Adam's Kitchen at Perda, Bukit Mertajam

Get to know Adam's Kitchen when browse through offpeak.my, the new discount website which offer pretty good deals.

On this hot Saturday, I said why not give it a try. Although it is at Bandar Perda, a place where you hardly see Chinese nowadays since Aeon Jusco moved out, no offence, but I really don't understand why most Chinese only hang out at Chinese dominant place. Probably most Chinese lived in the city their whole life. Most, but not all. I just so miss my kampung. :D

Adam's Kitchen located at the same row with Kapitan Bandar Perda, facing the inner road.

The ambient is comfortable in the afternoon. With air-conditioning and light music. The staff is friendly and always with smilly face, make us feel really welcome.

Here comes the food...

Grilled Chicken Chop RM16.90

The chicken is served with generous mashed potatoes and the meat is tender. The vegetable is washed clean.

Grilled Lamb Chop RM22.90

I must say... the Lamb Chop is awesome! The lamb is cooked to its perfect tenderness and without the lambshy smell that some people might afraid of. Probably the best cooked in Bukit Mertajam I ever tasted. The taste is a bit salty to my liking, but it is still perfect. Salad was served with mint sauce instead of the typical mayonnaise nor thousand island sauce. Totally feel the sincerity in their cooking. I cannot believe there's such a good cafe hidden in Perda!

Mojito RM8.90

The Mojito is equally good and refreshing!

I believe I will definitely come back again very soon!

台客茶馆 Taitea Cafe at Bukit Mertajam

** 19/05/2013 Unfortunately, Taitea Cafe had closed down.

Taitea Cafe is a newly open cafe located in Kampung Baru, Bukit Mertajam, opposite Station One Cafe. We first visited it middle of last month and we were there 3 times within 2 weeks, so you know how attractive it is to us.

The side view of the shop looks like a cheap bar with a outdated name, which makes us kinda late to check out the shop.

When we drive passed the main entrance, Taitea impressed us, with its most special part which differentiate it from other cafes - the big, green compound in front of the shop. Admire the courage that they sacrifice a big build up area and give it a try on Malaysian who always can't stay out of air-con. God knows, it works like a charm! Who say Malaysian don't like open air?

Despite on the outlook, Taitea do provides plenty of tea selection and I must say they taste really good. It had been added to my list for top 2 bubble tea in Bukit Mertajam together with BubbleGurt at Pusat Perniagaan Gemilang.

The price is reasonable which may be why the shop are pack with full of youngster. There are families too although in a smaller group. Another good thing which is a nice trend nowadays, we are able to customized the percentage of sugar and ice. I have tried one of the drink which they have the so called "Best Taste" (黄金比例) adjusted by them. However, personally think it is still too sweet.

Taro Milk Tea RM4.90

 

Mango Yakult Drink RM4.90

盐酥鸡　Signature Fried Chicken tastefully with Basil RM5.90

中文版台客茶馆小笔　V's - Life's Simple Pleasures


Taitea Cafe
Address: 30c, Jalan Kulim,Taman Jaya, 14000 Bukit Mertajam, Penang.
Tel: +604-5388998
GPS Location: N 5 21.158    E 100 28.343

Hiking Berapit Hill, Bukit Mertajam

We have been hiking every weekend since last 3 months to prepare ourselves for the upcoming Mount Kota Kinabalu challenge.

Hiking on the same mountain is pretty boring, going all the way to Penang Island for training every time is quite pointless too. Hence, we found out the Bukit Berapit at mainland in one of the blog and decided to check it out.

Berapit Hill (aka Bukit Berapit) is actually the same mountain with Cherok Tokun, our beloved Big Mountain Foot (大山脚), just another trail from different side of the mountain.

 Drive into the small road and you will see parking spaces.

The trail is built by cement all the way up to the top. Pay attention on the road as there are mossy on the ground which might be slippery. The road is not accessible by car but motorcycles of the estate worker and people from the temple might be passing by from time to time.

Walk for about 30 mins and there's a junction, left head towards a temple which has a shorter distance and right handside have a longer track towards Vivekavana Solitude Grove (静修园）.

