic meat as well - it just simply means that the animal is fed with an organic diet ;) The restaurant serves 80% vegetables & 20% meat, so if you've had your quota of meat for the day/week, perhaps you would like to consider a change of diet or appetite by indulging into more greens!

Organic food sold at the restaurant

During our food-tasting session, we were introduced to the best-sellers/most popular/pride of the restaurant. Here's what we were generously fed with for dinner:

Barleygreen Honey

Organic Barleygreen + Royal Honey
This barley green drink contains 300 types of live enzymes that helps the body function better. You'll certainly have no problems with your bowels, colon & digestion after drinking this! Hahaha...hey, if you've watched Scrubs, you'll remember that everything has to do with your poo :D

Fruit & Vegetables Rojak

The rojak was quite addictive. Fresh pineapples, green apples, turnip/sengkuang, green mangoes, papayas, cucumbers, & carrots were mixed with a thick sweet sauce, topped with fragrant crushed peanuts & sesame seed. It does lack in the spicy & "prawny" taste as shrimp paste & chilli weren't part of the mixture. Overall, it was a refreshing change to the usual rojak we find elsewhere. *crunch crunch chew chew*

 

Green Curry

A curry with mushrooms and a variety of vegetables
Unlike the usual Thai green curry that you find at Thai restaurants, this green curry doesn't come with meat nor seafood. Having said that, the dish is nevertheless very tasty. I'm a mushroom-lover, so dishing out spoonfuls of fresh black mushrooms & golden mushrooms plus lady's fingers (another personal favourite) in a moderately thick & spicy/pepperish green curry gravy was really delightful. I could actually finish the whole bowl of green curry with a plate of brown rice! Yes, they serve brown rice here :)

Organic Juicing Spaghetti

Noodles made using Organic Barleygreen, Beta Carrot and Beta Beet
If you know me well enough, you'll know how fascinated I am with colourful food or colours for the matter of fact! I could spend hours at a stationary shop in front of the colour pens sections, so having a plate of naturally-coloured colourful plate of noodles simply made my day :) I enjoyed the texture of the noodles, which was smooth, slightly soft yet not mushy, & "slurpy" at the same time. The noodles are just like your spaghetti (but it's not spaghetti) & comes with either a tomato-based sauce (sweet, sour, salty & has a fresh tomato taste) or a mushroom sauce (loads of sweet yellow onions & mushrooms). It's a highly nutritious meal & great for kids too! Green noodles = Barley green juice, yellow noodles = carrot juice, pink noodles = beet root juice.

Spiral Pasta (Fusilli) in Mushroom Sauce

Spiral pasta with house made mushroom sauce
Alike the colourful plate of noodles in the photo above, this dish is served with fusilli instead. I enjoyed this dish as well, but much prefer the texture of the uniquely made noodles above.

Mushroom Fried Brown Rice

Brown rice fried with mushroom and a variety of vegetables
This dish is one of the more popular dishes by Wellness Recipe. However, I couldn't really taste the dish well as I only have 2-3 teaspoons full of rice, which didn't really help...hahaha...I couldn't taste the actual fragrance of the dish & those few scoops that I had gave me the impression that the fried rice lacks "wok hei"/heat from the stove.

Wellness Signature Organic Chicken

Organic chicken in a tasty spicy herb sauce
Ah, as I'm SO not-vegetarian (although I love vegetables, but I also love meat!), so this dish was top on my list of favourites! I would order this again on my next trip to Wellness Recipe :D It's chicken breast meat, but very well marinated, seasoned & fried until it is tender & bursting with sweet & sour flavours in every bite. I rarely enjoy chicken breast meat & will usually go for the thigh, but this was good! Ah, I wish I could have the whole plate! Hahaha...greedy me :P

