Category / PJ Others
January 28, 2013
A couple weekends ago we were invited to the opening of Royal Flush Chinese Restaurant, the latest venture from the group behind Tom Dick and Harry, Hoofed, and Ali, Muthu, and Ah Hock.
Located at the relatively new Oasis Square at Ara Damansara, Royal Flush sits within a grand three story building that could easily be mistaken as a shrine or palace. The interior lived up to the positive first impression of the building from the outside, it is beautifully furnished with what you’d expect from a classy Chinese eatery.
Royal Flush Chinese Restaurant at Oasis, Ara Damansara
Five private rooms sits above the common dining hall on the ground floor, and there’s an outdoor rooftop moonlit garden as well. I was well impressed of the ambiance the place.
crispy spring rolls
We were first treated with some tidbits before dinner officially kicks off. The crispy spring rolls tastefully presented on a bed of sprouts, it was crunchy on the outside and moist within, we made quick work of them with ice cold beer.
cucumber with pork floss and chestnut, “twin cold combination”
Cucumber with chestnut and pork floss probably took a hint from Japanese cuisine with it’s sushi-like presentation, but tasted distinctively Chinese. Combination of meat with the freshness of cucumber and the crunchy chestnuts worked well.
After these two dishes, our dinner from the 9-course Chinese New Year menu officially starts.
First to be served was “twin cold combination“. The oyster shot was delicious – fresh juicy oyster in a special light sauce that has Japanese soya sauce, lemon, and other touches in it’s list of ingredients. The shellfish, on the other hand, is served with kiwi fruits and tomato. I liked the seafood but am allergic to kiwi, so perhaps missing from the total experience.
dimsum combination, grilled cod fish, grilled scallop bacon
The second dish was dimsum combination, with xiao long bao, fish ball, and siu mai. These measures up to some of the better dimsum dishes I tried.
Cod fish is one of my favorite seafood, and the execution from the chef in this grilled cod fish dish did not disappoint. The exterior lightly charred with a taste of honey, it was exquisite and delicious.
Grilled bacon scallop had it’s origin from pigs in blanket, with the scallops successfully elevate the status and sophistication of this otherwise simple dish. A couple grilled ginko nuts were served on the side to provide some balance.
grilled pork ribs
The third grilled (and final) grilled dish was the grilled pork ribs. It was sweet, succulent, and would certainly please any pork loving diner. While the dishes might not look heavy, we were starting to get a little bit full by this dish.
asparagus, abalone fried rice
A simple dish of asparagus with bonito flakes provides the comfort to your mom that something green is consumed, and the main dishes is capped off with abalone fried rice that’s served with a beautiful whole scallop in the middle. Of course, there was no way I was going to waste this, it was soft, succulent, and how abalone should taste like.
doubled boiled bird’s nest, KY & Haze
The two desserts served together in this RM 1,200 CNY set menu (for 10 pax) were double boiled bird’s nest and crystal peanut dumpling. Dinner was well satisfying with very good food and excellent company, if I had to nitpick, the only criticism I can think of would be the lack of traditional soup in the CNY menu. Then again, you can always order that separately
Royal Flush promises a wide variety of other dishes – including geoduck, suckling pigs, yee sang, and more, many of these would be bold and modern interpretation of traditional dishes, while others, closer to the origin. If the quality is consistent to what we experienced over this review session, Royal Flush would be a force to reckon with in the higher end Chinese cuisine market.
Address:
The Royal Flush
Central Piazza, Oasis Square Ara Damansara,
2, Jalan PJU 1A/7A, Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.11352, 101.574612
Tel: 012-211 7810, 016-2912 737, 012-299- 7598
June 18, 2012
We have a friend in Winnie, who also goes by the nickname of hamsup (the origin of this is your extra credit homework, thank you very much).
When hamsup was working near my office, we used to have lunch every once in a while, but since she moved on to greener pasture, that has dwindled a bit, so we spent a bit of time catching up a bit over dinner at Bone & Pot (有骨气) at Kelana Jaya just the other day.
