Ben’s is one of the latest restaurants to open on the 6th floor of Pavilion KL, replacing the ill fated Carat Club, as I suppose, the owner probably discovered that diamonds and food doesn’t necessarily go well together.
If you’ve just spent 2 month’s salary on a piece of carbon, chances are your appetite might not be very good.
Ben’s at Pavilion, 6th floor
Ben’s is another restaurant under the BIG group, which also owns T Forty Two, Plan B, and such. Their website is at thebiggroup.co, yes a URL with .co and not .com.
Ben’s interior has it’s design cue from Delicious, there’s sofa and tea table both indoor and outdoor, smallish dining tables and comfortable chairs. The outdoor area overlooks Jalan Bukit Bintang, giving it a nice city ambiance but without the exhaust fumes from cars on street level.
Spaghetti Pomodoro with chunks of Pecorino Romano cheese
The menu at Ben’s is almost too extensive, you’ll most likely find yourself spending at least 5-10 minutes going through the listing of dishes on your first visit. I did the same, and finally settled on Spaghetti Pomodoro. A pretty simple pasta dish that turned out to be a delight, I love the chunks of Pecorino Romano cheese on it, and everything was just in the right balance – sauce, pasta, everything.
beef lasagna, spaghetti carbonara, portobello mushroom burger
On the very next day, I went to Ben’s again, this time with Winnie & Horng.
Our orders took some 20 minutes to prepare, a pretty long wait for weekday lunch, but luckily it was worth it. The beef lasagna ordered by Horng was superb, packed with ample amount of cheese, beef, and cooked to perfection. You could cut it with just your spoon. The pickest eater gave his approval.
Winnie had spaghetti carbonara that did not disappoint. I’m not a big fan of cream based spaghetti but this one was pretty good when I had a bite. Of course, the chunks of romano cheese helps. 
wagyu beef pie
I opted for the portobello mushroom burger. I first had this type of burger back in the States, and so far only very few places has this on the menu.
Instead of one huge mushroom, the burger had 2 slightly smaller one instead, sandwiched by 2 pieces of sourdough, cheese, and some greens. It was pretty good, but would be better with one giant mushroom and probably less healthy choices of bread instead, then again I’m nitpicking.
On another separate visit (this time on Saturday), Haze ordered the Wagyu beef pie for lunch. She love the beef, but thought the pastry was slightly too thick.
KY, Haze, Horng, Winnie
Main dishes at Ben’s are priced from just below RM 20 to RM 30 and up, with majority in the RM 20+ range.
Customer service is exemplary, case in point: Winnie found a single strand of eyelash on her pasta after eating 70% of the dish and informed the captain. The captain was very apologetic and offered her a dessert (we had the velvet cake, was good!), and on top of that, took the dish off the bill. We postulate that the eyelash probably belong to Winnie herself to begin with.
Now if only they can shorten the time it takes to serve those delicious dishes, this would be a perfect mid-range lunch option.
Address:
GPS: 3.148872, 101.713368
One of my favorite dishes out of mom’s kitchen is undoubtedly the tau eu bak, or braised pork belly with soya sauce. While I’m not sure of it’s origin, this dish seems to be quite common among Hokkien/Nyonya people from Penang, Melaka, and even Singapore.
the finished product – tau eu bak (braised pork belly with soya sauce)
Before having a proper kitchen, I usually get my fix for tau eu bak at Champs, Centrepoint (and they do cook up a fine dish). However, it is RM 20+ a pop and I thought wouldn’t it be nice to give it a try ourselves.
This is actually the dish that prompted us buy pastle and mortar and made the sambal belacan.
the ingredients for a bowl of proper tau eu bak
Surprisingly, tau eu bak isn’t really hard to cook at all. Everything you need can easily be obtained at any wet market (or properly stocked grocery store) for less than RM20, and the resulting bowl of goodness can feed 3-4 people.
