Friday, September 30, 2011

Poon Choi / Big Bowl Feast @ East Ocean Restaurant, Menglembu


















I know Piggy Jo is waiting to read this post. I was telling her about this Poon Choi aka Big Bowl Feast.  She was fascinated by my description of the amount of delicious seafood in it. Bet she was drooling when I told her about this dish over skype LOL!   Have been wanting to share this with my readers too but was just too busy with the other stuff and have forgotten about this dish I ate some months back and looking forward for another round...next time, we will try the most expensive range :P  I am sure my friend Claire will enjoy this again as much as I do :)  Read on for more info on this dish...............

















Poon Choi  aka as Big Bowl Feast is a traditional type of dish originating from Hong Kong village cuisine but now is famous in urban area of HK and it has become a signature dish in most Chinese restaurants in Malaysia.  It is a dish made up of ingredients such as roast pork, beef, lamb, chicken, duck, abalone, ginseng, shark fin, fish maw, shrimps, crabh, dried mushroom, fishballs, squid, dried eel, dried shrimp, pigskin, beancurd and chinese radish and are served in wooden, porcelain and metal basins.  Traditional village Poon Choi is served in large metal washing bowls with a perforated metal plate at the bottom at the bottom ti keep the food from burning as it is kept warm on a portable stove as it is being served to diners. Poon Choi is special in that it is composed of many layers of different ingredients.  Every restaurant has their own composition - differs with the price of course :p  It is also eaten layer by layer instead of " stirring everything up "

Story on how this dish  came about - taken from Wikipedia

It was said that Poon Choi was invented during the late Song Dynasty. When the Mongol troops invaded Song China, the young  Emperor fled to the area around Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. To serve the Emperor as well as his army, the locals collected all their best food available ,cooked it, and because there were not enough containers, put the resulting dishes in wooden washbasins. In this way, Poon Choi was invented.



















The Poon Choi we had here consists of fresh shrimps, fresh scallops, fish maw, sea cucumber, fresh mushrooms, dried shiitake mushrooms, beancurd and dried oysters and a bottom layer of napa cabbage.  All stacked in layers and covered with thick well flavored sauce.  This is a sinfully delectable dish rich in protein and iodine and artery clogging stuff and not advisable to be taken often :p  but I do crave for it again as I was blogging on this dish.....slurp slurp slurping away virtually LOL!   This dish costs RM195, the cheapest of the range we go for the cheapest one first - wallet problem  and the most expensive one is RM500.  We will go for the RM500 one when the wallet is full  :p   For the time being enjoy peeking into the layers of food that was inside the basin.....unfortunately half way through the meal, the layers of food were mixed up together.  Don't worry about hygiene, we have a few shared ladles for scooping the food into our individual bowls :))






















Have a wonderful weekend !



*            *            *



16 comments:

  1. wow...so delicious.. think we should go for one more time again? maybe this time we should upgrade to the mini fatt tiew cheong.. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like a really delicious dish. Great review!

    ReplyDelete
  3. yum...hard to find. Found one in Desa AMan Puri but now not sure they are still selling or not. There is one in Sg Buloh but...pricey...one table like rm400

    ReplyDelete
  4. the other day i saw in tai thong's pamphlet, RM788 for 10 persons, ah..i remember that one got abalone, you can also bring the pot back.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi, momsie, I tried this once at Ipoh Gdn East Ocean restaurant. How about we adjourning to one of these for our next makan? .... Slurp!

    ReplyDelete
  6. wow Look at the gravy! That looks really irresistible!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I had it once in KL and there was so much of it that 10 pax can't finish the 'basin' of food.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow, how wonderful...full of such amazing seafood! I've never heard of this dish, but hope to experience it one day :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm hungry, Hungry, HUNGRY...Elin!! I had it once in my life time, and I dunno when will I have a chance to have it again because we need a whole lot of people to share this dish. maybe we can have it during our next meet up with other bloggers...that will be fun right?!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Claire...haha I think we should go for it :)

    YummyChunklet...thanks :)

    Kathy...yea the price varies with the ingredients...with abalone will cost more than RM500 above :)

    Lena...the price already includes the basin :p

    Cheah...sure, will arrange one when we have the meet up...better if we can get 8-10 bloggers :)

    Angie..yea the gravy is flavorful :)

    Wendy...to go for this kind of food better to have at least 8-10 person to a table :)

    Lizzy...yea :) love it!

    Kelly...you are right..it is irresistable...will be waiting for another opportunity to go for this big bowl feast :p

    Reese...yea, we must !!! it would be fun then :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Am not a regular blogger but this makes me want to join the makan!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Sandi G...yea it is :) Delish!!!

    Christine....thanks :)

    Diary of Kay El...hahaha this is what is good about food blogging..to make readers drool :) thanks for dropping by :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. This looks delicious!! wow! Great post!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...