Meng Kee Char Siew @ Jalan Alor

Just to summarize my Char Siew expedition, I had finally arrived back at Meng Kee. But this time around they had moved to Jalan Alor from Tengkat Tong Shin. Luckily a women was giving away fliers regarding their move this new location or else it will be another waste of time traveling down for me. Surprisingly, my Papago was giving me the right direction but on the wrong direction, so I didn't take note of it. It is now located inside Restaurant Reunion Seafood which is located opposite Wah Chai Chicken Wing and next to Nova Hotel. 

As usual, they occupied a small stall but the all the customers in the restaurant only ordered their char siew. They serve char siew, roast chicken and steamed chicken only. But again, all the customers only ordered their famous char siew. Comparing to the one over at Shah Alam, this is way smaller in term of size.

Since I came alone, I had ordered a single pax char siew. Actually I intended to order additional portion but decided to order their bean sprout instead to try. I had specifically ordered half lean, half fat and the end portion. For me that is the best part of char siew for me. You get the over burnt with that extra sweet mixture of fat and lean meat. The pork seemed normal but once you sink your teeth into those shinning pork, you will taste some special herb type taste from the pork. Really amazing. I really hope that I can return and taste it again really soon. 

The lady was so nice to get a single pax steamed bean sprout for me. Nothing special just your average bean sprout but something I like bout this dish over here is that the fried minced garlic on top. It's really tasty. You have that crunchy bean sprout mixing with that crispy garlic, nice. 

Overall, the I had a really nice dish over here and as I mentioned earlier, I had finally finished my char siew adventure. Anyone out there can recommend me new places where you can get good char siew, do drop me a reply. I had tried Meng Kei over at Shah Alam but I think the one over at Jalan Alor is slightly better. (Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0)

Fong Lye Taiwan Restaurant @ The Gardens (Re-visited)

I am not sure about anybody else, but I haven't been to any great Taiwan cuisine restaurant before except this. The best I had to date would have to be Fong Lye in The Gardens. My first and second visits seemed to be a pleasant one. I heard that there is another one called Fong Lye Restaurant  over at Plaza Prisma ,Ville Desa Sri Hartamas which offers cooked dishes for a group of people rather than bento sets like over here. But for now, lets get back to Fong Lye. As usual, the place is packed with people when we arrived. But luckily we managed to get a seat as there's just two of us. If you're coming here in a group, you would need to wait around 10-15 minutes if you're lucky. 

During my first and second visits, I had tried some of their appetizer like their famous Taiwanese Glutinous Rice Sausage and Sweet Potato Balls. This time around, I had ordered their Fried Oyster with Egg. As you can see, it is served with sweet sauce on top. The portion seemed to be enough for two to three pax.

You have the usual suspect like oysters, eggs, flour (a bit too much) and onions. The flour seemed to be a bit too much actually. I like the way they prepared the dish as the outer layer is cooked to crispy and the over burn part. Nothing too special for me. 

My friend had ordered their beef with onion set. The set come with steamed rice with some stewed pork on top as always. It's quite a norm for their steamed rice with stewed pork on top. Nice.

So what do we have for the side dish? We have their famous half stew egg, asparagus and the last seemed to be fried tofu with mayo inside. The best would be the fried tofu as the mayo was oozing out when I bite into it.

Now let's get to the main course. The portion seemed to be a bit little quite sufficient as we have side dishes and the appetizer. It's a simple dish but heck it's really nice. The beef are marinated and the scent of the spring onions really blend well with the fried beef. Nice. 

If that is not enough? Try finishing this bowl of hot chicken soup. Although it's nothing much to brag about but it's really above average. The portion of chicken are really generous and I almost didn't managed to finish it. \\

As for my set, I had ordered their Spicy Fried Chicken set. I am really hungry and this is definitely a right choice. The portion is really large. The chicken is fried to crisp and later poured with chili based sauce on top. It's not that spicy but just alright. I had actually ordered it to be extra spicy. Not the best I had but still a good dish to have on an empty stomach. 

