Food reviews

Fa-Ying Thai Restaurant by Rama V @ Paradigm Mall

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Fa-Ying by Rama V

Fa-Ying is billed as a “modern Thai” restaurant and bar and it’s the casual offshoot of Rama V (which calls itself fine dining). Thus, the official name is Fa-Ying by Rama V. Fa-Ying is located in Paradigm Mall and since we haven’t had Thai food in a long time, we popped over for a meal.

Fa-Ying

Fa-Ying has a compelling set menu for 2 pax for RM 69.90 but we decided to order a la carte so we could choose what we wanted to eat. The place actually looks more like a pub than a restaurant – the large al fresco and bar seating area is too hot for us so we popped inside, which can only seat about 20 or so people.

Fa-Ying Drinks

It’s quite a small place inside, but surprisingly cozy. My dear had their Lemongrass Soda (RM 12) while I opted for the Iced Thai Milk Tea (12).

Deep Fried Squid

Deep-fried Squid Topped with Crispy Garlic (RM 20)
My better half ordered this one and it totally blew us away when it was served. I thought I was eating a very well cooked piece of fish, that’s how flaky and tender the entire thing was. I actually mistook it for another softer seafood! It’s not how I imagined deep fried squid would taste like – this was just dipped into the hot oil for a short while so everything is still soft (but not chewy) and the crispy garlic topping it adds a nice texture to the dish. It tasted clean and inoffensive, very moreish.

Crispy Thai Omelet

Crispy Thai Omelet (RM 14)
There are options for plain (RM 10) and prawn (RM 14) and we went for the latter. The shrimp that comes with this omelet are on the small side (think of the ones you get with char kueh tiaw / pad thai but smaller) but for RM 4, I guess you can’t complain. I like how the high heat of the wok makes the omelet crisp / bubble up in a distinctively Asian way. It’s pretty oily but that’s part of the appeal.

Massaman Chicken Curry

Massaman Curry (RM 19)
There is an option for chicken (RM 19) or beef (RM 22) and since my dear doesn’t eat the latter, we went for the chicken instead. Massaman curry is an extremely delicious curry which I first had during one of my visits to Thailand. It’s made with pineapple juice (!!!) and the massaman curry paste comes from spices that aren’t frequently used in other Thai curries.

Massaman Curry

One interpretation says that it originates from Southern Thailand (where it’s derived from the Malay word for sour – masam) but regardless of how it came by, this was one of the best dishes I’ve had in a long time. The massaman curry was perfect – very flavorful without being overly spicy, and you can taste the slightly acidic elements together with the spot on chicken. Yummy! I love how they serve it on a heat source with flames licking up into the bowl too.

Fa-Ying Us

It was a very good meal and both of us enjoyed the food very much. The lunch at Fa-Ying by Rama V cost us RM 96.28 which is a fraction of what we’ll pay in Rama V. The service at Fa-Ying is passable but not as good as their flagship Rama V. Nevertheless, it’s was a great meal in a more casual setting, which is what Fa-Ying is out to achieve. We’ll definitely be back here again. 🙂

Mr. Dakgalbi @ Citta Mall

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MrDakgalbi Korea

It was just after work and we were at Citta Mall to grab a quick bite to eat. My better half actually wanted to eat something else but I saw an advertisement for this outlet at the escalators and we decided to check it out.

Mr Dakgalbi Citta Mall

Mr. Dakgalbi is a franchise from Korea with a pretty descriptive name – it tells you what’s on the menu, dak galbi. Dak galbi is a Korean dish from Chuncheon, Korea (just like how okonomiyaki is associated with Osaka, Japan) that involves a hot plate and chicken.

MrDakgalbi

The process of ordering at Mr. Dakgalbi is pretty simple:

  1. Wear your assigned aprons to avoid splash damage
  2. Choose one of chicken, octopus, or seafood dak galbi
  3. Choose combination of rice, ramen, cheese add-on

Mr Dakgalbi

I went for chicken since dak galbi is traditionally made with chicken. The Mr.Dakgalbi (RM 19) option is their flagship – chicken marinated in traditional Korean chilli paste, potatoes, onions, spring onions and tteok (rice cake). It’s a very common Korean ingredient, I’ve had tteokbokki while in Pusan.

