I have always been running low on ideas when asked to suggest a place to dine with our Muslim comrades, it’s usually either the local mamak joints, or for a wider choice of food, expensive halal restaurants (Italian, Japanese, etc). Things become even more complicated if we were thinking of halal Chinese food on an average budget, I wasn’t able to think of a place other than vegetarian places such as Kuan Yin at Seksyen 17, which is why I was overjoyed when introduced to the strangely named Penang Tropicana Restaurant at SS14.
very 80s deco, but at least it’s air conditioned
The interior decoration of the restaurant seems to be stuck in the 80s, with appropriate music to match too. It is basically a kopitiam set up with air conditioning, which is comfortable enough for me on a hot afternoon.
The menu is rather extensive, with many dishes you could find in any tai chau (大炒) places such as Hoowan (great asam prawn) at Kelana Jaya or Ming Heong at Paramount Garden.
kangkung belacan, Japanese tofu, Thai Plum Chicken, and Asam Stingray
To make things simple, we just ordered from the set menu for 2 person and an extra plate of deep fried squid (calamari). The set comes with kangkung belacan, asam stingray, a tofu dish, Thai style plum sauce chicken, rice, and a couple scoops of chocolate ice cream as dessert. Pretty sufficient and balanced combination for a meal.
deep fried squid, and even ice cream!
While not spectacular, the taste of the individual dishes were actually pretty good. I like the way they cook the asam stingray that is not over done, leaving the texture of the stingray still smooth. The calamari dish was actually very good and I’d imagine it makes very good beer snack.
The set was RM 29.90, with the extra calamari dish and Chinese tea that we had, the total bill came to be about RM 40. I’d say it is a very good value for the 5 different dishes we had. This is the next place I will bring my Malay friends to.
located at the heart of Subang Jaya township
Address:
Penang Tropicana Restaurant
Jalan SS14/1, Subang Jaya
GPS: 3.066451, 101.586387
Itchy for steamboat again, the gang and I decided to try the “original” pulau ketam steamboat at SS15, Subang Jaya. The name of the restaurant is Bee Ho (美好海鲜火锅之家). This is of course, the same style as offered at the Patrick Teoh’s Damansara Village steamboat.
the chili paste is awesome!
Unlike the grand set up at uncle Teoh’s outlet, Bee Ho is just a big old school kopitiam. Meaning the tables near the sidewalk are much preferred as those situated deeper in the restaurant can be a little hot and humid with all the steamboat boiling on every table.
the steamboat, the crab meehun, and the two noobs.
For the 8 of us, we ordered 5 portion of standard steamboat meal, a plate of fish fillet (actually wanted to have the fish cubes but they ran out), string mushroom, extra meat roll, dumplings, and a big plate of absolutely must-order crab meehun.
The joy of having steamboat with plenty of people is that you have more choices ordering the side orders and not have to only settle for the standard steamboat meal.
the sloppy diner!
We boiled the soup with plenty of ingredients at least 4-5 times over. The ingredients were fresh and pretty good, the soup with good herbal taste, and the chili paste was really awesome. I think I had at least 3 small plates of those spicy stuff. Above all, the crab meehun was really something special, the aroma of crab soaked into the meehun, making it tastes unique of the crustacean’s sweetness, this is something that everyone MUST TRY at Bee Ho.
Bee Ho steamboat is at SS15, near the college areas.
The dinner only came to RM 17.50 per person that night. We had Chinese tea as drinks.
Address:
Bee Ho Steamboat Restaurant
no. 52 Ground Floor,
Jalan SS15/4C
Subang Jaya 47500
Selangor
GPS: 3.076773, 101.587862
Tel: 012-250 7177
From the post about Isetan Sushi, some of you might have the idea that I love Japanese, which is, er… very true. Now, not all Japanese food are made or served the same, repeat after me. “Sushi King & Genki are for the noobs.” Thank you thank you, now let me tell you about this Rakuzen place.
Now this is what I called a real Jap restaurant
This place is located at Subang Jaya SS15, at the row of shops situated directly opposite Subang Jaya Medical Center. The sign board isn’t terribly big or visible, but squint your eyes like a Japanese and look hard, you’ll find it.
Can you imagine how these go down the throat? yummmm
The Hokkaido Seafood season happened to be this time of the year for this restaurant. Basically it means that you get to enjoy fabulous seafood that were caught offshore Hokkaido, the island at northern Japan. We ordered a generous plate of sashimi, 2 hand rolls (salmon roe & softshell crab), a dish of big fat scallops, and some absolutely amazing beef.
All these dishes have some funky Japanese names, but for the life of my koi fish, I can’t remember any of them, so beat it. The sashimi was served with perfect cuttings of salmon, tuna, yellow tail, octopus, raw sweet shrimps, and another type of white fish. The dish was served in perfect temprature, too. Those are the little touch that some other places ignore.
The beef is cooked medium rare soaked in some type of sourish soup. It was the first time I had this dish. The meat went down very smooth, and surprisingly tender and rich in taste. Scallop was served with some mushroom and chilli, you cook them with a heated scallop shell and some type of sauce. I like my scallop half cooked, so that suits me pretty well. It tastes very sweet and sumptuous.
All gone.. another satisfied customer
While this is definately not a budget restaurant, the price is rather reasonable. You can get a Chirashi Sushi set for around 30 ringgit. Don’t ask me how much this meal cost tho, but it was worth every penny.
map to Rakuzen at Subang
Address:
No. 13, Jalan ss 15/5A
47500 Subang Jaya
GPS: 3.074770, 101.586370
Tel: 03-5880 4717