The ingredients:
mushroom, pork, dark soya sauce, the essentials
The steps:
To prepare the eggs
Johnny & Haze, Johnny really liked the dish, despite his facial expression here
There it is, pretty straight forward recipe isn’t it? It was lucky that Johnny joined us for dinner that night as the dish was really too much for just two of us. We had it with plenty of sambal belacan, was a pretty fine dinner, I think mom would be proud
Ever since we got the kitchen renovated, it’s been more and more cooking adventures, and as such, this blog will start to share some recipes I gather/invent/randomly made up.
The Salmon Steak is a very simple and healthy *gasp* dish that I learnt during my stay in the States many eons ago.
ingredients for salmon steak dinner
First, the ingredients, assuming for two person:
steamed vegetable, sauteed mushroom, and pan fried salmon steak
Steps:
salmon steak with carrots, mushroom, and french beans
So there you go, salmon steak with mushroom, carrot, and french beans. If you want to be healthier, consider baking the salmon instead, but I’d probably advice to add a small slice of butter on top if you do that.
Everything here costs about RM 30 for two, not exactly very cheap, but boy it is good!
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I can’t really claim that Kepong is one of my favorite places when it comes to food, getting there during rush hour can be quite a PITA, on top of that, I don’t exactly know many good eats around the area other than Kaka bak kut teh (they have pork kidney!), the original KTZ, and several other restaurants I don’t usually frequent unless I happen to be there.
To be honest, if it wasn’t for the fact that the invitation to Sliver Spoon Trattoria was from the owner Jessica, a long time friend, I would have probably skipped this food review session already. As it turned out, I was more than glad we made the session.
Silver Spoon Trattoria
Located at a pretty unassuming part of Kepong, Silver Spoon is sitting on the first floor of Wisma Manjarala. The decoration an ambiance of the restaurant rivals many 5 star hotel eateries, and yet a look at the menu pricing shows that the place actually live up to it’s name “Trattoria” – casual, affordable, and a hell lot less up tight than those so called haute cuisine establishments.
We were seated at the private room with a bunch of other usual suspects – fatboybakes, nomadgourmand, Gareth, Kim, Terence, Horng, and Haze. Our host was Jessica, someone I’ve actually known for some 8-10 years. According to Terence, she’s grown up rather well.
feta & olive foccacia, mozarella sticks & smoked salmon rice ball,
stuffed portobello mushroom
We got started with some feta and olive foccacia, the dough served here is home made and they really tasted subtle but good. I also love the mozarella sticks with it’s really hearty cheese in almost liquid form, the salmon rice ball was alright too, but I couldn’t really taste much salmon in there.
If I had to choose one appetizer, I’d probably go for the stuffed portobello mushroom. Sitting between a bed of salad and minced meat, the mushroom was really really yummy, I had two pieces despite eating on a budget due to the number of dishes to come.
wine, silver spoon special mock tail
For those who are familiar with Kepong, you might remember that there was a place called Chef Ken in the 90s. It was a place famous for really cheap but awesome Italian food. Well, Silver Spoon got Chef Ken himself back to run this place.
According to the “old timers” like Fatboybakes who used to frequent Chef Ken, this place retains every bit the originality of his foods, down to the famous tiramisu (about that later)
wild mushroom risotto, prawn & avocado stack, smoked salmon pizza
The other appetizer we had was the prawn and avocado stack. Grilled fresh local prawn served on a bed of avocado with other salad and probably some balsamic vinegar. Though the prawn itself lacked strong flavor, overall combination turned out quite well.
Wild mushroom risotto was prepared to cater a bit towards the local taste (meaning slightly more cooked than the “real” Italian style), I love it! The smoked salmon pizza too was pretty good, but I’d love to have a lot more salmon to go with the crispy crust (from freshly made to order dough). Then again, it’s hard to argue when the pizza is priced at less than RM 30.
duck confit, grilled baby snapper, seafood marinara
The 3rd main dish we tried was the delightful duck confit. Instead of just the drum stick, this one came with the whole 1/4 duck. I loved the taste, and made some sneaky moves to acquire quite a bit of duck skin. *slurps*
Grilled baby snapper was one of those dishes that doesn’t really seem to fit in. I’ve never seen whole fish served in such setting, with potato and beans on one side, and a slice of lemon on another. It did, however, turned out to be quite tasty, just not particularly very “italian” to me.