Korean Style Steam Hot Pot

A mix of mushrooms and vegetables cooked in hotpot with Korean sauce
How I wish the pot was hot! Having left out on the table for far too long (cos we spent quite a lot of time snapping photos of the food), the pot wasn't sizzling hot any more, so the vegetables & mushrooms were left raw :( Or was it supposed to be eaten raw? If it was sizzling hot, it would have tasted so much better! Plus, if the pot was larger or the vegetables were cut in smaller pieces, I reckon we could still soak & cook the veggie...The sauce was quite an interesting one; something like a bean sauce/taucu, which actually gave the soup an extra "kick". What I love best in this dish is the beancurd - SO GOOD! The texture of the beancurd wasn't like the smooth "water taufu" ("sui tau foo") nor was it like the slightly drier "tau kon". I think this beancurd has a mixture of soya, pumpkin, & carrots or something along those lines, that gave the beancurd a special texture & taste.

Dessert: Wintermelon Longan Tong Shui
How often can you get a generous serving of ingredients to chew on in your dessert? It's "tong shui" after all & most people will just go for the liquids, but a bowl of wintermelon longan tong shui at Wellness Recipe comes with strips (a lot) of wintermelon & dried longans. I'm not a great fan of sweet stuff, so I felt that the tong shui was a little too sweet for my liking. I did appreciate the effort & serving of the nicely cut wintermelon though :)

Wellness Recipe's Menu

Snapshots of Wellness Recipe's Menu

They have a "today's" menu, available daily dishes, set lunches/dinners, & salads

Prices range from RM11.80 - RM14.80 for a noodles/rice dish

Set Lunch/Dinner for 2-4 persons (RM49.90 - RM69.90/set)

All sets come with a serving of green curry vegetable, steamed snow beancurd in mushroom sauce, Korean-style steam hotpot, & seasonal vegetable (in Set 2) or the Wellness signature organic chicken (in Set 3).

Beverage Menu (RM4.90 - RM7.90/drink)

There's also a 4-pages variety of healthy drinks for everyone, ranging from organic fruit/vegetable juices to soya drinks, tea, coffee, & yogurt drinks.

Map to Wellness Recipe

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It was indeed an interesting change for a meal - organic food! Who would have thought of having that for dinner/lunch, right? If you're around the corner & are adventurous to try out something different from your usual meals, do pop-by Wellness Recipe. The dishes served here are pretty refreshing & my 1st-dining experience here gave me a new sense of adventure to try out organic food even more!



Wellness Recipe (ground floor facing Sprint)
A- 1- 5, Block Allamanda
10 Boulevard
Lebuhraya Sprint PJU 6A
47400 Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan.
Tel: (+603) 7727 9999
Fax: (+603) 7732 7766
Business hours: 12:00p.m. - 10:00p.m. daily (last order at 9:00p.m.)
URL: www.wellnessconcept.net
Note: Ample parking available at RM1.00/hour (after 6pm, RM2.00/entry) - if I'm not mistaken


Ratings:
Presentation: * * * *
Price: * * *
Environment: * * * 1/2
Taste: * * * 1/2
Service: * * * *


Overall:

One life, one health - love it,

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Trip to Hatyai,Oct 2011 - Colourful Hatyai (Part 2)

These were taken on my last day at Hatyai, a typical Sunday morning in Hatyai. After breakfast, we went to the nearby market for a walk & I was as usual excited with the load of colourful stalls of food, fruits, vegetables & clothes.

Here are some colourful photos that I managed to capture:

Clockwise from top left: 1. Cute doggy with his owner on a motorcycle, 2. lady selling buns with meat floss, 3. fruit stall, 4. uncle selling otak-otak

Clockwise from top left: 1. Indian flower stall, 2. boiled sweet potatoes & baby yam, 3. tulip bulbs, 4. jelly & snacks, &  5. genetically modified sweet corn

Clockwise from top left: 1. Assortment of colourful vegetables, 2. an array of finger food, 3. friendly lady selling pickled food & cookies, & 4. fresh-from-the-sea large live fish for sale

Clockwise from top left: 1. Packets of salted egg yolks & mini doughnuts, 2.uncle frying carrot cake, 3.some pink-coloured rice cake with fillings fried to perfection, 4.deep fried "yau zhar kuai", & 5. trays of different types of fried rice

Clockwise from top left: 1. Busy market street with people, motorcycles, & carts, 2.deep fried banana fritters covered with glutinous rice & grated coconut, 3. the inside of the unique & delicious banana fritter

It wasn't the large market ("Dai Pasar") in Hatyai, so we finished walking through the entire market in 15-20 minutes, stopping by certain stalls to buy some snacks. I reckon our best buy were the boiled sweet potatoes & baby yams. They were really sweet & delicious!

