Neroteca @ Jalan Somerset, KL

I had wanted to visit this place out for quite some time but didn't have the time to go over each time. Since it's located nearby Changkat B.B, it was quite troublesome for me to go down after working hour unless for special occasion. Finally, I'd managed to visit this place out after some time searching for it. It took us close to 1 hour to get here from Bangsar. Got some wrong direction and massive jam over at Jalan Pudu on the way over. Actually we can't decide where to have lunch that day and finally I thought of Neroteca. Parking was a bitch since there's not much available and there's a construction going on opposite of the building. We managed to persuade the guard to let us park at the reserved parking at the end. 

The place is nicely decorated with lots of water bottles and also wine bottles. They have another sister company called Nerovivo which is located at Jalan Ceylon which is a bit classier. The place emphasizes more on fine wine dining and all. I heard this place served some lunch set and decided to try it out. Not much customers around but just now. Not too crowded and noisy for a quick lunch. 

The window that we are seated are filled and decorated with lots of this Acqua Panna water bottles. Really nice. We are served with plain water but they do served other stuff like juices and coffee which we didn't ordered. The staff was really fast to take our order and willingly introduced recommendations to us. Now that a story that I need to tell later on. 

Upon ordering, we are served with this paper box filled with garlic and bread. This is so freaking ol' school.  I had plentiful experience with garlic bread before but this is my first with real garlic and all. OK, maybe I am a bit jakun as some of you might have tried this before. 

Even the olive oil is in a cute lil canister. 

Now this is what I called a real garlic bread. We soaked the bread with some olive and vinegar oil. Mashed the garlic on top of the surface and lastly sprinkle some black pepper on top of it. Perfect. 

Both of us finished up the whole basket of bread in a jiffy. Not sure if the bread was that good or we're just that hungry that day.  

Went through the menu and decided to ordered my usual dish, Carbonara. When it was served, both of us was really disappointed of the portion. They were really stingy of their pasta. But that was not all. Take a bite into the pasta and it was not really well cooked or al dante for me. There were still a bit hard to bite on. The sauce was alright but the whole pasta under-cooked thingy made the whole experience quite unpleasant. A good Carbonara gone to waste if you ask me. 

So here's the story that I mentioned earlier. My friend couldn't decide what to ordered and decided to asked the waitress for a recommendation. She recommended something off the menu. According to her it's their specialty called the seafood pasta with cherry tomatoes. It has black mussels, squids and prawns. They ran out of squids and decided to gave us extra mussels and prawns. The dish was massive when it arrived. Maybe it's just the mussels and prawns. The pasta isn't that much again but this pasta did tasted good. Again, the pasta was under-cook. I am not sure if it was us not knowing how to eat pasta or they really screwed up the cooking time.

Anyhow, continuing with the story. We were both guessing how much would this dish cost since it's not stated in the menu. RM30-RM40? Maybe RM50 the most? When the bill came, it was RM78. My gosh~! This is the most expensive both of us had in our life. Sorry if I am over reacting here but RM78 for that dish is a bit too much. So the morale of the story, when waitress/waiter recommended something off the menu, ASK FOR THE PRICE.

Since the portion isn't that much, we didn't managed to filled our tummy up. But luckily we had some bread before the main and we are going for the International Food expo after the lunch. So I guess we can eat more afterwards. The total bill come up to RM120 for both of us and we only ordered plain water. So we had a RM60/head lunch which we can actually went for buffet as my friend said. Anyhow, it's a good experience and I hope that we learn something from this. Well, at least both of us did. Final words, good ambiance, good service but the food was just over rated. 

Rating: 

Food: 3.5 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Locations: 

Neroteca 

G1, Somerset, 8 Lorong Ceylon, 

50250 KL

Contact: 03-2070 0530

Khunthai Restaurant @ Petaling Garden

One of my friend highly recommended this Thai restaurant to me last weekend. We were actually looking for a place to bring our other friend back from over sea for dinner. Initial plan was to the one over at Chan Sow Lin but decided to go to some where nearer.My friend told me this has got to be his No.1 Thai restaurant. And some of our friends even agreed with him. So the rest again was history. Off we go to Petaling Garden which is off Jalan Gasing. It's nearby Hucks actually. It's a weekend and dinner time, so my friend advice us to go early as it will be packed after 8pm. And it really was. 

