Lot 10 is one of those shopping malls that has seen better times. Some 15 years ago, it was the premier place to shop, that was before Suria KLCC, before Mid Valley, and of course, before Pavilion.
These days, Lot 10 is keeping up with the newer malls by reinventing itself a little bit, starting with the excellent food court that is Hutong, and now, the Shabu One steamboat buffet restaurant. I’m not sure if that’s their strategy, but stuffing the mall with good food might just bring in the crowd.
Shabu One, the new steamboat place at Lot 10
I first got to know about this place from my colleague Sheng, who has a bit of a hobby in monitoring online group shopping deal sites. The dude brought 4 coupons to the Shabu One, so we headed over to Lot 10 for a Friday lunch without much expectations.
After all, the full price for lunch/dinner was only RM27.99+, and we had bought the coupons for something like another 40% off of that.
seafood and fishball-ish choices are aplenty, check out the clams!
While the restaurant is certainly not very posh, it was clean and comfortable. If you’re looking for decorations the class of Shogun or Jogoya, this is not the place for you.
On the other hand, if you love steamboat with a good selection of seafood at reasonable price, this is the real deal!
veges, noodles, and there are some pre-cooked dishes too
There’re three types of soup to choose from: clear soup, tomyam, and ma-lak (嘛辣). We had our pot split between the ma-lak and clear soup.
To be honest, the ma-lak soup was a bit of a let down. The clear soup too was slightly bland, but nothing a bit of seafood (crab in this case) can’t fix. We didn’t try the tomyam soup, so I can’t commend on that.
beef slices, various condiments, desserts, ice cream
The selection of food here is as good as anywhere else at this price point. I particularly love the super big clams they have on that day (not sure if it’s an everyday thing), along with the cuttle fish, lala, prawns, bamboo clams, and more. They are constantly being refilled too, which is always a plus.
Other than seafood you do get the usual suspects: plenty of fish ball lookalike and taste-alike stuff, big selection of vegetables, mushrooms, noodles, egg, and sliced beef.
There are also a buffet line of pre-cooked dishes such as fried noodle, curry chicken, hot and sour soup, sausages, tea leaf eggs and more so you can start stuffing your mouth from the get-go, before the steamboat is boiled.
our stomach was completely stuffed, was a great lunch for sure
As for desserts, the choices aren’t great. There’s ice cream, kuai leng gou, fruits, and a few other Chinese/Taiwanese jelly thingy. Then again, who has stomach for desserts when you go for steamboat?
Overall it’s a pretty decent place to go, pretty good value for what you have to pay, and I think we’ll be back again for some long lunches in the future.
FB page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/shabu-one-%E9%BC%8E%E6%97%BA/336554068217
Address:
Shabu One
T18-22, 3nd floor
Lot 10 Shopping Mall
Jalan Bukit Bintang
GPS: 3.146462, 101.711758
Tel: 03-2145 9933
Hours: 11 am to 11 pm
After the interesting grilled frog at my favorite foreign city, I headed to a Vietnamese seafood restaurant for dinner the following night. At the heart of the city, the Hong Hai (pronounced as 红海, or red sea, in Mandarin) restaurant is not particularly lavish nor it is very eye catching. However, judging by the crowd of locals congregating at this place, it must offer some pretty good and authentic seafood.
fresh fish, shrimps, and various types of clam
The restaurant was quite packed, but luckily we managed to secure a table at the balcony on the second level. My friend made the order as I would have no idea how to go about reading the 100% Vietnamese menu, with no translation nor any pictures. I doubt any of the servers speak English either.
three types of clam, including cockle (blood clam)
The first four dishes that came consists of the various types of clam. The boiled cockles (I think) were very delicious, and goes extremely well with the fried garlic (including skin) and vegetable garnish. The fresh and somewhat bloody cockles with the slightly salty but strong tasting garlic was just perfect. A salt + dried pepper + dried plum + lime dipping sauce accompany the dishes.
We also had a grilled clam and a plum sauce clam dishes. While the grilled clam is best enjoyed with the dipping, the plum sauce actually goes well with some bread. Pretty interesting contrasting taste among these three dishes, the bloody cockles, the dry grilled clam, and the sourish plum sauce clam.
oyster with cheese, and a great tasting hot pot with eel
Next in line were the two huge oyster with cheese. Though this dish isn’t something that is unique to this part of the world, the oyster served were the size of my palm. Needless to say, you can guess if I enjoyed it from the photo above.
Other than all the shell fish dishes, we ordered a hot pot with eel. As with most Vietnamese dishes, the pot came with a huge serving of vegetable consisting spring onion, bean sprout, okra, and interestingly, shredded banana flower, all arranged in a neat and pretty presentation. The soup tasted a little spicy and salty, but compliment the vermicelli noodle and the fresh vegetables. It was a very good dinner.
