Another Tom's Damas 118 Plaza Kepayan Review

The place looks like it officially opened today (1st May 2016). Flowers were strewn all over the front of the shop. The interior has a kinda homey feel (with a soda bar inside) with a mix of benches and cottage style chairs.

Nice decor

Unfortunately at the time of writing there were no baby chairs available. The owner said that they are trying to get them in. They were expecting more adults but ended up with a lot of family diners.

After speaking to one of the owners, they said this is a branch from Kuching and Sibu. The first branch is called Tom's and the second Tom's Too. They decided to call their third branch in KK Another Tom's.

Enough history lesson, We placed our orders. We asked for their recommendations, so they suggested us to try their italian soda's. We ordered the Peach and the Passion Fruit soda's as they were recommended by the owner. Basically, they it looks like syrup with carbonated water.

Passion Fruit Italian Soda RM9.50

The owner was nice enough to give us complimentary mushroom soup since there wasn't any baby chair. So far service has been tremendously good.

Mushroom Soup

Mushroom soup was on the salty side but other than that it was full of mushroomy flavor. Once we cleared the soup our teriyaki pork with rice came. I'm not too big of a fan of teriyaki flavors so the flavor didn't appeal to me. The pork was nicely done like a softer charsiu texture lightly dressed with teriyaki sauce. However, its kinda pricey for charsiu rice.

Teriyaki Pork RM22.90

After a long wait, the club panini still hasn't arrived. The teriyaki pork has long been finished so we inquired about the order. The waitress promptly got back to us and said that it would be out in 2 minutes. A few moments later the owner checked with us if we have gotten all our orders yet. We told the owner that the panini still hasn't arrived. The owner promptly apologised and said they would check on it. Understandably, this is the first week they opened, so we expect some hiccups along the way. Again, while having hiccups, service was still at its peak.

Finally the panini arrived, fingers crossed that its as delicious as it looks.

Club Panini RM18.90

Two bites and i'm half way through my sandwich hehe.. I love it. I think its hard to find good sandwich places in KK so this is something I really enjoy. The panini was stuffed with egg, chicken, ham lettuce and tomato. I might have missed out some other ingredients but basically those were it. There is just something about the bread that they used that makes it so nice to eat. Even the kiddo who normally doesn't take sandwiches was occupied nibbling on it. My only gripe would be the use of frozen fries instead of hand cut ones, but its a minor thing.

I wish we had time to try the cakes, from we were sitting they looked really worthwhile to load up on the calories for. We'll probably give it a go next time.

Overall, from what we ordered and saw from the other tables, they seem to be better at western style cooking. Ordering asian food at these kinda prices are a little pricey in my opinion. So the next time I visit it would probably be for their western menu. Lastly, they do not have service charges here, so if you felt service was good, do give them a reasonable tip to keep service levels good.

Brussels Beer Cafe Jaya One Review

Finally decided to try the set lunch at Brussels Beer cafe at Jaya One.
The set lunches come with a drink and access to the buffet salad bar.

Perfect view of the salad bar

The set lunch is well worth with the salad bar included. I loved the potato salad and the herb flavored croutons.

The mashed potato was hard and chewy, could have been old or overmashed. The bratwurst was nice though when combined with the mash and gravy.

Farmer Bratwurst RM15 set lunch

This bacon & egg panini set came with hand cut fries. I rarely see that nowadays especially at this price.

Bacon & Egg Panini RM12.80

Overall great value for a sunday lunch, great service and would definitely pay another visit. Will need to keep track of their menu as it rotates 4 set lunch menus every week.

Goku Raku Ramen Midvalley Review

This is my second visit to Goku Raku Ramen after over a year. From what I remembered, they have great tonkotsu ramen.

Ordering is a little bit tricky, when ordering ramen, its not just point at the picture and that what you get..
When you place an order, you have a choice of a Tonkotsu ramen or the Tokyo ramen.

Choose main soup:
Tonkotsu = pork base
Tokyo = seafood base

Choose sub-soup base:
Original, shoyu or miso

Choose size:
Small: 1 ball of noodle
Medium: 1.5 balls of noodles
Large: 2 balls of noodles
Price of medium and large is the same. 

