Baby Octopus Craving 4 Food

Hot Star Large Fried Chicken @ Subang Jaya

2012-01-20T11:15:00.000+08:00

During my trip over to Taiwan two years back, I was told that their fried chicken over there are famous. Famous their size at least. There are a few different outlets over there but the one that stand out would be Hot Star. Now, they have finally came to our shore. The first outlet is this over at Subang Jaya, SS15. It's located below Chatime (previously Tien Pin Ge Ge). It's the same row as Starbucks and Snowflakes (opposite Asia Cafe). You can't really miss it since this has got to be one of the most crowded street over at SS15.

I was thinking to myself, what else do they sell in here? They can't just be selling fried chicken right? So here's their menu. They have their famous large fried chicken, crispy drumlet & wing combo, tempura, sweet and sour plum potato and crispy fries. You can either make a combo out of it or order ala-carte which I did. Since I just wanted to try out their large fried chicken.

It's operating like a fast food chain restaurant where you queue up to make your order.

After ordering, they will only prepare to fry the chicken. So it's prepare only after there's an order which means that all their fried chicken are made fresh. The set back would be the waiting time I guess. I had ordered extra spicy and the guy was happily to add in edition chili powder for me.

And here is the place where you collect your food. It took them around 5 minutes (give or take) to prepare my chicken. Take note, I was the first in line, so I guess it's bearable if you are not in a rush.

You have 4 level of spiciness to choose from. As usual, I ordered EXTRA SPICY! Yummy!!

Just to show how long is the chicken. I put side by side with my Grande size SB mug. Actually it's around the size of Shih Lin's XXL fried chicken.

This is how the fried chicken look like with extra spicy chili powder. I noticed that they only applied the powder on one side of the chicken only and not both.

The chicken was smooth and tender. Not as much starch as I would imagine if you compared it with Shih Lin's XXL fried chicken. The meat is thicker I believe too over here. Spicy? Not really for me, but don't be bold if you're not into spicy food like me. The portion was quite large frankly speaking. It was my lunch and I can't even finish it at one go.

The fried chicken was well known not only for it's taste but also it's size too. It's measuring at 30cm in length. That is really long for a fried chicken if I would say so myself.

The location is hard to find parking during the weekdays, but I went during the weekends so it's more easier to get a space. The restaurant is air-condition so it's comfortable for you if you thought about dining in here. The place is brightly lit up and nicely decorated. Give this place a try if you are around the area and fancy some large fried chicken. How was is compared to the one over at Taipei? Can't really tell the difference I guess. But it's best having it on a nice cold day.

Rating:

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (nice and simple and air condition)

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0 (accommodating with my request)

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0 (affordable and can be shared among friends)

Edo Ichi Sushi @ First Subang

2011-12-15T11:28:00.002+08:00

Had this pictures taken few weeks back but a bit lazy to transfer it back to my 'lappy' until now. This is actually one of the expensive or above average in terms of pricing Japanese restaurant I had. Since I have my benefactor with me that day, we are all set to fill with our tummy with wonderful delicious yet expensive sushi. The name of the place, Edo Ichi which is located in the new First Subang tower.

The place was half full during lunch hour when we arrived. I think it's due to the new lunch set which they introduce. This is our second visit and we had decided that we won't be returning unless someone is buying the other. LOLX!! We were seated inside and flipping through the menu looking for expensive non-filling items. Decided to go all out on sushi and sashimi and no bento set lunches.

First on the table would be their fresh sashimi or salmon. OK, I am very particular in my fish and I had to say that this is one fresh salmon we had. Five slices of this baby cost us around RM25. I guess money can buy happiness in this case. It was fresh and nicely cut. Juicy~!

Decided to go for salmon and since we love mayo, we had this. Not the best we had but still worthy of the price we're paying I guess. Actually we thought of ordering another grilled unagi but decided to call it off at the end worried that we can't finish it. Since we have 2 soft-shell crab roll after the salmon.

We wanted to try something new so we had this una cheese roll. The cheese on top was a nice touch but the whole sushi didn't really tickle my fancy that much. I think I can say the same for my lunch buddy too. The roll does look inviting and all but it's doesn't really reach that 'WOW' level yet. Maybe a 'Oh, OK' level only.

Lastly we had this salmon, crabstick and cheese roll which we had during our first visit. This is better than the una roll at least. Both agreed that this is reaching that 'WOW' level too. After this dish, we had tons of green tea clearing our throat. Thought of ordering some small sushi on the kentai belt but we really can't stuff anymore.

When the bill came, it amounted to RM95 which upsets my benefactor since she thought it would be more than RM100. It was a good fulfilling lunch for both of us and we again agreed that we won't be back anytime soon unless someone is buying lunch. They have a few branches in Malaysia if I remembered correctly from the menu. There's one over at Solaris Dutamas and another over at Island Plaza. So do drop by the place and let me know if you think it's worth your money.

Rating:

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0 (quality is good but a bit pricey)

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (quiet and not too crowded)

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0 (staffs are friendly and served fast)

Kedai Kopi Hing Lee @ Tawau

2011-12-14T10:03:00.000+08:00

I am not sure if I had been to this outlet before as it has close to two years since my last trip over to Tawau. This has got to be the must visit shop for foodie like me over at Tawau. Well according to our family friend information that is. I had tried their branch outlet the day earlier and it's not that bad either. So this should be better I guess. Don't really but remember where is it exactly located but it's within the city.

The place was crowded when we arrive that afternoon. Luckily we managed to get a table in minutes and quickly made our order. The shop is handled by mostly young ones which surprises me. I thought the cook should be at least in his 50s or so. Anyway, I'd learnt from experience to not judge by the cover or in this case the age of the cook.

Since I don't read Chinese, I am not sure what the pricing on the wall said. But by all means those who can can at least make some sense out of it.

The sauce available are very standard. We have soy sauce, pepper and their home made chili sauce. They do have this additional fish oil sauce for you to add on your noodle.

I was hungry so I'd ordered a large portion of the noodle. The noodle looked similar to the one over here but actually it's not. The main different would be the missing taste of "kan sui" or the preservative they added to the noodle which most of the people hate over here. The noodle over there are made fresh so they won't need the additional preservative as I was told.

The preparation of the noodle was simple. But as they, simple food are the hardest to prepare. As you can see above, there are only a bit of thick soy sauce and some bit of onions and spring onions to top it off. But trust me when I saw, this has got to be one of the best noodle I had in years. The oil they used to mix with the onions are cook together with pork so you can taste bit of onions and also pork in it. Damn delicious. My only comment would be the cooking time of the noodle. A bit hard for me although I like mine that way but then again I didn't told him how I wanted my noodle to be cook.

I am not sure if the noodle is the main or the soup with the pork is. But I trust it would be the latter since the name is "Sang Yuk" or fresh pork. The pork are sliced just nicely not too thin and not too thick and being cook in boiling water. It's tender and it's soft. I was really surprised that it was pork and not fish. I heard that their soup will be cook for the whole day long so trust me when I said that the soup is sweet.

The combination of a good bowl of noodle and pork soup by the side. Both a simple dish but make a heck of a combination together.

I totally love Tawau. When you ordered ice lemon tea any where, and I do mean any where. They really are putting in slice lemon for you. Not like our side, where you can only get this in kopitiams and not stalls outside.

Food are served fresh and fast although the place are pack with customers. But it doesn't affect the quality of the food served. You got to love this place. Definitely one of the best food I had over at Tawau during my trip.

Rating:

Food: 4.0 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.5 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Chef Lim Organic Kitchen @ Scott's Garden

2011-10-24T14:47:00.002+08:00

I was driving along Old Klang Road while fetching my new lunch buddy. Saw Scott's Garden and was wondering if there were any new restaurant worth trying. Saw this new restaurant called Chef Lim while passing by the building and decided to give it a try. This is my second trip over to Scott's Garden and the parking is still a bit confusing to me. Most of the lots are still unoccupied which is a bit sad. You can see a lot of adverts on the windows and all. But the outer shops facing the main road are getting more and more by the day. Chef Lim is located on the top floor above Beef Factory.

The restaurant is still very brand new from the look of the paint and also the furniture. I like the ambiance of the place as it's very familiar with Full House, which is all white design. The place looked very nice and clean. Brightly lit up and the restaurant is facing outside did have an advantages to it. There were only another table occupied when we arrived. Maybe the place is still very new and not everyone is into organic food yet. So the crowd seemed to be a bit slow.

Since it's a restaurant that promote organic food, hence there's plenty of health food on their shelves. After scouting out the environment, we got ourselves comfortable and went through their menu. Plenty of choices ranging from Western to Local dishes. They have ala-carte dishes to order too if you are dining in a group. We set our mind on their western dishes.

Both of us actually are Carbonara lovers. So when both of us saw it was in the menu, we straight away wanna ordered it. But since we are sharing, we decided to order something different and try. The Carbonara came first. Presentation wise, I give it a 6 out of 10. Maybe cause I expect the pasta would be place in the middle high rather than flat down on the plate. Sorry, a bit strict on the presentation here. The pasta doesn't have a strong scent of cheese but rather more taste of the mushroom used. It's not too creamy but just nice and thick. The sauce is a bit special here since there are no pork or meat involved. Not really bad for an organic vegetarian pasta.

We had browsed through the menu several time and finally landed on this pasta, Anna & The King. Why Anna & The King? Beats me. Maybe cause it's more of a Thai based sauce. It has a lot of vegetables like capsicum, tomatoes and onions in it. The sauce is slightly spicy and sour which might be the reason for the name. Together the pasta seemed a bit flat but when I tasted the sauce alone, it was quite good. But how can you take the pasta and not the sauce right?

Actually they forgot bout our second order and we had to remind them of it. Maybe they are still new? But then again, the place is not crowded and the waitress are quite free. And we did specifically ordered two plate of pasta. Overall, it's a nice lunch where we have some hit and misses. Not an overall disaster. Good? Well you decide yourself if you do drop by.

Rating:

Food: 3.5 out of 5.0 (thumbs up for the Carbonara but Anna need to really work harder with the King).

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (nice and bright. can have a decent chat with your friend since it's really quiet)

Services: 3.5 out of 5.0 (they forgot our order .. )

Tea Room Set Brunch Promo

2011-10-17T22:25:00.000+08:00

My dear baker The TeaRoom is having a Promo now. 51% OFF for their Set Brunch for one. You can choose from their Fresh Bake Pie or Pasta and a sliced of their Cheese Cake. The set also include a glass of refreshment. This promo is valid for both dine in and also take away. usual price for the Brunch Set is ~~RM22.20~~ but now you only need to pay RM10.90.

That's not all, you can choose from a variety of Pie and Baked Pasta:

Shepherd's Pie (Chicken or Beef) or;-
Moussaka - Greek Delicacy or;
Creamy Tuna Baked Pasta and
Chicken Mushroom Baked Pasta

Here are some of their Freshly Made Cheese Cake to choose from:-

White Chocolate Lychee Cheesecake or;
Mars Bar Cheesecake and
Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

Choices of Drinks:-

Iced Lemon Tea
Iced Peach Tea
Hot Brewed Tea and
Hot Freshly Brewed Segafredo Coffee

Some info about the place. It's located over at Bangsar inside Wisma Volkswagen. The TeaRoom is a small cozy place where you can grab a quick lunch with your colleagues or friends. TeaRoom also specialized in catering baked goods for weddings, company dinners and event launches. You can find out more about TeaRoom through their website [HERE] or Facebook [HERE]. You can buy this promo from ilovediscount website [HERE]. Enjoy~!

Kimchi Korean Restaurant @ Tropicana Mall

2011-10-10T15:16:00.000+08:00

I had visited this restaurant on it's first day of operation. But since I am into affordable set lunches these days, I had decided to give this place a post. It's called Kimchi Korean which is located inside Tropicana Shopping Mall. It's located next to Otak-Otak Place. Customers started to poured in several months back after they had introduced their value meals or set lunch. I guess you need to have set lunches available for working class people working nearby. I don't think that we will have BBQ for lunch that often if compared to normal set lunch. So I guess it's a wise move by the owner.

Basically they have two type of value meal to choose from. You can either choose their noodle or rice value meal. Here as you can see, there are 4 types of Korean noodle to choose from. The Korean noodles ranges from seafood, beef, egg & sausages and vegetarian. The price varies of course being the vegetarian the cheapest one. Babe decided to try their Korean noodle since she's really like noodles a lot.

The second value meal would be their hot bowl rice or dolsot bee beem bab. Similar to the Korean noodle they also have four types of rice ranging from seafood, beef, chicken and vegetarian. I had choose the beef rice since I never tried it before over here. As the picture shows the value meal comes with a glass of either green tea or ice lemon tea and dessert.

The dessert came first which is a bit weird. There's 4 slices of cold watermelon.

I'd ordered the ice lemon tea while babe ordered their hot green tea. No, I don't think it's refillable. Maybe for the green tea but, ice lemon tea? I doubt it.

Babe's Korean seafood noodle came first. I had actually tried this a couple of time and decided to recommend to babe. Portion was generous for a set meal. Yes, it does looked like those instant Korean noodle we cooked at home a lot. Hence, I asked babe to ordered their seafood noodle since there's prawns, squids and clams in it.

As usual, the noodle has quite a strong scent of kimchi in it. The seafood was just enough for babe. Nothing too much but just right. I don't really take seafood, so I ordered their beef noodle previously which tasted equally good. Plenty of cabbages and also crab meat stick in the soup. Nice to eat during a cold rainy day.

As for me, I had ordered their dolsot bee beem bab. Bee beem bab actually means mixed steamed rice. Dolsot bee beem bab practically means the steamed rice served in hot stone pot. Bee beem bab actually is a common meal served over at Korean when they have left over dishes. So they poured everything on top of the steamed rice and eat it. The hot stone pot is preheated first and rice are poured on it so that the rice underneath will be a bit crunchy when you eat it. Bee beem bab consists majority of vegetables like spinach, lettuce, carrots, bean sprouts, mushrooms and topped with an egg. It's covered with shredded Japanese seaweed.

This is how the rice looks like after mixing it all around. You have bit of everything everywhere. The most important ingredient would be the sauce. It's called Gochuchang paste. It is spicy red pepper paste actually. It's red in color and I forgot to snap a picture of it before I start mixing it around. Like I said before, the dish actually created from left over dishes, so it does looked like left over on the above picture. But the taste is really nice after mixing all of those around with the paste. Again, a very nice dish to have on a rainy day. Something to heat up your tummy and excite your taste bud.

Overall, the lunch was really nice and the service was acceptable. Although they hired a lot of foreigners but at least they are very efficient and they know what the customers requires. We waited a while for the food but at least it's good. Although I felt a bit weird when they served the watermelon (dessert) first even before the drinks and main dish. Other than that, I have not much comment of the place. Nice hang out place since their tables are really large. Cause they have a lot of side dishes to be served if you are having ala carte.

Rating:

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Location:

Kimchi Korean Restaurant,

L1-57, First Floor,

Tropicana City Mall,

Petaling Jaya, Selangor

PS: Picture courtesy of tropicana website

Nadeje Patisserie @ Malacca

2011-10-03T13:50:00.002+08:00

I heard about this place which sells layered cakes over at Malacca a couple of times but never really know what is the real deal. So I searched around and finally I know what is this all about. The place is called Nadeje Cafe which is located over at Plaza Mahkota and also inside Dataran Pahlawan. It took me some time locating this place since my Papago brought me to Holland that day. But finally I found it using google map instead. Sigh~! I am not sure why they took off the signage on top of their shop. But that doesn't deterred locals from visiting the shop. It was packed when I arrived.