Lastly, there’s seafood marinara. The pasta came with generous amount of mussels, clams, prawns, squid and fish chunks on a tomato based sauce. I only had a couple bites and found that the taste was quite agreeable indeed.
chocolate pot, creme brulee, tiramisu
Then there’s the desserts. We had chocolate pot, creme bruelee, and tiramisu. I find the chocolate pot a tad too rich (but goes well with wine though), the creme brulee satisfying, and the tiramisu a must order if you like your dessert to be rather alcoholic, it was niceeee!
Of course, we finished everything.
Rebecca & bf, Kim & Gareth, Terence & Horng,
KY & Haze, Jessica, Joe & partner & Cheng Yi
We had loads of fun time at Silver Spoon, the food was great, drinks aplenty (Jessica’s dad even brought out the Royal Salute), and above all, the company was excellent.
I’m definitely going there again. The pricing was definitely very reasonable, lamb shank for RM 38, marinara for RM 29, desserts at around RM 15 or so, soup at RM 12. Great food, reasonable pricing, and awesome ambiance. What more could one ask for? Open a branch next to my house la Jessica!
Address:
Silver Spoon Trattoria,
1st Floor, Wisma Manjalara,
Bandar Menjalara,
52200, Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.195364, 101.632456
Tel: 03-6277 0445
The first time (and incidentally, the last time) I went to Jack’s Place was sometimes in 2005. The reason it took me so long for this second visit was not the lack of quality in their food during the first visit, but rather my general absence from the malls in weekends since working at KLCC. Why head to the mall during weekends when I am walking in one every on single working day? Anyway… I shall not digress
as I ponder what to order..
The ambiance at this little restaurant is actually very nice. Not very brightly lit, but gives one a sense of relaxation, I prefer it to the rowdiness of Fridays or Chili’s. Since it was an afternoon, we took advantage to order from the very reasonably priced set lunch menu. I got a NZ Rib eye, medium rare, and the hot chick ordered a Dory fish set with the option for lobster soup instead of the standard mushroom cream.
I also asked for my steak to be served on a normal plate with the sauce separated instead of the sizzling plate. This is to prevent the meat from getting cooked all the time while I’m trying to have my lunch. I also believe that good steak should not be tainted by some “brown sauce”.
this medium rare was a little too rare, but juicy nonetheless
Our two main dish didn’t take long to arrive, but the server actually forgot to serve the soups until I reminded him. We ended up only getting the soup more than half way into the meal. I guess the service standard in Malaysia still has a long way to go.
While pretty juicy and actually rather tasty, the medium rare here emphasized the word rare way too much. You can probably see it in the picture above on how pink the meat was. The Dory fish (and chips) was a pretty good dish too, but the serving size was a bit overwhelming.
While the mushroom soup was pretty average, the lobster bisque was actually very nice. There were chunks of lobster meat to chew on while you savor the rich creamy taste of the soup. Pretty good for only an additional RM 4 upgrade from the standard set lunch.
the hot chick wasn’t complaining
Including a 10% service charge and the standard 5% government tax, the bill came to around RM 55. Pretty reasonable for a satisfying lunch. Jack’s Place does offer a pretty extensive menu that can be found here. The lobster and crab stuffed mushroom appetizer is not to be missed if you are prepared to shell out some RM 18 for it.
Address:
F346, First Floor Rainforest
1 Utama Shopping Centre (New Wing)
No.1 , Lebuh Bandar Utama Damansara
47800 Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.150050, 101.615939
Tel: 03-7725 1433
