Really observant readers may have noticed that I don’t eat mussels with any regularity. I’m just not a huge fan – and I’ve tried them at many places, but the drying, mealy crumbly texture always puts me off. I’ve had a mussel here or there that was actually quite good but always from someone else’s pot so I never bothered to really re-visit the dish. This time, in front of me as they were, I ate a healthy portion and really enjoyed them. Plump, juicy, well-cooked and really flavorful… I wished for bread to mop up the cooking broth on the bottom. Super tasty, this might just change my mind about mussels.

Funny enough, I’ve been to 5 Burro so many times in the past, as has Snorlax – but never together. He remarked that it’s odd how both of us eat so differently – I would never have thought to order mussels at a Mexican restaurant – but then said it’s good, that way we try more things. Like the next dish…

I remembered really enjoying the salad in the past, so though I knew the main dish would be more than enough food for me, I decided to make them eat salad with me and ordered a plain salad (plain as in no meat/protein added). FeistyMom really enjoyed it – sweet bell peppers, crunchy Romaine lettuce, and lightly dressed avocado wedges, along with pico de gallo gracing the entire salad… so good. I enjoyed this and Snorlax agreed that he wouldn’t have thought to order this himself, but was glad I’d done so for him to try.

Apparently FeistyMom and Snorlax always get the same thing when they eat here – steak burritos. They both enjoyed them, per usual, and I tried a piece of steak, finding it fragrant and super tender.

However, I can never pass up ‘tasty pork’ or pork al pastor at 5 Burro. With the texture of pulled pork, super juicy but mixed through with cilantro and raw onions (both items that I really enjoy), this was the perfect bite. Snorlax tried some and was impressed and thought he might try ordering this sometimes in the future. I mean, I even had it like a taco this time (I usually just eat the meat part, haha) – it was so good, flavorful and just awesome. I have never been disappointed with that pork. YUM.

I don’t need a summary, do I? I really like this place, and I think you should check it out if you haven’t already. I’ve heard some varying negative comments from the last time I posted about it, but I can’t imagine – one was a complaint about service/the owner being rude to them, which is odd because she’s always lovely to me (and she doesn’t know who I am, though she’s reached out to thank me for my positive reviews in the past)… and the other was about cleanliness, but it seemed like an anomaly as opposed to the norm.

I also want to mention that while we were eating, the jewelry store next door was robbed. As the robber(s) rushed out of the store, they knocked over a young woman who was visibly shaken up. The entire 5 Burro staff went outside to check on her and see if she was OK, offering her water and asking her to come sit inside while she waited for the cops to come so she could give a statement. We left before the wind up, but the service was incredibly caring for her well-being, and even so, we were not ignored.

In any case, 5 Burro is good stuff and good people.

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mussels, salad, tacos

Since my weight’s been dropping drastically, I allowed myself a special drink. He had mango juice – on the left – and said it was just like canned, but I had canteloupe juice, which was light and refreshing, but best of all, contained long strips of fresh canteloupe that I enjoyed slurping up through my straw and then eating with my spoon. So good.

To be healthy, we ordered a mixed veggie plate… unfortunately neither of us liked this. I’d expected more interesting vegetables in a more pungent sauce, but instead found green beans – properly cooked though – along with eggplant and pumpkin, which surprised me. It was a big meh for me.

Crispy pata, with my hand for scale. Huge leg of pork that was deep fried… I thought I’d like this more but I found it just a mess of fried taste. It was… okay.

Lumpia! or fried egg roll type things – which I love love love – and these were no exception. Fried properly to a crisp exterior revealing a hot interior, a swipe in the orange tangy sweet sauce, and just great. TC and I took turns “fighting” over the last few, haha.

And because I always wanted to try it, kare kare – oxtail stew of sots. I loved the veggies used – kale? – but I found the flavor was a little bland. Nothing the addition of liver sauce didn’t cure, though, so I ate this up happily with…

fluffy white rice. I enjoyed parts of our meal more than others, but I think that’s to be expected – some dishes just weren’t to my liking. I’m sure as I explore the cuisine, I’ll find more dishes that I like and some that I don’t.