Even heard one driver who came over from out station to take away 10 pieces of the shop's famous Mille Crepe. OK, for those who don't know what the hell is this crepe is all about, let me explain. A crêpe or crepe is actually thin layer of pan cake made out of wheat flour. Crepe is a French word which means "curled" but originated from a Latin word "crispa". Hey it get's weirder as this crepe originated from England. The world "mille" actually means "a thousand". I think you get the idea why the called it a thousand curled when you saw the patisseries.

The shop is famous for their wide range varieties of Mille Crepe. Normal slices cost around RM9. There are at least 10 different types of Mille Crepe on their shelves. They have Tiramisu, Berry Berry Strawberry, Strawberry, Strawberry Chocolate, Orange Chocolate, Cheese, Chocolate, Original, Double Chocolate, Cafe Mocha, Chocolate & Mint, Cafe au Lait, Cheese Chocolate, Rum & Raisins, Mango Chocolate and lots more. You can also pre-order a full size cake for 1kg or 1.5kg. So what's your fancy?

I am a bit lost when I am browsing through their fridge. I can't decide which Crepe to ordered. I wanted to try all of them if you asked me. But it's not cheap. So I had decided to ordered 3 slices from the women's recommendation. I had chosen Cheese, Chocolate and Berry-Berry Strawberry.

Other than Crepe, they also sells tarts like this delicious looking Strawberry flavored tart. I don't really fancy strawberry that much but I know wifey loves them a lot. But 3 Crepes and a tart is too much. Maybe on my next trip over.

They also have Mango flavored Tarts and also Chocolate Eclairs. Tempted to go for the Eclairs but my head got the better of me and decided to call off the craving for now.

Here's how the Mille Crepe looks like. Well you can't really see the best part of the Crepe since it's covered with aluminium foils. A bit regret that I didn't ordered the Original flavored.

They even have liquor flavored Crepe. Cool~! Not sure how it tasted but should be interesting.

Since the Crepe will melt during the 2 hours drive back to Shah Alam, they recommended to purchase this ice box for a price of RM5. It's a price I am willing to pay since the ice box can be reuse later. The ice box even written with the shop's name and also their suppliers. Very professional. The Crepe according to them can only last not more than 1 hour if you don't use this ice box.

This is how they packed my Mille Crepe. They placed 3 big blocks of dry ice together with the Crepes.

Here's the Cheese Mille Crepe which I bought back from Malacca. It's been 7 hours but the Crepe still looks so tempting. Waited for wifey to arrived and we quickly dig into the Crepe after our dinner. What is so different from their Crepe and the other outside? For one, each layer of the pan cakes are so thin. You can actually find Mille Crepe over at Food Foundry @ Seksyen 17, PJ. But this is much nicer if you ask me. The Cheese isn't that strong so you won't really feel so filling afterwards.

Since wifey like strawberry, I had bought this berry-berry strawberry especially for her. It's quite sour but wifey loves it. The taste of strawberry according to her was just nice. Look at those thin layer of pan cakes and tell me that you are not salivating now. I am not a big fan of strawberry but I too agreed with her that this Crepe tasted really nice.

I am contemplating whether to get the Tiramisu or Chocolate and the girl told me the latter doesn't taste so sweet so I took it. Very true the Chocolate Crepe wasn't sweet but still pack with strong chocolate taste. Before this, I am not such a big fan of Crepe but after this, I am totally in love with them. The feeling of sinking your teeth into each thin layer of crepe in your mouth. Even when you cut the Crepe with your fork, you can feel each and every layer of it. Simply delicious.

These Mille Crepes must be kept cool and best consume right off the freezer. Actually consuming three slices of Crepes are a bit too much for both of us. We nearly didn't finished it. After all, it's made out of wheat flour and creams. You can treat this as high tea delicacies or night time desserts after a sensual dinner. I am still searching for a good place in Klang Valley selling good Mille Crepe. Anyone heard of any place, do let me know. And do try this place out if you are some where in Malacca or traveling down soon. Let me know what you think. Bon Appetite ^^

Rating:

Food: 4.2 out of 5.0 (one word, delicious!)

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0 (very helpful and fast in preparing the order)

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (didn't really dine in but seemed quite cozy but a bit noisy during lunch hours)

Address:

Nadeje Sdn Bhd

G-23 & 25, Jalan PM 4,

Plaza Mahkota, 75000 Melaka

Nadeje Cafe Sdn Bhd

Lot No.UB051, 052 & 053

Dataran Pahlawan Melaka Megamall,

Jalan Merdeka, 75000 Bandar Hilir Melaka

For Reservations:

+606 284 3469

+606 283 8750

Neroteca @ Jalan Somerset, KL

2011-09-27T09:35:00.000+08:00

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

2011-09-22T10:26:00.000+08:00

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

2011-09-12T16:07:00.000+08:00

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

2011-09-08T11:38:00.004+08:00

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

2011-09-06T09:56:00.003+08:00

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.

Hungry Hog @ Subang Jaya

2011-08-27T10:54:00.000+08:00

I was told that there's this new porky restaurant over at Subang. Needless to say, it was recommended by several friends and the rest is history. You can read more bout the place in their own blog HERE. Seemed like they had just moved over to Subang early this year. And they have been making a buzz during these few months over here. So I can assure that the food is good from all these hype.

The place is nicely decorated with porky every where. Something similar to El Cerdo which I visited several years ago. The place has simple and comfortable environment which is suitable for a quick bite during lunch or some place for you and some friends to hang out during dinner time.

Went through the menu and my lunch buddy who had tried the place before had recommended me their 'signature' burger, Three Little Pigs. Why the 3 pigs? I had a wild guess after I saw the meal was served in front of me. The burger consists of the porky patty, bacon and ham. Hence the 3 little pigs nick~ The meal come with french fries and also salad on the side.

Let goes to the patty which is the heart of all burger. The porky patty is topped with melted cheese on top. That's a plus point for me. Below those juicy patty are layers of ham, bacon, lettuce and tomatoes. Not too sloppy but just enough to get your hands dirty if you are not too familiar on 'handling' the burger. Yes, trust me, you need some skill to handle a burger without getting all those stuff dropping off while you are chewing on it.

The patty is juicy and just sufficient and not too much as there are bacon and ham that goes with it. But I was taken aback with the amount of oil dripping on the other end of the patty. Yup, those are oil dripping down. Maybe it would be more healthier if they could reduce the oil before serving the burger. But overall, it was a very good patty. I am really satisfied.

My friend had decided to ordered another type of burger called Plain Jane. And of course as the name goes, it's a plain pork burger without the ham and bacon. So it's exactly the same as the above minus the other two piglets. So if you are not that hungry and on a diet, you could still order this and not feeling too guilty about it.

Don't be alarm as the place has several different furniture set as some of them are donated by their customers. This is a very good way as it felt more retro and modern all mix together. I like the idea of customers sharing their furniture and deco. It adds a certain amount of closeness or homely feel to the place.

Now on a site note, to cut the story short, I left my notebook after my lunch and didn't realized it until I reached home around 6pm. Yes, that is more than 3 hours after my lunch. I quickly search online and found their contact. Called them up and the guy in charge, Mr. Yong told me that he found my notebook and had kept if for me. I'd quickly drove over and retrieve it from him. I am really grateful towards the management and also Mr. Yong for safe keeping my notebook. Had a good lunch and meet good people in the process.

Rating

Food: 4.0 out of 5.0

Service: 4.5 out of 5.0 (cause they are honest people and great service provided)

Ambiance: 4.0 out of 5.0 (homely feel)

Address: 71, Jalan SS15/4C, 47500 Subang Jaya

Contact: 012 - 225 0877

Opening Hours: 12:00 - 2:30pm, 6:00 - 10:00pm
(closed on Mondays)

El Toro Butchery & Grill Restaurant @ Subang Avenue

2011-07-27T11:31:00.002+08:00

Yet another new butcher shop had made it's way to Subang. No I am not talking about the market's butcher shop but an actual steak house of course. This new place is called el Toro or The Bull in Spanish (Yup, I google that up) is located at Subang Avenue next to Taipei Taipei Restaurant. Saw this place as it's next to my usual hang out place after gym. So decided to give this place a try since I wanted to beef up yesterday night. OK, that was corny. Parking is free of course at the basement or you can park outside and risk being summon by the local authorities. Your choice. They have in door and out door sitting so you can choose to chill out outside while enjoying your meal. I think you can even order beer from next door since I saw a customer ordered it during my visit.

I'd decided to sat outside to enjoy the view of traffic building up while waiting for my friend. Once seated the waitress placed this three bottle of sauce on the table. Yeah, they have BBQ sauce and mustard. Went through their menu and realized that their specialty would be their Australian (HALAL) beefs and also Burgers.

Decided to ordered a bottle of ice lemon tea while waiting for my friend. Well, I have to say this is my first time having ice lemon tea from a bottle. The bottle was really nice and cute.

After browsing the menu, I had decided to try one of their recommended burger from the menu. Since my friend had decided on lamb, so I ordered their beef. The meal came around less than 10mins which is reasonable fast. As you can see, the set is quite simple with fries on the side. It's freshly fried so it's still crispy. Salt are added by ourselves, so you can decide your level of saltiness. The patty is not that massive but do pack a good one inside. It's really pack but still spills some juices inside although I do prefer it to be more juicier. But I can live with this. They blend their own patty if I am not mistaken so this is really good. Beef bacon is a bit salty but I am alright with it. This is really a good patty although not the best I had but still above average.

Finally my friend's lamb burger arrived. The patty was really juicy even from the picture above. According to my friend, it was really good and filling too. My friend didn't even managed to finished the bread off as it was too much. I didn't have a try out of the lamb but from my friend's feedback and expression, I know it was good. For the price we are paying I am really satisfy with the quality and quantity of food that we are being served.

I was surprised when I saw the bill as it was RM40 for all of the above inclusive of tax. Then I'd realized that they had a special 20% discount for all dine-in. Not sure when the promo gonna end but I am definitely going back again for lunch with my lunch buddy since she's such a sucker for juicy patty like me. They also served side dishes like potato salad, soups, fries and beef rolls to name a few. Other than beef they do served pan fried salmon in Teriyaki sauce. Their specialty would be steaks, ribs and lambs of course. You can choose from Wagyu rib-eyes or sirloin which goes from RM50-RM55/100g. They also served black angus rib-eyes and sirloin for RM25/100g. I also realized that they served grainfed & grassfed rib-eyes and tenderloin and even Premium ones too. Wow~ That is a lot of selection. As mentioned earlier, their beef flew in from Australia from what I know. So do drop by and give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Rating:

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 4.0 out of 5.0

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Location:

El Toro Butchery & Grill

SG-07, Subang Avenue,

Persiaran Kemajuan SS16,

47500 Subang Jaya

Tel: 03-5611 7713

Hometown Hot Soup Restaurant @ Sg. Chua

2011-07-11T08:30:00.000+08:00

It was Friday and my colleagues over at the factory asked me over to try this place out over at Sungai Chua, Kajang. It's quite recommended since it's not that well known to much people. But heck when I got there, there's plenty of big cars already parked and dining inside. My colleague told me that we need to be there as early as possible to get a table. After seeing the scene, well I believe her.

While you descend down the stairs you can see a row of claypots cooking. A view I saw before during my visit to one of the claypot chicken rice over at PJ. But that is another story. The place doesn't really spell hygienic but heck, all this is what makes it so unique and so local. This is what Malaysia good food comes from. Well as long as I don't see any big rats running around is alright with me.

After walking down some stairs, we arrived at the restaurant which is below the main road. It's only 12 o'clock and the place was already half full. My colleague told me that the place will be pack around 12.30 onward. She is not kidding, as we were waiting for our food, groups and groups of customers walked down the stairs. They do have a room or two inside the converted house for bigger groups. I am not sure if it's air condition or not but I doubt it is. Or else most of the people would have quickly went in.

First on the table would be my favorite green, Yau Mak with Garlic. Since I am not very familiar with the food over there I had given my colleague the freedom to order. But she is not too familiar too as most of the time the food was ordered by my another colleague. So we asked for recommendation from the waiter and he gave us a few favorites from the restaurant.

The highlight of the place would be their hot and spicy soup. The soup comes in a conventional claypot with chicken, pork and some internal intestines. The soup isn't that much spicy as I had expected from my previous experience else where. The soup still spicy to some but maybe my taste bud requires something stronger. Nevertheless, the soup was good and it's been a while since my last spicy soup. At least I won't felt to thirsty after the meal. The pork given are layered lean and fat ones which I really love. Chicken are in small parts and there are a lot of sliced garlic in it too. My lady friend wallop all the garlic since she had a lot of air in her tummy that day. Another advantage of having a spicy hot soup I may add.

This is another local favorite from the restaurant. It's actually something like salted fish with pork in claypot. Wow, that actually rhymes. For me this is the highlight of my lunch as I like the pork which is salty and slightly spicy because of the dried chilies. There's plenty of minced garlic and small anchovies mixed together with the pork which gives us a really strong scent. Totally like this dish. Not the best I had but it's something good that I had in a while.

I can't believed that we finished all the dishes that afternoon. Maybe we are too hungry or the food was just delicious. We did saw other dishes like fried chicken and another claypot dish but not sure what is that. Maybe I will go again with my other colleague to try it all. How much does it all cost? Well I am not sure since my lady friend decided to treat me that afternoon. Didn't asked but I guess should be less than RM50 I guess. Definitely going back again for a second with my family maybe.

Rating:

Food: 4.0 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Address: No. 268,

Jalan 11, Sg. Chua,

Kajang, Selangor.

Ki Ki Taiwan Cuisine by Fong Lye @ KLCC

2011-07-01T10:12:00.000+08:00

I was searching around town the other day looking for a place for lunch. Since babe was over at KLCC, hence I looked around and decided to try this new place up. Well it's not actually NEW but it's new for me. It's called Ki Ki Taiwan Cuisine and as you can see, it's a restaurant having the same concept/management under Fong Lye. So what is the different? Well for one, it's a HALAL place so no pork for you pork lovers. The place is located on the forth floor next to Umaiya Japanese Restaurant.

The place was packed when we arrived during lunch hour. Waited for a couple of minutes before there were seats for us. They would give you the menu outside and you can start making orders so that when you have your table ready, the food will not be far too long away. The place isn't as spacious as Fong Lye over at MV but still acceptable. The seats are quite close to each other similar to MV branch. Had a few visits over at MV branch which you can refer from [HERE], [HERE] and [HERE]

Went straight away for the menu as I am darn hungry from the time looking for a car park over at KLCC. The food choices are similar to Fong Lye Restaurant. But they took out the non-HALAL food such as the Taiwan Glutinous Rice Sausages but the most distinctive difference would be the rice they served. You see later on what I mean.

As usual, we started off with a pot of hot Chrysanthemum + Oolong tea to cleanse our taste bud for the food we are about to eat. It's refillable obviously so no worries. The cup is small and looked really cute.

The appetizer, I had ordered their Fried Tempura. This is my first time ordering this dish and heck it was a correct choice. The fried tempura seemed to be one of the best I had in a long time. Well it looked like our local keropok leko actually. But the taste is definitely different between these two. The texture is soft and chewy but the spices that they sprinkle on it seemed really tasteful. A bit salty but I can live with that.