MrDakgalbi Chicken

The chicken marinated in gochujang is then sliced into small pieces and fried together with the accoutrements. You don’t have to do it yourself – the staff will cook everything for you, much like Palsaik. It seems like full service Korean restaurants is very big here.

Mr Dakgalbi Rice

Next up, is choosing the carbs. I asked for rice (RM 6) and cheese (RM 6). You can also ask for ramen (RM 6) if you like. This is fried together with your chicken and then the entire thing is ready to eat!

MrDakgalbi Frying Rice

The staff will also portion your chicken into two portions just in case you want to add on, and if you don’t, your leftover rice will be made into a sort of pizza. It eats like the bottom of claypot chicken rice – the caramelized and crispy bottom is nice.

Pizza Rice

It’s pretty decent but if you don’t like gochujang or have small kids, you might want to order something else since the signature fermented Korean chilli paste can be quite spicy for sensitive palates.

Seafood Jeon

We also ordered Seafood Jeon (RM 19) – a crispy Korean style pancake. It looks nothing like what the menu promised (the picture in the menu had large octopus tentacles practically burying the jeon) and it tasted about as appealing as it looked. Dismal. action

Dak Galbi

I guess we should have stuck to ordering the namesake from Mr. Dakgalbi. Their dak galbi is alright and it can feed two people easily. You can also add rice, cheese or ramen as much as you want at a price of RM 6 per portion/plate. Thus, our dak galbi is actually RM 30 (RM 19 chicken + RM 6 rice + RM 6 cheese).

Mr Dakgalbi Us

It’s not good enough to make me want to make another trip back soon and their menu is pretty one dimensional. However, I’ll drop by if I have a dak galbi craving (or have an urge to dress up in aprons) since it’s quite close to us. The Mr. Dakgalbi restaurant in Citta Mall is very empty though – it was just the two of us inside before another couple walked in.

Franco Malaysia – Japanese French cuisine @ 1 Utama

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Franco Malaysia

French-Japanese cuisine? I must admit, it piqued my curiosity. My better half told me about Franco and we decided to pop over to 1 Utama and have dinner there. I’ve heard stories about long queues so I’ve largely given this place a pass since it changed its name from Miam Miam.

Franco

Franco sounds a lot more appealing than Miam Miam. They have a short, but sweet menu. It’s the total opposite of some F&B outlets who list around 100 items and do all of them badly. Franco only has a few pages in their menu and a LTO (Limited Time Offer) specials menu to go with it. Very French.

Matcha Smoothie

I ordered the Matcha Smoothie (RM 14.80) which was a really interesting drink. It’s topped with their homemade cream, tastes like proper matcha instead of cut-rate powder, blended with honey and there are red beans as a treat at the bottom. My dear went for their Oreo Banana Milkshake (RM 14.80) which is a variant of their Peanut Butter & Banana Milkshake.

Squid Ink Rice

Squid Ink Rice with Assorted Seafood & Omu Egg (RM 30.80)
This is my main! I thought it sounded like a nice concept on the menu so I ordered it. It turns out to be an even better dish! There were prawns, squid and even a mussel to go with the well-cooked rice (you can see individual grains). The squid ink rice was very flavorful – slightly salty and infinitely savory. The sweet omelet topping this dish is the proverbial icing to the cake. Delicious!

Lobster Bisque Pasta

Lobster Bisque Pasta (RM 31.80)
My dear had this one for her main. It comes with just one (1) tiger prawn but that’s not too bad considering my hometown charges even more for a similar dish (but with a very different species of prawn). The lobster bisque that the spaghetti was tossed with is perfect, and we both enjoyed this dish. The menu states that this contains traces of alcohol so I’m guessing this place isn’t halal.

Souffle

Vanilla Soufflé (RM 17.80)
This is what my dear ordered. Franco is known for their desserts, it used to be a bakery cum café before its current incarnation as a restaurant. The soufflé was light and airy, pretty textbook but good. They also have chocolate and matcha versions but we decided to stick to the original for our first visit.