For now, I can’t give any sort of recommendation for or against, as I’ve little to no experience with this cuisine – and maybe some dishes were great examples of the dish, just not something I like. What are your Filipino dishes you like and want to recommend I try next time?

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: crispy pata, lumpia, Woodside

I think, given the choice of just about anything to eat vs. hot pot/shabu shabu, DLS will choose hot pot… so we went to Minni’s, my previous favorite hot pot restaurant (though I haven’t been in years; the reason I liked them best was because they were the only place that included hoisin sauce on its sauce table… but this time we went, it was no longer there, boo).  The above were our veggie trays – the normal assortment of corn on the cob, meatballs (fish balls, fish cakes, etc.), tofu, cabbage, glass noodles, and a bit of udon.

My order of pork slices – I wanted to get something different from my usual beef. Not bad, but not special either – I’ll stick to my beef next time!

Mr. Fancy Pants (new nickname?!) went with wagyu. I tried a piece and while it was extraordinarily tender, it also fell apart super easily. I didn’t think this cut of beef lent itself well to this style of cooking… and DLS complained about it falling apart so easily.

An order of udon tacked onto our order because we both really like udon – and at the end, once cooked, then dropped into our sauce absorbs it all and is absolutely delicious, yum! (I like to eat my udon at the end… it is the perfect end to a meal, in my opinion!)

And even though we were headed into the city for dessert afterwards, DLS wanted shaved ice, so shaved ice we had.  “Condensed milk and red beans, what do you want?” since it came with three choices. I chose corn. Yeah I did! It’s so good! And I genuinely preferred the corn with condensed milk and ice to the red bean, which I found a little too sweet – though DLS had no problem eating most of this, hahaha.

Yvo says: Not the best quality shabu shabu I’ve had but definitely good, wth a nice, large, clean space, servers who didn’t try to spill boiling broth on me. They weren’t attentive – they probably could have sold us more food if they’d paid more attention to us… but eh, that’s what you expect at most places in Flushing!
solidly decent hot pot, but not special

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: DLS, hot pot, shaved ice

For TC, har mee or udang mee, which was not spicy enough and not nearly as red as the version seen at Satay.  He thought it was only OK, sadly.

An order of roti canai, as is my usual. Crisp, pillowy, chewy, and just all around great, I do really enjoy their version.

Trying to be healthy, we went with green beans sauteed with belacan – slightly spicy but very flavorful, lots of umami taste from the ground shrimp paste.  Really good and properly cooked, I enjoyed this a lot.

And for me, I forget the name of this dish (TC, help?!) but it was basically udon stir fried in a soy sauce gravy. I really enjoyed it, even if he chided me for it not being a real Malaysian dish… and not particularly unique, haha. Still very tasty!

Last but not least, our beef satay, which was meaty, tender, fragrant and really good. I enjoyed it a lot!

Funny enough, a few short weeks later, FeistyMom wanted Malaysian for her birthday, so Snorlax, FeistyMom and I headed to the same location for dinner.

We ordered half a Hainanese chicken; the meat was slightly warm, and FeistyMom suggested it was freshly poached (this is a dish normally served cold). To no detriment here – the white meat was juicy, tender and delicious – and you know I don’t eat white meat normally, but I found myself gobbling this up. Fantastic; I’ll have to order it by the half more often… so good.

As I said, my standard order of roti canai, and it was great as usual.

Clay pot noodles served in a clay pot (who knew?) in a thick broth that was reminiscent of egg drop soup, with a lot more sweetness from the corn than you might expect. Shiitake mushrooms, strips of chicken, squid, and big shrimp – just a fantastic dish. I found myself eating bowl after bowl of this long after my stomach requested that I cease & desist… chewy egg noodles coated with that broth, I really must order this more often as well.  (TC… when are we going again?!)

My choice of char kway teow went mostly ignored in favor of the other noodle dishes. I asked for this to be slightly spicy, and it was pretty spicy for my sensitive palate.. but still good.