Pham Ngoc Thach road is located at the heart of Ho Chi Minh City
Hong Hai is located at the heart of the city, not more than US $2 taxi ride away from any major hotels in District 1. The dinner itself was somewhere around RM 50-60, value for money indeed.
Updated 22/10/2010: moved to 236 Pasteur, district 3, HCMC
Address:
54, Pham Ngoc Thach,
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam
Tel: 8.292977, 0908-103547
Steamboat is best enjoyed with a group of friends, so I gathered the usual suspects last weekend and eight of us went to the relatively new Damansara Village Steamboat opposite ProJET gas station near Atria at Damansara Jaya.
very nice set up and excellent ambiance
This place is more than just a simple restaurant, there’s a little pool for kids to catch guppies (longkang fish) from, some furry animals, Iguana, and a giant tortoise on one side, a miniature vegetable farm, and even a guy twisting balloons for free. At least this local restaurant is catching up to McDonald’s concept of making the kids happy first.
As for the restaurant itself, there are indoor and outdoor areas, with everything set up in an open concept. No need for air conditioning when you have high ceiling, no wall, and plenty of fans. The tables are not arranged too close together either, very spacious and comfortable.
the standard steamboat set
For the eight of us, we ordered five portion of the standard steamboat set (assorted fish balls, prawns, mussels, eggs, bamboo clams, noodle, and vegetables). To complete the meal and add some variety, we also asked for 300gm of live tiger prawn (still jumping on the plates!), straw mushroom, 1kg of giant clam, and a pretty good size batfish that looks and tastes pretty much like pomphret.
the extras: tiger prawns, clams, fish, straw mushroom
As this is a Pulau Ketam style steamboat, we go for the traditional clear soup with some herbal ingredients. The sambal provided at this place was pretty good too.
We started out boiling the soup with some seafood, fish balls, and noodle for the first round. Finished everything in less than a few minutes; and proceed with the second round of giant clams and others; then it was the fish; and after that the live prawns; with the final round of more noodles and egg. The soup got better and better as the essence of seafood ingredients got sucked into it. It was a very fulfilling meal, fresh ingredients with very good soup. The food went well with the fresh coconut juice and a bottle of toddy we ordered.
the happy diners
The dinner came to slightly less than RM 30 per person. I would consider that a very good value for the ambiance and great food we had. A place worth visiting again.
less than 2 kilometers from Kelana Jaya LRT station
Address:
1067, Jalan Jenjarum
SS23 Damansara Jaya
47400 Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.124233, 101.612672
Tel: 03-7803 1832
By the way, if you haven’t know already, the big boss is Patrick Teoh.
It was probably more than year since we went to Nong and Jimmy Thai BBQ Seafood place the last time. A place we usually refer to as “that Cheras tomyam place”, though it is actually located in Taman Cahaya and geographically not even really in Cheras, but Ampang instead. Last friday 5 of us decided to do treat ourselves some good ol’ favorites.
we ordered up a feast
ST, faggot, margie, kerol and I got to the restaurant and luckily was able to find a table without much hassle though it was a busy friday night. (I called suan but she didn’t manage to pick up.. ) The restaurant is more like a roof with some light fixtures and fan over concrete surface where they put lots of cheap tables and chairs. Do not expect air conditioning or comfortable chairs, they concentrate on food, not comfort nor the whole dining experience thingy.
ST, faggot, margie, & kerol
We ordered a basket of BBQ cockles, a claypot tomyam, BBQ prawns, BBQ stingray fish, fried squid, and kailan vegetables to go with some fried rice that includes big juicy prawns in it. The claypot tomyam and the BBQ prawn is a must, tomyam is served with prawn and squid as the main ingredients. The tomyam here tastes a little different from those that you get from mamak restaurants or Malay outlets, it is a little closer to authentic Thai flavour, we like it.
cockles, prawns, special chili sauce with peanuts, BBQ fish
Not everyone eats cockles, but if you do, do not pass it up. The chili sauce with peanuts goes very, very well with the BBQ cockles, and basically other BBQ dishes like BBQ prawns and fish. The fried curry squid was pretty good too and provided a nice departure from having too many BBQ dishes. You can order white rice to go with the dishes, but to really get some serious prawn overdose, go for the fried rice instead.
claypot tomyam, fried rice, squid, vege
Needless to say, we gobbled up everything and had happy stomachs to kick start the weekend. You can too, check out the patented map!
oh such lovely map
Address:
Lot 27363, Jalan Cahaya 1,
Taman Cahaya,
Ampang, Selangor
GPS: 3.142669, 101.754727
Tel: 03 4251 1807