Babe was contemplating between ordering her favorite 3 Variety Supreme Diced Rice (San Pei Chi) and this bowl of fresh Clams with Mea Sua. Well, as you can see, the Mee Sua won at the end. Babe really like the one she had over at Taiwan during our trip over last year. It was a rice based that she had previously and she can't wait to try this noodle version out. The soup was quite nice something like our local fish head noodle. Amount of clams are acceptable but not generous enough. Overall, if you like mee sua, you will most probably like this dish. Not for me definitely. Cause this is not filling and you pay more than the usual for it.

Similar to Fong Lye, all their main course comes with side dishes. There are three side dishes for you.I always like the spicy long bean that they prepared. It's a simple dish but heck, it's the simple ones that is the most hard to prepared right?

This is the spicy chicken chop set which I had ordered. Actually I had tried this dish before over at Fong Lye but I am really hungry that day so I wanted something really filling and filling is what I had. The set come with the similar side dishes and a bowl of soup of the day.

Remembered what I said earlier bout the rice? Can you see the difference now? Yup the rice is not topped with their (Taiwan) famous stewed minced pork. OH! I am so sad seeing my rice just topped with marinated chicken sliced. But it's a HALAL place, so we can't have that can't we? But why can't they do stewed chicken instead? haha! As usual the portion isn't that large which means that I finished the rice before even finishing half my main dish.

My main dish would be this plate of spicy chicken chop. It's actually not that spicy (sigh!) and there's some gravy at the bottom too. So it's not that dry actually. But the portion is similar to Fong Lye which is super generous. The chicken is freshly fried so you can still feel the crispiness of it. Not the best I had but if you are hungry as I am, this is the best dish to order. You can't go wrong with fried chicken.

As if you are not full and can still fill your stomach, then try finishing this hot bowl of chicken soup with bitter gourd. Damn I like bitter gourd but the bitter gourd in this bowl was tasteless. What is the point eating bitter gourd when there's no bitter gourd taste right? But the soup was quite nice and chicken breast was plentiful too. Damn, I can't even finished the chicken off that day. A bit too full from the appetizer and main course.

Overall, we had a pleasant lunch over at Ki Ki and it's a good place to chat but not during lunch hour. Try going over after 2pm when it's passed rush hours. The staffs are very friendly and efficient too. They always walked over and asked if we need anything or refills and clear our table once our food are done. Make sure you come early if you wanna get a table and not in a rush since you might need to wait for it too. It's quite hard to find a decent Taiwan place in town and this is considered quite alright for us. Maybe you can try and let me know what you think of it. Enjoy~!

Rating:

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Tea Room by Bel Jee @ Wisma Volkswagen

2011-06-16T10:05:00.003+08:00

Sorry again for the late update of my dear friend, Bel's TeaRoom official opening at Wisma Volkswagen. The special date for the launch was on the 1st of June 2011. Congratulation again babe~! The shop is located inside Wisma Volkswagen at Bangsar. Her shop served pastries, cup cakes, nasi lemak, sandwiches and a whole lot varieties of drinks in their menu. The place is handled by herself and two other helpers. The main customers would be the office people from the building and also nearby offices. The place is located nearby residential area, so I believe that her presence will be felt and seen by them real soon.

These are freshly made miniature cup cakes for customers to taste. Really like the color used which is also the official 'theme' color for her shop. Totally love it. Suddenly felt like I am back in my kindergarten years. The bear on top has been coated so it can last forever. Goodie~! What a waste to throw it away and it's so darn cute to be eaten too. LOLX!!!

Here are some of the cakes which she made on the first day of the opening. It's not filled but it's getting there. She is making more and more varieties of food all from her kitchen behind the counter. Yup, there's an oven hiding behind that wall trust me. She is still taking orders for specially made occasion's cakes too. You have more details on her Facebook page [HERE] or her website [HERE].

I had myself a cup of hot green tea with hazelnut. And all their milk used are low fat. She kept on emphasizing on that, which I really appreciate. Again, I will like to take this chance to congratulate my dear friend all the best in her new business venture and finally a dream come true for you babe~! You show us that when we try real hard and put our mind to some thing we believe in, nothing is impossible. Cheers~!

Athena Restaurant @ Pavilion

2011-06-15T11:48:00.001+08:00

First and foremost, sorry for the blurry pic. Was walking away while taking this pic. Over-estimated the capability of my phone again. LOLX! Let's get back to the food now. My ex-colleague had been telling me of this place over at Pavilion that serve nice pasta with a reasonable price. So finally after some pestering, I'd finally decided to give it a try with them. The place is located opposite Starbucks and next to La Bodega. So you can't really miss it. The restaurant had been there for very long and I think most of you had already tried their set lunches.

For RM19.90++ you have a bowl of soup, main course, dessert and a drink. Sounds reasonable for a place over at Pavilion. But I need to check the food out if it worth the money or not. Cause you can't be charging me a low price for bad food too. You have a few choices of main course to choose from roasted chicken, fish & chips, pasta and even Mediterranean Beef.

If you are on a rush, you can even have their sandwiches for RM14.90++.

I forgot if you can order anything else other than Ice Lemon Tea. But the glass was quite large and sufficient actually.

Their soup of the day sort of like clam chowder or seafood based to me. Not the best I had but for a set lunch this is a good bowl of soup. It comes with a sad bread by the side.

Ex-colleague ordered their roasted chicken since he had pasta previously. Portion isn't that large but just moderate. Definitely not enough for any men I guess. But since it's a set, I guess you be full after the dessert. Black pepper sauce was nice and the salad on the side again seemed a bit sad. Not very cheerful that gave me the idea of eating them up.

Since I came for pasta, pasta it is for me. Carbonara too. Since they know I love Carbonara really much, they highly recommended this to me. Portion was quite generous. Not too creamy but just enough not to look too watery. Plenty of cheese and whip cream used I suspect from the taste of the cream. For a set lunch this is above average I guess. Clean the plate up without leaving a single drop of cream. Well that explains a lot.

Finally the dessert came and it's chocolate flavored ice cream. My friend was actually looking forward to their strawberry flavored which he tasted previously. The ice cream even topped with syrup which makes it so nice and fattening at the same time. At this point I am really full and satisfied.

Surprisingly the place isn't that packed during lunch hour so it's a good place to catch up with some friends and have a good affordable lunch. At least it worth my time to drove all the way down from my office to meet up with them for lunch. They served beers too if you are in the mood for some. The place turn into a bar cum bistro at night with food and drinks served. Not a bad place for lunch if you are willing to pay their expensive parking.

Rating:

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Capricciosa Pizza & Pasta Restaurant @ Sunway Pyramid

2011-06-07T10:18:00.001+08:00

I thought I had blogged bout this few weeks back but I can't seemed to locate the post. Darn~! Am I getting old? Nevertheless, here I am again writing the same post one more time. But since this place does give me a good time while I visited it last time, so it's a pleasure writing bout it again now. The place is called Capricciosa which is located over at Sunway Pyramid new wing. It's next to Old Town inside Jusco. I was actually looking for some pasta lunch with babe when I came across this place Browsed through their menu and found that the pricing are really reasonable. And the rest is history as they say.

Google up the place and found out that it's actually the No. 1 Italian food craze made famous over at Japan since 1978. Wow, that is even older than me. Hence, I saw a lot of Japanese chef pictures inside the restaurant. Seemed like Japanese people really go crazy for their pasta and pizzas it seemed. Was browsing through their menu which fill with a lot of choices to choose from. Decided what we gonna had and straight with the ordering.

As always, babe ordered her hot cappuccino which isn't that bad.

For starter, I had decided that we should warm up our tummy with some nice warm soup. The Italian vegetable & meat soup seemed to be a recommended one. And truly it is. Firstly we were taken aback with the size of the bowl. My gosh, for the price that we're paying this was humongous. You can even share the bowl of soup with your friend.

As you can see, the soup is filled with ingredients inside. It's savory blend of mixed vegetables with fresh cream and their own specially made sauce. Trust me, this taste better than it looks. I don't often praise any other soup this much but this is hell of a good soup. And dirt cheap too.

This goes the same as my Clam Chowder. And I had to say this is one of the best Clam Chowder I had to date. And I found out that not much restaurant serve this kind of soup too.

Again, the soup is filled with surprises. OK, not bad surprises but good ones. Plenty of seafood in it like clams and mussels and vegetables too. Thick and creamy just the way I like it. $7.90 for this bowl is definitely a steal. Totally worth every dime.

OK, now for the main course. I had ordered their Carbonara since it's available in their menu. Can't really change the pasta if I remembered correctly. But I am alright with Spaghetti. Again, the main attraction here is their portion again. When the pasta was served in front of me, I was thinking, this is too small for me. But when I spread it open using my fork, I was really surprised with the generosity from them. Damn, it's so large that I barely managed to finished it. Yes, you heard me right. And more over it's good. Well not the best I had but definitely worth your money. Not too creamy but alright. A bit on the salty side maybe due to the extremely high amount of cheese I added.

Babe, finally decided with this tomato based pasta with garlic and peppers. And when they said peppers they do give you the truck load. And again, the portion is so damn much. I don't normally said this but this place really are so darn generous on their pasta. For the price that they are charging this is definitely worth every penny of it. For those who like black pepper, this is your plate of pasta. But again a bit salty for me.

Overall, I had no complain on their food except that they could be a bit gentle on the salt. Definitely need to order their soup if you are there. Worth your money and you can even share the soup with your friend. Trust me when I said the bowl is BIG. Even the spoon is not those ordinary ones. They are served with some big ones too. Service is superb and the staffs are definitely friendly. I had ordered their bottomless soft drinks. Yes, they have that too which is really good. I accidentally knocked off my glass and they were so nice and quickly replaced my drink and clean the table up. Even their foreign workers are friendlier and always there's a smile on their face. Good Good Place for lunch : )

Rating:

Food: 4.0 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0

Re Della Pasta Taste Bug's @ KSL City Mall

2011-05-28T16:04:00.001+08:00

This is my second visit to KSL City Mall over at Johor Bahru. It's located nearby Holiday Plaza. It's one of the newest entry of shopping malls in the city center. My first visit is like 2 months ago and the place actually didn't change that much. I am looking for a decent place for dinner and had surveyed the whole building. Finally I decided to dine in this restaurant called Re Della Pasta.

I was browsing their menu and the waitress was so nice to come out to introduce some of them for me. Since they served some wide varieties of pastas and pizza, so I have no problem deciding my choice of food that night. But still, I had asked for recommendation from the waiter who is ever so helpful throughout my dinner course. I had decided to try their pasta and pizza each.

Home-Made Pasta Salad - RM8.95

I am deciding between their mushroom soup and salad. At the end I had decided on their home made pasta salad. It's home-made Spirelli with tuna, sweet corn, egg, onion, olive and parsley. I have no complaint on the salad but I do wish that it could be colder. Not really a large portion but just nice for one pax.

Spaghetti Con Fungi - RM15.95

There are at least 20 over choices of pasta in their menu. But sadly they don't have Carbonara in it. Although they don't have my favorite pasta but they do have a variety of in-house pasta. I am really impressed in their menu but then again I need to taste it before making a judgement on them. So I ordered something close to Carbonara. This is actually a vegetarian pasta cooked with creamy white wine sauce with mushroom as their star. Presentation was really good but the portion seemed to be a bit small at the beginning. But when I started to dig in, I was really surprised to see how I was wrong.

Portion was really generous and the spaghetti is not over cooked like some places I tried before. One thing that I want to express is the mushroom they used. Plenty and Generous. They used at least 3 or 4 types of mushroom in the pasta. This is the first time I am so impressed of a Con Fungi Pasta.

4 Season Pizza - RM17.85

They have around 10 variates of pizza in their menu and again I can't decide on any of them so the waiter recommended this for me, since I can taste four of their other pizzas in one. Actually the waiter recommended one of their specialty in another menu but since it was a seafood based, I had declined. All of their pizza are thin crust which I really happy to hear. They have pepperoni, cheese, mushroom and green peas based pizza on the same pizza.

I had half of that and I like the mushroom based the most. The tomato based sauce used for all the toppings are the same. But mixing it together with mushrooms is really good. Pepperoni was abundance and I was really happy for that. The green bean portion was the least my preference. Anyway, it's really a good piece of pizza overall.

Iced Cappuccino

A bit strong but luckily my first sip was at the end of the dinner. Nothing special but just an ordinary but not that bad glass of cappuccino.

At the end of the meal, as I am preparing to reached for my wallet to pa the bill, I was surprised that it wasn't in my pocket. Checked everywhere and I still can't locate my wallet. Guessed that I left the wallet in my car. So I had asked the waiter to wait for me while I walk over to my car to check. I even offered my passport to be hold by them while I go and search for my wallet. But he was so kind to just asked me to go and come back with the money when I find it. At the end I found it and paid them. Even filled up their customer feedback form and gave them a really good review on both food and service. Definitely going back on my next trip down South.

Rating:

Food : 4.2 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 4.0 out of 5.0

Service: 4.7 out of 5.0

ChillaCup @ Subang Avenue

2011-05-09T12:54:00.001+08:00

It's been weeks after visiting this place but I only have time posting it online now. As usual, busy with the house and all nowadays. ^^ Saw this place during my supper session over at Old Town inside Subang Avenue. So decided to go over to try it out with my lunch buddy. She is more than obliged since there's food involved. The place is called ChillaCup. It's located at the Ground floor opposite Amaree Restaurant. Sounds familiar? Cause they have a few branches around town actually.

The place like any other cafe serve not just the usual lunch menu but also some cakes and desserts on their shelves. The cakes looked fresh and the salad too. Didn't really have the chance to try them out since we're taking our lunch and we don't do dessert normally. Maybe during tea time.

The place is practicing self order where you go to the counter and order your food like Starbucks and wait for it to be serve. They have this special way of notifying you when you order is ready. How?

A pager that is. There's a timer or sort on it. So when your order/food are ready, it will make a sound to inform you. Then you can just walk over to the counter and take your order back. A bit of a hassle for us. Since we need to self order and then go over again and take our order. There are several waiter standing there but their duty are just to clean the tables and all I guess.

Browsed through the menu and decided to go with the set lunch. I had add on a mushroom soup from the set since I saw the picture was so tempting. Not bad. Not those out of the cane type of soup at least. Nicely prepared as you can see from above. Taste was alright and it's freaking HOT. Fresh from the pot I guess.

Lunch buddy can't decide what she wanted and I decided for her on the Spaghetti Napolitan since she like pasta. That was the only pasta in the set menu although she prefer cream based pasta. Tough luck~! Tomato taste was really strong and a bit too salty too. But overall it was an ordinary plate of pasta. For the price you are paying, I guess this is acceptable.

As for me, I had ordered their Beef Burger. I was really hungry so I had decided to go for something large. The beef is not as juicy as I wanted but still it's bearable and acceptable for me. The burger come with some salad and fries on the side. The set surprisingly was quite filling for me.

So here are the branches for ChillaCup around town.

Overall the lunch was alright. Not the best we had but average. Cool place to chill out for a cup of coffee (hence the name I assume). Saw a few customers meeting up with their customer for lunch and students surfing the nets at that time. Maybe will try out their coffee on my next tea time.