Berries Cheesecake Parfait

Berries Cheesecake Parfait (RM 15.80)
Our server complimented me on this order and I wasn’t disappointed. It really tastes like cheesecake! It’s not very overwhelming either since the acidic elements cut through the richness. There’s the roughly crumbled base (graham crackers) as the bottom of the parfait, layered with smooth Philadelphia cream cheese and topped with frozen yoghurt. There are also fresh berries scattered on top and I joked that if they were Driscoll’s the blackberries alone would cost RM 1. smirk

Franco Us

Overall, we had a great dinner at Franco – the service was excellent, helmed by Angel, our server/greeter. The food was surprisingly good, my expectations were very much exceeded. The meal cost RM 138.40 for two pax and that’s about the average price for dinner at a similar establishment. We’ll definitely be back!

Franco
Lot 146, Ground Floor
One Utama Shopping Center
Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya

Milkcow Malaysia, straight from Korea!

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Milky Pop

Milkcow is another Korean craze that seems to be taking the nation by storm. It’s like K-pop, everything Korean is in nowadays, and that includes Korean food. Milkcow is a Korean soft serve ice cream chain. The milk is supposed to be 100% from Italy and they only have 1 flavor – which is milk soft serve ice cream. They’re famous for topping it with 100% organic honeycomb from Australia, giving it a healthy twist.

I must say, I do love raw honeycomb.

Milkcow

To be honest, I didn’t know anything about Milkcow until my better half suggested we try it after having lunch at Sunway Pyramid. Milkcow is the undisputed king of soft serve in Korea, the McDonald’s of ice cream. Random fact, I have been to McDonald’s in Korea.

Milkcow Honeycomb

We tried the Milky Pop (RM 11.50) which contains salted caramel syrup and a topping of gourmet popcorn. I asked to see what brand of popcorn they’re using (thinking it was Garrett’s or something). I didn’t recognize the brand but it came in a small tin, about quarter the size of a pint. They import all their ingredients from South Korea.

Milky Cube

We also got the signature Milky Cube (RM 13.50) which is a hybrid of sorts since it has BOTH organic honey and organic honeycomb. I had accidentally ordered Milky Honey which only has liquid honey and wanted the honeycomb. Thus, instead of changing my order, the nice servers just popped a chunk of organic honeycomb on. It was a nice big chunk too, very delicious. I loved it! There was a contest where they were giving out tickets to Avengers and we actually won. Haha.

Milkcow Malaysia

The cotton candy machine was broken that day, or I’ll have loved to try the (decidedly less healthy) Snow Drop (RM 11.50) which has Jelly Beans, salt, and organic cotton candy.

Milkcow Us

Milkcow has seen a lot of copycats like Honey Creme after its success and it’s good to have the authentic one here. I rather enjoyed their signature ice cream with raw honeycomb. It has quality ingredients and I guess its Korean origin helps in marketing, but if you take away all the branding, it’s still an amazing soft serve ice cream with no added sugar and premium organic honeycomb.

I recommend you try it at least once. It’s good.

PUTIEN Fujian Heng Hua Restaurant

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PUTIEN Prawn

I’ve been meaning to check out this Singaporean restaurant ever since they opened up an outlet in Sunway Pyramid. It serves food from the Fujian Province, specifically Heng Hwa cuisine, and I am a proud member of said clan. I’ve even been to China, although not to that part.

PUTIEN Sunway Pyramid

I thought it’ll be something like what my grandma would serve up when I was a kid.

Pickled Papaya

I was slightly mistaken in that regard. PUTIEN is a higher end restaurant that serves up quite artistic plates. Obviously, emphasis has been placed on presentation, something which is lacking in a lot of Chinese restaurants. Even better, the food is actually really good!

Iced Whole Abalone

Iced Abalone (RM 37 per pax)
Whole abalone for RM 30 per piece? Count me in! I haven’t seen that kind of prices since I went to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (which has a lot of cheap seafood). This is one of the appetizers we ordered, it’s an entire piece of abalone served on top of ice. You have to slice it yourself and it looks a little like a certain bit of female anatomy but it’s delicious!

The latter, I mean. smirk

Iced Abalone

It’s surprisingly flavorful, with notes of chilli and other spices with the tender abalone.

