Movida Kitcher.Bar.Kitchen.Lounge

 

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

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

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

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

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