Rating:

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 3.5 out of 5.0

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Coffee Chemistry Cafe @ Sunway Giza

2011-05-02T20:40:00.001+08:00

It was after my lunch over at Movida that I deiced to give this coffee place a try. I saw it online some where about this place serving the world's finest coffee. They are serving Graffeo coffee which is said to the be the finest in the world. I got to try this out since I am a bit craze of coffee myself. The place is located on the top floor of Movida. On the signboard below, you will see Coffee Chemistry Cafe, Digi and HTC. Why? Let's go up and see.

The is the Coffee Chemistry's counter. The counter is nicely decorated and showcasing their products namely Graffeo coffee on the shelves and some other drinks like soda in the fridge.

On the other side when you walked in you will see two other counters namely Digi and also HTC. There are staffs from both side helping customers on their purchases or inquiries of respective products. You can try out HTC's new smartphones and if you like it you can purchase it and even get a new line over there too. This is a new concept store like a one stop station for gadgets and coffee.

Let's get back to the coffee for now since we're here for them. My friend decided to give their hot black coffee a try since it's recommended. According to my friend the bean is really nicely blend and the scent is quite strong.

As for me, I go for their Hazelnut Caramel Coffee. Taste of hazelnut which I think was from the syrup they use is nicely blended with the coffee. And I like the cream pattern thingy they did on top. ^^

This is the Cappuccino Ice Blended by friend ordered. It's really thick and nice. Not bad, but I don't really go for ice blended nowadays. Too cold for me.

You can purchase some HTC products on the shelves if you like it.

Overall, the place is nice to sit down with friends to catch up or having a meeting with your customers. I saw some meetings going on on the other tables too during my session. They have a smoking section outside on the corridor with the view of Giza. There is also another training room on the other side for HTC products. I guess, they are doing these training session for new users or special events. The coffee is good and the place is also nice. Price isn't that expensive is the most important part. Most of the drinks are around RM10 or lesser. That price for the finest coffee in the world, I am certainly happy~!

Movida Kitcher.Bar.Kitchen.Lounge

2011-04-24T19:14:00.001+08:00

I was actually wanted to try out Cravings over at Sunway Giza but ended up at this place called Movida. It's actually a bar cum lounge which served food during lunch hour too. My ex-colleague told me that this place served some kind of a buffet during lunch hour. Actually I (we) are still looking for a place other than Louisiana for some good all you can eat lunch. Coming back to Movida. We arrived around 12.15 and we are among the first to arrive. Not much sign of the buffet available but we did asked the waiter and he confirm it's available.

After reading the above, I realized that their 'eat-all-you-can' has a 'catch' on it. As you can see above, the buffet style lunch only provide a all you can eat on their dessert and soup. You can only choose one main course for the price of RM14.80 NETT. This is a bit of a let down as who can drink 5 over bowl of mushroom soup or 5 plates of salad?

This is the salad section with tons of fresh salad for us to feast on. But as I mentioned earlier, how many plate do they expect us to eat? Unless you are on a diet and salad is your new best friend.

They are serving mushroom soup that day. My favorite kind of soup but we will see how it really taste later.

Salad isn't that bad but not much to brag about but fresh.

Back to the soup. Totally disastrous. This had got to be one of the top 3 worst soup I had. I like my soup thick but this is just too much. It's too thick and worst, the powder isn't diluted well. And when we queried the waiter bout this, he had the nerve to say it's just the way they serve their soup. WTH?!!

Let's go to the main course now. Hopefully the main is better than the appetizers. I had ordered their grilled lamb with pasta on the side. The whole meal really does looked appetizing after the sad start on the appetizers. Grilled lamb was a bit hard to bite off but tasted alright. Spaghetti was really bad. Couldn't really taste anything. Sad sad meal.

My friend had ordered their chicken chop and it wasn't what he expected. Maybe the taste is good? Portion was really small. Chicken was normal and the only thing worth mentioning is the croquet potato. It's actually potato mixed with cheese and cooked to crisp.

OK, overall, I can summarize this place up pretty easy. I think you can guess what is my answer too by now. Not worth my money at all. Only spend your money here if someone is buying. Maybe the bar is better at night. Not sure how good is the ala-carte dishes in the menu, but not sure I am taking that chance again soon.

Ratings:

Food: 3.5 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 3.5 out of 5.0

Ben & Nick's Cafe @ D'Tiara Subang Jaya

2011-04-19T11:32:00.002+08:00

Been thinking of paying this place a visit for some time since I saw the place during supper with my friends after gym. The place is called Ben & Nick's Cafe or B&N for short. It's located inside D'Tiara Apartment next to Subang Avenue. It's on the corner facing Old Town Kopitiam so you won't miss it. From what I read, the owner Sonny Cheah who started the cafe after retiring. With his son Ben at the kitchen, they whipped out several good dishes from what they can cook and changing the menu from feedback from the customers.

The restaurant is small but do not judge them from the size of the place. The place can comfortably seat around 50 customers at the most. The place is designed like an English tavern, with most of the tables placed outside for the alfresco experience. The interior decoration is what attract me the most which I read was mostly provided by Cheah's wife own collection.

I saw the picture of their mushroom soup from the menu and I straight decided to order it. It's so delicious just from the picture itself. The portion of soup isn't that large but just right to share with my babe and a small piece of garlic bread on the side. The soup is mild and not that thick but the fragrance is nice and soothing. Not the best I had but definitely above average and worth a try.

Babe decided to ordered their combo blanket since she can't decide whether to go with steak or pasta. This is the best choice since it's a combination of beef strips with beef bacon and smoked onions; Cajun marinated chicken strips with tomato salsa. All wrapped in a cheesy grilled tortilla. If that is not enough, it's served with Romaine lettuce and bread crumbles. This is really a heavy meal for lunch but since both of us are hungry so we shared. The beef tasted better than the chicken since the latter fall a bit flat on the taste.

As for me, definitely Carbonara since it's been a while that I had one. I had asked how big is their portion since I am really starving. The waitress told me that all their pasta is served 200g. I had ordered their beef bacon with Fettuccine pasta. OK, I don't really know how much is 200g but when it is served in front of me, damn it's large. The sauce isn't that thick as of my liking but still it tasted really good. A bit salty but just right. Had a bite into the pasta and it's a bit plain. Take another taste of the sauce and take a bite into the pasta and it tasted better. Really strange. I concluded that the sauce is really good but the pasta fall flat because the sauce isn't that thick to stick on the pasta.

All the heavy lunch and what better way to clear our taste bud but a hot cup of illy Cappuccino.

Overall lunch was alright. There's hit and misses here and there but still a good place to have a nice quiet decent lunch. They also served steaks, desserts and some other good appetizers. The place is cozy in the afternoon so you can have a nice chat with your friends and with the decorations, you really feel that you are in an English tavern. Price isn't that expensive since the portions are really generous and all.

Rating:

Ambiance : 3.8 out of 5.0

Service : 3.8 out of 5.0

Food : 3.8 out of 5.0

Phukat BBQ Buffer

2011-04-11T15:28:00.001+08:00

Finally I have the time to filter through my pictures during my trip over to Phuket two weeks back. Not much to talk about during the makan session but the most memorable one would be this one. It was highly recommended by the local tour agent over there. Actually the fella is from Malaysia and is operating over there. So he is so nice of bringing 15 of us over to this place. He mentioned that this is the best serving BBQ in town. OK, we will see later.

The place was packed when we arrived and since we didn't make any reservation and having a big crowd didn't help much, we waited around 10 minutes for a table for all of us. The tour guide, Richard was so friendly and helpful since he's the only one who know how to converse in Thai, so he's plenty of help that night. You have locals and also foreigners in the restaurant. When we're moving in to the table, we saw a large crowd of Malaysian leaving and giving a good thumbs up of their experience. This should be good I think to myself.

Lets go through their menu or rather food on the table now. On the first corner we have the seafood section where as you can see, there's fresh prawns every where and plenty of them too. I didn't took much but just two of them for the soup.

On the other side, we have the marinated red meat section. You have beef, mutton, chicken and pork. I am particularly into the marinated chicken on top. All of these meat seemed really fresh to me, maybe it's due to the crowd and fast replenishing of the stocks on the table.

Here is the beef and mutton with some internal organs too. The far right corner would be the pig's skin as the cooking oil for the BBQ session. Yes, if you didn't realized it till now, it's actually similar to the BBQ Plaza over here (which is from Thailand too).

Plenty of vegetables to choose from but babe decided to go with the seaweed instead which I really love.

There are at least 5 types of chilies to choose from and here I had highlighted 3 of them since it's my favorite among the rest. This is the normal red chilly with lots of seeds in them. Not for the weak hearted.

This is the green chilly all minced and throw into a big pot. Look at the color~!

My favorite and one the most spiciest among the 5, you have everything inside. Onions, garlic, chilly leaves, chilly seeds and whole lot of everything else. Richard told us to mix all the 5 chilly together and take a dip in it. Yes, it's a very memorable moment during that first bite into it. haha!

Here's the seaweed vegetable which babe took a lot as she kept on reminding me that it's very good for the body as it contain iodine or some really good protein in it. OK, this I am alright with. Delicious.

This is how it all started, clean pot and clear plain soup.

This is what it become at the end, black burnt surface but the soup was so damn sweet due to the seafood and all the other vegetables that we cook in it.

Babe happily helping herself with the dessert.

We ordered 6 bottles of Pepsi (RM6/bottle). The Pepsi so darn old school. ^^

Overall we have a very filling and satisfying dinner that night. The price for the buffet is RM14/head. You need to pay for the ice cubes too (RM5/bowl). Yes, you need to pay for the ice cubes. Don't ask me why but you just need. After the big dinner we walk around town and had body massage before calling it a day. Definitely be recommending this place to my friends if they are going over if I can find the name card which I misplaced it last week. Dang~! Until then, I will keep searching until I find it. ^^

Food :3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.5 out of 5.0 (actually it's quite windy and not that hot so it's still acceptable)

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0 (there's this fella standing next to our table just serving us drinks...cool)

MeatWork @ One Solaris

2011-03-27T17:10:00.000+08:00

I had heard or read about this place for a couple of years now. But doesn't really have the chance to pay it a visit since it's not my normal hang out place. And I don't really have any customers over at MK too. But since babe was on duty over at CS that afternoon, I had decided to walk over to try it out. Out door parking is not easy so it's recommended to just park your car inside One Solaris. There are a few places around that area which worth trying out but maybe on my next visit. Since babe gonna be here at least once a week or two.

The place seemed a bit old to me. Old in terms of their deco and setting. From outside, it seemed like they have a lot of staff but once entered it took them some time to come over and take our orders. We went through the menu and most of their servings are patties based since they are selling their in house Gemas brand. They do have other choices like steaks and pasta too.

I saw Carbonara in their menu and decided to give it a try but since the place is famous for their Gemas patty, I had decided to give that thought up. Babe decided on their Marinara and she changed the pasta from Linguine to Spaghetti which the waiter obliged to. Portion was just alright. Taste wasn't that much spectacular. The seafood portion was generous as you can see from the picture above. Not my plate of pasta but babe like it.

They have a few burger to choose from and I had asked the waiter and he had recommended this to me. It's their own GEMAS gold classic burger. It's a 200g beef patty topped with melted aged cheddar cheese, tomato ketchup, American mustard and pickles. There are some cut fries on the side too. A little too simple for me maybe. I was thinking of more side dishes at least some salad or coleslaw.

Let's see now, the 200g in house patty is their signature dish but heck, it's a bit over-rated for me. The patty is fat and juicy but maybe too juicy. Cause I had ordered medium well as always and the patty fall apart when I tried to slice my knife into it. Damn! It's so saddening. A good patty had turn to waste if you asked me. I like my patty to be solid and juicy rather than juicy and fall apart even before I sink my teeth into them. The toppings are too safe for me. I need more cheese and look at the onion, it's so pathetic. Just two small slices of them. I like mine big and sloppy but I know this is not possible over here.

We had ordered our drinks earlier on and it took them ages to get them ready for us. We had finished our dishes and they just managed/remembered to get us our drinks. But at least they tried to make up for it by pouring us some plain water. Again, I think the staffs are sufficient just that I am not sure what they are doing standing at the back of the counter and not outside serving the customers.

Food was over-rated but not sure of the rest like it's steak and all. Most probably won't be going back since it's quite pricey for lunch (RM80+) for the both of us. You can come over and have a try for yourself. I might not like it but to some, this might be good. Maybe their Carbonara is better, but I won't be going back unless someone is buying. haha!

Ambiance : 3.5 out of 5.0

Service : 3.5 out of 5.0

Food : 3.5 out of 5.0

Address: 2G 3A,

Jalan Solaris 5,

Block H

Solaris Mont Kiara

50480 Kuala Lumpur

Nihon Kai Japanese Restaurant @ Sunway Mentari

2011-03-21T09:47:00.001+08:00

I was on a mission that day looking for Sunway branch of Nihon Kai. I first introduction to their restaurant would be the one over at Kuchai Lama. A friend introduced the place to me and we decided to give it a try. You can read from the post here. Needless to say, the visit was nice and the food was good. So I decided to give their other branch a try to see if it's the same standard. This particular restaurant is located along those new shop lot over at Dataran Mentari. It's behind Belly Good. Parking is still manageable since there's plenty of it outside the restaurant.

The place was packed when we arrived. Luckily there were still a table left for us to dine in. Browsed through their menu and it's the same as the one over at Kuchai Lama. Since I had tried their lunch set, we had decided to go with ala-carte instead. Since my lunch buddy was contemplating between katsu and udon, we decided to ordered these two to try it out.

We were served with hot green tea and the waitress was really patients waiting for us to take our order. The restaurant was really pack and they are a bit short handed but still they didn't show any sign of inpatient or chasing us from their body language. I think I saw one of the lady from the Kuchai branch before.

Decided to give their Gyouza (fried dumpling) a try. Since I love these a lot, I really do hope they can surprised me. And they didn't disappoint me a bit. It's one of the best I had lately. It's not too over fried but the inner stuffing are still well warmly preserved and the outer skin is still soft and thin. I like mine thin and not too oily. And this give me what I wanted. Thumbs up~!

Browsed through their menu and finally found my katsu don set. The set consists of the main dish and also misou soup and kimchi like vegetable on the side.

The portion isn't that large but just enough to cover my lunch craving. The egg on top is freshly layer on top of the fried chicken underneath it. My complaint would be the lack of the katsu sauce underneath it. But overall it's was good.

My friend ordered their cold udon set which come with fried tempura on the side.That is not misou soup underneath that mini egg but the soup to go with the udon.

The buckwheat noodle doesn't seemed to attract my friend. As she'd been to Japan and had some share of cold udon over there, this is some what different. What's the different? Texture? She can't answered me but just not as good. Sorry but my friend is not good in expressing her opinion. I had a try and I think it's the texture of it. It's a bit rough. But the portion was really generous.

3 pieces of fried tempura on the side. Nothing fancy but for the price we're paying, it's alright.

Last but not least, they have this miniture egg which we do not know what to do with it? Do we throw it into the soup to go with the udon? Or just consume it like that? Another thing to highlight would be the soup/broth that goes with the udon is a bit too plain. My friend complain that it's too flat on the taste but and had to throw all the wasabi into it.

The place had two rooms for large crowds which you can book beforehand. It's always recommended to call in and book if you are having a large crowd for lunch over here. There is also a bar table where the chef will prepare fresh sushi as any other sushi restaurant. Overall, we had a good lunch. Nothing too over the top but just an average one. I saw there have another separate menu for set lunches which we wasn't shown to before. Had to check that menu through on my next visit over.

