Saturday, August 24, 2013

Shanghainese & Cantonese Cuisine at Xia Mian Guan Sunway Pyramid PJ - Best Restaurant To Eat

Talk about Chinese food, there are many choices in town that serves various types of Chinese food, At Xia Mian Guan located OB.K7, Ground Floor, Oasis Boulevard, Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall, No. 3, Jalan PJS 11/15, Petaling Jaya, Bandar Sunway, it is a new restaurant that serves its version of Shanghainese and Cantonese Cuisine.
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The restaurant opened business for in March 2013 in Sunway Pyramid. The ambience and décor is elegant and service were very prompt and efficient.

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We sample a few of their Chef signature dishes which I will be highlighting as below. First on the table were appetiser dishes.

Caesar Salad With Crispy Soft Shell Crab. Normally, you would not expect to be served salad in a Chinese Restaurant, more so the Caesar Salad serves here come with Soft Shell crab. Most others will be served with Roasted Chicken or with Bacon Chips.

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The sauce accompanied with the salad is a concoction of the mayonnaise sauce and also a concoction of sesame sauce according to the manager. To my surprise, it is quite refreshing with the mixture of boiled eggs and crunchy fresh garden vegetables that goes into this salad dish. Although a little pricier, it is a refreshing start to a Chinese meal.

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Price: RM 48.00
Rating : 3 of 5

This Crispy beancurd skin is a very unique dish. Normally bean curd skin filling is either using pork meat with prawns of just fish paste. At Xia Mian Guan, the chef have a different filling recipe.

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My first guess, when I took a bite was they were using radish or turnip but a check with the chef, boy was I in for a great surprised, it was a combination of 3 types of mushroom (Black (shitake) mushroom, Enoki Mushroom and Chicken Thigh Mushroom (Oyster mushroom) cut to very thin strips.
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What a pleasant surprise and indeed innovative way to prepare crispy bean curd skin.

Price: RM 12.00/8 pcs
Rating : 4 of 5

Different chef have their secret recipe when preparing pork ribs. There is a tendency that the meat of pork rib will be firm and tough. The challenge is therefore to ensure that the right marinate, flavours and timing becomes critical.

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I would say that these Deep Fried Spare Ribs Red Wine Sauce ribs were very well marinated. When the dish was serves to us, we could see the glaring shine of the meat and the well covered marinate around the pork ribs. Taking the first bite, the texture was firm and the taste flavourful.

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The ribs tasted even better than it looked. Fried to perfection, with the strong Red Wine sauce glaze wakes up our taste buds. The meat was superbly tender too. Can’t help myself to a second and a third helping.

Price: RM 16.00 per ribs
Rating : 4 of 5

At most restaurant bean curd used are usually the one that are purchased from the market. You can order either the normal ones (white) or the Japanese type (yellow). But, at Xia Mian Guan, the chef goes thru a tedious process to prepare these beancurd. These beancurd are prepared fresh everyday.

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Good
From the soya bean, it is blended and strain out the juices. The strained juice are then cooked and then added into the tray which, the chef have put in finely chopped spinach at the bottom. The result is the Imperial BeanCurd.

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The Imperial Bean Curd can be cooked with a variety of style, but the one that I am previewing here is the Braised Imperial Bean Curd with Crab Meat. The bean curd was very soft and smooth. Couple with the Crab Meat sauce, it really blended very well with the bean curd. This dish is excellent complimentary to white rice.

Price: RM 20.00
Rating : 3 of 5

Many restaurant serves Farm Chicken as a Poached Style with Kai Lan. Here we had the opportunity to try a specially smoked version i.e. Smoked Farm Chicken with Pu Er Tea Leaves. I had the opportunity to prepare Smoked Eggs with tea leaves during my trip to Taiwan and this dish reminds me of the wonderful taste of those eggs and with that taste lingering over me, it will be the benchmark to compare.

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When the dish came, I took the chicken thigh, the first impression was the smoky taste followed by the strong Pu Er leaves taste. It was very much stronger than when I did with the eggs, For those, not a tea lover, you will find it a tad bit of bitter tea. I believe the chef have used quite a lot of tea leaves.

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The taste is inclined to a bit of saltiness too and make a pleasant dish eaten with white rice. If you have eaten paper wrap salt chicken, you will find this dish similar to that but with a strong taste to Pu Er Tea.

Price: RM36.00 per half bird
Rating : 3 of 5

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Thai Food at Krathong Thai – Seri Petaling KL - Best Restaurant To Eat

Once in a while, you will have some carving for some spicy and sourish food to whet your appetite and what’s more to this than having Thai Food for a change.

