For some of you who follow this humble blog, you might know that I vouched not to ever spend a dime at Sushi King and Genki Sushi. Although both the restaurants serve inferior sushi on conveyor belt, it doesn’t mean that all conveyor belt sushi restaurants are bad, as my latest experiment at Sushi Zanmai (Sunway Pyramid) assured me.

conveyor belt sushi, with a lot of other items on the menu

I stumbled upon this place a couple of months ago when I visited Zen Sushi at their Pyramid branch. The menu enticed me (particularly the ikura chawamushi) to actually go there a few weeks ago when I had an appointment at Pyramid.

proper portion of fish over rice, nice

For the quick dinner, I picked 4 dishes of sushi (sake, maguro, amaebi, tofu skin) from the conveyor, and ordered a cup of the irresistible ikura chawamushi (salmon roe on top of steamed egg) and a plate of hotate sashimi (raw scallop).

The sushi dishes were actually very good, the portion of fish is generous, and if you look at the amaebi sushi (sweet shrimp), it is actually one big shrimp instead of the usual two tiny ones. They are plenty fresh and tasted very good too. I am one of those people who cannot say no to ikura, and the ikura chawamushi, albeit a bit small in portion, was actually very nice. It is a bit different from the usual roe over sushi rice though. Lastly, the succulent hotate sashimi (5 pieces of fresh scallop) was perfect to round up my dinner.

ikura chawamushi (salmon roe) and hotate sashimi (scallop)

The dinner cost Rm 35.42, with ikura chawamushi being the most expensive at RM 9.80, the sashimi was only RM 8, and sushi plates were between RM 1.60 (tofu skin) to RM 4.80 (shrimp). 10% service charge and the 5% tax is added. Still a pretty good value, and I am going there again.

Address:
Lt 0B2-F1, Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre
Bandar Sunway, Selangor
Tel: 03-7492 3080

Tags:  hotate,  ikura,  mall,  pyramid,  raw-fish,  scallop,  sunway,  sushi,  zanmai

Posted by KY | 18 Comments »

It’s been a while since the last time I had pho in KL, and it’s been even longer since I went to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. As we were looking for dinner before movie, I happened to chance upon O’ Viet and decided to remind myself why I had come to love this traditional Vietnamese dish.

look mighty appetizing, no?

Since it was basically a quick dinner, I only ordered a bowl of mixed pho, and the hot chick got herself the seafood noodle. Nothing else, no spring role or any of those fancy Vietnamese appetizers (it turned out to be a wise choice, main dish came in big portion.)

we’re loving it

The dishes came after a short wait, served by someone who spoke with a Vietnamese accent, it was a good sign. The pho smelled pretty good, and the soup noodle come complete with a side dish of basil leave, mint, lemon, bean sprouts, and chili sauce. I wish they would only have some hot jalopeno peppers.

I put the fresh leaves and bean sprouts to the soup and started attacking the dish right away. Out of my expectation, this bowl of pho was actually one of the bests I’ve tried in Malaysia. The soup tasted right, and the meat (brisket, flank, tripe, meat ball) cooked to a very soft and tender texture. The type of noodle too, was pretty close to what I had in HCMC, though I still long for the proper flat rice type. If only they serve beef tendon, it’ll be perfect.

The seafood noodle came in a slightly spicier broth, and had plenty of squid, cuttle fish, fish meat, and prawn. It was pretty good, too.

pho.. *drools*

The meal came to a bit over RM 35 for two, including 5% government tax and 10% service charge. The plain water wasn’t free either. This place certainly wasn’t cheap, but I do feel that the quality of food justified the price, and I will gladly go there again when my pho craving strikes.

Address:
G1.45 Sunway Pyramid (near ice skating rink)
46150 Bandar Sunway
Selangor

Tags:  Eats,  ky,  pho,  pyramid,  sunway,  vietnamese

Posted by KY | 10 Comments »

Not a big fan of smokey clubs with overly loud music that will make your ears end up like this? We decided to have a couple drinks and chill out over the weekend and went to Halo cafe at Sunway Pyramid instead.

can you spot the silhouette of FA? and the dumb pattern fox arranged on the table

Some of you banana (English educated Chinese) noobs might not have realised that there exists two big franchise of semi open air pubs with live performers singing mainly chinese songs. Rice cafe is prominent in Penang, while Halo Cafe is pretty established here in the Klang Valley.

The place serves some finger food as well as a few entries that can fill your stomach should your date be late by 2 hours and you miss your dinner altogether. In terms of drinks, they have coffee, tea, beer, mixed cocktails, and even whole bottle of whiskeys and wine to choose from, all reasonably priced. For example, a margarita is RM 17.50 and jasmine tea at RM 10 or so.

The live performance was excellent, there were 3 male singers for the night, with one of them playing the guitar. One of the singer sang Hikara Udata’s “First Love” that was totally out of this world. FYI, the current Malaysian Idol used to sing at Rice cafe in Penang.

It’s a pretty nice place to hang out, enjoy live music that isn’t too loud for you to still be able to chat with your friends. Probably a great place for a date too, now any hot chick want to go there with me?

Tags:  halo-cafe,  pyramid,  sunway

Posted by KY_a | 2 Comments »