Again, my trip is a nice one. Everything was good down to the soup. Will definitely recommend to my friends as I had a better here compared to Din Tai Fung, Xian Ding Wei or Fun Taipei. Been here a few times but never tried their beef noodle soup before. Will bring a friend who seemed to be an expert of beef noodle. Do let me know if you had tried anything else from here or anywhere else. (Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0)

Le Bouchon @ Changkat Bukit Bintang

French anyone? Yup, this is gonna be my first French fine dining ever. And what better place than Le Bouchon. Actually I am eying for Frangipani but I heard some negative reviews of the service and inconsistency in the quality of their food so I gave this a try. It was recommended by one of my friend and drop by to check the place out beforehand. Before what? Well if you don't know already, it's the venue for my proposal. Yup, you heard me right the first time. 

The place is opposite Frangipani at the end of the street. From the outside they served beers and wine while but when you walked pass the bar, you will come upon a comfy small French styled restaurant. 

There were only 3 couples the whole night I was there which is nice as I don't like the place to be too crowded for the special occasion. And the ambiance was just perfect. 

Wines were everywhere in this place. They are in the wine chamber, the cellar the wall the floor, you name it. You can check out their long list of wine in their website actually. 

We are not wine drinkers so we ordered some plain water. Gonna clear up my taste bud before the real meal comes in. We had ordered their Gourmet Menu which consists of a 4 course meal.

This is a some crackers which the chef had prepared for us while waiting for the course to be ready. As you can see, there's two type of crackers here. One of it consists of raspberry on top of it while the other is some sort of tomato based Bolognese sauce on top. I like the one with the Bolognese sauce better.

  Salade Périgourdine

For the first main course we have a plate of medley imported lettuces, goose liver terrine, confit gizzards, smoked duck with Cognac sultanas vinaigrette. This is one hell of a good salad in simple layman term. The portion was generous especially the smoke duck. Pretty nice for a first course.

It's our first taste of goose liver or foie gras in French. It's actually better than we thought. The texture are some sort like cheese. But whole lot better. And there's plenty of it in the salad. Splendid.

Gratin d’asperges aux truffes du Périgord et au Champagne

 As for my first course, it's gratin of asparagus with champagne sabayon and black truffles from Périgord. Sounds pretty Frenchy and look French too. Little but nicely decorated. I had expected their course to be small in portion and this is what I meant. Asparagus is simple but the sauce on top of it was really nice.

Coquilles St Jacques grillées et fricassée de champignons sauvages, sauce au Porto

Babe's second course was again spectacular. It's grilled sea scallops with wild mushroom fricassee and Port wine sauce. It's a simple dish but the fresh grilled scallop will make you go crazy. This dish has babe go GaGa. The nice mixed wild mushroom and port wine sauce is just perfect. 

 Soupe de moules noires au safran et légumes aromatiques

What is French dining without saffron soup? So here's my second course which is black mussels and saffron soup with aromatic vegetables. This soup seemed to fall flat on me. Maybe I don't really appreciate the saffron soup since it's my first attempt at it.

Carré d’agneau à la croute de fromage de chèvre, courgettes à la fleur de thym,
sauce au Cabernet sauvignon

This is babe's main course which I choose for her. It's rack of lamb with goat’s cheese crust, roasted zucchinis with thyme flowers with cabernet sauvignon sauce. The portion was large this time around which surprises us. Luckily though as we were worried that we will starve to death that night. haha~! 

 We had ordered medium well and the lamb really tasted good. I think they cooked the goat cheese crust onto the rack of lamb as I don't see any of it. And there's a bit of crunchy feeling to it which we both like. But towards the inner part of the lamb, it seemed a bit too raw for us.

  Magret de canard rôti au miel de montagne, échalotes confites et fricassée de légumes aux tomates séchées au soleil

I was contemplating between ordering their grilled fillet of seabass with fennel, roasted tomatoes and caviar sauce and this. And the waiter had recommended me the duck. My main course is this mountain honey roasted duck breast, confit shallots and fricassee of vegetables with sun dried tomatoes. Finally something really good on my side of the course. This is like Western style roast pork but in this case duck.