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (a bit crowded and noisy)

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0 (service was good although it's crowded)

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0 (decent and not too expensive for a lunch)

Address: 2, Jalan PJS 8/18
Dataran Mentari
46150 Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan

Contact: (03) 5630 1368
Business Hour: 12:00p.m. – 3:00p.m. & 6:00p.m. – 10:00p.m. daily

The Olive Tree Cafe @ Damansara Intan

2011-03-14T12:34:00.001+08:00

This lil' green cafe is located inside my working area but I didn't have the opportunity to try it out for so long. Finally the day came when my colleague decided to treat me for lunch. She decided on the place too with the same reason. It's located inside the compound of Damansara Intan which is next to Tropicana Mall. It's at the same row as 7-11 and right at the 2nd entrance.

Both of us like the decoration inside as it's very calm and soothing. The concept of the whole place I would say is going green and environmental friendly. I like this section of the cafe with the rack full of nicely decorated green ornaments. Sadly Green is not my color according to the master. So you won't see any of these in my house soon. Well maybe a different color.

When I say lil' cafe, it's actually not that little in fact it's quite spacious. You have a choice to sit on the sofas or normal tables. You can chill out surfing the net over here or having some dessert with some friends during tea time.

I like the wall paper at the back as it brought out the whole green concept of the whole place. It was quite pack during lunch hour and I need to wait till all the crowds left before I took this pic. haha!

Plenty of drinks to choose from and decided to go with their Aloe Vera Longan. Not too sweet just nice.

They have set lunches to choose from but we decided to go ala-carte. My colleague had ordered their fragrance rice with stirred fried chicken. The rice is really nice according to my friend but it looked to me like there's charcoal in the rice. haha! A decent plate of stirred fried chicken rice.

Was contemplating whether to order their Carbonara or burger and decided on the latter at the end. Their house special ultimate burger. The patty isn't that large but it's thick in size. It's their own blend of beef patty with melted cheese, slices of tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, onions and french fries at the side. You can choose between chicken or beef of course. Not the best I had but it's filling and quite worth the money you're paying. Patty a bit dry to me.

Overall the food was alright. Nice place to have some relaxing comfortable lunch. They used a lot of natural olive oil in their preparation of food, hence the name of the place. So I guess it's a healthy concept for those who are health conscious. There are also cakes which you can order to go if you like.

Ambiance Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

Service Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0

Food Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0

Little Korea @ One Solaris, Mount Kiara

2011-03-08T11:02:00.000+08:00

It was my birthday and it was a last minute thingy for me looking for a venue. I had listed out three namely Daidomon Japanese Buffet at Great Eastern Mall, Fong Lye Taiwan Cuisine at Jalan Imbi and Little Korea over at One Solaris. At the end after some voting among my friends, we decided on the latter. I am really looking forward going over this place as it was quite highly recommended by another well know food blogger.

The place is located outside of Tenji over at Solaris, Mount Kiara. It's facing the main road on the third floor. There's a big signboard on top of the building and it's the same row as Maybank and CIMB. You can't really miss it. There's an elevator so you don't have to use the stairs. There are a few Korean restaurants nearby the area which I might go over and have a try on my next visit.

I heard that the place was popular, so I made a reservation beforehand. And it's a wise move if I do say so myself. The place was packed to the top when I arrived. The place was really busy with customers waiting at the front entrance and all. So I informed the waitress of my reservation and they gladly show me the way.

I had previously asked for a private room as there were around 9 of us. The room is situated on the other side of the main restaurant. The room can fit 12 pax and has 3 hot plate. Air cond was at full blast that night I think as most of us are freezing. I guess it's really good since the room gonna be heating up when we start cooking those ribs and belly.

Since four of us arrived early, we decided to start one of the hot plate first. This is when everything goes down hill. The waiter didn't asked us what kind of drink they have and just poured us plain water. And when my other friends arrived and asked for tea or other drinks they are a bit lost with the request. Yes, they are foreign workers but they should be well equip with the basic fundamental conversation with the customers, not?

Browsed through the menu and there were a lot of choices ranging from pork, beef and soups.

Since we're waiting for the others, we decided to ordered their famous pan fried flour cake. This is kim chi based with shrimp, clams, squid and scallion all mixed together. Basically it's a seafood kim chi flour cake. Not bad, but maybe the kim chi can be a bit stronger here.

What is Korean cuisine without their famous side dishes appetizers or 'banchan'. This side dishes should arrived even before our other dishes but it arrived really late actually. We were really frustrated as they only gave us one set of each of the above. Even after all of us had arrived, we still need to remind him several time to give us more and refill. Really really frustrating.

Another complain would be the salad which is for wrapping those meat we ordered. It came so late. We had finished our marinated beef and it's still not seen on the table. We didn't realized that until one of my friend asked about it. And we requested, it took them like 5 mins to get it. Another frustration. Is this the end? You wish. Since there are 8 of us, we had requested that they fire up the another hot plate on the other table. But the waiter said that we (8 of us) to share one plate. Huh? WTH?!! There are 3 plates in the room and 4 customers should share one, so if there's 8 of us, we should have two, or am I wrong in my MATH?!! Since some of my friend don't take beef, so we requested to separate the plate. At the end he heated the other plate and at this point most of us are really annoyed and I can sense that the waiter was too. WTH!?!! Service really sux!

This is the marinated beef ribs which we ordered and finished off without any salad to go with it. The beef is nicely marinated and I am not sure why they didn't throw in the garlic into the plate to grilled it. Another complaint would be the chili paste. We had requested extra as they only have us two sets for 4 of us at that point. And when we ordered more the waiter seemed to be a bit unhappy. WTH?!!

The marinated pork ribs came second but we are actually quite uncomfortable at this point as the service of the place really do affect our dining experience. The pork isn't that bad but we didn't enjoy it under the circumstances.

This is the pork belly which is really tempting for me, as I like belly a lot. The fat and lean meat are evenly separated. Delicious. Portion might be a bit little but you can order more.

A friend ordered their Kim Chi styled noodle to share. There's a lot of seafood inside namely squids, dried wort, garlic, onions and spicy pepper. There's also clams and octopus in there too with some spicy ingredients. But the taste fall flat as my friend who tried this in Korean said it's not really the same and isn't that spicy too. Sad~!

Another recommended dish by online blogger, their beef bul go ki. It's actually pan fried sliced beef and vegetable all mix together seasoned with soy sauce, sugar and pear juice. I was warned that it tasted sweeter than usual but I am alright with it. Either you like it or hate it. So some of us finished it and some didn't. Babe wasn't really into it so I have to finished hers. Not bad, something new for me.

This is a complimentary steamed egg by the restaurant. A bit plain again on the taste over here. But heck it's free, so I can't complain much.

Overall, the food isn't as good as I thought it would be and my friend even dared to say that the one we had over at DaoRae, Taipan is far better. Well at least the service over there are more down to earth and generous. We had to wait for a reserved table over at DaoRae and the boss came out and apologized to us personally and even complimented us on so many dishes that night. Service was superb and it complimented the dishes more. But that is not the same over here. It's actually the other way around. The food over here might be better but since the service is so darn bad to the point that my friend walked out to asked for service, I'm sure that this will be our last trip over.

Yes, the place is pack that night. But they should have hired more people to help. You can't give an excuse of over crowded for the bad service and all. The waiter did his best to serve us but sorry to say it's not even on average level yet. One of my Everything was a disaster that night. The late salad, the late refills and lack of the appetizers, request for extra hot plate being rejected, not offered tea instead of plain water, slow service, refills of water .. .OMG, the list is so darn long. We are just disappointed. And I am really sorry that I had so highly recommended the place to my friends for my birthday dinner. But luckily we had a good round of beers over at Over Time, One Mount Kiara after that.

Ambiance : 3.5 out of 5.0 (we had a private room)

Service : 3.0 out of 5.0 (this is the worst rating I gave to date)

Food : 3.8 out of 5.0 (hit and misses here and there)

Address: Jalan Solaris 1,

Solaris Mont Kiara,

50480 Kuala Lumpur,

WP Kuala Lumpur

Contact: 603 6203 7217

The Teapot Cafe @ SS2

2011-03-02T09:49:00.001+08:00

I was invited for lunch last week at this cafe over at SS2. Initially we were supposed to have Korean for lunch but finally decided on this place as we can sit a bit longer after the meal. The cafe is at the same row as the previously Foh San Restaurant facing the bridal shop. I had actually passed by this cafe so many times before but didn't realized what they are serving until my babe's sister told me that they serve Western food. The name made me thought that the place was serving some English tea or something all this while.

Once we're in, the place was almost full house during lunch hour. A lot of working ladies like to dine here as they can ex-change stories at work and the ambiance was so nice and calm. The place is handle by a Malay lady if I am not mistaken so it does attract a lot of Muslim's customers.

The deco of the place may seemed a bit old but it does gives some English home feeling to it. Why the name Teapot? You will know when you enter the shop as there are plentiful of teapot of different design being displayed on their shelves. Maybe the owner is a teapot collector?

Browsed through the menu and I finally decided to go with their Roast Beef Set which consists of Garlic bread, Soup of the day, main and also dessert and drinks. The garlic bread was normal but at least it's still warm but not that crispy that I thought it would be.

The soup of the day was their pumpkin soup. This is one good bowl of soup I had. It's thick and not too creamy. Finished the whole bowl even before you can say "pumpkin stew". Portion was alright, not too small but just right to warm up your tummy with.

Now here comes the main dish which was the roast beef set. The beef are sliced thin and a salty sauce was poured on top of it. The sauce was a bit salty to me actually. Initially I thought it was black pepper sauce but it isn't. The portion of the sliced beef was really generous. If that aren't enough for you, they main still have some side dishes like vegetables, potatoes and a bun. They lost me with the bun there actually.

Ellie ordered their fish steak which isn't that bad from it's out look. Portion was definitely enough for a lady to have. The fish was marinated with a lot of basil leaves and herbs spices. Isn't the best fish I had since I am not a fish lover anyway. But I do love the potato salad on the side.

After the lunch, three of us sat and chat for another 1-2 hours and the crowd started to leave around 2pm. They also served pastries like curry puff, breads and cakes. Oh, I almost forgot to mentioned that the set also come with a slice of Chocolate Eclair and a choice of coffee or tea. Not my everyday set lunch since it's not that cheap. But it's a good place to sit down and have a tea while catching up with some friends.

Ambiance Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0

Food Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

Skewers @ Subang Avenue

2011-02-23T16:08:00.000+08:00

I had actually been to this particular place called Skewers 1 or two months back for some beers with my gym mates. Then I saw their menu which offers one of my favorite dish, burgers. Fat juicy patties. So I had finally managed to give place a visit during my birthday. Babe don't have any preference when it comes to dinner venue. So I had to find a place where it's convenient for the both of us since we had movie over at Pyramid beforehand. So this place would just be perfect. It was around 6pm when we arrive that day, so there wasn't much customers. Good~ Heard that their patties are good so decided to have that for my main.

Since I know I won't be satisfied so easily, I had decided to ordered some side dishes to go with my main. So many to choose from and finally decided on their gourmet chillies fries. It's actually steak fries topped with chilli corn carne and melted mozzarella cheese. OK, the mozzarella part caught my attention. It's like putting A&W corny dog sauce on top of hot melted cheese and fries. Not bad, but make sure you finish it fast or the fries will become cold and soft.

I am contemplating whether to order their double patty or single and finally decided to go with their Ultimate glutton burger since I had ordered one side dish. My choice is correct. The single patty is damn large all together. As you can see, other than the burger, you have the salad and also steak fries too. This is really large. The burger consists of a 150g patty mixed with herbs & spices. Again it's mixed together with chilli corn carne (which contain beef), melted shredded cheddar cheese, fried egg, tomatoes, salad leaves, tortilla chips, gherkins & jalapenos. Man, that is a long list of ingredients to pack into one single burger. Trust me, it's huge.

As you can see, the yolk is oozing out from in between the patty. Damn it's so damn glutton as the name says. I am not sure if they do it on purpose or accidental, but I like my patty really much. Not the best I had but definitely one of the good ones. And recommended too. I'd read before that their patty are too dry, but maybe they had improve it after some feedback from the customers.

Babe decided to try their sandwich as she is not that hungry that night. It's boneless chicken with special Thai lemongrass marinated on it. On the side you have some of their pilaf rice and butter vegetables. The bread seemed a bit plain but babe like it. She particularly love the pilaf rice as it's so delicious according to her. Heck, it's not even the main in the dish. Sandwich to me was alright. Nothing spectacular but filling. I mean for the price you're paying, it's quite generous.

What to drink? A good pint of Hoegaarden of course to cleanse all those food down. Ambiance is alright and the service is good. Maybe cause there's not much crowd at that time. During the dinner, an ex staff came in and she shouted at the other staff. Found out that she was requesting her salary but in a really rude and loud way. Kept on telling the other people to F**K OFF!! Damn~ I am paying for food and a good show at the same time. It's also a good place to chill out with friends having some good beers too.

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service : 3.8 out of 5.0

Food : 3.8 out of 5.0

Address:

SG-01, Subang Avenue
03 5632 1368

Palate Pallate Restaurant & Bar @ KL

2011-02-09T23:40:00.000+08:00

I was invited for a surprised dinner over at this small place called Palate Palatte.Com. It's located along Jalan Mesui which is behind Changkat Bukit Bintang. It's a small cozy place with an open concept but no worries as it's air condition inside but you can still opt to dine outdoor. The place celebrated their 4th anniversary on Dec last year. The place

The place is nicely decorated by an artist called Su-Ann. I read from the website that she graduated from London and came back after graduation. She drawn the whole place like palate hence the name of the place. The place is co-own by her and Paul. You can really enjoy looking at all her arts all over the restaurant.

Since we're waiting for the birthday girl to arrive, we had decided to ordered some food to eat. I had decided non other than fried calamari. Portion is moderate but luckily we ordered another appetizer. A bit too much flour for me but heck,it's fried and crunchy.

Next appetizer would be the usual nachos. The nachos are fresh from the oven as we can still feel the heat. The dipping are really appetizing. There is this sweat and sour dipping so you can choose ever you prefer.

I had ordered their chocolate with vanilla float. This is because their coffee machine was out of commission. Not bad, it's actually quite nice to drink. But I actually wanted to try their mocha.

After browsing their menu, we had decided to order our main. So much to choose from in the menu but we can only order one main so we decided to share around and try it out.

Before the main arrived, we are served with this funny looking bun.

The bun is served together with this margarine cheese like ball. So cute~

Let's get into business now. No need to ask who ordered this. Yup it's me. They served fettuccine carbonara with bacon. The cream was a bit too liquid for me in the beginning but it turned thicken towards the end which I like. Although it should be a good plate of carbonara, but I am not sure why it's not. Maybe it's because of the lack of cheese in the cream.

You know from the name that the dish spells cow. It's actually pasta with cubes of beef in it. The scent is really strong. For beef lover you might love this one. Pretty filling with the amount of pasta and the beef.

The presentation of the dish was so damn shocking. You have a stick poking into the fish with fried sliced potato being put through it. Not really bad, but just your normal plate of fish and chip to me.

It's simple and it's filling too. You have spiced chicken tandoori style. One healthy dish with tender spice chicken breast. The chicken is properly spiced up and mixed with the dipping on the side, just nice.

The birthday girl had ordered this mushroom cappuccino which is recommended in the menu. Really strange as it's actually mushroom soup but with whip cream on top. Strangely nice~!

