One of my old friends cass, whom I haven’t really meet since Terence’s wedding last year suggested that a small get together session is organized to catch up for lost time. The venue was to be at Bernard’s Bistro at Bandar Utama Centrepoint, and she called it a chicken rice gathering since the chicken rice there is supposed to be superb. A facebook event was created, and last week 8 of gathered.

plenty of chicken, a soup, and some bean sprouts

To be honest, I have some reserves on the lady’s statement with regards to the chicken rice, but I ordered it nonetheless. This is partly due to the fact that I know Champs (just upstairs of Bernard’s) also serves pretty good Chinese food (especially the soya sauce pork 豆油肉), and since Champs were sort of a spin off from Bernard’s according to some sources, the food shouldn’t disappoint.

These two restaurants are unique in the sense that they have a wide selection of traditional Malaysian/Chinese food in a bistro setting that is not very different from Chilis or TGI Friday’s. So you can have a combination of chicken rice and whiskey, or nasi lemak with cocktail, if you wish.

prawn mee and nasi lemak are good too

So I went with the recommendation and ordered the chicken rice, drum stick portion. The other noobs had the wing portion, and faggot called for the left breast (left breast is statistically bigger than the right), and some ordered the hokkien mee and nasi lemak as well.

clockwise: kerol, suan, faggot, steph, cass, st, kim

Food was served professionally some 10 minutes later. A pretty big portion of chicken, a plate of bean sprouts, soup, rice, and the chili sauce/paste that is synonymous to chicken rice. To cass’s credit, it actually tasted very good! The chicken was very smooth and the sauce not too salty, the chili was good too as Kerol had about 3 servings. The others commended the nasi lemak and hokkien mee too.

Bernard’s is located at BU Centrepoint, below MOMO Japanese Restaurant

The chicken rice was RM 11.50++, the bill came to around RM 20 per person including drinks and the extra charges. It was a very nice get together session that I think we should do a bit more often, good food, nice ambiance, and even better company.

Address:
G9A-14, Centrepoint,
Jalan Leboh Bandar Utama,
47800 Petaling Jaya
Selangor
Tel: 03-7710 3188

Tags:  bandar-utama,  bernards,  bistro,  BU-centrepoint,  chicken-rice,  Eats,  pub

Posted by KY | 13 Comments »

Every once in a blue moon, I get to be invited to sample a restaurant, this is one such occasions. Brian (Thanks!) from All dat Jazz contacted me via email and told me about Groove Junction, I immediately agreed to the free food. I had initially thought that there would just be myself and a couple of other friends I bring a long, but it turned out to be a bigger occasion with Riz, masak-masak, and Lemongrass there as well. This is also the first time I met the friendly bunch.

nice place, good food, bloggers at work

Groove Junction is actually a rather new place that has been in operation for only a couple of months. The Bistro and Cafe sat right on top of Karma in Sri Hartamas, just a stone’s throw away from the ProJet petrol station. The ambiance of the place is very nice, slightly darker compared to normal restaurants, but fits perfectly with the stage up front where live bands play Jazz nightly. A very relaxing and rather classy setting, perfect for bringing your special ones there.

Ellena’s Lamb Steak, Sonny Rollins (chicken), Billie Holiday (fish), Dexter Cordon (chicken corddn blue)

But when it comes down to it, the most important thing for a restaurant is still the food, so how does Groove Junction fair?

Since this was a food tasting session, we actually got to try quite a number of dishes from their extensive menu. Starting off with Yam Nam glass noodle and a piece of mushroom bruschetta as appetizer. These two items actually made me even hungrier than I had started out, they were actually very good, the glass noodle was spicy and has a tangy taste, while the creamy mushroom bruschetta offers contrasting texture and taste that fits perfectly.

lamb curry with toasted bread, and some desserts

For the main dishes, we sampled a total of six dishes. A (Ellena’s) lamb steak that is one of their best sellers, the really excellent chicken with orange seasoning wrapping some asparagus that they call Sonny Rollins, Dexter Cordon (Chicken Cordon Blue), pan fried sole fish named Billie Holiday, and Beef Panne - the grilled beef prepared with herb sauce. Of these 5 dishes, I like Sonny Rollins and the beef the most, but the other three were very good too, it’s just a tragedy not having a big enough stomach to eat more than a few bites from each dish.

Being a Bistro, Groove Junction offers some finger food as well. We had the Chickalina’s, marinated chicken in black sauce, and the lamb curry with toasted bread. These stuff will go down very well with some beer.

And as if there was any space in my stomach, we had desserts. The Roll Morton (hot banana “pohpiah” with ice cream) was actually very addictive with its contrasting temperature and texture, Riz ended up having like 3 or 4 of those. The cheese cake and tiramisu were reported to be very good by the ladies, but I just couldn’t fit another bite by then.

The price of food at Groove Junction is pretty much in line with any restaurant of its class. Finger foods at around RM 15 and main dishes from RM 20+ to RM 30+. Considering the great atmosphere and the accompanying fabulous live Jazz, this place offers pretty good value for some really good food. I’ll return as a paying customer for sure.

address:
Groove Junction
1-1, Jalan 22A/70A
Desa Sri Hartamas
Kuala Lumpur
tel: 03-6201 8990

Tags:  bistro,  dining,  Eats,  groove-junction,  hartamas,  Jazz,  KL,  ky,  kyspeaks

Posted by KY | 11 Comments »