 It's medium well again as I ordered and the even portion of lean and fat meat on the duck with it's crispy skin really make my night a good one. Totally beautiful.

  Crème brulée aux framboises

And finally for my last course which is the dessert. We are actually really full after the main. Surprisingly, Yes. This is their crème brulée with raspberries. The looks are simple but trust me it's really really nice. The top part (I suspect) is burn using a torch which melted the sugar icing on top. The lower part is cold but maybe not as cool as I wanted it should be. But nevertheless, it's a good dessert.

Tiramisu à la mangue

This is one of their famous dessert if I am not mistaken, which is their Mango tiramisu. There's slices of mango in the middle part of the tiramisu cake. Babe totally love  this but there's only one down side of the mango which is it's not freshly sliced but we suspect from the can. But the strawberry on top was fresh.

Overall it was a memorable night as babe accepted my proposal and the dinner is the best fine dining we had. Well, it's our first and only one to date though. So we can't complain much. The price? It's RM148 per head. It's actually quite worth the money if you really think about it. I mean the ambiance, the quality of food and also the service. It's not a casual night out but definitely something memorable which you wanted to last forever. (Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0)

 

House+Co @ Bangsar Shopping Complex

I saw this shop or rather restaurant on my last visit to Grand Imperial which is just opposite it. From outside it's a furniture shop as the name goes, Home+Co. You can see a lot of furniture and decorative items being displayed upon entering the place.

Once you go further in, you will notice that there's a restaurant in it. This is definitely an interesting restaurant. So I had called upon my new lunch buddy, K-Bear to try out this place. She was happily to obliged since she is alright with anything. :P We checked out their menu and it contains some local foods and also western too.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup - RM15/serving

For starter, she had ordered their roasted pumpkin soup. Nothing is better than a hot warm pumpkin soup served together with a roasted garlic bread. The pumpkin soup is topped with cream, nutmeg and pepper. The soup is thick just the way I like it. I am starting to like pumpkin soup after a few good encounters and this is one of them. At least now, I can order pumpkin soup rather than just mushroom every time.

Fish + Avocado Cheeser - RM24/serving

The women is contemplating between a few sandwiches in the menu and I had  suggested this for her. Actually I wanted her to try the pineapple+banana+cheese but she declined to 'experiment'. The sandwich is served with pan fried grouper, avocado, butter head lettuce and cheese. It's also served with a big piece of watermelon on the side and fresh salad.

As you can see the grouper and cheese are oozing out from the two piece of bread. This sandwich is really filling after finishing the pumpkin soup.

Nasi Lemak - RM24/serving

Finally my nasi lemak arrived. I saw one of the customer having this on my last visit and that day and decided to try it out. I am really hungry that afternoon, so this is just the right dish for me. I am really astonished when the waiter placed it in front of me. This is the most expensive plate of nasi lemak I had in my life. I mean, RM24 for a nasi lemak. This doesn't need to be only good, but really good.

The nasi lemak main attraction would be the massive amount of beef rendang served on top of a banana leave. When I said, massive, I do mean a lot. It's like a serving for 2 or maybe 3 people. The beef are really tender and warm. This is some really good beef rendang.

The nasi lemak also come with the usual cucumber, eggs, peanuts, anchovies and an addition of green too. The cucumber are served fresh and I do mean fresh like cut and served when needed. Even the anchovies are freshly fried before serving. I am really amazed. The vegetable are fresh and not too bitter. Love it.

The portion of rice is generous and really nice. It's warm when being served to me. It's not sticky and as you can see the rice are piece by piece apart. Just perfect. The sambal wasn't that much and nothing special bout it. But you should be busy with the beef rendang the whole meal to worry about this. Simply delicious.

Overall, the lunch is really good and I am 100% satisfied with the amount of money I am paying for the nasi lemak. I know RM24 is a bit steep for a plate of nasi lemak, but then again, you will need to consider the place and also the quality of the dish and not just the size or portion itself. There are also western dishes like pasta which I wanted to try on my next visit. Although this is the most expensive plate of nasi lemak I had to date, but I am a satisfied customer at the end. (Rating: 4.2 out of 5.0)