Waited for my friend to arrived since he's more familiar with what's good and what's not. I think he is that familiar with their menu that he can just order off hand in Thai. Cool~! Since they served local Thai authentic cuisine, he had ordered this appetizer for us to try. It's some sort like wrapping all the above ingredients (i.e chili padi, lemon bits, garlic, nuts, onions, dried shrimps and another type of seed thingy. 

This is the Thai leaves that come with the Miaeng Kum dish. In the middle is the honey to go with the ingredients after wrapping with the Thai leave. 

This is typically how it would look like after putting all the ingredients into the leave. Trust me, put more chili padi. You won't regret it. This appetizer seemed to be quite interesting where you have a bit of spiciness and sour in it. Not bad. Something to excite the taste bud before the main dishes I believe.  

Another appetizer before the main dish would be their Pandan Chicken. Actually I wanted to try this out and ordered it. What is Thai cuisine without Pandan Chicken.  Well nothing spectacular here but your ordinary pandan chicken. But it's good to start something light. There's 5 pieces so each has one. Fair~! 

Wanted an extra dish so we ordered this fried omelette with spring onion. A bit oily but I am alright with it. Really nice. Heck! I like anything fried together with eggs. 

Not sure if this dish was in the menu or not. It's their Pak Liang Thai vegetable. This vegetable isn't available locally according to my friend. It's only available over at Thailand. The vege is the same as the appetizer, Miaeng Kum. A bit oily but we all love this dish.  

My friend again recommended this fried chicken tendon. This is not a common dish locally I guess. It's chicken tendon covered with lots of sesame and deep frying it. Not bad, but I don't really see the unique in it except that it's rare. Is it my first time eating chicken tendon? I don't think so. But again I like anything fried.  At least this dish isn't as oily as the first two. 

The main dish would be this hot and sour deep fried siakap. My friend highly recommended this dish to us. Babe actually was wishing for their steam lemon fish. haha! My friend warned us numerous time of the level of spiciness of this dish. Most of them agreed except me. Really, it's not that spicy. But maybe there's something wrong with my taste bud. 

The siakap was quite large and sufficient for all of us. Sadly the fish was deep fried so we couldn't taste the freshness of it.  But again, I am cool with deep fried. The fish is topped with a lot of vegetable. You can see cabbages and kangkung and lettuces every where. Damn this fish is filling.

They even prepared an extra bowl of soup for the fish if it does goes dry since the charcoal is burning hot underneath it. You have lots of vegetables in it too. We finished the whole bowl off at the end.

Yes, I was sweating but not from the spiciness of the dish but rather the hotness from the stove burning hot underneath the fish. Looks so old school. I like it. You can't blow off the candles or fire with this baby underneath it. 

Most of the patrons ordered their umpera with sour plum. I know some of my friends are a big fan of this juice. But I am not really that into it. Actually this is my first 'attempt' with this juice. OK, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Since the sour plum helps a lot. I think I just have less than 3 glasses of this. We ordered two big jug of this juices. But it's very cooling and refreshing after some hot and spicy dishes we just had. 

The place was pack right after we arrived and it was raining at that time. So my friend isn't kidding when he said better be early and get a table quickly. They occupied two shop lot with one of them being air condition. But we wasn't permitted to sit in that room since they only reserve those with bigger crowds. But since it's raining that time, the weather was bearable. This is actually their second brand being the one up Butterworth their first. There is another one too over at Desa Aman Puri, Kepong. The dinner was really filling for sure but I didn't really agree with my friend saying that this is the best. I think what I had over at My Elephant is better and babe agrees with me on this. But well, food is very subjective I guess. Maybe someone can go over and try this out and let me know what you think. 

Rating: 

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (will go to 4 maybe if we were allowed in the air cond room)

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0 (fast and efficient)

Address: Khuntai Restaurant

6, Jalan 5/44, Petaling Garden,

Off Jalan Gasing, 46000 Petaling Jaya, 

Selangor Darul Ehsan 

Contact: 03-7781 7523

Tom, Dick & Harry's Restaurant

It's been really some time since my last visit to Tom, Dick & Harry (TDH). The place hasn't really changed that much. Well maybe just getting older. But the crowd is still there. Seeing lots of locals sitting back and hitting the beers when we arrived. Actually our objective for that night would be Hoofed but sadly it was closed for a private function. So we didn't really wanna travel else where so we just dine in down stairs. 

Ordered something small to share around. Fried button mushroom. It's a bit too plain and tasteless for all of us. Luckily  there's sauce and mayo to go with it.  