Choose noodle type:
Thin or flat

That completes the ordering.

I ordered the Super Charsiu Tonkotsu Ramen with Original Tonkotsu soup.

Super charsiu tonkotsu ramen RM25.90

Can you see the creaminess of the soup?

The gyoza came later.. I ordered this because of how it looked in the menu. Its kinda interesting that they have a giant piece of crispy flour attached to the gyoza.

Gyoza (small) RM8.90

Too bad the gyoza was tasteless.. I'm not sure if it was meant to be like that. Dipping it in vinegar made it taste better. Won't be ordering that anymore.

Back to my ramen.. The soup was full of volume. This is probably cause they boil their stock for very long hours. The charsiu was so tender that it started to melt as I lift it up with my chopsticks. It tasted absolutely heavenly!

Super Charsiu ramen 20 minutes later..

The large really has a lot of noodles, I think I would get the regular next time. It is the same price as large, I guess I wouldn't mind having more soup hehe.. Simply delicious!

Coconut House Jaya One Review

Dropped by Jaya one to have my glasses adjusted. After settling that, went to look for a place for lunch. Almost settled for set lunch at Brussels Beer Cafe, but instead found a new outlet (to me anyway) called Coconut House.

Surprisingly, regardless of their name, they serve western and mainly italian food. Their specialty, I was told are the wood fired pizza's. I did see lots of blocks of wood by an oven at the back.

Wood fired oven at the back

Looks like they serve set lunches here on weekends. Set lunches are basically a selection of mains plus a drink.

Set Lunch

 We ordered the Honey lemon drink with our set lunches. They seemed to have left out the lemon in the drink. It was way more lemon than honey (if any).

Honey lemon drink

 My dish was the first to come. The roasted italian sausage which is a chef's recommendation (I think 70% of the menu are chef recommended). I was probably expecting something at german restaurants where they serve sausage and a side of mash hehe.. Well over here they serve it with a piece of focaccia.  The sausages were topped with a tomato based sauce and what do i see? bacon? Yuuumm....
Well here goes, tear of a bit of bread top it with a little sausage, bacon and sauce.. wow! I loved the flavors that were reacting in my mouth, herbs and spice from the sausage, slight sweet and sour from the sauce and the silky smooth bacon melting in my mouth.. drool.. :p
Safe to say, I loved this dish.

Roasted italian sausage set RM13.90

Closeup of the italian sausage and bacon...

 This next dish was the focaccia dish (not chef recommended). Its basically some focaccia bread with couple slices of bacon and salad consisting of lettuce, onions, mango and rocket leaves (seems they top most of their dishes with this). It was a nice dish, only complaint would be the portion. But then again, you get what you pay for. The bacon just tastes so good that a couple of slices just isn't enough hehe..

Focaccia sandwich set RM9.90

The set lunches are great if your not looking to gorge yourself in food. Its a nice light meal and big eaters would definitely need to order a couple of sides or maybe try their specialty, the wood fired pizza's. I'd probably give them another visit put their specialties to the test.

Dubu Dubu Midvalley Review

Heard good things about Dubu Dubu korean restaurant. Everytime we went there for lunch it would always be full. So this time we had an early lunch so we could secure a seat.

Place was quite empty at 11am

I had a hot barley tea which tasted like brown rice tea. Imagine soaking brown rice in water for a while and drinking that. This was refillable.

Wife had the citrus tea which had a sweet and sour flavour. The bottom looks like citrus skin which was mostly sweet and mildly bitter (in a good sense). This was nice, I should have ordered this.

Citrus tea

The Toboki was not very good, it tastes much better at Food Garden, a food court located at The Gardens mall. Found the rice cakes were too soft till a mushy like texture but yet very chewy. The sauce was nothing to shout about, spicy, sweet and watery.

Toboki

Can't say much about the side dishes they gave, pickled vege, kimchi, bean sprouts, kosong soup. Not worth the extra ringgit for the set. However, I quite liked the Dolsot Bibimbap. The presentation wasn't really that appealing, the colors were dull but after mixing it all up, it tasted quite good. Probably the best bibimbap i've ever had (I've only had bibimbap at maybe 3 other places).

