Entree Kibbles

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

White Rose Restaurant - Hoi An Specialty: The White Rose Dumplings @ Hoi An in Vietnam

The specialty of Hoi An, when it comes to food, is supposed to be a noodle dish known as Cao Lau which doesn't appear appetizing to me! For me, the specialty should be the white rose dumplings!

So unique were the dumplings that you can't find them outside of this UNESCO World Heritage site! Recipe was said to be secret; to the extent that any eateries serving them had to procure them from only one source in Hoi An; the white rose restaurant.

I was expecting a large crowd but maybe because it was still early at only 9.45 am, the usual tourists on day tours had yet to arrive, giving us plenty of tables to choose from.

Step further in and you would see an army of ladies working on moulding the white rose dumplings. They seemed accustomed to my DSLR and continued to concentrate in preparing the signature dish.

Frankly, the dumplings might look like flowers but not in the form and shape of the roses that I remember. Nevertheless, it's still the taste that matters most! Strangely for a restaurant, there were only two food dishes on the menu!

Complimentary glass of Vietnamese iced tea (known as tra da) although you do have choices of other beverages like soft drinks, juices, and even beer. p.s. there were more selections for drinks as compared to food.

White Rose Dumplings - the star of the restaurant! Just to manage your expectations, there were two types of steamed dumplings on the same plate; the signature rose dumpling which was smaller. The larger, plumper ones had the appearance of conventional dumplings, and were stuffed with more ingredients.

Attacking the white rose dumplings first! Please don't discount the small piece of meat (said to be made from prawns but I suspected pork was added) in the middle. It managed to pack a punch of sweet savoriness with the white translucent dough creating a necessary buffer to perfectly balance the flavor.

Eating it with fried crispy shallots was just pure bliss!

p.s. especially for a person who loves shallots.

The "other" dumplings had fillings like black fungus, carrots and beansprouts. Overall taste was peppery and I would suggest dipping them into the accompanying lime-sweet, fish sauce, for a better flavor.

Fried Wonton - I was honestly surprised when this was placed on our table.

Each fried wonton was larger than my fist and this was just incomparable to my other friend wontons I have in my entire life. From far, I actually thought this was a pizza!

Well, I ate it like a pizza slice too! Tomato sauce and prawn on top a piece of wonton skin, I would say this was akin to having sweet and sour pork, with crunchy wonton skin! Very interesting and definitely excited my taste buds.

Meat filling in the wonton was quite pathetic though. Most importantly, it didn't a useful role; similar to wanton noodles, where the noodles count a lot more than the wantons.

Unlike the white rose dumplings, I found the fried wonton cloying after a while even though the blame must be attributed to Alex, who was trying to cut down on fried stuff and literally stopped after just one "slice" of fried wonton!

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Would be back for both food dishes! My next trip would be with my mom and compared to Alex, she would likely help me to finish the food as she doesn't like to waste food!

Short video showing how the white dumplings were moulded.

Address

533 Đ. Hai Bà Trưng, Phường Cẩm Phổ,

Hội An, Quảng Nam, Vietnam

Map

As above.

Menu

As above.

Pricing

White Rose Dumplings - 70,000 dong

Fried Wonton - 100,000 Dong

Click here for my 8 Days' Itinerary to Danang (The City of Bridges) & Hoi An (The City of Lanterns) in Vietnam

Monday, October 28, 2024

Dehappy Seafood Restaurant @ Penang in Malaysia

The tummy was rumbling after we checked in to our hotel in Penang, St Giles Wembley and since it's our official first meal; let's have seafood! My last-minute research brought me to the nearby Dehappy Seafood Restaurant, that had the view of the towering Komtar at the back!

Commanding a decent review score of 4.1 from over 1,000 reviewers on Google Maps, we found a spacious non-air-conditioned restaurant. With its high ceiling, and ceiling fans, ventilation was good and I don't remember feeling hot and humid when I was dining there.

Live seafood tanks with their prices clearly marked out; crabs were RM200 per kilogram, Australian lobster was RM680 per kilogram etc. I am unsure about the prices for seafood, except for crabs where it would cost about S$100-S$120 per kilogram reputable seafood restaurants in Singapore.

Loving the free tissue dispenser and the plastic gloves! In Singapore, the restaurants would have charged us for wet tissue, although some would provide us with a large bowl of lime water to wash our hands. Speaking of that, I think they stopped providing the lime water after COVID-19; guess for hygiene reasons.

Mom would have nodded her head in agreement to see the cut green chilli. For me, I actually fell in love with the coarsely chopped garlic; more about it later.

Pu-er Tea - knowing the amount of seafood we would be ordering for just two persons, a pot of tea would be the most suitable beverage to make us feel less sinful about our meal.

Seaweed Seafood Soup - while I love seaweed and was looking forward to having a nice, steaming hot bowl of seafood soup to placate my tummy before the rest of the seafood were served.

Although it also contained prawns, squids, mushrooms, crabsticks and baby corns, the flavor was more seaweed than seafood. Seafood was generally tasteless with the exception of crab sticks, which are actually processed than real seafood. Disappointing.

Singapore Chilli Crab - first thing I do when it comes to chilli crab was to have a spoonful of their gravy, to determine if it meets the cut! And this gravy was nice; not watery, with cut chilli spiciness and loads of appetising garlic to whet my appetite!

Pity the crab was pretty small at just about 500 grams and the meat was just insufficient to make this chilli crab dish satisfying! The larger Sri Lankan crabs would have been much better.

Crispy Mantou Buns - only starch for us that night.

Thin, crisp shell with soft, sweet insides; the optimal combination for a fried bun that was perfect with the thick, delicious chilli crab gravy! Shiok max!

Salted Egg Yolk Crab - despite the light salted egg batter, the flavor was weak and the meat was stuck to the crab shells, making the dining experience very frustrating!

Shell was soft enough to be chewed through and ingested but I needed a conduit to up the flavor; here comes the chilli crab gravy to the rescue!

Boiled Live Tiger Prawns - at just RM45 for seven plump tiger prawns, these tasted so fresh, with the crunchiness and sweetness much sought after by prawns lovers!

Prawn lovers like Alex!

What better way to taste the freshness of seafood than to boil / steam them! And to enhance the flavor, you would need the coarsely chopped garlic. I never knew it could make boiled prawns taste so unforgettable amazing!

So unforgettable we returned the next day for the prawns again.

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Even though I wasn't happy with the seaweed seafood soup and the salted egg crab (this was a surprise as it was recommended by a few reviewers), just the prawns alone would make us return if we ever go back to Penang!

Address