It's either this or the Pork Burger. Well, since it's Harry's favorite so I guess it's the cheese burger instead.   The set comes with some salad on the side and a whole lot of fries too. 

It's a 150g beef patty topped with a melted cheese and sitting on a piece of large slice of pineapple. Some sort like a Hawaiian style burger. Patty was almost juicy but a bit too salty for me. Isn't that bad but I had better with Hungry Hog and for half the price too. 

The bangers and mash comes with a sausage sitting or rather sleeping on top of the mash potato. Friend said it's not that nice. A simple dish which goes wrong I guess. Didn't really tried it since I was getting really full from the dessert coming soon. 

My friend wanted to try out their Creme brulee but it was also another disaster. Well not as much as the next one. The upper layer part of the dessert is a bit too thick. Maybe they added too much sugar on top when they torch it that time. 

 This could be the best part of the dishes that night. I know dessert supposed to be sweet, but this is way too much for all of us. It's actually snickers and mars chocolate bar fried to crisp. It wasn't oily which is good but damn it's sweet. I think it's not a really good choice to mix them around. But luckily the dish did come with a small vanilla ice cream at the side for you to mix it around. Well that helps a bit but we didn't even finish off this dessert. 

We ordered some some beers and hang around before making our quick get away. The place seemed to get more crowds  in after 8pm. As usual I guess for a place serving beers. Food is still not  the important part of the place I guess. But I do expect better quality of food in a place like this. Overall, we did had some good time chatting with my other friend fiddling with her iPhone whole night long. They have another new branch over at Scott's Garden along Jalan Klang Lama. Maybe it's better over there. 

Rating: 

Food: 3.5 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (quiet when we arrive with some music playing at the back)

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0 (friendly waitress but too ages with our dessert)

Address: 

Lorong Rahim Kajai 14, 

Taman Tun Dr. Ismail. 

Tel: 03-7710 2122

Goon Wah Restaurant @ Kuchai Lama

I read about this place from some where online and decided that I definitely need to pay the place a visit. Why? This is because I saw their Claypot Loh Shue Fun (CLSF). It's very hard to find a place that serve real good CLSF anymore. The one over at TTDI, Mama Kitchen's CLSF is not up to standard anymore and they even branch out to Bandar Puteri now. So when I saw that this place serve some really special CLSF, I had to give it a try. Quickly gave my ex-colleagues a call and they are all set. Similar with me, they like to travel around and eat too. I heard that the place is pack on a weekday, so we decided to arrive early, 12noon and luckily we managed to get a table outside. 

This is their famous CLSF. Well actually they are more famous for their fishhead noodle but I like this one more. The CLSF is served on top of a stove which is still burning when it's served. Wicked~! The noodle they used seemed to be a bit short and not like the usual ones that we had, so I guess they might manufactured the noodle themselves. This is not your typical CLSF as it's not wet and there are no raw egg on top of it. It's dry and topped with minced pork and crispy fried "kung yiew chie" (forgot how to pronounce it in Ang Moh, sorry). It looked simple but it tasted really nice. 

Here's a closer look of the CLSF. The portion is not that large actually. I think I can alone finish the whole pot up all by myself. But then again, we ordered a single pax. You need to quickly stirred the noodle around to mix it with the sauce and minced pork before the bottom part get over burn. Remember the fire is still burning hot underneath. Highly recommended. 

Well, since it's highly recommended and seemed like every table has at least one pot of this, we decided to ordered one and give it a try. It's their famous fishhead noodle with XO sauce. As you can see the pot is filled with fried fishhead. There's the usual salted vegetables, tomatoes and onions. The soup was really nice but one of my friend did mentioned that he preferred the one over at Desa Petaling while the other differ. As for me, I am alright with  this since I am not that big of a fan of fishhead noodle. How cool if they can put a stove like the CLSF underneath this dish too. ^^

This is another specialty in the house. It's their fried mixed intestines. A year ago, if you asked me if I would order this? Hell NO. But now, I am really into this dish. It's really a simple dish. I had tried those which are fried to crisp and now this is fried with garlic and "kong yew chie" again. Damn, the sauce is really good. I could finish a bowl of rice just with the sauce alone. Both my friends agreed with me on this. So I am not delusional. haha! 

Another specialty would be their Wu Tao Khao Yuk or Yam with braised pork. OK, I take pork in any form so this is again one of my favorite. But I don't like the yam so I just took the pork and leave the yam behind.

Eating the Khao Yuk alone would be a bit strong, so it is served together with man tao or steamed bun. 