Had the opportunity to try out a new outlet in Seri Petaling D1 & D2, Glass City, Jalan Radin Anum 1, Sri Petaling – Restoran Thai Krathong. This restaurant started quite sometime ago in Bandar Tasik Selatan and Maju Junction (this outlet is closed) and they have move to this location in Seri Petaling and it has been operational for about 7 months now. By the way, this is a Halal restaurant.

You will not miss this outlet as the décor resembles a kampong house to create a homely environment. The ambience was quite nice but if you happen to go at night there are a couple of mosquitoes that you will come across as this is open concept (no air condition).


Back to the food, the first dish that we savoured for the night was the Thai Style Pineapple Fried Rice – The rice was very starchy and this made all the rice sticking to each other. The benchmark for Fried Rice is that each grain of rice should be on its own. Overall the taste was quite bland and flat compared to some, which I have tasted at some other restaurant. They were very little pineapple and the yellowish colouring is overwhelming and made this dish not that appetising.

Overall rating - 1 of 5.


Mention any Thai food and you can miss out ordering the ever popular dish of Pandan Leaf Chicken.


The Pandan Leaf Chicken served here is a different twist from those serves at other restaurant. Although from the look of the pandan wrapping, the frying process is thorough, but when one open the wrapping, you can see that the chicken does not have much crisp, and looks like quite plain. Although the chicken portion is quite big the taste was not quite as expected.

Overall rating - 1.5 of 5

Next on the list is the Seafood Otak-Otak. The Otak-Otak serves here is very unique. Most serves especially in Muar Johor – the home of Otak-Otak is the visually BBQ of some mackerel fish paste wrap in banana or coconut leaves.


 At Thai Krathong, it is served using aluminium foils (shaped as a ball) and in it comes with fresh prawns, squid and of course fish paste. The chef is brave enough to experiment with this variation against the originality of Otak-otak. The prawns used here were very fresh and the white squid were very bouncy too, all contributing to a new unique taste for me.



Overall rating - 3 of 5
There are many ways to steam tilapia examples are Special Sauce, Ginger and the more popular is Assam Style. Here, we get to sample, the Steamed Tilapia Fish Krathong Style. Not exactly the same with the normal style of Thai Steam.



Eating Tilapia can be challenging as some restaurant have it frozen and cooked when you order. As Tilapia is a fresh water fish, there is a tendency of the meat degradation when it is frozen.

At this restaurant, the fish are kept in an aquarium where they are fish out fresh and on to the dining table pretty quickly. This ensures that the Tilapia serves here are of the freshest possible.


The use of plenty of garlic makes this spicy sourish dish stand out. Combined with the freshness of the fish, this dish is best eaten with white rice and also second helping.
Overall rating - 3 of 5

Tom yam is a must dish to finish any Thai Food meal. There are many variations of Tom Yam either in plain clear soup or spicy red Tom Yam.


The Tom Yam Soup with Seafood serves here are Thai Krathong is of the plain type. It is not very spicy which makes it just right for the kids to have it. I would have preferred it to be a little more spicy. The prawns, white squid used here are very fresh and succulent. Best eaten with white rice.


Barbeque BBQ Pork "Ngam Yin Siew Wan" Rice The Roast House Kuchai Entrepreneur Park KL- by Best Restaurant To Eat

There are 2 main things that differentiate from one really good Char Siew rice. First thing is the looks of the Char Siew and of course the taste of it.
Photo of The Roast House in Kuchai Lama Klang Valley
Here at Roast House - 30, Jalan Kuchai Maju 8, Off Jalan Kuchai Lama, Kuchai Entrepreneurs Park, Kuala Lumpur, Kuchai Lama, the Barbeque Char Siew was just succulent and flavourful. The chef have used the right choice of meat (ie just the right amount of fats and meats - which is very important to get the best of the Char Siew). Of course the right amount of ingredient and right amount of BBQ time is also important to bring out the best and juicy Char Siew. It is also served with an omelete and plenty of green vergetables which makes the meal very complete.
Photo of The Roast House in Kuchai Lama Klang Valley
Photo of The Roast House in Kuchai Lama Klang Valley
This Barbecue Pork “Ngam Yin Siew Wan” Rice comes accompanied with Soup of the Day. Most complimentary soup are quite plain. I was surprised to taste the soup that was very flavourful. The chef have used quality ingredient and real efforts to come out with this quality.
Overall Rating 4 of 5
Date of Visit: 2013-07-24
Spending:
Approximately RM
10