Snorlax requested and received ‘wat dahn ho fun’ or something (slippery egg broad noodles) – underneath the pool of sauce, which has a beaten raw egg mixed into it, are stir-fried broad white rice noodles. Though those fake-crab looking sticks on the side were awful (tasted like rice cakes but bad), the rest of the dish was absolutely delicious. We both had a lot of fun ‘fighting’ over bits from the plate, and just eating this happily… so good.

Then our beef satay came out; the only fail of the night. These were mushy and tasted OFF, like weird and bad. We did not eat more than a few bites each before we decided it wasn’t worth the stomach space; sadly, FeistyMom suggested something had gone wrong with the dish or maybe it’d turned. Regardless, the rest of the dishes were so great that I didn’t really notice the lack of satay in my belly that night.

As you can see, I visit Penang fairly frequently and really enjoy it; I don’t foresee that changing any time soon. That location has been there for a while, and while the quality has been inconsistent over the 15 years I’ve been visiting – I think they had a bad chef at one point, who appears to no longer work there – it’s now returned to serving some really excellent food.

I’m already planning my return visit! Clay pot noodles, yum!

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: feisty family, noodles, roti, satay

Our meal started with an order of roti canai, a thin, crepe-like pancake that, when done well, is chewy, soft, but crispy in spots. This was definitely a very good roti, served with a side of slightly spicy curry for dipping.For veggies, we ordered green beans with belacan, a dried shrimp paste that is extremely fragrant and almost fishy-smelling.  The green beans were cooked perfectly – slightly crisp, but cooked through – and the shrimp paste added a really nice dimension to the dish, a bit of umami and the pungent taste was great.

DLS mentioned always wanting to try ‘har mee’ (also known as udang mee), so we ordered this. This was the only miss of the night – neither of us liked it that much; though it wasn’t particularly spicy, it also wasn’t particularly flavored strongly. I had a little bit and relinquished the rest to him.

One of the dishes I’d long remembered from my first visit to Satay was the Malaysian cheong fun, which essentially is rolled rice noodles served with a delicious, slightly sweet sauce, a bit of hot sauce on one side, and a piece of eggplant stuffed with fish paste, a long okra stuffed with fish paste, a piece of tofu stuffed with fish paste, and this interesting crispy bit. While I really like the slippery noodles with the sauce, the eggplant was tasty, but the okra and tofu didn’t really add anything to the dish. I think I would be just as happy – possibly happier – getting this as a street cart dish with fishballs (Cantonese style, in Chinatown) instead of at a restaurant.  Does anyone know where else I can get this – I’ve only ever seen it on the menu at Satay?

At the last minute, I added a half a Hainanese chicken to our order, just to try it and be able to compare to other Malaysian restaurants. (Yes, one of the reasons DLS is a great dining companion is his ability to not hesitate and agree when I ask if we should order another dish, even though there’s only two of us and we’ve already got a LOT of food.)  The chicken was smooth, sweet, and balanced perfectly with the sweet soy sauce on the bottom of the plate – very juicy, tender chicken.  Yum.  I almost wish I had more stomach room to eat more of this…

DLS also ordered a lychee drink, and myself a soy milk. Both were good.

The last dish to come out was satay, which I found super tender – not like jerky at all, which sometimes I find satay can emulate when overcooked or over-marinated.  I was impressed with just how tender it was, though as it cooled, it began to toughen up a little bit.  The peanut sauce was delicious as well.

We wound up taking a lot of the food to go, but the server (who I think might have also been a manager) was pleasant about it and did a really good job packing it all neatly – including all the sauces – in a bag so that it wouldn’t spill on our drive back.  Really friendly and pleasant service, though the place was only starting to fill up when we were leaving around 8pm on a Tuesday.

Yvo says: Everything we ate was enjoyable (though I didn’t like the har mee that much), and I would have no problem returning. I might opt to get the cheong fun somewhere else, but all the other Malaysian dishes were delicious – and I really want to try their rendang as well!  I’ll be back.
recommended

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: DLS, roti, satay