I don’t know why I agreed to do this, I mean, prior to getting all the details I vaguely remember it could be something very relaxing, a few of us hanging out at Tangs and be chilling and blogging. So I agreed.

Then the details came in. We’d be blogging inside a DISPLAY WINDOW at Tangs Pavilion from 10am to 10pm this Friday and Saturday (that’s starting tomorrow!), with only toilet breaks every 3 hours. I think even meals are going to be served to us in the display, emmm emm.

More details at the Live Manniquin Blogathon 2009 facebook page.

As the event is a collaboration between Intel, Tangs, and Lenovo, we’ll be wearing cool outfits (got stylist ok!) from Tangs and working with Lenovo machines that are powered by Intel processors.

Technology meets fashion, the first time I’m associated with something that’s got to do with fashion, it is.. strange. Having dated someone who contributed to TiC doesn’t count, I guess.

Anyway! The four contestants – Cheesie, Huai Bin, Wern Shen, and myself are vying on the top prize that is a Lenovo Ultra Slim laptop. 60% of our points will be from number of posts/tweets/photos/comments, but another 40% from your votes in person!

So come over and vote for meeeeee!

Gosh I hope the aircondinging works…

This event was the result of a sponsorship campaign between Intel, Lenovo and TANGS Pavilion

Tags:  cheesie,  huai bin,  lunch money,  pavilion

Posted by KY | 19 Comments »

A few weeks ago, I had to good fortune of receiving RM 150 after helping fixed a laptop. I had tried to reject the payment since I had done it voluntarily, but the guy insisted that I take the money and “buy your girlfriend a good meal”. So I did accordingly.

Angus House at Pavilion

So while walking at Pavilion during lunch hour, I took Mellissa to the sixth floor instead of the basement food court area despite the fact that it was actually just a weekday.

The first restaurant we saw was Angus House, a rather quite place for lunch but since the place looks inviting, price and menu looks good, and I was in the mood for beef, we decided to have a go with it.

soft bun, carrot soup, salad, and dessert

Surprisingly, the set lunch for such a posh place goes for as low as RM 26 (sauteed chicken with mozzarella).

They come with quite a lot of accompanying dishes, a hot bun with butter to start, then a bowl of carrot soup that was actually quite rich and tasty (soup might change from day to day). A plate of salad follows before the main dish is served. Since Angus House is a Japanese Western establishment, the salad takes a bit of a Japanese twist, it was almost no dressing sans some light vinaigrette, I liked it.

Japanese burger patty, beef tenderloin

After the three entrees, it was time for our main dish. Mell’s hamburg course (RM 35) was a beef burger patty with an egg on top, carrot, potato, and long bean on the side, served in sizzling hot plate with brown sauce. I took a bite of the patty and found it rather delicious, quite a firm and rich texture with the taste to match.

Since I was in the mood for beef, I went for 200g tenderloin set instead (RM 81). They also have sirloin, rib eye, tournedos steak and more at 150g to 300g variant. If you have a thicker wallet, there’s also waygu and kobe beef from RM 200 to RM 400.

KY and Mell at Angus House, Pavilion

Though not of Kobe or Wagyu caliber, the tenderloin held up very well, it was tender and very juicy. I had it prepared medium rare, the sides are similar to the other dish, but the sauce a bit more minimalistic. I think often times steaks come with too much sauce that sometimes the original taste of the beef is lost.

Since they were really proper set lunches, we still had a dessert to go before the end of the day. The cake (can’t remember the type, but I think it was cheese) was not something out of this world but still rather pleasant.

Lunch at Angus House is really value for money if you stick with the 4 cheapest lunch sets. The fish & chips goes for RM 30 and spaghetti set for RM 32, in addition to the chicken and hamburg sets I mentioned. There isn’t a lot of “almost” fine dining places that offers such value.

As a side note: Angus cattle refers to two types of naturally hornless cattle.