We took the longer path which brought us to a beautiful view overlooking Bukit Mertajam township. The track is much difficult compare to Tokun Hill as it is really steep all the way. Although the distance looks like shorter, but we ended up took around 2 to 3 hours to finish a return trip.

There are few rest areas with hut but pretty run down.

After 1 and half hour, we finally reach the end of the trail and the Vivekavana Solitude Grove entrance welcomed us.

The temple is a holy place where monk or people came here for their retreat. Please keep silent and respect while you are in there.

You will be overwhelmed how the whole concrete temple built on this top of the hill which do not have a car access. On top of the temple, you will see spectacular paddy field view.

On our way down, we saw this creature blocking our way. I had goose bump all over seeing the lizard so clear. @_@ I remember a friend bought it as a pet with RM180 10 years back. So other than goose bump, I saw $$$ on it too~ :D

How to go Berapit Hill
Direction: From BM town, drive towards Berapit, you will passed by SRJK(C) Jit Sin and SMK Berapit school and also railway track. You will then see hawker center and pasar/market on right-handside, right before the wet market, there is a junction on right which you need to turn in, you can notice the signboard pointing Taman Pearl. Look up for the mountain and drive towards it, you will be driving through residential area and the path is behind the houses.

GPS Coordinate:
N 5 22.596  E 100 28.467

Sweet Heaven 螞蟻窝 Bukit Mertajam

We talked about the new hang out place at Pusat Perniagaan Gemilang before. There are many restaurants and yum cha shops in this area. Dessert shop itself we already have Tong Bak Fu, Simply Autumn, Bubble Gurt, Yes Yogurt, Berry House and Sweet Heaven, the one we going to talk about in this post..

Sweet Heaven is not so crowded compare to most of them. However, it doesn't mean that the quality of food is lower than the rest.

Maybe the staff should have smile more

They have quite big number of dessert selection, bean curd, snow flakes ice cream, red and black bean, fruits dessert and etc, more to Taiwanese style. The dessert tasted ok, we only tried on their snow flakes, it is pretty good although not the best. The price average from RM5-RM8, topping is not stingy.

V and I always investigating why people business is not so good (like we are very successful business man :p). The only thing that V point out is the less attractive lighting. It doesn't create a comfortable/warm feeling that people feel like keep going back.  While I just couldn't figure out why...

Photos credited to V - Life's Simple Pleasures



Sweet Heaven 蚂蚁窝
Address:
35, Jalan Perniagaan 1 (Pusat Perniagaan Gemilang),
Bukit Mertajam, Penang.
GPS Location: N 5 21.057   E 100 26.470
Telephone Number: 05-3063036

Business Hour：
Sun - Thu:    1:00 pm    -    11:00 pm Fri - Sat   :    1:00 pm    -    12:00 am

Hiking Cherok Tokun, Tea Spa Bukit Mertajam

Started to work out since last month for our coming KK Trip. It is always not too late although it scares me everytime thinking of it.

Tokun is one of the hiking place nearest to my house, been there few times but only manage to get to the 2nd Rest Station once. There are 2 trails in Tokun, one is in tar road, another will be walking in the woods.

I always take the soil trail for way up and come down using tar road. It took about 45mins to reach an exit staircase to tar road from soil track. Walk 15mins on the tar road to reach the first shelter, where they call the "Rest Station". If you did not exit from the staircase, continue your way up in the jungle, it took another half an hour to reach the 2nd Rest Station, this is easier than the first part of the trail as it getting higher and have less ground vegetation which means you have more open air and oxygen.
Descend down with tar road takes less than 1 hour, it was easier but my knee and hip was quite hurt. Lots of uncles & aunties walk faster than us... @_@

The whole journey took 2 hours ++ on our very slow speed. :)

Next, comes the whole point of hiking at Tokun, the Tea Spa (森林茶坊). :D

All of the food there are extremely delicious~ Probably too exhausted or they are just simply too nice! Sipping tea while listening to the birds singing, simply what we looking for on a Sunday morning~

Most Delicious Herbal Tea Egg

Feel refreshing having Chinese tea after work out

Extremely love this Mee Tiao! Don't have any ingredient but simply just tasted so nice on its own with garlic! You must try their Chicken &Mushroom Noodles too!

