Lazy Afternoons

[Though we may be far apart, You're constantly deep in my heart] 

-Constantly (L'edera) -

Sometimes I feel like I have a really LONG weekend when in reality it is only 2 days because I still haven't gotten used to not having classes on Saturdays. My internal clock wakes me up on Saturdays at 6/7 AM usually accompanied with a blind stumble to the bathroom before realising 'Hey wth..I'm in college now..there's NO CLASSES on Saturday" Then I will stumble back into bed to toss and turn until I give up the fight and wake up for real. 

Yeah..lucky me..not having any obligations (unlike last time when I only come home from school at 6pm)...so it's basically a lazy day for me.

Anyway, since now I can eat lunch with my family..Saturday lunches are generally pretty more interesting than last time. So today my mom suggested going out to KK town to eat some lei cha. A lot of people have been commenting on how there are many nice places to eat around KK ( Kota Kemuning), I'm not too sure how true those claims are, but this restaurant serving lei cha is pretty ok.

Lei Cha(镭茶) is a traditional Hakka (客家) dish. Essentially it's pretty much a soup based rice dish and it has many medicinal purposes and supposedly good for health. The 'soup' for Lei Cha is made out of tea leaves, grinded with a stick from a jambu tree in an urn with ridges at the sides. Mostly the tea leaves used are Oolong and Green Tea and the paste is then boiled with herbs creating a fragrant soup but one must have an acquired taste for it for it can taste funny to some people.  Then it's eaten with rice (literally mixing the soup with the rice) with assorted vegetables and toufu. 

Lei Cha is said to have many health benefits, such as detoxifying, enhancing digestion, prevents fatigue and etc etc etc. There are many many health benefits so ask Dr. Google.com for I can't possibly list them out here.

I just love it cause it's yummy. X)

The shop located in KK..but thanks to my complete NSD (no sense of direction)

I CANNOT tell you where exactly in KK it is. 

*ducks the rotten tomatoes*

The Menu. 

Written in Chinese is the shop's name 三宝 ( 3 treasures)

and the description on why it's called thus.

Translation:

Traditional food Lei Cha (Lei means to pound, Cha means tea, so Lei Cha Fan means pounded tea rice) has 3 treasures.

1) Having an urn or mortar made out of clay with ridges of different thickness on the inside.

2) Having a pestle made out of the finest branch from the jambu tree. ( Apparently you MUST use a jambu tree branch..wonder why? Can any Hakka friends enlighten me?)

3) Using the finest tea leaves.

What simplistic treasures.

The flip side of the 1st page with the description of the wonderful Lei Cha.

Though the 1st line of the English description looks like something from Wikipedia.

This is Lei Cha with brown rice. (RM 6.90)

The soup which according to the family head chef AKA Mother Dearest is made out of mint leaves more than tea leaves. I can taste the mint taste, but I think they mixed both leaves together.

Mix the rice with the soup.

Om Nom Nom

Though the sign proclaims it to be "San Bao Lei Cha Fang" they still had other types of food on their menu such as noodles and nasi lemak and a variety of meat and vegetables dishes, they even have fresh fruit juice, blended on the spot, so in the midst of eating you can hear the juice processor going on and on. I would recommend their tea set, since I've eaten it before, it's bread toasted over charcoal fire and spread with generous helpings of kaya and butter served with piping hot coffee. Bliss~

Hakka Fried Pork. (RM12)

But to me it's more like stewed pork I can't taste any texture that resembles it being fried!

Tender meat with black fungus. yummy

Yam Abacus. ( RM10)

I literally had a double take when I saw the Mandarin name on the menu, it's called  客家something something算盘子 literally meaning Hakka something something Abacus.

You know what are Abacuses?? 

THIS IS ABACUS!!!!

So when it came I was thankful it wasn't some chopped up pieces of the abacus but just some yam dough thingy rolled to look like the beads of the abacus fried with strips of onion leaves and toufu. 

The Yam was bland on its own but if eaten with the sambal they served on the side of the dish and with the toppings it was ok, nice and chewy even.

I can't find the English Name for this dish and my receipt isn't helping as it is billed as 'FOODS' here, so I shall type the canto name

He Jao Gai. (RM12)

Chicken with black sauce (presumably cooking caramel) and various vegetables.

This dish is 2 THUMBS up!

Overall this shop deserves a 2nd visit, even though the Lei Cha wasn't as good as the one I've eaten at my dad's schoolmate's house, it's still yummy and the flavour is wondeful. Since the serving sizes are a bit small so for those big eaters out there, prepare to feel hungry even after eating a full meal. 

Since we sent my dad's thick book for Photostat-ing we decided to chill out at a nearby restaurant in old KK town called the ' Hakka Restaurant' where they serve good coffee, I always find it's important for coffee shops to have nice drinks, if the drinks are terrible there is no helping the coffee shop despite the nice food. So this is my 'Cham Si Bing' ( Coffee + Tea).

Usually the drinks will be nice but this time I think I went at the wrong time and they have changed hands (change shift) so my drink turned out to be too sweet and not enough coffee,(but my dad and bro who went ahead to the shop while my mom and I were in the stationery shop had nice drinks, is it face problem? ) the funniest thing was all I had to do was let my dad take a sip and he can remedy my drink for me, he told me to go to the back and ask them to 'tambah kopi sampai sini',(Add coffee until here) measuring the level with his fingers, and IT WORKED! My dad's amazing!! X)

So am I. 

Hahahaha! Forgive my moment of self love!

I have given up on my fringe, I shall let it cover my small eyes. 

Continuing to enjoy my lazy afternoon,

[Jean]