Bone and Pot at Kelana Jaya – plenty of soup choices
Bone and Pot is located opposite Kelana Jaya LRT station, parking is usually not a headache inducing exercise. The restaurant is clean, modern, and equipped with working air conditioning system that makes having a steamboat dinner a rather enjoyable affair.
For those who prefer sniffing haze and enjoying the great outdoor with smoking allowed, there’s the alfresco area as well.
fried beancurd, chicken “soft bone”, and squid with salt and pepper
While waiting for hamsup, we started with a few deep fried dishes to line our stomach.
The golden bean curd (RM 5.80) is a rather surprising dish, surprising in how soft and smooth the bean curd actually is, and with that golden slightly crunchy skin, makes a fabulous starter.
Salt and pepper chicken soft bone (RM 11.80) reminded me of the dish I had at Sumi Ka Yakitori at Subang, except this is in a deep fried form, equally as tasty. Salt and Pepper squid (RM 8.80) did not disappoint either, but I thought having 3 dishes that shares the same type of sauce (Thai chili sauce) was perhaps a bit too monotonous in retrospect.
Perhaps I should have used the other sauces available.
cheese ball, pork ball, sotong ball, shrimp ball, mushroom with pork ball
Like other steamboat places, there’s plenty of fish ball/pork ball choices available. We had cheese ball (RM 8.80 for 4), home made pork ball (RM 6.90 for 4), squid ball (RM 7.90 for 4), shrimp ball (RM 8.90 for 4) and mushroom with home made pork ball (RM 7.90 for 4) and fish dumpling (RM 4.80 for 6 pieces)
These “balls” mostly have pretty firm texture, with the cheese ball particularly interesting. I like them all, but couldn’t really taste anything other than the dumpling skin from the fish dumpling though. That’s one that I would probably skip.
beef slices, pork neck slices, lamb slices, pork intestine, and vege
Meat wise we had fresh lamb slices (RM 15.90), fresh beef slices (RM 16.90), and pork neck slices (RM 15.90). These are frozen meat that requires less than a couple minutes in the boiling soup. A word of advice – don’t leave them on the table too long lest you want the meat to go limp. They were fresh and we enjoyed em much.
Pork intestine (RM 8.90) came pre-cooked and thus you don’t need to worry about it messing up the taste of the steamboat soup, portion was definitely a little too much for this dish as only Horng and I ended up eating them. The girls did not share our palette for this particular internal organ. This goes very well with the sauce. 
Finally, no steamboat is complete without vegetable, we had water cress (RM 4.90) and rocket (RM 5.50), and together they gave us all the vitamin C we needed for the next day (I think).
Horng, Yuki, Kerol, KY, Haze, and Winnie, we chose tomato & potato broth
As for the choice of soup, Bone & Pot offers some interesting choices. There’s their signature pork bone broth, pepper pork broth, preserved eggs with Chinese parsley broth, Tomyam broth, and the our choice of the night – tomato and potato broth. This is rather different from the usual clear soup and tomyam soup choices at other places.
Towards the end of our meal, the broth became very similar to HK style borscht soup, unique, filling, and complimented the mostly meat and processed seafood ingredients that we had.
With drinks, we ended up spending a tad over RM 30 per person at Bone & Pot. I consider it a place worth visiting again, the soup is top notch, ingredients are fresh, service generally pretty good, and while you do pay a slight premium, it is in line with what is offered.
Address:
Bone & Pot
No: 7, Jalan SS25/12,
47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.11400, 101.60061
Tel: 03-7880 5511
Hours: 5 pm to 1 am everyday
June 4, 2012
Pork intestine porridge is also a dish that isn’t nearly as common these days as it used to be. I suspect this has something to do with the idea that pig innards aren’t exactly the healthiest thing out there, and younger generations are usually less familiar with them.
While being from a relatively “young” generation, I on the other hand, absolutely love them. I always believe that you can and should eat everything in moderation, and a little bit of innards now and then never hurt, especially if you have a balance diet and exercise on regular basis (everyone knows about this anyway..)
an unexpected find at restaurant Say Huat
Anyway, just the other day I found myself at Seksyen 17 having an hour to kill, so as a Penangite, the natural thing to do was to find a place to sit and eat, and that’s how I ended up at restaurant Say Huat, having Robert’s Char Kuih Teow in my mind.