Address:
Angus Steak House
Lot 6.44 & 6.45,
Level 6,
Pavilion KL,
Jalan Bukit Bintang, KL.
GPS: 3.148872, 101.713368
Tel: 03-2145 6015

Tags:  beef,  mellissa,  pavilion,  steak

Posted by KY | 22 Comments »

While I was at work a couple Fridays ago, Mr. Kong, one of my readers who handles PR business for Dragon-i called up

“Sorry for the late notice, but would you be available for a food review tonight at Pavilion? There will be abalone.”

How could I say no to such invitation? After all, it’s not like I get to taste abelone abalone on weekly basis. I grabbed my gears during the extended lunch hours and headed to Pavilion right after work.

Dragon-i’s flagship restaurant at Pavilion

I’ve actually reviewed Dragon-i at 1-Utama almost 3 years ago when it first came up, and been to quite a few of their restaurants over the years. However, this was my first trip to their flagship outlet at Pavilion. Together with me were a few other journalists and photographers from Sin Chew, the Star and China Press, as well as Mr. Kong, his wife, and the CEO of Dragon-i, Mr. Henry Yip.

cold dish: five appetizers

Instead of ordering from the menu, we were sampling the special set menu available from 1st to 14th of September to coincide with Mid Autumn Festival.

First to come were the appetizers comprising five dishes. I absolutely love the chilled chicken with rice wine that tasted a little like steamed chicken but with an extra kick from the rice wine. We ended up having to order another serving of this. The edamame with bamboo shoots, while more commonly associated with Japanese food, was very refreshing as well.

Fried bean curd with shredded scallops was both sweet and crunchy. The sesame oil marinated cuttlefish was very fresh and had a very nice texture to chew on. While the cold minced spinach, traditionally prepared with another type of vegetable only found in China, was pretty interesting and provided another dimension for the set. A very interesting way to start our dinner, varying tastes and ingredients.

goose web with abalone, xiao long bao

Next up was the famous xiao long bao (Shanghainese meat dumpling) from Dragon-i, served steaming hot with soup within the dumpling. Dipping it with some vinegar and accompanied with some ginger is the way to go, very satisfying.

Abelone and goose web followed the xiao long bao. While I had braised abelone before, this was the first time I tasted goose web. The texture is something like a cross between chicken feet and fish skin (or fish lips you find in big fish head), very soft and slightly chewy while the taste was very good! However, it does taste a little “jelak” and hence they have the asparagus to provide a balance. Very nice.

aromatic crispy duck, sichuan prawn

I guess a traditional Chinese cuisine isn’t complete without duck. The aromatic crispy duck was as good as the one I had at Kensington, Seremban. However, at Dragon-i they served it in pieces instead, I personally still prefer the shredded version. The duck was served peking duck style.

Prawn sauteed with Sichuan sauce came next. It was nice to have something slightly spicy after all the previous dishes. The giant prawns were very fresh and according to Mr. Yip, sourced locally from Pantai Remis in Perak. I like the fact that they’re all peeled too! Again, a very delicious dish.

pomelo mango dessert, crispy noodle with dried scallop and crab meat

The last dish in the main course was deep fried wantan noodle with dried scallops and fresh crab meat on top. I actually finished it despite having a stomach that was already pretty much filled. Crunchy and yet very sweet of the seafood taste from the seafood laden sauce.

Dessert was an over sized glass of mango puree mixed with sago and some fresh pomelo on top. Refreshing. A serving of fresh fruits followed, but I was already too stuffed to have any of it.

It was a very good dinner indeed, very very satisfying.

Well, this set meal for 10 is priced at RM 1388++, while half a table would be RM 688++. Not exactly light on the pocket, but then again it is fine dining. A box of moon cake comes free with the meal for 10 too.

More pictures of this review here.