This is a bit plain to me. If you wanted something simple and filling, you can try this out. It's like any other fried chicken to me but with mash potatoes and corn on the side.

Another recommended dish by the chef would be their saffron terrayaki salmon. Looking at it actually give you some fishy idea. haha~! You have two salmon put together which mash potatoes in between and a few slice of vegetable to add some color to it. The salmon was really soft and tender and the sauce by the side did compliment it.

We didn't really ate much of this actually as we found out that most of us didn't take egg plant. haha~ Even the carrot seemed to be a bit bitter to me. Weird~!

There's a bar for beer and liquor if you are in the mood. The crowd really comes in around 8-9pm. Luckily we made reservation that night. Food was alright and the service is good. Sadly that the coffee machine was down so we had to walk over to my friend's shop for coffee at Deluca. We had good laughs that night and since it's quite noisy with the music and all, so we didn't felt awkward talking and laughing a loud. Not bad for a night out with friends or a gathering.

Food Rating : 3.5 out of 5.0

Ambiance Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0

Address: 21 Jalan Mesui
50200 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

open everday 12pm-12am
friday & saturday till 2am
closed on mondays

Otak-Otak Place @ Tropicana Mall

2011-01-25T16:06:00.001+08:00

After posting two Taiwanese dishes for my last post, I had decided to come back to our local food. We have plenty of local delicacies over at our country. Since we're multiracial country, so we had a lot of choices in term of food variates. And for my lunch last week, I had decided to give this place a review since I had tried it a few times already. The name of the place is Otak-Otak Place. It's located inside Tropicana Mall and I think this is the first of many branches around town if I am not mistaken. As the name goes, the place specialty would be otak-otak. For those who are not familiar with the term otak-otak (brain), no we're not eating any brain here mind you. It's actually a cake made out of fish meat to put it simple.

Once entering the restaurant, you will be brought back to your childhood time as the deco of the place are 80s. You have all the candies and tit bits from the 80s in there that you can check out and even toys too. I think they are under CNI group with all their products on display and all. They have another branch over at CNI HQ at Hicom Glenmarie too.

Here are some of the sweets which is on display on their shelves. Really brought back some memories. You have your Rota or Ding Dang chocolate in a box which is so ever famous during my childhood time. I think people who are in their 20s now never heard of this before.

Babe wanted to order their roti jala when she saw it inside their menu. I am not a big fan but since she was once in the flour industries, she's very fond of this particular dish after a road show demonstration on it. The roti jala is actually made out of flour, eggs and some coloring. A simple dish which you can make in your kitchen anytime. The main or rather side dishes would be the curry chicken to go with the net bread. The gravy was really thick and nice. Dip the net bread in the gravy and take a bite with some potato and chicken. A very local food and just simple and nice.

I had ordered Ice Lemon Tea since it came with the set lunch which I had ordered.

They have a few type of tea to choose from and babe had decided on their teh tarik with ginseng. Really refreshing and it comes with a piece of biscuit too. Our local English Tea.

I had recommended the otak-otak char kuey teow for babe since I wanna give it a try too. The portion was large. I mean for the price you are paying, this is quite worth it. The kuey teow itself is above average and just the way I like it which is not too dry and eggs are everywhere on the noodle. The special part of it would be the extra otak-otak on the side. But that is not just all, cause they even added bits of it into the noodle when they cooked it. So you can bite into bits of otak-otak anytime. Something different for me but still it would be better if they have fried lard in it.

As for my lunch, I had ordered their Western cuisine which is the black pepper chicken chop. I wanted to give their Western dishes a try although it's not my main purpose of the visit. At least I know both of their local and western food are alright when I recommend this place. The portion was just alright, not too large. Black pepper sauce isn't that strong of a taste which is just to my liking. Some of my friends preferred a stronger black pepper taste. Side dishes would be the salad and fries. Nothing too fancy but passable.

My set lunch comes with two stick of Otak-Otak fresh from the grill.

Once open, you can see the otak-otak or fish cake is juicy and delicious. Took a bite and it's quite alright. For those who tried Muar otak-otak before, well this exactly the same to it but it's there somewhere. I heard that the owner shipped the otak-otak directly from Muar weekly over.

Overall my lunch is quite fulfilling and I am really satisfied with it. The amount of customers in the restaurant really shows how good is their food. Service is alright although your call for service might fall on deaf ear during rush hour. But I can still live with that since they come and apologize and are really polite in serving the food. My black pepper set lunch cost me RM15.90 inclusive of drinks and the char kuey teow is RM10.90. For lunch, I can still live with that price tag. Maybe not everyday but on invitation.

Food Rating : 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

Service Rating : 3.8 out of 5.0

Will I Return? Yup

Address: Otak Otak Place

Lot L1-58, 1st Floor,
Tropicana City Mall, No. 3, Jalan
SS20/27, 47400 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor Darul Ehsan.

Tel / Fax: 03-7728 0403
Operation Hours:
10.00am – 10.00pm (Daily)

Other Branches:

One Utama Shopping Centre

IOI Boulevard

Suria KLCC

Wisma CNI

Number One @ KSL City Mall Johor

2011-01-19T12:06:00.000+08:00

Since I'm talking bout Taiwanese food from my previous post, I thought it's good to follow up on this. From dinning in to snack. The place is located inside the new mall over at Johor Bahru called KSL City Mall. The mall has a lot of stalls to offer like Shih Lin which is just next to them and also other kopitiams. I was walking around looking for food when I saw this place called Number One. It's a shop selling Taiwanese snacks. This is new. So I went in and give it a look. Browsed through their menu and ordered almost all of them.

The tray on the left is the crispy chicken and sotong balls on the right. The one underneath the chicken would be the fried potatoes. I asked if they pre-prepared this and he said he have to but will reheat it again since some customers cannot wait too long for the food to be ready. Well, let's see how the food taste then.

Here's the ingredients for the cheese potato which I ordered. You have sweet corns, tuna mayo, minced luncheon meat and sort. They do not have other flavors like pineapples like the one I had over at Taiwan on my last trip. I did advice them on this and they might try putting it into their menu next time.

I had to have this. This is so evil. Looked at those cheese all around the potato. The potato is fried to crispy and cut open in the middle and stuff with all the ingredients mentioned above. Lastly the cheese is poured on top of the potato and you have yourself one super fattening dinner. The potato skin must be crispy for the crunchy feel of the whole time. Not the best I had from Taiwan but then again it's the only place I know that serve this.

Second on the list would be the fried salty chicken. This is just your ordinary chicken chopped in small pieces and deep fried with flour to give that extra crisp. Add some curry powder and you have yourself a fried salty chicken. Noting special here but since it's a snack, so it's alright.

Dish no 3 would be their deep fried mushroom. I am not sure what are those stuff on top of the mushroom but it's damn crispy. Portion is moderate for the price you're paying. If you like mushroom then this is your dish.

Dish no 4 would be their house octopus ball. According to the staff, the octopus ball is blend by their own owner and I should give it a try. Oh well, I since I like octopus ball, I ordered it and give it a try. Didn't taste anything different bout it than the one I had outside. Sigh~

The last dish would be their crispy shrimp which he highly recommended. It's actually small shrimps deep fried together with their covers. This is a good dish if you are chilling out with a bottle of beer watching football. Definitely can get you through the night. Smell of shrimps are so strong.

Personally I am quite fond of Taiwanese street food as they have a lot of variety and so a lot of people try to bring in some of their food over to our shores. But not all are able to get the same result as the one over there. This is sadly to say is one of them. Other than the potato cheese which is just passable, the others are just moderate and normal to me. Well maybe that is just me but there's really nothing to shout about. I still stick back to my Shih Lin for now.

Food Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

Ambiance Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

Price Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

Taipei Taipei @ Subang Avenue

2011-01-12T21:15:00.001+08:00

We were all looking for a venue for a friend's birthday dinner cum New Year Eve dinner and finally we decided on this new place called Taipei Taipei. It's located at Subang Avenue next to Subang Parade. The place states that it's a modern cuisine cum tea house cum music lounge. This is not your usual Taiwan cuisine place like Fong Lye or Formosa but rather a bit more modern Western cross over with our Eastern cuisine. They served liquor at the bar down stairs too if you wanted to start the night off with some light refreshments.

Since it's New Year Eve, they only served set menu that night. And since we are expecting 9 pax that night, we ordered two sets of 4 pax menu. The menu come with unlimited steamed rice with one single glass of refreshment. We are a bit disappointed that they do not have a big round table to serve a large crowd since a long table is not suitable for a gathering in terms of chatting and passing the food around.

First on the table would be the 4 variates appetizer.

This dish isn't that bad since it's sour, it's good for waking up our taste bud.

Surprisingly all of us like this dish the most. I think that is sliced fried tofu. Most of the dishes are sour and spicy which is good to start the night off.

Nothing special bout this dish. Just your normal glass noodle with chillies.

This isn't that bad if you like cucumber. For someone who doesn't like cucumber, I do agreed with the others.

They only served three types of teas that night, red tea, peach and lemon sprite type. My favorite would be the red and peach tea.

Stewed pork, a bit too fattening even for me. Not much meat and taste is normal. Nothing special.

Damn, this dish is so RED. Most of us didn't taste much of it cause it's too oily. But I do like it since I don't really care of that as long as it's good. Not that spicy though.

This is the only vegetables of the night. Again, not many like green beans. Me? I totally love this simply yet good dish. I am not sure about others, but I really like green beans. This dish, I like.

Not sure why the appetizer came so late in between the mains. Not bad, but do take note to eat them when it's served or it will be very cold and hard. The dipping in the middle is sweet like honey so it goes well with the pan cake.

A Taiwan cuisine wouldn't be complete without this clay pot 3 wine chicken. Isn't the best San Peh Chicken but still alright. A simple decent pot of chicken.

Last but not least would be the 3 flavor fish. The fish is steamed and as you can see they added lemon on it. So the taste would be spicy, sour and sweet all together. Fish is fresh but again not my dish of the night. Not the best fish I had but just your average steamed fish.

Overall, the dinner was just alright but we did paid a lot for the dinner that night cause it's a set menu. Maybe a bit too much too. Isn't the best Taiwan dish we had or even Chinese cooked food. The only plus point of the night would be the decoration maybe. They do have a lounge upstairs which we continued later on for the countdown. Also a bit expensive and the environment seemed a bit quiet too. Not going into the details of the night over there since this is a food blog. Their normal price for a 4-5 pax menu is RM129 but that night, we paid almost double for that.

Food Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Service Rating: 3.8 out of 5

Ambiance Rating: 3.8 out of 5

Address:

Taipei Taipei

Subang Avenue Shopping Center,

Lot SG-06, Persiaran Kemajuan SS16,

47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor

Tel: 03-5635 6388

Business Hour: 11Am - 2AM

Huck's Cafe @ Gasing Indah

2011-01-06T11:38:00.000+08:00

For this Christmas dinner this year, the girls had recommended a place called Huck's Cafe which is located at Taman Gasing Indah. I heard of the name before but never really know what they serve over there. So this is a good chance for me to give it a try. Since it's quite recommended by some friends beforehand. The place is located inside a residential area so don't be alarm when you need to get pass a checking point. I am as surprised at that moment too. I was thinking, is Papago GPS'ing me to Holland again or what. It's actually a end lot two and a half storey house. The place is quiet and busy with cars looking for parking as it's a full house that night. Word of advice, car pool.

We were seated at the small reception room (converted) while waiting for our table. Decoration is nicely placed everywhere around the house. We were later guided to the 1st floor of the house where we are seated in a joined table as we have 10 people coming for the dinner. Sadly that the VIP room had been occupied by some other customers. I think we should have the room since we made a lot of loud noises and there's an attached toilet inside. We were quite annoyed that the senior citizen in the room was quite rude to us when we entered the room to access the toilet. Nevertheless, there's an additional toilet upstairs which we can use.

Thanks again to Wannie & Jacq for the home made cookies and also candies for all of us that night.

They served basil seed mint soda which is really refreshing and good to refresh your taste bud before the main course. The drinks are refillable but it was finished before the end of the night but instead we are served with sour sop juices and plain water.

Actually we had pre-ordered Wild Mushroom soup as it's highly recommended by Jacq and Wannie who had tried the other soups. But sadly we were informed that the mushroom wasn't available that day as they only served two soups which is pumpkin and onion. All of us were disappointed and I did asked Huck about this. He explained that they can't satisfy everyone, so they will go with majority of the customers order and go with that. Well, to me, that defeats the purpose of pre-ordering our food in the first place. Anyway, the pumpkin soup was nice and not too thick. Quite enjoyed it.

Not a really big fan of onion soup. Babe ordered this to give it a try. I think I like my pumpkin more. The soup come with two pieces of bread and topped with cheese. Plenty of sliced onions in the soup beneath all that cheese. Sadly not my bowl of soup.

We had decided to order some main courses to share around since we had ordered two roast chicken for the night. The first main that come is the tomato based lasagna. I am such a fool for Italian cuisine and this is one of them. It's something new as Huck uses a lot of tomatoes in this lasagna as you can see from above. Not too bad. Something simple.

Saw this from their menu in FB and decided that I need to try this out. You have crispy baked fish topped with cheese with pasta underneath. You have most of the combination I like in a food. Pasta, fried fish and cheese. Overall, it's a nice dish to start your dinner with. Make sure you eat it when served, as cold un-crisp baked fish with cheese is not a good combination.

Here comes the main course. It's Huck's No.1 Best Selling Lemon Roast Chicken. We had ordered two sets of this as one whole chicken can feed 4 people. Since we had 10, so we ordered two birds. Yes, we killed two birds in one night. As you can see the chicken is roasted to perfection with the special delicious juices flowing out into the pan. There's a lot of stuff on the side but what I like most is the salted potatoes. Damn I ate so many of that that night. Simply delicious.

Huck mentioned that he uses a new oven for this round of roast chicken and the result isn't as good as the previous old oven. But heck, we had a good roast chicken that night. So I can't imagine how much better was before. Overall, the lemon roast chicken is a good dish to share around with friends. You can order the 2 pax lemon roast chicken which consists of two whole legs.

Before dissecting the chicken, there's this ceremony of poking the chicken's behind. This is because the chicken's back side is stuffed with this lemon in it. As you can see what I am doing there, I am preparing to poke the chicken when water come bursting out which caught me off guard. Huck told me this is the first time that had happened. Well, must be my lucky night I guess.

Huck has advice us to take all the juices from the pan as it's the essence of the whole meal and he is right. Don't waste a drop of that delicious juices. Just pour it onto the chicken and dig in. Did I mentioned that the potatoes are delicious too? : P

After a long battle with the roast chicken, most of us are 90% if not full. So there's this fresh salad which is really good to slow the pace down. I think all of us agreed that this is one of the best dish that night. Haha! The salad, the dressing, everything is just perfect. A nice and healthy plate of salad.

Next come a new dish called Sealed wit a kiss. Huck helped us to cut the aluminum foil open to release the strong smell of mushroom aroma into the air. Maybe the air cond was quite strong that night as I can't really smell it but some of the others did. So how's the taste?

It's called sealed wit a kiss cause the dish consists of 5 different type of mushroom all combined together to create an amazing aroma. The chicken breast is marinated with fresh thyme and white wine. Add that with some potatoes and you sealed it up and you got this dish. The soup was really good as mentioned, it combined all the ingredients above. Something refreshing and new.