Bamboo Herbal Prawn

Bamboo Herbal Prawn (RM 12.50)
This is the other appetizer we ordered. This is a hot dish with a large prawn sticking out of a bamboo tube. The broth is awesome – deliciously prawn-y, with lots of Chinese wine.

PUTIEN Loh Mee

PUTIEN Loh Mee (RM 21.50)
This is their flagship dish and my better half ordered it. I can’t say I was very happy with the results. It didn’t taste really good, it was a bit of a disappointment to be honest. The noodles were rather bland and I just felt the entire dish was very blah, especially when compared to the other house specialty.

Heng Hua Bee Hoon

Fried Heng Hwa Bee Hoon (RM 21.50)
This is one of the dishes which they are famous for. The signature dish of PUTIEN is made with the only sundried vermicelli milled by hand in Putien. This artisanal product is cooked in a broth of pork bones and old hens. You can really taste the difference in the rice vermicelli, the texture is so different from others – it plays tricks on your palate with its curly, twisty and firm springiness and it absorbs the pork bones and old hens broth so well that I don’t have any other superlative to describe it except maybe legendary!

Hot Yam Gingko Paste

Hot Yam Paste with Gingko Nuts (RM 6.50)
We first ordered Pumpkin Cream with Ice Cream (RM 11.50) but the waitress told us that they couldn’t serve it coz their pumpkins were not up to standard. I thought that was really good quality control so we switched to another dessert which didn’t have pumpkin as one of the ingredients which turned out to be this. It was smaller than I expected and probably not as good as a cold dessert but it was all they had.

PUTIEN Us

We both had quite an enjoyable meal at PUTIEN. There are actually set meals with their flagship dishes for RM 104.50 for 2 pax but we could only choose one main. I ordered a la carte coz I wanted to try more than one main and I’m glad I did that coz the Fried Heng Hwa Bee Hoon was so spectacular while the PUTIEN Loh Mee was so disappointing. The bill for the two of us came up to RM 144.84 inclusive of drinks and the wonderful pickled papaya they serve as an amuse-bouche.

PUTIEN

PUTIEN
LG1.45 Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall
No. 3, Jalan PJS 11/15, Bandar Sunway
46150 Petaling Jaya

Palsaik 8 color pork belly Korean BBQ, Mont Kiara

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Palsaik

We’ve been meaning to go to Palsaik for a very long time. The concept is quite intriguing – there are 8 pieces of different flavoured pork belly (samgyupsal) in lieu of the standard “beef bulgogi” in a Korean BBQ setting. It’s a South Korea franchise, so it was really authentic too – everything from the beer to the foliage that comes with your meat just feels right. I’ve been to Korea twice and decided to bring my better half here on Sunday for lunch.

Palsaik 8 Color Set

There are only 3 items on the menu and it all revolves around pork so if The Divine Pig is not your thing, this probably isn’t somewhere you want to come. However, for the rest of us who loves oink oink, this is exactly the place to be. The 3 items on the menu are basically portion sizes – there’s a 3Color Set (meaning you can choose 3 different pieces of flavoured 150 gram pork belly) meant for 2 pax, an 8Color Set with the full range of 8 flavors for 3-4 pax, and a Premium Set with everything in the 8Color Set plus grilled deodeok (a root of a plant) for 3-4 pax.

Palsaik 8Color

We chose the complete 8Color Set since we wanted to try every single flavor they have. It’s called Palsaik after all – which I assume means “eight colors”. The pork belly comes in neatly sliced 150 gram pieces in separate bowls on a wooden board with an arrow from left to right indicating where you should start eating – from the mildest to the strongest/most intense flavors.

Palsaik 8 Flavor Pork Belly

The 8 flavors of pork belly are:

Palsaik Ginseng Wine Pine Leaves

Palsaik Garlic Herb Curry

Palsaik Miso Paste Hot

  • Ginseng
  • Wine
  • Pine leaves
  • Garlic
  • Herb
  • Curry
  • Miso paste
  • Hot

Makgeolli Korean Rice Wine

I also ordered a bottle of makgeolli – a milky, off-white Korean rice wine that weighs in at a surprising 14.45% alcohol. It comes in a plastic 750 ml bottle for RM 20, which is quite cheap – that’s the same abv and content of a regular wine bottle. I’ve had this in Korea during my two trips there and an interesting attempt by Seoul to export their culture and food has resulted in this being apparently dubbed “drunken rice”.

