Rawang-KL Trip: Rawang Beansprout Chicken Rice, Honeymoon Dessert

A few days before CNY weekend, Perly offered to take Vivien and me on a trip to her hometown in Rawang for a few days before Vivien returns to Penang. We visited a HUGE park where people were flying kites, had EXCELLENT Thai Food from authentic Thai cooks, AWESOME Rawang Bean Sprout Chicken Rice and KILLER dessert at Honeymoon Dessert. It was a very enjoyable trip and I can't wait to go there again =)

The first place Perly bought us was this park, which name I can't recall right now. It's true size did not dawn upon us at first as it stretches all the way to the horizon as far as the eye could see. Typical searing Chinese New Year weather meant there were not many people around.

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We walked for what seemed like an eternity around the park. Its designed in a loop, but it was so huge that it took us nearly 2 hours to walk from start to end. By that time, we were famished and the sun had already started to set. With that, a huge number of people showed up, mostly to fly kite. Its a very windy area so I think it's quite a famous place.

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There were quite a number of kiters, but this guy wins the "Mine's Bigger" contest hands down. His gigantic kite was very powerful and we could see he was struggling to maintain control of the thing. More than once we see the kite overpower him and he had to wrestle it back into submission. It looked more like a workout than a leisure activity.

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With our Fly Kite Park visit done and feeling so hungry, Perly drove us to this place. I'm not really sure where it is, but she told us its a nice Thai shop. When we walked in, we were greeted with the friendly owners in Thai and they look like they're from Thailand, which meant we're in for a treat.

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The Tom Yum Seafood soup is recommended, although they also serve the clear version. The small size is enough for 3 person and filled out little bowls to the brim with hot, pungent, spicy Thai goodness, condensed and distilled into the essence of sweet and sour, coupled with an atomic blast. Its not as spicy as the one I had in Penang, so those who are into eating really spicy Tom Yum should probably tell the owner to make it extra spicy. Otherwise, it is excellent and just thinking about it is already making me salivate.

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Thai Green Curry chicken is another staple Thai food, and this one is cooked to perfection. The chicken maintains it's juicy meat without being overcooked and the green curry has abundant santan and spices making it aromatic and a joy to drizzle onto rice to eat.

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The Tom Yum soup closeup, with lots of seafood, chicken and of course, lime leaves. The prawns weren't that fresh though, but quite big.

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This is an interesting dish I've never tried before: Deep Fried Kangkong. But the moment I put it into my mouth, I fell in love with it. It's fried to perfection and the sweet-sour chilli dip goes very well with it.

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Finally, we had Thai otak-otak. I didn't know what to expect, and when it came, it was unlike anything I've ever seen before. Vivien told me it's authentic otak-otak made just like in Thailand. Unlike Malaysia's otak-otak, this one is not spicy at all. They blended fish together and steamed it along with some vegetable and served as-is. Being used to the hot otak-otak here, I didn't really fancy this plainer type, but it still tastes very good. However, at RM20 a plate (8 pcs), its not exactly cheap and if given a choice, I would have omitted this from our meal because it was too large.

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The aftermath of the meal reveals that everything is cleaned up. It would be a sin not to.

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After a hearty meal, we retired to 1 Utama for a sing-k session later at Neway. I found this billboard particularly cute, although I'm not sure why 1U chose a cat although its the year of the Tiger.

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I think maybe a Tiger waving at you would probably scare customers away, so they used a cute cat instead.

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Fortune cats not only accepts cash now, but debit/credit cards as well.

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The following day, Perly bought us to this Rawang Bean Sprout Chicken Rice shop. From the outside it doesn't look anything special, but she said it's supposed to be famous in Rawang. Above is the Dry Chicken Hor Fun. It tastes very good and they use the thin type of hor fun not normally found in Melaka, tossed around in sweet sauce and served with generous slices of steamed chicken.

The stall only serves steam chicken. Perly and Vivien told me they usually don't like steamed, but in this case they found it to be acceptable to their tastebuds.

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I went for the good old Nga Choi Kai Fan. Taste-wise, it is definitely among some of the better chicken rice I've had. The rice has just the right amount of fragrance and most importantly, the chilli goes very well with the chicken, being neither overpowering nor diluted. Most people agree that the chilli in chicken rice play a very important role, for me the rice, chicken and chilli complemented each other very well.

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Huge, thick, fat, juicy bean sprouts is the highlight of the dish. The shop has barrels of these sitting around. Vivien, who usually hates beansprouts with a vengeance, conceded it tastes pretty good. She only had a bean sprout, but that's already saying quite a lot.

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I don't like to mess around with bones with my chicken, so breast meat is my favourite.

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After the chicken rice trip, we dropped into Honeymoon Dessert. It's a chain serving a huge variety of desserts and the size of the menu spans a good 20+ pages. I regretted not taking photos of the menu, perhaps next time.

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Their pancakes look more like miniature dumplings. This one is durian, and instead of cheaping out with fake durian extract, they use real, actual durian meat. Awesome!

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I'm not sure what Vivien ordered, but she says its good.

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Perly had honeydew with black glutinous rice. The santan came in a small cup, which you can decorate creatively on your dish if you like, as she has done here.

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Baked sago, I believe they had two layers. Custard and sago, something like that.

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I went for their special dish, with a name I can't recall. Its huge, but I was too full from the chicken rice shop. Anyway it's just served wit a lot of ice and wasn't that great. Like eating an expensive ABC but with lots of sago and fruits. This one's RM12, and I don't recommend trying it unless you are sharing with at least 2 person, and it's because you wanted the ice because of sunny weather.

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Vivien dipped into my tower of ice, and took only the sour mango sauce, hence the expression.

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The shop has a huge assortment of these dumplings. There's a total of 6 different types, with different fillings inside them. There's yam, chocolate, black sesame, black glutinous rice, custard and one more I can't recall. They taste really good and you can even buy them frozen for your own use, although they will cost you RM1 each.

As usual, I end with a photo of the menu from the Thai restaurant we visited (click through for the full size) and the location of the chicken rice. Enjoy!

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