We left Hatyai around 9:30a.m. & headed back to Malaysia. Ah, what a journey. It was a good experience visiting Hatyai for the weekend. I'm not sure if I will pop by Hatyai again, but I'm glad that I have visited Hatyai at least once (and Perlis as well! - I've officially completed my journey around the whole of Malaysia - all 14 states!).

Coming up, I've a food tasting/review write-up on something that I've never featured on my blog before. Stay tuned! :)


Amazing Thailand (Part 4),

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Trip to Hatyai,Oct 2011 - Food in Hatyai (Part 2 of 2)

Venue: BKT stall on Thanon Nipatuthit 3 Road, same road as Haytai Central Hotel
Overall comment: Generous portion of BKT with slightly different soup compared to Klang's BKT - not so herbal, but has more spices like the star anis. Price is also acceptable (around RM10-RM15/person) for the portion & taste served :)
Halal: No

I only had 1.5 days of eating in Hatyai, so my family had to be very selective with what we want to do/eat. The bus leaves Hatyai at 9:30a.m. Malaysian time, which is VERY early to do any last minute shopping. So, we planned for a good & quick breakfast & a short walk at the nearby market.

For our final meal at Hatyai, we've decided to have "bak kut teh ala Thai-Chinese" at my uncle's friend's stall. Thankfully, it was also near our hotel! *woots*

As I don't have the name of the coffeeshop (shops opposite Hatyai Central on the same road), if you're interested to try this place out as well, you'll have to look out for the stall itself:

The uncle is quite strange. He doesn't want you to order him to give you what you prefer; all you need to tell him is the number of people eating & whether you want the "yau zhar kwai" or not. After that, he will send bowls of BKT to your table.

Clockwise from top left: 1. The BKT stall, 2. The BKT uncle busy preparing bowls of BKT for his patrons, 3. The breakfast crowd around 7:30a.m. Malaysian time i.e. Hatyai's 6:30a.m.!

Everything's pretty much ready-to-be-served here at this BKT stall. Just tell the uncle if you want plain meat/mix & he'll send it to your table.

Boiling pot of BKT soup with LOADS of garlic!

Little "yau zhar kwai", pig's intestines, & pig's stomach

Strange paste

I found out that these strange dips are actually kaya for the "yau zhar kwai". SO WEIRD! Savoury BKT with sweet "yau zhar kwai"?? Interestingly, I think you've to inform the uncle if you want these 'cause we didn't get even 1 plate of kaya...hahaha....

My bowl of BKT

Wholesome goodness - a lovely porkilicious breakfast (a rather heavy one as well) to end my trip in Hatyai on a foodilicious note :D Throw Mr High-Cholesterol outta da window while you dig in!

Mini "yau zhar kwai" to go with the BKT soup

This is REAL Thai-white chicken

The one that we had one day 1 was really bad compared to this. You'll find a chicken rice stall at the same coffeeshop selling delicious & smooth "pak cham kai". Yums!

Roast pork

This wasn't too bad either, but somehow we've eaten much better ones back in Malaysia ;)

Map to the BKT stall

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Ah, what a trip. I wish we had more time here to explore the various food & trends in Hatyai. I've one more last post coming up on Hatyai :) Stay tuned with PerutBesi!


I LOVE BKT - Go to Hatyai also must eat BKT!