Palsaik Premium Set

The 8Color Set also comes with a bowl of seafood soup. This is quite authentic jjigae type dish that comes with *tons* of seafood like crab, prawns, squid, clams, mussels and octopus. We both loved the hearty spicy soup.

Palsaik Seafood Soup

There are servers who will help you grill the garlic and meat and you really just need to sit back and fold the pieces of meat together with the condiments in various types of leaves – from butter lettuce to herbs.

Palsaik Mont Kiara

I quite liked the ginseng one, it started very well. Surprisingly, the wine one was a miss for me, the marinade didn’t work through the meat well and all I got was an overwhelming taste of slightly-off pork. The pine leaves was mild and unique, the garlic superbly done with tons of flavor – they must have soaked that in for a very long time. The herb one was very interesting too. The curry pork belly slice didn’t do much for me, and we were too full by the time the miso paste one was done. The treacherous sounding hot flavor was in fact quite good, with lots of thick hot sauce still sticking to the meat.

Palsaik Us

Palsaik is a nice change if you want a porcine instead of a bovine Korean BBQ experience. We went to the outlet in SohoKL, Mont Kiara but they have another one in Scott Garden. It’s an authentic Korean BBQ chain that has taken Melbourne by storm too. Try the makgeolli when you’re there – it goes very well with the 8 flavored pork. They also serve Korean beer and soju. The bill came up to RM 153.90 for the both of us, inclusive of drinks. Needless to say, this outlet is not halal.

Palsaik Korean BBQ

Palsaik
J-01-09 SohoKL
Solaris Mont Kiara
No. 2 Jalan Solaris
Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

Birthday Dinner @ Payung Cafe Sibu

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Payung Cafe Sibu

“Don’t you want to go to some other place?” I asked my better half. She’s been eating at the exact same two places last time she was here – Aloha Cafe for lunch and Payung Cafe for dinner, so I suggested Baba & Siam but she really liked the durian ice cream we had last time at Payung Cafe so we ended up here for dinner, three days after we had another huge dinner with my sister and her family (who also loves Payung). smirk

This is my birthday dinner – my dear had flown down from KL to celebrate slightly less than 24 hours with me and we had:

Guava Salad (RM 8)

Guava Salad

This is our starter. Payung Cafe has a range of salads and most of them are great. I especially recommend the Herbs Salad (RM 8) but since it was a hot day, we went for the Guava Salad. It’s a lovely dish of guava with calamansi lime, crushed nuts and other herbs. It’s extremely refreshing!

Mushroom Roll (RM 8)

Mushroom Roll

This is a dish that has gone through many, many recipe tweaks since it was first introduced 8 years ago. I was among the first people in Sibu who first came when Payung Cafe opened in 2008 and spread the word that it was a great al fresco dining place offering the best of South East Asian (and a couple of Western) dishes.

Starfruit Prawns (RM 16)

Starfruit Prawns

I love this stuff – it’s starfruit (carambola) cooked with large prawns. There are three inside and the rest is cut up starfruits and other vegetables. It makes for a good combination. My dad ordered this one.

Thai Green Curry Chicken (RM 19)

Thai Green Curry

My better half’s order – she didn’t even have to think twice. Thai green curry is usually very spicy (at least if you eat the original from Thailand) but this is a much more muted interpretation meant for sensitive local palates.

Otak-Otak Fish (RM 12)

Otak Otak Ikan

This is a Payung Cafe staple that we all ordered to share. It’s homemade and all of their dishes comes with rice (RM 2) and we also wanted to have otak otak so the owners were kind enough to deduct RM 1 from our fourth dish – we ordered four in total for a party of 3 so we didn’t need the extra. It’s usually RM 13.

Sour Chicken (RM 18)

Sour Chicken

This is one of their daily specials. I’ve had the duck version and I like how they use Cambodian spices and herbs to make this dish – it’s quite nice. Payung Cafe also uses chicken legs only in their dishes so you’ll get cuts of drums and thighs.