My attention was drew to the porridge stall when I got there, and a glance on the menu confirmed that they serve pork intestine porridge – it was then I decided I gotta have this.
this porridge is full with “liu”, and only RM 4.50
For RM 4.50, this is perhaps the most beautiful bowl of porridge you can get. The surface is completely covered with crispy deep fried pork intestine, yao char kuai, spring onion, and ginger. It was a work of art.
yau char kuai, pork, crispy intestine, liver
Inside there’s also chunks of pork (with soft bone), liver, and of course, the porridge that is topped with some soya sauce, pepper, and sesame oil. The texture of the congee was soft, smooth, and actually perhaps just slightly too thick.
Over all though, it was still a very decent bowl of good old pork intestine porridge, if you like it lighter, try the seapark version, but if you want it heavy, and not to mention excellent value for money, this one won’t disappoint.
Address:
Restaurant Say Huat
1083, Jalan 17/29
46400 Selangor
GPS: 3.128818, 101.635305
June 1, 2012
There’s a little story on how we discovered Secrets of Louisiana:
So Haze was having some sort of withdrawal symptoms from not having had beef for too long, and we decided that dinner was gonna involve red meat.
Our first choice wasn’t exactly my first choice - Las Vacas, wasn’t exactly my favorite, and this only because it is an NFC restaurant. (got my info mixed up, thank you ZinZan) Well, it was closed (Monday I think)
We then drove Atria area and checked out Carnaval Brazilian Buffet, thinking that they might have ala carte. Nope, they didn’t, and I wasn’t prepared to stuff myself with assorted beef, so we got on the car to brace the traffic again.
Half an hour or so later we arrived at Plaza Kelana Jaya, after having read Eat Drink KL’s entry on Manhattan Steak House blog post and wanted to give it a try. Unfortunately, that establishment closed down for good.
Secrets of Louisiana, one of the best sunset views
Just as we gave up the whole idea of having red meat for dinner and started walking down on the stairway at Plaza Kelana Jaya, we passed by Secrets of Louisiana. Since there was no way we were going to go into the car again, we took a table and sat in.
Luckily, the evening ended up better than expected.
Secrets of Louisiana, and generally restaurants at Plaza Kelana Jaya, offers a great sunset view by the lake. This is especially true if you refrain yourself from examining the cleanliness of the pond. There’s usually a gentle breeze too, a bit of a faux seaside experience if you will. I quite like it.
garlic fest tenderloin and black mussel pot
The waiter who served us acted professional despite being obviously not from Louisiana or even Malaysia, a sign that management actually put an effort into providing an American dining experience of sort. A change from the usual.
We started off with black mussel pot (RM 26.90). The seafood was decent, the buttery broth paired quite with the garlic bread came with the dish.
Haze ordered the Garlic Fest Tenderloin (RM 42.90) and had it prepared rare. I took a little bite, and while it wasn’t the best beef I’ve had, it was certainly much better than average and at least as much as what they charge for it. True to cajun style cooking, the marinate was quite strong, but anyone who loves garlic would find the taste welcoming.
rack of lamb was fantastic
Since they actually only had one piece of tenderloin left that evening (just our luck), I opted for the rack of lamb (RM 42.90) simply based on how good it looked on their menu.
Three pieces of pretty good size NZ lamb rack with cajun seasoning and honey mustard sauce was served after less than half an hour. It was delicious, and certainly brought back some memory of my only short vacation to Louisiana many years ago when I was a college student in the States. Good stuff, I recommend it.
KY & Haze, finally had what we wanted
Secrets of Louisiana turned out to be a place worth visiting, other than lamb and steak, they serve rice, pasta, pizza, chicken, seafood, and even a set lunch menu under RM 20. Will go back there again one of these days.
Address:
Secrets of Louisiana
Block D-01-01,
Jalan SS7/13A,
Plaza Kelana Jaya, @ The Lake
Petaling Jaya 47301
GPS: 3.09634, 101.59800
Web: secretoflouisiana.com
Tel: 03 – 7875 5230
May 10, 2012
Penang One restaurant, oh how I am glad I found you. Even though you are located at this god forsaken place that is ruled by the trafic devil, I will still visit you whenever my cravings for Penang food arises.