At this point, most of us are totally full. But there's still the dessert. So we ordered 3 of their house best dessert to try around. First we have the chocolate mud pie with ice cream. Damn this is so darn filling again. You have oat cookies as based, cashew nut, peanut, Cloud 9, raisin and whole lot of chocolate and top that with a scoop of ice cream. Trust me this is really filling. Something new for me on the dessert list.

Drum roll, their No.1 hot selling dessert (from their FB), the cream brulee. I had this before during my proposal dinner over at Le Bouchon. They will torch the brulee before serving as it will melt the sugar icing on top. Nice dessert. Maybe a bit too sweet for me. But that's just me.

Last but not least, the hot chocolate brownies with ice cream which I think most of us love. The brownies are served hot so that it's soft and importantly melt the ice cream away. This dish is less sweet but totally sinful with a capital S. Totally love this dish but we are all too full that night to really finish it off.

Overall, the dinner was a really satisfying one but we did need to wait for quite some time (1.5 hours) before we are served as the house is packed that night. They only served a maximum of 20 pax a day. Yes, you heard me right. So they can control the quality of their food and also the ingredient stock. They believe that all ingredients must be fresh and prepared on the same day or so. So they do not stock pile their loads. Hence they only take pre-orders from their website. Desserts can be order that night itself, but mains, must be pre-order online. I heard that this concept had been quite famous for some time in Europe and Huck brought this idea back from Sweden (if my memory served me right) and introduces it to Malaysia.

Jacq told me that Europe is famous for this concept called underground kitchen where the customers will be seated in the kitchen's long table while the chefs create their food right in front of them. Interesting. But I'm not sure if the concept is available over here or not. The whole meal cause us RM68++ that night inclusive of everything. Had a good loud laugh that night and surprisingly we didn't got any complaints from the neighbors. Huck was so nice to come out to have a chat and photo session with us at the end. All in a day work right?

Food Rating: 4 out of 5

Ambiance Rating: 3.8 out of 5

Service Rating: 3.8 out of 5

Address: 26, Jalan 5/58,

Gasing Indah,

46000 Petaling Jaya.

Selangor. Malaysia.

T: 03-7781 2781

SMS: 012 604 8719

FB: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Hucks-Cafe/122362777810506

The Pagoda Restaurant & Bar @ Bukit Tinggi

2010-12-29T11:48:00.000+08:00

Babe had always wanted me to try this place out for some time but I always think that Thai cuisine are always meant to be enjoy with a bunch of friend cause you can order more and try. So the occasion came few weeks back when a some friends decided to have their birthday over there. The place is located opposite AEON Bukit Tinggi over at Klang. It's behind the main row facing the road. It's a corner lot, so you won't have a tough time finding it.

The owner was really friendly as some of us had patronized the place a few times already. But we had 10 people for that night's dinner and decided to asked for the owner for recommendation. So he had recommended us the followings for our dinner. Since the birthday boy had sore throat that day so we decided to go with something light. But then again it's Thai cuisine, so it's really weird not to order their specialties. So we decided to order two different soups.

The twin tom yum soup which are the favorite over there. We can't choose so we decided to ordered both. Problem solved.

Clear Tom Yam Chicken Soup - RM22

This is the tom yum soup with chicken which as you can see is not spicy. But the taste is still very appetizing and a bit of spicy. I am not a big fan of tom yum soup actually so this isn't my bowl of soup for that night.

Spicy Tom Yam Seafood - RM25

Look at those mad red color of the soup and you know this is one hell of a spicy tom yum soup. This is rather better compared to the first as we ordered seafood tom yum. Definitely a must order for tom yum soup lover.

Thai Curry & Egg with Squid - RM20

This is really good. It's actually cooked squids with eggs mixed together.OK, it might look disgusting at this point but trust me it's good. Worth ordering.

Seafood beancurd on Hot Plate - RM16

This is the only bean curd of the night. It's actually a mixture of seafood with Japanese bean curd on a hot plate. There's plenty of prawns, squids, fish balls, green peas, carrots and if I am not mistaken cubes of luncheon meat. Nothing really special here but it's recommended and not half bad but nothing to brag about either.

Thai Style Planta Squid - RM20

This is another must order dish. Who doesn't like fried planta with squid. I think most Malaysian like their food fried. High in cholesterol maybe but heck it's good. The first dish that we clean up that night.

Pandan Leaf Chicken Wrap - RM30/6pcs

We ordered two set of these pandan chicken. This is really good. The taste and scent of pandan leaves really do sips into the chicken. Totally love this dish. A must order over at this restaurant.

Deep Fried Fish with Chili - RM35

OK, the outlook of the fish isn't the best I had. But the sauce on top wasn't that half bad. Fish is served fresh from the cooking pan and it's best served with tom yum sauce on top. The meat is so tender and soft. A bit waste for the fish to be fried but this is one of their specialty anyway. Isn't the best I had but worth a try.

Baby Kailan wit Salted Fish - RM15

Nothing much to talk a bout here. It's fresh or it's not and in this case it's alright. At least it's not too starchy.

Kangkung with Belacan - RM9.50

I love this vegetable dish every time. It's kangkung with belacan. The vegetables are fresh but sadly belacan isn't as good or spicy as I thought it would be. A bit of disappointed. But still a good dish to order if you're there.

Overall the dinner was alright with plenty of food for all of us. Expensive? Well, OK I guess. There are hits and misses but I can accept that. I mean, you can have a perfect dinner with all the dishes being 100% and all, or could you? I mean for the price I am paying, I am quite satisfied with it. Not the best Thai cuisine I had but still worth a try if you are looking for some Thai cuisine around that neighborhood.

Food Rating: 3.8 out of 5

Service Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Ambiance Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Overall Rating: Average with nothing too fancy.

Address: The Pagoda Restaurant & Cafe

42, Jalan Mahogani 1,

Bandar Botanic

Tel: 03-3325 8020

The Burger Shop @ Subang Jaya SS 15

2010-12-19T21:17:00.000+08:00

Well since I am on roll with the burger theme this month, I might as well post this one up first before my Thai cuisine post. The next in line after Ampang's Bob and OM Burger, it's back to my neighborhood, Subang Jaya. This particular shop had been operating over at SS15 (outside the market) since my college time and it's back in the 90s. You can't miss the stall as it's parked at the edge of the market opposite the cyber cafe and it's a bright yellow truck. Trust me you can't miss it. Or you can always look for a bunch of people standing next to the road side for the stall.

This is the menu on the burger shop. Went through the menu and decided to give their Oblong Lamb Special with Cheese. The other reason why I choose the lamb is because I'd tried both OM & Bob's lamb tiesto and wanted to give it some sort like a benchmark of the same food. I am particularly interested in their mushroom hot dog. Maybe on my next round.

Now this is the main chef who is in charge of preparing the patties. Since the demand are high, he pre-prepared the patties on the side before reheating them again. This method seemed to be the same with OM actually. I had actually ordered a chicken double cheese special but changed to the lamb when I saw it on their menu. The girl was so nice to changed it for me even though he had already cooked the patties. The oblong lamb was cut into half before being wrapped by an egg. It's very different from the one prepared by both OM and Bob. Well, we will need to see how it goes with the taste now, don't we.

See the stock? They are well prepared. I mean, looked at those patties and cheese in the boxes. They can sell a lot of burgers in one night. I didn't managed to get the number but I guess over a hundred or so from the number of customers I saw during that 10 minutes. There's only one brand and it's Ramly, our local favorite.

All their ingredients are prepared fresh on the spot. You have cabbages, cucumbers, onions, mushrooms, capsicum and of course cheese. You have the usual choice of tomato, chili, BBQ, mayo and thousand island sauce. On the side, they sell drinks too as you can have your burger and wash it down with a can of cold drinks or mineral water.

Now here's my oblong lamb patty. Clearly it's being wrapped with an egg and before it's being place onto the bun, it's being laid onto this tray. For me it's a bit let down since I like my patty to go directly to the bun and not anywhere else. Doesn't really looked super delicious to me from that sight but as always we don't judge our food by it's out look.

After 'dressing up' my patty, it is laid onto this plastic container. My friend said it looked like a sandwich. Well, how I wish our sandwich looks like this. This is a good and hygienic way to pack the patty and not to mentioned won't de-figured the whole bun.

Oblong Lamb Special with Cheese - RM6.50

Walla~ Here's my oblong lamb special with cheese. The cheese is laid on the patty as you can see above. It's not the same way like Bob did which is placing the cheese on the patty during preparation and wrapping it with the egg. The cheese is cut into half before laying it on top of the patty and melted on it. Looks delicious from here. You have the usual BBQ sauce, thousand island, onions and tomatoes on the patty. Definitely one good piece of patty. But overall it still not as good as OM and Bob for me. What I can say is it's better than your average patty but not the best I had.

Rating: 3.8 out of 5

Like: Hygienic and nicely wrapped on a plastic container.

The Burger Shop

Jalan SS15/8A

Subang Jaya

GPS Coordinates: 3.074235, 101.587110

Bob's Burger @ Ampang Jaya

2010-12-12T22:41:00.002+08:00

After my rendezvous over at OM Burger, I decided to pay Bob a visit at the same night. Yes, if you read my previous post on OM, you know that I had finished off a lamb oblong just few minutes before arriving over at Bob's place. It was quite easy to locate the place since I have the GPS coordinates from online. It's actually located inside Taman Lembah Keramat.

Luckily when I arrived, I am the first in line for the order. Made my order and had a chat with the friendly boss. He is rather friendly and nice to talk with actually. There's a few tables placed outside if you wanna dine in. I was asking asking for Bob's special and he recommended their rabbit special with cheese and lamb tiesto. I had lamb oblong over at OM but still decided to tried Bob's lamb tiesto since it's recommended.

Here's the price for Bob's complete burger & hot dog. Yes, there's plenty of variates to choose from compared to the usual Ramly stalls. I am actually interested with their triple cheese special but worried that I couldn't finish it off after OM's oblong.

Bob even do delivery services for nearby areas. I remembered it was 50cents previously but since petrol had been increased, so I guess it's alright.

The one on the left is rabbit patty while the right is the lamb. Actually this is my first rabbit patty and really looking forward to it.

This is how the base of the lamb tiesto looks like. He is using the hot dog bun and split it open and heat it up. There's the usual lettuce and onions with plenty of BBQ sauce and mayo.

After 5 minutes of preparing the patty, this is how both the patties looks like. The rabbit patty was rather thicker after frying it. Damn it's so mouth watering even right now while I am writing this post while looking at these two patties. Yummy~!

Since I had ordered their special with cheese and this is how Bob does it. The patty is placed on top of the fried egg and cheese laid on top with chili/tomato sauce to top it with. You can even asked for BBQ sauce or mayo instead of chili/tomato. Another good thing about Ramly burger, you can customized.

This is my lamb tiesto looks like when it's placed on top of the fried egg with cheese on top. Simply delicious.

Now here comes the best part. Bob will cook the onions with Rochester sauce and pepper before topping it onto the patties. You don't see this kind of preparation anywhere else.

Lamb Tiesto Special with Cheese - RM5

This is how my lamb tiesto looks like after the onions was laid onto the patty. I had asked for extra mayo and BBQ sauce but you rather not see how the patty looks like after the topping. But I simply love the sloppiness of the whole burger. The patty is thick and juicy. The onions on top really add a nice touch to the patty.

Burger Rabbit Special with Cheese - RM7

And this is how my rabbit special with cheese looks like before I sink my teeth into it. Trust me, this is one of the nastiest burger I had to date. And it's simply delicious. You can hold on the sauce if you wanted you burger to be nice and all. But like I said, if you wanted something nice and decent, go eat at McD.

Overall, I liked Bob's burger compared to OM burger but that's just me. Both this stall sells really good local (Ramly) burger. And this is the benchmark for my future Ramly stall all over. Would like to thank Bangsar-bAbE again for the recommendation from her blog. Gonna try to finish the quest for the best Ramly burger on my next visit to Cheras. Hopefully it's gonna be as good as the one over at Ampang. Till then, do let me know if you know any good Ramly burger stalls over at your place or you tried before.

Rating: Rabbit Burger Special with Cheese - 4.3 out of 5

Lamb Tiesto Special with Cheese - 4 out of 5

Like: Good & friendly service with good food

5, Jalan AU 5C/1,

Taman Lembah Keramat,

GPS Coordinates : N3 12.118 E101 45.278

OM Burger @ Ampang

2010-12-05T22:04:00.001+08:00

I had planned this trip for quite some time after seeing another blogger (Bangsar-bAbE) blogged bout it few months back. It's her choice of Malaysia's Top 5 Ramly Burger over KL. After going through the list, I had tried only tried one of them and decided to tried out the one on the top of the cake, OM Burger. It's located over at Ampang so it's quite a distance from Puchong. But I am determined even though the trip started off raining over at my side. The place was quite easy to find as it's just next to the main road. You can see a 7-11 store right in front of the stall.

When I arrived, both the owner are busy preparing their famous burgers for the awaiting customers. Parking was an arse, so I asked babe to go down and make an order while I make another round for parking. The pakcik will do all the cooking and grilling while makcik packing and cashing in the money. Good husband-wife combination here.

The oil are reuse as you can see which is a bit unhealthy. But then again, what is so healthy bout eating Ramly burger right? The patties are reheated again from another tray full of pre-prepared patties.

As you can see, he pre-prepared the patties beforehand to handle the high amount of demand. I was a bit let down of this but I would not judge it just so fast. Since it was highly recommended, I decided to wait and see. You have the usual chicken, beef, hotdog and their special oblong lamb.

I read that they had been operating for more than 25 years now already. Wow~! That is one hell of a good track record for me. I mean, if you can operate that long and still pack a long queue, he must be doing something right. He start operating as early as 5pm till really late. How late? Till they run out of buns or patties maybe. But then again, 7-11 is just behind them. Maybe that's the reason why they are there in the first place.

Since I am trying out another joint later, I am not going all the way right yet. So I'd decided to go with the usual Ayam Special and their famous Lamb Oblong Special. I saw one of the customer ordered their benjo and it's quite different from the one we had normally as he doesn't used the metal thingy to shape the egg.

Follow in line now. Saw an advert on an online voting for their favorite street food on their stall. I read some where that they are once voted as the best burger/street food in town back at 2004 (if I am not mistaken).

This is how babe's Ayam Special with Cheese (RM4) looks like after unwrapping. As you can see the mayo, tomato/chili and bbq sauce are oozing out from the patty. This is how a real local Ramly burger should look like. Sloppy and nasty just the way I like it. But babe was not that enthusiastic as I am. He had a hard time eating it as it got smudges all over her face.

This is how the patty looked like after the first bite. Babe was quite disappointed as it doesn't really felt any different from any she had before. I took a bite and had to agreed with her. The patty was too thin and we can't really taste the juicy and sloppy patty at all. Nice too see but not that nice to eat for us. Maybe we need to order their double special to really enjoy it.

Finally, my oblong lamb special with cheese (RM6). It was large. Imagine they split open a hotdog bun and just spread the patty on top of it and just hit everything they have on to it. It's sloppy and sauce was seen everywhere. I took a bite and it's really nice. I totally love this one. Babe had a bite and too agreed with me it's better than the Ayam Special. The patty is juicy and thick. The egg totally enclosed the whole patty and I love the pepper and Rochester sauce they applied to the patty during preparation. Simply delicious. This is highly recommended.