Mulu Ice Cream (RM 10)

Mulu Ice Cream

We ordered one dessert for each person – this is mine, the ever-changing Mulu Ice Cream. This too has gone through several revisions, it used to be round, then a square slice, then a rectangular slice. It’s not cake – this is a sandwich of two chocolate ice cream layers with muesli in between, which is then topped with vanilla ice cream. I really like this coz of the textural aspects, there’s muesli sprinkled on top too.

Durian Ice Cream (RM 8)

Durian Ice Cream

This is a delicious concoction of homemade vanilla ice cream with durian paste. It’s delicious when they’ve just made it and it tastes like real durians instead of dodol (a local confection made with durians). It’s the reason my better half loves this place.

Jelly Pisang (RM 8)

Jelly Pisang

This is a classic Sibu dessert – it used to be served with shaved ice and bananas and Jello. Nowadays, it’s almost extinct. To the best of my knowledge, there’s only two places who still serves this – Peppers Cafe @ Tanahmas Hotel and here. This is the higher end version with homemade ice cream. It’s pictured next to Roselle Juice (RM 6) – a refreshing drink made from the roselle plant. It’s misspelled as Roxelle Juice in the menu.

Payung Cafe Birthday

It’s a wonderful dinner, made even better with the awesome company – my dad and my better half. My dad insisted of picking up the bill and treating us to the meal since it’s my birthday. The total for the three of us came up to RM 132 which is very reasonable for the amount we ordered and true to this word, the owner took RM 1 off the bill. 🙂

RM 19.50 bowl of big prawn Sarawak Laksa

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Big Prawn Sarawak Laksa

I have been lusting after this delectable dish since I saw it during Chinese New Year – the last time I was back. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to eat it then. I just came back for my mom’s first Ching Ming and was determined to taste the RM 19.50 bowl of big prawn Sarawak Laksa for myself.

Laksa Udang Besar

The friendly tau keh nio (lady proprietor) had shown me how big the prawns were and I was quite impressed. There are different sized prawns for their RM 6/9.50/19.50 bowls of laksa. They also have fish laksa and fish/prawn combinations. It’s not the price of the bowl of laksa that’s unusual – we have RM 33 bowls of big head prawn noodles too, but that being said, this is the most expensive bowl of Sarawak Laksa I’ve seen.

Lady Showing Big Prawns

This is the size of the prawns for the almost RM 20 bowl of Sarawak Laksa. These are big white prawns (Litopenaeus vannamei/大白虾) not big head prawns (Macrobrachium rosenbergii/大头虾) but it’s still unusual to have such large and (relatively) expensive prawns in a commercial bowl of Sarawak Laksa. Golden Arch in Kuching used to have huge tiger prawns too, but it’s a different species (Penaeus monodon) of prawn, which tastes different.

Blanch Big White Prawn

The prawns are frozen and it took a while to prepare this dish as they had to blanch the peeled shrimp in hot water before serving them.

RM20 Big Prawn Sarawak Laksa

I was given four (4) big white prawns instead of the usual 3 and the proprietor actually remembered me from CNY – she asked where I was from since it has been a while during the gap when I expressed interest and actually came back. The previous time was when I came to eat kampua mee and happened to stumble across the signage on this stall when I was walking back to my table.

Chopsticks Sibu

I thought it tasted quite good. It’s not as good as our favorite place in Aloha – the composition of the laksa broth is less prawn-y and intense here but it does the job for a Sarawak Laksa craving and I’ve been curious about this dish for a long time. You can find this stall at Chopsticks in Pedada, Sibu.

Nooodles @ Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport

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Nooodles Huge Bowls

We woke up bright and early for the flight to Johor to go visit Legoland – it’s a good thing we’re flying from the (much nearer) Subang Airport. None of us has eaten breakfast and since we have been eating a lot of fast food lately, my better half opted for this place.

Nooodles Subang

It was totally deserted, except for us.

Hong Kong Style Wantan Mee Soup (RM 10.90)
A Hong Kong favorite, soupy wantan noodle

Hong Kong Style Wantan Mee Soup

This is what my dear ordered – the soup is actually quite good, but nothing like the authentic wantan mee I had in Hong Kong. The crispy wantan is a nice touch though and there’s a lot of vegetables inside. Healthy!

