Plan B @ Publika, Solaris Dutamas

I heard about this place since last year I guess but didn't have the chance to really set my foot there till last week. Decided to give this place a try and luckily my friend knew about this place and the rest is history like they say. Anyway, let me introduce the place first, it's called Plan B. Cool Name~! It's actually under a big umbrella called the BIG Group (another cool company name). 

The BIG Group opened a lot of their flagships around town and Plan B is one of them. They even have their own grocery market called B.I.G (Ben's Independent Grocery) downstairs. So Cool~! You can check out their website here. Now let's get back to Plan B. 

Publika is definitely a unique place cause I can't find the parking and decided to valet park instead. The price is RM10 for the first two hours. I guess it's alright. Plan B is located at Level G2 and it's quite easy to find even if it's your first time over (like me). There are a lot of seats indoor and outdoor.

I especially like the deco on the outdoor which you can see from the picture above. Yup, those are chairs being hung on the ceiling board. Cool~! The place was packed when we arrived and luckily my friend came early and managed to get a table for us. As we are seated, people started to queue outside waiting for a table. Business is really good during lunch hour I guess. Not sure how it goes after office though. 

Ordered a bottle of mineral water. The mineral water is FOC and is bottle in some sort of a medicine type bottle. Good idea. 

As usual, I started off with some mushroom soup before the main course. I was particularly hungry that afternoon so I go ahead with it.  It's either this or Borscht Soup. I am more of a mushroom guy so I decided to go with this. It's actually vegetarian. This is not the best mushroom soup I have, but it's above average I I have to say. Chunk of small mushrooms to bite on really do tickle my fancy. 

My friend ordered their seafood Borscht soup. We did asked the waiter what is the portion of the soup and he did replied us that it's not that large. But this Borscht soup really make up for it's size with it's plentiful of seafood. I think you can order a white rice and take this as your main if you are a small eater. 

Mushroom or Borscht?  

My friend decided to go with pasta and both of us actually saw this dish because of softshell crab in the menu. They do have Carbonara but both of us didn't ordered that (surprisingly). Both of us agreed that this would be the better choice. It's spaghetti in creamy butter sauce but get this, it's tossed together with  chili padi, crispy curry leaves, and chili flakes. Top that with some soft shell crab and you got yourself an Asian style pasta. I don't think everyone can accept this dish as it's some sort like a fusion between pasta and kam heong cooking style. But both of us really dig this. Super creamy and spicy at the same time. Soft shell portion was really generous. And it's freshly fried too. 

So what's for me? I didn't ordered their Carbonara but went with one of their burger. I was reading the details of the dish when I saw one thing that decided it all, onion rings. Yup, I am a bit of a onion ring freak. The dish was really large. Other than the main patty we have french fries and salad at the side. The bun is soft and I think they might be making those buns themselves too. Just guessing here though. 

Look at those juicy beef patty. The cheese on top and three crispy golden onion rings on top. Simply delicious. How do you eat it? This is definitely not an issue for me since it's a burger freak.  Just cramp everything in there, open wide and just sink your teeth in those juicy home-made patty of theirs. Highly recommended. By the way, I didn't even managed to finish the salad off since I was already full. 

The kitchen was neat and clean and well organized. I can see the barista is busy preparing the drinks for the customers and all.   

There's also three big Samsung infinity LED on the wall. But not sure why are they showing 60s Malay movies on and on?! We had a great lunch and saw some cool chicks. What a great place to hang out too. Price might be slightly high but it's fine with me. The bill amounted to $87 in total. $40+ for a lunch? Depends I guess. You can't really set a price tag on good food now, can you? Definitely coming back here again soon. Who am I bringing next round? 

Rating: 

Food: 4.5 out of 5.0

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 4.0 out of 5.0 

Tang Shifu @ KSL Mall

Another over-due updates on my food blog. I think this is at least one month old. But I am quite happy to have dine over at this place. So let me share this with my readers here. The place I am referring to is Tang Shifu. This particular branch I went to is located at KSL Mall, JB. Yup, this is on one of my company sponsored makan trip again. It's closed to 9pm if I am not mistaken when we decided to walk in this place. I  saw this place before in the Klang Valley but felt like their food are over-priced and all. So I didn't have the chance to give it a try. I guess now is the best time to try it out then. 