After we clean up, I started my journey to the next stall. Yes, you heard me right. I am a man on a mission that night. Next stop Bob's Burger. OM burger is a bit over rated to me on their ayam special but luckily it was save by their lamb oblong. The lamb oblong definitely is one of the best I had to date. But I heard Bob's serve a packing with their lamb tiesto too. So you will just need to wait and see how it goes on my next post.

Rating: Ayam Special 3 out of 5

Lamb Special 4 out of 5

Like : the real sloppy and nasty patty

OM Burger can be located at

Lorong Kolam Air Lama 1,

Ampang

GPS Coordinates

3.160667,101.758665

Nihon Kai @ Off Jalan Kuchai Lama

2010-11-09T10:40:00.001+08:00

I was looking for a lunch partner last week when she recommended this little secluded restaurant off the busy road of Old Klang Road. You can actually see the restaurant from the main road if you pay attention to it. It's the same row as the Micheline tyre shop. The restaurant is located at the furthest end of the shop row. You can't really miss it actually, there's just one Japanese restaurant at that place. The name of the place is Nihon Kai. For those who had been eating around would had already know or at least ate here before. I heard it's really good and prices are reasonable. So we were there around lunch hour and we were lucky to get a table as it's a full house that day.

Sliced Beef Special Set Lunch - RM19

Browsed through the menu and the Little Princess decided to have their grilled beef lunch set. As you can see, other than the main dish, it also come with a bowl of misou soup, appetizer of sweet and sour vegetables and lastly the dessert. We ordered cold green tea to go with the set.

The usual way of preparing a grilled beef is with onions and lots of it too. Totally love the taste and importantly the portion are really generous. The beef are marinated and cooked to perfection. Just nice.

Tori Katsunabe + Sashimi Set Lunch - RM20

As for me, I had ordered their xxx. As you can see the set is really large. We have the main dish plus the sashimi (raw fish). Similar to my friend's set, mine too comes with the appetizer and also dessert with the misou soup. I am really full at the end of the meal. For the price that I am paying, this is worth every penny.

This is the main dish which is actually cooked chicken with egg and sliced onions on top. Portion again are generous. Taste is alright nothing that blows me away. I ordered this as they do not have any Chicken Katsu in their menu. And I needed something filling that afternoon too.

Look at those sashimi. OMG, it's so thick and fresh. If you eat a lot of Japanese food, you would have know or have some idea how much a place of the above sashimi cost. I am really excited with the generosity of the place. There are 3 slices of salmon and 2 smoked salmons. Yummy~!

For the whole meal above we paid around RM42 inclusive of drinks and taxes. I need to say that the place might not serve the best sushi in town but for the price you're paying this is definitely one of the best I had. Definitely going back with babe to gave her a try since she's go crazy with Japanese dishes. They have another branch over at Sunway Mentari which I might try out next week. Do let me know what you think of the place if you manage to go over. (Rating: 4.2 out of 5.0)

Address: Nihon Kai Japanese Restaurant

No.4-2, Jalan Telok Gadong,

Off Jalan Klang Lama,

58100 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: (03) 7982 3668

Business Hour: :Lunch 12pm - 3pm

Dinner 6pm - 10pm

Bird Man Cafe & Restaurant @ Neo Damansara

2010-10-28T14:37:00.000+08:00

I was informed by my ex-colleague of this new place over at Neo Damansara. It's located at Kota Damansara behind Sunway Giza if you are familiar with the location. It's those brown building behind Kota Damansara next to Giant hypermarket. The shop that I am going to introduce this time around is called Bird Man. Yes, you heard me right the first time. I was surprised when I first heard of the name in Mandarin called 鸟人. I am looking forward to what they are serving over at this place. Parking is an arse again over at this place similar to SS2.

As the menu said, the place serves contemporary international dining. In other word, fusion. They mix around between Eastern and Western and called contemporary or fusion dining. Browsed through the menu and some of the dishes caught my attention when I finally made up my mind by ordering something recommended by my friend who frequent the place before. They do serve set lunch so it's very convenient and money saving.

Hawaiian Style Fish Fillet Spaghetti- RM7.90

From the picture above, it does look like our local rojak you ordered outside but it's not in the inside. The fish fillet on top are freshly fried while the spaghetti is accompanied with vegetables and lots of fried garlic. The sauce is a bit tomato-ish if I remembered well. Not bad if you like fried garlic as much as I do.

Pork Sausage Omelet Rice - RM6.90

I had ordered this pork sausage omelet rice which is so darn amazing. The dish might look a bit off from the outside and even plain if you really look inside. But the combination of the whole ingredients used really brings out the taste of the dish. Fresh omelet with Chinese pork sausage with a bit of green top. What's underneath you ask? Well take a look for yourself.

It's steamed white rice covered with tasty crispy fried garlic (again!). Damn this is so darn appetizing for me. Cause I really love garlic be it fried or peel fresh. For those who doesn't like garlic, please stay away, but trust me you are missing out a lot.

Mushroom Soup

We had ordered their set lunch hence the set come with their mushroom soup. You can choose either this or their Tom Yam soup. Although it's just a add on, but the soup is really nice. Not those plain from the can at least.

Chocolate Pudding

Dessert is included in the set which is their Chocolate pudding. I don't think they have anything else. It's self made so it's alright. Quite tasty and not too sweet.

Cham Ice

The drinks are included too from the set which you can choose from the menu. Thick with coffee taste, just nice.

The place seemed to be quite busy during lunch hour and the staffs are really friendly and efficient too. We are served by the owner himself so it's quite good. For an additional RM3.90 from the price above, you are complimented with the soup, drinks and dessert. Well, not too expensive I guess. Will definitely be going back again to try out their other dishes. Another recommended dish would be their creamy mushroom soup topped with puff which is similar to Dome's mushroom pie. It's located behind OCBC bank so it's not too difficult to find with that name. (Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0)

Bread Basket Bakery @ Kota Kemuning

2010-10-22T10:42:00.000+08:00

For those who is living around Shah Alam particularly Kota Kemuning should have tried this place before or at least heard of it. The name of the place is called Bread Basket Bakery. The shop started off selling pastries like bread and cakes and eventually evolved into a cafe and a Chinese restaurant on the top floor. When you entered the shop, it's nicely decorated like a cake shop with varieties of breads to choose from. But there are lots more which they can offer other than just bread and cakes.

Hot Mochacino - RM 6/cup

Babe ordered their hot Mochacino which is nicely blend. Drink it while it still hot as it gets pretty sweet when it's cold.

Ice Mochacino - RM 6.90/glass

For an additional 90 cents you get to have the same drink with ice. Actually I kinda like their Mochacino over here as it's quite thick and not those thin layer of powder only.

Mushroom Soup - RM 5/bowl

This is one of the best mushroom soup I had in a while. I am not kidding here. It looked like your average bowl of can made mushroom soup but trust me it's really creamy. The interesting part is that, it's not really thick. For those who doesn't like thick mushroom soup but still want that creamy fragrance of mushroom, then this is the one. Add that crispy piece of garlic bread into it's a perfect appetizer. The taste kinda like Carbonara to me. You had to try this to believe.

Deep Fried Calamari - RM 8/basket

I am actually contemplating whether to order their cheese baked mussels or fried calamari and since I had tried their mussels before, I go with the calamari. This is good simple dish. The calamari are fresh and not that hard. Freshly fried so it's really crispy. Ask for thousand island sauce to go with it and it's perfect.

Marinara Cheese Rice - RM 13.90/set

This is one of the recommended dish in the menu. You can opt for cream or tomato based sauce. As you can see babe had choose tomato base. The rice is topped with seafood and covered with cheese on top.

Very cheesy~! They are not stingy in the cheese they are using which is good. But the rice underneath it seemed to be a bit plain as babe complaint that the tomato sauce isn't enough. You have the usual squid, and prawns together with the rice.

Basket Chicken Rice - RM 9/set

Last but not least my chicken in a basket rice. They should actually called it basket chicken fried rice as the rice underneath are fried. This is my second time ordering this dish as I am so hooked into it. It's actually boneless chicken with cream sauce. The cream sauce are damn milky and nice. Plenty of chicken as you can see as the portion are quite large. Rice are fresh fried from the wok I presume if it isn't, it's still one heck of a good fried rice. This is highly recommended. You have a choice of chicken or fish in a basket.

The place is packed with customers during lunch hour so better be quick or go after lunch hour. Even dinner time the place is crowded with people. Never really tried the pastries but I did saw people buying them, so it should be good. The set also come with a bowl of soup of the day and also a scoop of ice cream. So for that price, it's damn affordable. The place is Halal, so no problem for our Muslim's friends too. Service is good and the waiters are friendly. (Rating: 4.2 out of 5.0)

Address:

Bread Basket Bakery

No.2, Jalan Anggerik Vanilla Y31/Y,

Kota Kemuning, 40460 Shah Alam

Yut Kee @ Jalan Dang Wangi

2010-10-15T15:02:00.000+08:00

Sorry again for the lack of updates in my blog lately as I am tied up with my usual business trip and also renovation currently. But nevertheless, there's no rest for the wicked. So I was browsing the FB like millions of working people do nowadays during working hour and stumbled upon a picture upload by a friend. When I realized what it was, I am eager to try it out.

What is it? Well it's actually roast pork a.k.a siew yuk. What's so special bout it?

Well it's made like a Swiss Roll. Yup, you heard me right. The place is called Yut Kee which is located at the end of Jalan Dang Wangi. It's really easy to find actually, just Google it. Trust me, it's there.

Parking is a bitch over there as I managed to park right in front of the restaurant as it was an illegal spot. But since there are cars parked on both side, so I just joined them. Luckily I didn't get a summon during the lunch hour. The place is a very very old Hainanese restaurant which is established around 1926 if I am not mistaken. The place is not run by the grandson of the original owner.

The place has the portrait of the founder on the wall as you can see above. If you saw a guy at the cashier bearing 90% resemblance of the man, don't be afraid, it's just the grandson.

When I arrived, the place is already packed with customers and a lot of people are queuing up waiting for a table. Well, since I am alone, I managed to get a seat really easy. Shared a table with 3 ang moh who also ordered their special roast pork. From their conversation, they did complement the dish and it's one of the best they had.

Without wasting anytime, I had ordered their special roast pork (siew yuk) and a glass of cham ice. As you can see, the special roast pork is some sort like Hainanese Chicken Chop crossing over with Chinese Roast Pork. The special roast pork is served with potatoes and green peas at the side. Those are apple sauce on the roast pork. Not really fond of it, but luckily they gave me another bowl of brown (mushroom) sauce to go with it.

The roast pork is made like Swiss roll which makes it easier to slice and you have an even lean and fat all around. The outer layer is so damn crispy that it's addicting. I thought of ordering extra to take away but sadly it's not enough. People are queuing up waiting when I left.

Since the roast pork isn't that filling (for me), I had ordered their famous Hainanese Chicken Chop. The Ang Moh left and another group of people working from AIA sat down and looked at me when they saw I am starting on the chicken chop. Mind you, it's not that large of a portion actually. The chicken chop is covered in egg and fried to crisp and is served with mushroom sauce on top with the standard green peas and potatoes at the side. Doesn't really blow me away with this but just a decent plate of Hainanese Chicken Chop.

Third round? No I don't think so. I was tempted to ordered their roti babi. Yes, it's called roti babi which is pork bread/burger. But I heard that it's really filling and decided to call it off. Maybe on my next visit with more reinforcement. They are also famous for their belacan fried rice, hokkien noodle (yes, hainanese do serve Hokkien noodle too), kaya toast and swiss rolls.

The roast pork are only available every Friday and Sunday only. They will start serving the special roast port around 11.30am and most probably be finish around 12.30 noon. So better be quick as you might not get a seat in time to order a portion to eat. Overall, the trip over was worth it. Since I never really compliment any roast port dishes before. This is because, roast pork has little criteria which is freshly roasted and crispy outer layer. That is the most important for me. So when I saw how special this roast port is, I quickly make a trip over before you can even finish saying Siew Yuk. (Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0)

Cafe Barbera @ Bangsar

2010-10-03T22:33:00.000+08:00

This is another post overdue as it was supposed to be posted up last month. But I am really busy with work and my house renovation this whole month that I don't have much time to online and blog that much. I think I have another 2 - 3 posts in my PC right now which needed time to sort out and time to blog about. Cafe Barbera is recommended by one of my gym-mate which we decided to held one big birthday dinner. The place is located at Lorong Maarof, Bangsar Park. Parking isn't that much so better be early and park in the open space right in front of the place.

The place was brightly lit and really spacious. Not that much patron was around when we arrive and we had booked a private room for a private function. The room seemed to be unoccupied for sometime as there were some mosquitoes flying around when we arrived (sad). The chair are those with rollers which we sat in the office. Really really strange.

The place is decorated with a lot of coffee maker as it's famous for their brew coffee. But we didn't ordered any that night. They also served cakes and also some pastries. You can drop by in the afternoon to grab a quick bite and try out their coffee too. We were really hungry so we went to the menu and decided to try one of their appetizer.

We had ordered this creamy mushroom bruschetta for appetizer. Something new for me as normally we will get the usual tomato bruschetta. The toast bread are topped with minced mushroom with salad and creamy sauce. Something nice and simple to start your dinner off. It's really important that the bread are freshly toasted to crisp as it would be really bad if it's soft and cold.

Fettucine Chicken & Mushroom Carbonara - RM35/set or RM24 for ala-carte

They served two type of Carbonara over here and this is one of them. But I am not into chicken or ham and preferred beef any day.

Fettucine Beef Bacon Carbonara - RM35/set or RM24 for ala-carte

No money for guessing who ordered this dish. Yup, me. I am really glad that the pasta is thick and dry. The beef is not too hard and just nice. I am not so into chicken or ham Carbonara like the first pasta above. Not the best I had but still a good decent plate of Carbonara for me.

Beef Parpadelle - RM35/set

This is wide size pasta cooked with pan grilled beef, garlic, chili flakes, tomato basil and demi-glazed topped with pesto sauce. I am again not into parpadelle because of the size of it. Cause the chef need to really control the cooking time of the pasta as if it is under cook, it would be really a big disaster. The pan grilled beef are really tender and nicely cooked with the chili flakes.

Fish & Prawn Penne

This is penne pasta cooked with slices of fish and prawns in tomato concasse, basil, garlic and black olives. I am not so into penne actually and seafood. As seafood need to be really fresh to really compliment the pasta.

Stir Fried Beef with Spaghetti

The name of the dish sounded like a Chinese dish, stir fried beef kuey teow or similar. But this is the similar dish but with a western twist to it. We have slices of striploin stir fried with garlic, peppers, onions and spring onions with their house sauce. This is what happen when Chinese meet Western dish I guess. Not bad.

Prawn Aglio Olio

This is one of the restaurant's recommended dish which is their prawn aglio olio. It's a simple dish but a simple dish is hard to prepared as always. You have the usual aglio olio pasta with two big prawns on top. The prawns are fresh (thank god) so it blend nicely with the pasta.

This is the dessert which came together with the set menu which we all ordered. You can choose between Tiramisu or Vanila. Although it's a set menu but this is still a good piece of Tiramisu cake.

As I mentioned earlier, the place boosted for their brew coffee and there's plenty of coffee machines in the restaurant. Some of the machines cost more than RM20K. That is one expensive cappuccino machine.

Overall, the dinner was a good one. We had a fulfilling dinner and had a big laugh in the private room. Isn't the best pasta I had but it's above average which means that I will come back and recommend to my friend in the future. Good place for small gathering or couple's dinner. (Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0)