Dolsot bibimbap

Bulgogi was extremely generous with onions, not sure if bulgogi is suppose to be that way. Anyway, the beef was not carmalised enough, we are normally use to beef being browned so they have a slight crispyness to it.

Bulgogi rice

Won't be returning too soon, maybe just to try the Korean spicy wings set which is quite raved about at goodyfoodies. I would rather head to my favourite korean place at Amcorp Mall.

KFC Malaysia delivery

Just few days ago, we spotted a motorbike driving around SS2 with the words KFC Delivery. What?? KFC now delivers?? Woohooo.. Quickly we checked the website and what do you know.. They now have a delivery menu.

Family Meals on the Delivery Menu

As expected, the delivery menu is slightly more expensive than dine-in or takeaway. Also there is a minimum order of RM15 and delivery charge of RM3. Sure beats having to drive out, get stuck in traffic and look for parking.

So today I finally decided to try the delivery service. Looked up the number on the KFC website and dialed 1300-222-888. They took down, my phone number, name, address and order details and done. Waited about 30minutes and ring ring KFC is here!

KFC arrived!

I really like that it comes in a special delivery box that kept the chicken nice and hot as if I was ordering directly from the counter. Taste test time! (since its the first time having kfc delivery), Wow! its really as if I was ordering from the counter! my first bite caused a loud crunch followed by the slow leaking of kfc juices hehe.. Its goood... Definitely will be trying out delivery again.

Hot chicken

 Well, it has been a very good experience for my first time with KFC delivery. There will definitely be a second time after this and I hope they are able to maintain this standard in the future.

yes.. so good..

Damansara Hokkien Mee Review

Felt like having a greasy dinner today. What could be more greasy than hokkien mee? Noodles fried in oil and lard.. yumm lard... haha

When we arrived (around 7pm), all the seats outside was already taken. Plenty of seats inside though. As soon as we stepped in, you could feel a wave of heat coming at you from the kitchen behind. Seems  they cook the hokkien mee in front and the rest of the stuff at the back. Also there is a Chef Onn Roast duck stall there and I think they were also roasting their ducks at the back. There was a huge queue a couple minutes later after I took the picture below.

Got here while the sun is still up

So.. what to order? Hokkien mee of course! Added an extra plate of fried lard too and tried a single portion of fried rice. Seems every table was ordering it so decided to try it out. 

Menu

Ordered an orange juice to make myself feel better for ordering a greasy carbohydrate meal. 

Orange Juice (RM3.50)

A little after serving the drinks, they dropped of a big cup of chilli, guess the hokkien mee should be arriving soon hehe..

Chilli!

Well the fried rice came first, guess this was cause there was a long queue of people waiting for their hokkien mee takeaway. Hope the huge amount of people doesn't affect the taste. 

The fried rice was fragrant mildly smokey, laced with bits of char siew, long beans and topped off with what looks like a scrambled fried egg. If an egg looks like that, it can only be that it was cooked in a very high heat. High heat normally equals great fried rice in my books! Now for the taste test, no smokey flavour only the fragrance, no sweetness from the char siew, just a tinge of saltiness, light garlicly and cooked in lard? Hehe.. thats the secret to the taste. I'm sure there is lard somewhere in there. In short, loved the fried rice, but could have been better if the charsiew still had some taste in it (a little sweetness would have complimented well).

Fried Rice (RM7.00)

Finally the main dish arrived. Hokkien mee! Ordered a bigger portion of this since this was suppose to be the star of this place. I grabbed a bite and.. oh no.. the noodles were so soggy.. disappointing, seeing that there was a huge crowd, they probably cooked a big batch of hokkien mee together and probably thats why it ended up like this. The taste was right, but went wrong in the texture. Oh well.. all I can say is that I was glad I ordered the fried rice as it probably tasted better than this. 

Hokkien mee 2 person serving (RM14.00)

Overall, disappointing experience with the star dish (hokkien mee) but would still return maybe during an offpeak time if possible to get a properly cooked hokkien mee, if not i'm gonna return to the charcoal hokkien mee in section 17. 