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Trip to Hatyai,Oct 2011 - Food in Hatyai (Part 1of 2)

As promised, here's on food in Hatyai! (Part 1 of 2)

Venue: Kan-eng Restaurant, Hatyai
Overall comment: One of the best & perhaps most famous "Chinese-Thai style" restaurants in Hatyai. It's affordable, tasty, & easily located. Most "tuk tuk" drivers will know how to get here when you mention the restaurant's name; we walked here from our hotel though :D
Halal: No

Total bill = RM70.00 or THB700

Thailand is famous for their tom yam, or at least that's what I believe. We've spent the whole day in Hatyai eating food that wasn't to our expectations; unappetizing food made us long to head back to Malaysia for some proper meal! Talk about complacency & comfort zone.

Here at Kan-eng, we definitely ordered the Tom Yam, which was actually quite good. It wasn't overly spicy 'til the tongue goes too numb to taste other dishes, nor was it too sour, making your whole face cringe up.

Here's something that we ordered "wrongly". I think we were supposed to order the Chicken Feet Kerabu, but we ended up ordering the Mango Kerabu, which was not too bad as well. It didn't have that "crunchy" chicken feet texture, but it had the fresh, crisp of sourish green mangoes. Oh, the bits of fried 'fish' gave the dish a good blend of sweet-salty taste to the sourish mango dish - appetizing :)

Yet another mistake...hahaha...yes, much trial & error during our short trip. We ordered stir-fried paku-pakis with belacan, but this dish came instead. It felt like pumpkin leaves! Not that we've had such a "vegetable" before, but it did look similar. In the end, we found out that this dish is called the "Chiangmai Vegetable"....okaaay...something new for PerutBesi....

All around town, I saw stalls selling fried oysters omelette. Being a great fan of "or chien", I just had to try out the Fried Oysters Omelette here. It wasn't up to my expectation. I still like the one in Puchong - Everyday Foodcourt. Oysters weren't very large & the egg omelette tasted nothing spectacular.

This was one of the best dishes apart from the tom yam - Thai Green Curry. We were served a generous portion of chicken, yam sticks, lemongrass, Thai basil leaves, & coconut milk. I could just have this with fragrant Thai white rice! So flavourful, spicy, & fragrant *drools*

Yes, we were hungry & satisfied after the good meal! :)

How Kan-eng looks like

It's located right opposite a temple

It's often packed during meal times!

Map to Kan-eng Restaurant

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Thank God for a good dinner after a not-so-good chicken rice lunch! :D


Kan-eng Restaurant
50/3 Kimpradit Road
90110 Hatyai Songkhla
Thailand
Tel: (+66) 074-246 138
Business hours: 10:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m., 5:00 p.m.-9:30 p.m.


*****
After dinner, we just went around town to experience the night life of Hatyai. Food stalls were everywhere, so were stalls selling souvenirs & clothes :)

Oops...PerutBesi forgot to take photos of non-food stalls! :P

As we haven't had our share of dessert, we went around looking for a particular "Tau Foo Fa" stall, recommended by my aunt. After much walking (round & round!), we found the little stall!

Located on this street

Right opposite Golden Crown Plaza

Smooth & unique "Tau Foo Fa" (RM4.00/bowl or THB40)

It was rather expensive (to my utter surprise), but as it was a one-off thing, I didn't find much reason to complain. Besides we got a bowl of smooth tau foo fa in pungent ginger syrup along with generous servings of crispy mini "yau zhar kwai" & ginkgo seeds. Interesting! Have you ever tried such a variant of tau foo fa? I would recommend this, even though it's slightly pricey :)

Hatyai-style "Lin Chi Kang" (RM4.00/bowl or THB40)

If you're not interested with tau foo fa, this is another option - you'll find all sorts of "lin chi kang" ingredients plus some sweet potato bits, cincau, & pink jelly strips. I find that Thais just love sweet potato...it's found in ice creams & now in their "lin chi kang" like dessert too??

Map to the "Tau Foo Fa" stall

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Are you tempted to make a trip to Hatyai now? There's nothing much there, but I'll "pause" here for now to keep you excited for a little longer. Stay tuned with PerutBesi for more on my Hatyai trip :D


Amazing Thailand (Part 2),

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