Kimchi Korean Restaurant @ Tropicana Mall

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

Little Korea @ One Solaris, Mount Kiara

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

DaoRae Korean Restaurant @ USJ

Korean food wasn't my first of choice but since it's pre-planned by my friend for a dinner here. So I thought why not give it a try. Some friends who visited the place before told me that it's worth a try. So the rest was history. There a few branches of DaoRae around town but the one we are going is located at Taipan USJ. As you can see it's on the 2nd floor above Affin Bank. The building is just behind True Fitness. So I don't think it's a problem locating the place but rather where to park.

Various type of small dishes was served to us when we are seated. The one worth mentioning is the one on the bottom right which is their famous Kimchi. The cold salad on the bottom left is also worth mentioning as my friend did ordered a second for that.

Here are more of the side dishes. Actually there were more than this but I guess you will need to go over and check it out yourself. The one on the bottom right is those steamed egg which normally served at Japanese restaurant. And I don't think this is refillable.

Bbyeo-da-gui-tang (RM19/bowl)
This is their Pork rib in hot spicy soup served with rice. Portion was generous with lots of pork ribs. Not that spicy though. But it's a nice dish to open up your appetite before the main dish.

Pa-jeon (RM25/portion)
This is one of their local delicacy food which is pancake comprising of fresh seafood in batter topped with spring onions. I had this before during a Korean fair previous and is in love with it.

OK, let's get into business now. From top left clockwise: Pork ribs specially hand filleted marinated in special Korean ginseng and herbs extract with sweet soy sauce, Boneless beef short rib marinated with their secret recipe DaoRae sauce, Lean skinless chicken fillets marinated with hot chili sauce last but not least Lamb specially hand filleted and marinated in their sweet soy sauce. By this time, we're all hungry and was waiting for the waiter to start the fire and start barbecuing the meats. Actually we ordered another portion of chicken at the end of the dinner.

Hanbang Dweji Wang Gabi (RM35)
This is the big slabs of pork ribs being barbecued with lots of garlic on the side.

This is the pork ribs being cut to small portion for us to indulge. Trust me it's more juicy and it looks. The picture didn't really do justice to the pork. Yummy~!!!!

So this is how we're supposed to eat all the meat. We place of piece of the meat on a slice of salad. Topped it with some garlic, sliced green and their special soy sauce. OMG!!, superb. Truly delicious.

Dak-gai-bi (RM27/portion)
This is skinless chicken with hot chili sauce. Like the name says, it's a bit hot and spicy but not too much. So for those who like their chicken to be spicy and hot, this is their choice.

All the juices had sipped into the chicken and now it's ready to eat. Look at those reddish lean chicken fillets, don't you wanna have a bit into them?

Yang-ngum Yang-go-gi (RM35)
The lamb was one really juicy when it was place onto the hot plate. You can see those marinated sweet soy sauce oozing out from the filleted lamb.

So this is the end product of the juicy lamb fillet. As you can see the lamb are still that juicy and dry although it's been barbecued. No oil or other sauce are added during the whole process for all the meats.

Gal-bi-sal (RM55)
This is boneless beef short ribs. For those who doesn't take beef, you[re really missing one of the best meat here. All their meat are so juicy and lean. There are practically no fats at all and all of them are selected before serving to the customers. I had asked the guy to tossed in some extra garlic for the beef. Got to say I am so in love with Korean food by now.

Yang-nyum- Dak-gal-bi (RM27)
This is the other lean skinless chicken fillets which we ordered at the end. It is also marinated with their special soy sauce. I like their service over here as we don't need to do the whole process ourselves and they always change the tray after each session. So it's more hygienic.

This dish tasted like the Teriyaki chicken which we normally had at Teppanyaki or Sushi King. Nevertheless, it's really juicy and nice. You can't get any more fresher than this. All the meat are served directly from the barbecued pan in front of us and directly to our mouth. Simply delicious.

They partition the restaurant into two section with one on the normal table and the other on the traditional type table like the one at Korea itself. So how was the dinner? Well from my non stop praised from the food above you most probably could have guess how was it. Yes, one word, delicious. Does give me a second opinion on Korean food as my first impression was always Kimchi (sweet and sour). I am totally in love with barbecued now after the dinner. How much did we spent on the dinner? Well the total bill was RM256 inclusive of drinks and dessert. That is like RM50/head for us. Cheap and worth every cent for me for the quantity and quality of the food we had I would say. Definitely gonna be back again soon to try it out with my babe. They even walk us to the elevator and the boss and his staff sent us off to the elevator and bidding us farewell. Best service I had in a while. (Rating: 4.2 out of 5.0)

Address:
DaoRae Korean Barbecued Restaurant
No.8C, Top Speed Business Center,
Jalan USJ 10/1J,
47620 UEP Subang Jaya
Contact: 03-8024 2616