We are served with some appetizer once we are seated. Menu was handed to us to browsed through. Actually the food isn't that much expensive once you think about it. I saw their one of their premium item called Mixed Seafood (which consists of abalone, dried scallop, mushrooms, mussels and many more) is selling at less than rm40. That is affordable. But we didn't go for that as we thought that it's a bit too much for a dinner. 

My friend decided to ordered their Ginseng soup with Chicken. The brown rice is actually a side order of the main dish. The portion is just nice for one person. If you are a small eater, you can even share this with your friend. The soup was nourishing and you can taste the strong ginseng in it.

Decided to order a vegetable and saw this broccoli dish which  looks really nice in the menu. Well, as we all know, what we see doesn't really end up in front of us. This is exactly the case for our broccoli with sliced abalone & scallop. Sounds nice but the picture in the menu does look more nicer than the actual dish. I guess the vege and scallop shrink after they steamed it. Nevertheless this is one healthy vegetable dish. 

Here comes my dinner. Dried scallops with PETITE abalone mixed rich. This dish is totally over-rated from the menu. Everything looks more better than bigger in the menu. hahaha!!!  The mushroom looks bigger too but in reality all had been sliced to bits. It's actually your normal mixed rice but enriched with abalone and scallops. 

  I think they are not kidding when they say PETITE Abalone in their menu. 

Yes, there's more to our dinner. We decided to order this sliced pork. Again the pork sliced looked so mouth watering in the menu. I can accept what we got at the end for this. "Di Huang" should be referring to the sweet sauce which comes with this dish I think. There are four slices of pork per dish. 

So basically you wrapped everything in one slice of cabbage and add in the sauce and give it a big bite. Really juicy but you won't really feel that much of fat from the pork since you are eating it together with the cabbage. Not bad. 

Overall, the visit was pleasant but the food in the menu doesn't really tell the whole story. Maybe their mixed seafood also the same. Will need to verify that on my next visit here. Their soups are really nourishing for male and female. So do give it a try and let me know what you think.

Rating: 

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.5 out of 5.0 (a fly kept bugging us during our dinner, a bit annoyed)

S'Mores Bar-Restaurant-Chill Out @ Bangsar South

I know it's been a while since my last update but heck I am getting lazier now to post. Don't ask me why. Maybe due to life commitment or work. But it's upsetting to see my blog left unattended for so long. I still eat around and snap lots of pictures but I don't really have the time to update them in here. After a long morning of sorting out my pictures from my phone, so here goes. S'Mores is located over at Bangsar South which I heard about since last year. I was actually looking forward to their beef burgers but was disappointed that I can't find any over there during my visit. 

So I browsed through their set menu and saw some pasta under their set lunch. Decided to go with that. I ordered a mushroom soup as usual to warm up the old stomach before the main course. Well, it's your usual mushroom soup from the cane if I am not mistaken. Better save the money. 

I can't decide on either ordering their chicken or pasta and at the end decided to go with their cream sauce pasta. Damn, I made a huge mistake. The Alfredo based sauce is too watery to my delight and the portion is that sufficient either. Looks nice but don't really fancy me at all.  

My lunch buddy decided to go for their Pesto base pasta which was a good choice indeed. Well at least it's way better than mine. The mint flavor from the Pesto sauce is quite strong although I still prefer the one from Louisiana better. But this is acceptable for me. 

 In short, cream sauce fail, pesto sauce save the day. Although it's just a set lunch I do have quite high expectation on my pasta. And this cream sauce just didn't pass the average line. 

There's plenty of seats inside and it's air condition which is really good. Like the atmosphere as it's good to bring your customer for a lunch or meeting ending with some beers on the side. 

They do have some promo going on for Happy Hour kakis at night. They served beers and liquors too. Not sure how's the crowd at night but I heard it's quite alright. Maybe you can drop by some day and let me know how's your lunch/dinner goes. Cheers~! 

Rating:

Food: 3.5 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Hot Star Large Fried Chicken @ Subang Jaya

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

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)