Address:
Lot 1.13, Level 1,
Pavilion Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.148872, 101.713368
Tel: 03-3224 0888

Tags:  abelone,  chinese-food,  dragon-i,  duck,  goose,  pavilion,  prawn,  review

Posted by KY | 20 Comments »

I actually tried this halal bak kua (BBQ meat) a couple months ago but kept forgetting to post it until a reader emailed me the other day, the content goes:

MK wrote:
do u have any idea where to get halal bak kua in KL?

and then I replied:

No halal bak kut teh as far as I know, but there’s vegetarian bak kut teh that has similar tasting soup you can find at Taman Mayang, near the old Lim Kok Wing building. It’s a stall by the roadside that’s very near to William’s mamak stall, operates during lunch time.

Regards,
KY

Which was a wrong answer because MK was asking about bak kua, not my favorite Chinese Malaysian food, bak kut teh. So I had to sent another email to the friendly reader who politely pointed out my mistake…

my ex-colleague Abby likes the beef bak kua

Anyway, this particular stall selling halal bak kua called Grilled to Perfection is situated at the basement food court of Pavilion KL. Just a stone’s throw away from it’s non-halal counterpart Kiew Brothers that sells bacon bak kua I posted about a couple months ago.

The stall offers three types of BBQ meat: sliced beef, sliced chicken, and sambal chicken. You can also have them in rounded coin shapes instead of sheets as well. They are priced at RM 72-75 per KG, very similar to the market price of the non-halal versions

the three types of bak kua, sliced beef, sambal chicken, and sliced chicken

As for the taste, I find that the beef bak kua (the only one I tried) was a little dryer than what I am used to, possibly due to the relatively leaner meat as compared to pork. However, it does taste like bak kua, and to my ex-colleague who has never tasted something like this, it was a revelation.

So far this is the only place I’m aware of that sells Halal bak kua, so if you don’t eat pork and want to try out this Chinese delicacy, Pavilion KL is the place!

Address: (Corporate, stall at basement of Pavilion KL)
No. 73, Jalan Cemerlang,
Taman Perindustrian Cemerlang,
81800 Ulu Tiram, Johor
GPS: 3.148872, 101.713368
Tel: 03-5891 0934

Tags:  bak kua,  bbq meat,  Bukit Bintang,  food-court,  KL,  pavilion

Posted by KY | 29 Comments »

I went to Pavilion with the hot chick yesterday for a little bit of walk and shop. It is rather crazy that we had three new malls (or extension of the current) opened during the past quarter, I guess shopping is really the national past time here in the valley of mud.

We saw a crowd of over a dozen people surrounded the John King Egg Tart stall just as we came up to the food court from the escalator. Curiosity got the better of us and we joined the group to investigate the commotion. Apparently samples of the egg tarts and other traditional Chinese pastries were being handed out at the counter. We took a small sample and decided we need to buy some of these stuff.

yummm.. egg tarts

John King Egg Tart is said to be originally from Hong Kong, and this is their first branch in Malaysia. They offer 3 types of egg tarts, the original, egg white only egg tart (healthier I suppose), and a rather interesting durian flavored egg tart. There are also lou phor peng (老婆饼), chicken pie，and siu pao (烧包).

The crust of the tarts was really fluffy and goes very well with the very soft texture of the fillings that are not overly sweet nor oily. It felt very light and yet very delicious, the durian egg tart really does taste of strong durian smell and flavor, not to be missed by durian lovers. I tried samples of the chicken pie and siu pao, and they were pretty good too despite having chicken instead of the pork in their siu pao.

this stuff is really awesome

The egg tart goes for RM 1.60 to RM 2.00 a piece, siu pao is RM 1.50, and the chicken pie are RM 2.60. These stuff makes for good snacks, try it! There are also many other interesting dining choices in this nicely decorated food court (including J.Co Donut), check out masak-masak’s post on this place.

Pavilion KL is right at the heart of Bukit Bintang

Address:
Food Republic
Lower Ground, Pavilion KL
168 Jln Bukit Bintang
55100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.148872, 101.713368

Tags:  dining,  egg tart,  hong kong,  pavilion

Posted by KY | 18 Comments »