Chicken Porridge (RM 8.90)
Porridge served with boiled chicken

Nooodles Chicken Porridge

The kids shared this huge bowl of porridge coz they didn’t want noodles. I think the Nooodles signature dish (literally) are these *massive* bowls which makes the portion look like Thai boat noodles. It’s actually a regular portion, the extra large serving bowl just makes it look small.

Chicken Herb Noodle Soup (RM 13.90)
A traditional recipe of herbal broth with steamed chicken, a favorite for the seasoned traveler

Chicken Herb Noodle Soup

This is my order – it came with a drumstick and the herbal soup is really different from a Chinese style execution. I’m not sure what is up with the odd menu description (seasoned travelers?) but it was pretty decent for airport food. I quite liked how the goji berries were mixed in with more Malay style herbs.

Nooodles Family

Nooodles is a halal outlet and the cooking style reminds me of the food I used to eat when I was living in SS6 – Malay interpretations of Chinese dishes. That’s not to say it’s bad, but it’s certainly different. I wouldn’t go again since the food wasn’t that great but it was good to fuel up before our epic Legoland trip!

I thought the timing was awesome too – we even brought our Emmet minifigure to Legoland Hotel so we could take photos for tumblingminis.com. smirk

Red Lobster @ quill

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Red Lobster Malaysia

I didn’t really pay attention to the launch of Red Lobster Malaysia so I was quite surprised to see the Red Lobster marquee while at Quill City Mall. I was there with a friend and wanted to see if it was the same Red Lobster as the US casual dining restaurant so we popped in to check it out.

Lobster Tank

They have a very misleading lunch promotional menu which says “Value Lunch RM 28.90 with 6 delicious options”. The Fine Print (TM) of “starting from” really pushes the definition of the term but who in their right mind would think lobster would come at less than RM 30? I had browsed the menu and spotted the same item I wanted to order at RM 84 but I feel that this has created a lot of ill-will among the public.

Red Lobster Value Lunch

It seems that Red Lobster Malaysia has some teething problems which resulted in a lot of angry customers but most of that seem to be price or service related. It’s been proven that good service actually increases the enjoyment of a meal and we had great service from the wait staff. Granted, we were the only ones there and the staff to customer ratio was 4:1.

Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits

We were seated inside and provided with complimentary Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits. I love the warm and cheesy biscuits, but the presentation could do with a bit of work – it was served on a tray with serviettes (!!!). I would have expected something a little better from a place like this, at least spring for a nice piece of linen to keep the biscuits warm. The complimentary soup wasn’t interesting at all but that wasn’t why I came here.

Red Lobster Lobster and Steak Burger

I ordered the Lobster & Steak Burger (RM 81.50). It’s a dish of “tender juicy beef burger patty paired with grilled Maine lobster tail and French fries”. I loved my burger! I had ordered it medium and it came out exactly medium. It was succulent and juicy and positively dripping with bovine goodness. The grilled Maine lobster tail was awesome too, especially with the butter sauce. The hot sauce was addictive as hell too!

Red Lobster Bar Harbor Lobster Bake

My friend went for the Bar Harbor Lobster Bake (RM 127.90). This is supposed to be a sharing dish but we were still quite surprised at the portion. It’s a “roasted, split lobster tail, tender shrimp, sea scallops, mussels and linguine in a savory broth”. I can’t say I enjoyed the pasta much, it was slightly gloopy but the lobster was good. The sea scallops and mussels were on the small side (especially the former) and didn’t add much to the dish. It was still better than the appalling Lobster Thermidor I had in Harrod’s KLCC.

Red Lobster

I thought Red Lobster Malaysia does what it does very well – lobster! The other dishes aren’t that great. I went for the burger coz there was a LongHorn Steakhouse directly beside this outlet sharing the same kitchen and it was super! I feel that if you go, knowing that it’s a casual dining restaurant that doesn’t accept reservations (like Chili’s), stick to what they know best (lobsters) and don’t mind the high prices (use a corporate expense account) you’ll love the food. I sure did.

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