Chatterbox One Utama Review

Ended up in One Utama for lunch today as a colleague volunteered to drive everyone out hehe.. Chatterbox has 3 choices of set lunches available on weekdays with a rotating daily menu (according to the staff).

Set Lunches

Most of us got the set lunch, which comes with a main meal, soup and a drink. Colleague recommended the Yin Yong (Coffee Tea drink). The dirnk was really nice, but still doesn't beat papparich though.

I ended up with Set C which is the Cheese Baked Rice with Fish Fillet in White Sauce. A little story about cheese baked rice, initially I was weary when I ordered my first cheese baked rice. I always thought, what!! cheese and rice?? how does that go together?? A friend once explained to me that rice was just like pasta and then it started to make sense to me hehe..

Anyway, back to Chatterbox. The cheese baked rice didn't disappoint, crusty cheese on the top, soft ooey cheese at the bottom followed by crunchy fillets of fish and slight saltish grains of rice. YUM! Will always be back for more of this.

Cheese Baked Rice with Fish Fillet

Two colleagues of mine had the fried rice, the presentation was too appealing and well.. the taste matched the look. Quote my colleague, "Better at a mamak stall". Will be staying away from this.

Chatterbox Fried Rice

One colleague decided not to have the set lunch and ordered the pork chop cheese baked rice (RM15.50) of the standard menu. Again a great dish which could only get better by topping up with chill oil! hehe..

Cheese Baked Rice with Pork Chop 

I'm a big fan of the cheese baked rice and would definately be back for more probably only on the weekday because of the savings with having the set lunch. 

Cinnamon Cafe, One World Hotel Review

Its about the time of the year where our company holds our annual company lunch. This time instead of heading to Eastin Hotel, Phileo Damansara, we are trying out a new place called Cinnamon Cafe in One World Hotel.

Arriving at One World Hotel, finding the Cinnamon Cafe was difficult and we eventually ended up asking one of the service staff to show us the way. We headed down to the basement floor and was greeted by a small entrance to the cafe. No person stationed in front and we walked right in browsing the food. 5 minutes later somebody finally approached us to ask if we have a reservation and showed us our table.

The place was basically empty and we had the whole place to ourselves.

Main Entrance

Inside though was a huge dining area nicely laid out with a semi outdoor area (presumably for smokers).

Compared with Eastin Hotel, there were probably 5x more choices available and for almost the same price.  You have the usual salad counter, roast meats, pasta corner, western food, cakes, sushi station, tempura, dim sum, local food, yong tau fu, laksa terengganu etc. Not so usual would probably be the satay, which was mostly cooked on the spot. Most of the food there is freshly cooked or cooked on demand.

Fresh satay

Desserts were the usual mixtures of cakes, crepes, kuihs, a chocolate fountain, unbranded icecream. There were two flavors of Potong icecream to choose from. Red bean and something else which i forgot.

Well I started out with a bit of everything. a little caesar salad with plenty of cheese, a touch of anchovies and sprinkles of turkey bacon. Yum.. the caesar sauce is definately made in house.

First round

Unfortunately, after the first round I forgot to take more pictures of the actual food. Well I'll post some of the pictures of the food stations below:

Salad bar

Frying and Cooking Station

More deep fried stuff

Healthy Yong Tau Fu

Satay Stand which also had lots of indian style cooking

Sharwarna Corner. No idea what this is.

For Sushi and seafood lovers

Pizza! Beef pizza was nice, next door was a western food stand

Bread Rolls, soft and chewy, didn't like it. Expected a crusty crust

Roast Beef and Pasta station

 Stole a bit of aglio olio spaghetti from a colleague. Spicy and tasted great! Too full to eat anymore carbo's though.

Desserts! ABC, crepes and the delicious cakes

Some dessert porridge and Peach crumble

The american chocolate cake at the dessert station was amazing, you could really taste the chocolate with every bite, not in a sweet sense but a true almost dark and mildly sweet chocolate taste. Went well with a cup of coffee. I went for second helpings of that. Again.. sorry no photo haha.

Hope to have another company lunch/dinner here again next time. Sure beats Eastin Hotel.