Teochew Mee Tiao 潮州面条

Tea Spa Corner
Opening Hours: Morning after 9am or 10am - evening . Sunday - 10am onwards
Location: Right at the foot of Tokun Hill

Cherok Tokun
Direction: Drive along Jalan Kulim from Bukit Mertajam (BM) towards Kulim direction. Passed through St. Anne Church on your left, go straight for another 300m (agak-agak) and notice a small road on left with a Mee Ketam shop at the junction corner, turn into it and drive till the end. Opposite the junction(right-hand side of Jalan Kulim) is a mosque (Masjid Jamek Cherok Tok Kun). If you passed the mosque, you are overshot.

GPS Coordinate: N 5 22.147  E 100 29.068
Tips: Do bring mosquito repellent.

Stone Age Cafe & Restaurant in Bukit Mertajam

There is an area in Bukit Mertajam that has recently became a fabulous hang out place, Pusat Perniagaan Gemilang. Cafe, restaurant, dessert house, boutique, saloon, pub and club established like growing mushrooms. Soon it will be like another Auto-City! Glad for fellows staying in BM.

Not too far from the auto-city, the place located on the famous off Jalan Song Ban Keng, Opposite Taman Limau Manis and behind Taman Gemilang. It's like my second home and I came here almost everyday. Due to laziness, now only I started blog about this place. This post, we going to talk about Stone Age Cafe & Restaurant. I will write about others later. :)

To our surprise, all the while we thought it is a pub, and I dressed really well that day, hah! At the end, it's actually a restaurant.

The interior and exterior using plenty of wood as their theme. Wood-like table, chairs and the significant big tree at the center of the restaurant which you can see it even if you just drive passed the restaurant.

Looking up on the menu, the price is surprisingly reasonable given on the very nice look and feel of the restaurant. Drinks are consider reasonable for a hang out place.

 

Once you step into the restaurant, you could simply sense that the whole place is covered with attempting BBQ smells.

The food on a 400 Celsius hot stone, their signature dish.

Grilled Chicken on Hot Stone, Rm16.80

You can choose from the various main dish on the stone. There are chicken, fish, steak, tiger prawns, scallop and etc. And complimentary 4 sidelines you can choose out of 6 selection, among them are wedges, mashed potato, rice, corn and etc.

The chicken that we had, marinated well and on the hot stone is definitely an interesting point. However, the sidelines are not hot, like fries and wedges are pre-fried. So we ended up putting all of the sidelines on the stone to heat them up (if that was the intention... lol).

We also ordered the seafood carbonara fettuccine. It was not hot either, just warm and the scallops are small and over-cooked. I understand that it is not so easy to cook scallops to its perfection, let's just don't take risk. This one failed.

Seafood Carbonara, <RM15

Another thing that deserve compliment is the services. The staff they recruit always with positive attitude and really responsive as far as I seen. Just got to know that every Tuesday is their hot stone BBQ buffet night, RM50+ per pax, RM25+ for children below 12 years old.

The hot stone meal is satisfying and have a generous portion. This make me definitely want to revisit again.

* Photo credited to V - Life Simple Pleasures

* Revisit Stone Age today and tried on their Hot Stone Tilapia, still prefer chicken because unlike chicken, fish doesn't have much oil to burn on the stone, which make it a little bit dry.
The sidelines do have improvement, getting hotter nowadays, but still don't feel like they make it upon order.

Stone Age Cafe
Business Hour:
Mon - Thu: 11:00 am - 1:00 am
Fri - Sat    : 11:00 am - 2:00 am
Sun           : 11:00 am - 1:00 am

Contact Number: +604-537 7228
Address: 11, Jalan Gemilang 2, Pusat Perniagaan Gemilang, 14000 Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia
GPS Coordinate： N 5 21.044   E 100 26.555

Direction: If drive from Penang Island, drive toward north-south highway (Kuala Lumpur direction). Exit at Juru/Bukit Mertajam, turn left without waiting for the traffic light. Drive all the way straight until you reach a T-junction with small weird round about with traffic light. Turn right on the traffic light you will find yourself driving on Jalan Song Ban Keng. Drive straight until you see Honda Center on your left, then ready to turn into left. After turn into left, turn right immediately and you will see Stone Age on your left.