The back story: last Saturday I had a sudden cravings for a bowl of good old Penang curry mee. I woke up early enough (they usually run out before 9:30 am) and headed to Restaurant Okay at SS2, they were closed for Wesak.
I recalled that masak-masak blogged about this place at Hartamas, so I drove 13 KM to the destination, well, they’ve been closed like 3 years ago.
Not to be deterred, I then drove another 12.5 KM to the curry mee at Restaurant Good Food in PJ Old Town…. to find out that they’ve moved. By then I was too hungry and settled on a bowl of kuih teow soup, which actually turned out to be very good, but that’s another post on another day.
This was when I shared my unfortunate adventure on twitter and facebook, with quite a few of you suggested that I should try Penang One, so here I was, a day later, with another fellow Penangite in Fresh, and the laksa expert in Haze as my partners in crime.
Penang One, delivered daily from Penang for original taste
According to their website, the food here is professionally cooked by the original masters of the selected famous street foods, and then transported to Puchong on a daily basis. By their account, this would be as good as the original.
So I ordered my long overdue curry mee, Haze had laksa, while Fresh asked for a plate of char kuih teow with duck egg.
curry mee, char kueh teow, and Penang laksa
Service wasn’t the fastest considering the relatively low volume of people when we dined, but it wasn’t terrible either. Some 15 minutes after ordering, our food came.
The curry mee (RM 8.50) is purportedly from Pulau Tiku’s Keong curry mee. Prawns, cuttle fish, coagulated blood (YES!), tofupok, long bean, cockles, and mint leaves. That’s about all the ingredients you’ll ever need in a bowl of good curry mee, and the sambal too was top notch, fragrant and spicy.
Char Kueh Teow (RM 9.90 with duck egg) is of Kampung Jawa Pee Chuan’s recipe. Fresh had it and she didn’t speak a word while eating, it was as good as original, and really comes with those huge prawns and all.
The asam laksa (RM 7.90) that Haze had was from Lorong Selamat’s Ji De Chi, and when asked about how it tastes, she replied “just like those in Penang lor”, and then continued slurping away. It passed her test.
chee cheong fun, kueh teow soup (with blood too!), ice kacang
Since we were already there and that their portion rather close to Penang serving size, we decided to go for seconds.
Fresh had the chee cheong fun (RM 3.30) from Lorong Macalister and I took bite too, no disappointment, the only other place in PJ to get this version of chee cheong fun would be at O&S restaurant in PJ.
Haze’s second order was the duck meat kuih teow soup originally from Lebih Cecil. There’s duck meat, shredded pork, fish cake, and even coagulated duck blood. Now if you like pork blood, you’re going to love duck blood, they are quite a lot smoother and has an even more exquisite taste to it. I love it. The fish balls though, were just very average in my opinion.
I had ais kacang (RM 6.50) Swatow Lane New World Park, and it tasted just as I remembered, except for the serving size being larger here. All the ingredients you’d expect is in, give me a bowl of ais kacang anytime over any Snow Flake shaved ice.
KY, Fresh, and Haze, we were well satisfied
Prices are a little on the high side, but not any more than other Penang themed restaurants such as Penang Village or Little Penang Cafe. The difference is, this place isn’t halal and really do serve you the original ingredients in all their dishes.
By the end of the afternoon, we were very well fed and very well satisfied with the food from Penang One. The 6 different dishes we tried did not disappoint, and I can’t wait to go back there again, we still need to try the Hokkien mee (Jalan Burma), Yam Cake, and Bak Chang (Cintra Lane).
more photos at KYspeaks.com facebook page
Address:
Penang One
No. G5, Jalan Puteri 2/1
Bandar Puteri, Puchong Jaya
47100 Puchong, Selangor
GPS: 3.024748, 101.615945
Tel: 03-8052 0181
Web: penang-one.com
Hours: 9:30 am – 9:30 pm