Overall this dish seemed normal. Not to get over-excited with it but still it's one of the recommended dish over here. So we tend to try whatever the waitress recommended to us. Managed to finished the pork but not the yam.

Looked at those pork and fats. Best khao yuk should have 60% lean meat and 40% fats. Add some yam on it and wrapped it with that hot steamy bun. Take a bite into it and you are almost in heaven. Pork heaven that is. Note that the pork isn't that oily on the sauce. So you won't feel so fulled after eating it. 

We managed to finished off the whole 4 dishes (except some yam) up and less than 30mins. The place served their food quite fast. We ordered small portion for all of the dishes since we wanted to try as many dishes as possible. 

We cleansed all the oily food down with a glass of ice lime with asam boy. Damn it's refreshing. But the glass did seemed a bit "thin" for a place like this. 

This is how the crowd looks like around 12.45. Some of the tables are even reserved. Maybe it's a good idea to reserve a table before you come if you have a large crowd. 

The place is located over at Kuchai Lama. It's not that hard to locate it. Well, if you know your way around that area that is. The whole meal cost us RM60. I guess it's reasonable. I heard that the place only opens on weekdays from morning till 3pm if I am not mistaken or 2pm. The service was friendly and accommodating. Will I return? Hell YES!

Rating: 

Food: 4.0 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (noisy crowd but what do you expect)

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0 (food served fast and waitress was patients to recommend)

Address:

G13, Jalan 3/115C, KP2, Block KP2, 

Taman Kuchai Lama, Off Jalan Kuchai Lama, 

58200 Kuala Lumpur 

Contact: 03-7982 0048

Spaghetti Carbonara 101

As you all might have know by now, I am a pasta lover. I had been cooking pasta at home for some time but the sauce was all out from the can. So finally I had decided to make the sauce myself. Went online and search for the recipe for Carbonara and seemed like it's not that hard to do. The main ingredient for the sauce would be eggs and Parmesan cheese. So here's the list of ingredients for my recipe. 

• 4 slices of streaky bacon
• 2 eggs (depending on serving)
• Whipping Cream (optional as this is to make the sauce more creamier)
• Parmesan Cheese
• Shitake or Swiss Brown Mushroom (but I prefer the first)
• 1 Onion (chopped)
• 1 Clove of Garlic (minced)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil 
• Black Pepper 
• Spaghetti (in my case Linguine) 

I made the sauce first since it's very simple to do. Beat the two eggs in a bowl and add in Parmesan cheese in it. You can also add in the cream at this point if you want to make it creamier. Be generous on the Parmesan cheese although I know it's not cheap but you will love the out come of it later on. 

At this point, you can boiled the water and add in the linguine. It takes about the same time as the ingredients to get ready so you can do them side by side. Add in some salt in it to make it sauteed. Remember to stir it from time to time to make it evenly submerged in the boiling water. It's better if you have a deeper bowl to cook it so it's more evenly cook. You can drain the pasta now but remember, DO NOT RINSE WITH WATER. This is very important. I like my pasta to be al-dente so it will be pour in to the pan right after it's drain. 

As I am doing bacon, I will first heat the pan up and add in the olive oil and put in the bacon streaks. It's very fast to cook so remember not to over cook it. Bring it up to a plate and now you can start the second stage which is throwing in the minced garlic and onions. You can add in the shitake at this point too. Add in some stock from the pasta. Always remember it's very crucial to add in stock from the sauteed pasta and not plain water. At this point the ingredient will stop cooking. Pour in the pasta and mix it with the ingredients. Toss it around and you can add in black pepper at this point. Close the stove and pour in your Carbonara sauce. Let the heat from the pan slowly cook the pasta. You can add in more Parmesan cheese and cream to make it as creamy as you wish. Add in salt and pepper to taste. 

Next serve it in a big white plate. The plate is very important, hence I purposely drove all the way to IKEA to get them. As they said, presentation is everything. Sliced the bacon and put it on top. Add in more Parmesan cheese to it and give it some more pepper. I didn't managed to get Parsley for my pasta but you can add that to give some color to it. This is my 3rd trial and it was perfect. Sauce was to taste and the additional bacon totally boost the whole dish. Point to remember, be generous with the olive oil as it's very good for your health. Use only Parmesan cheese and not cheddar. It's NOT THE SAME. I know it's not cheap, but heck, it's for your own dinner so why holding back? Do not keep the dish for too long as the pasta will dry up because of the sauce. So it's best to consume it right after it's serve.