Sugar Bean

We have moved!

2011-07-03T06:18:00.001+08:00

Dear readers,

Sorry for being inactive for a long time and thank you for visiting this blog. I am happy to announce that I have set up a new blog at http://www.eatonlylar.com/. Please visit my new website and kindly edit any pre-existing links to Sugar Bean.

Thank you!

Kim Gary Restaurant (香港金加利茶餐厅)

2010-02-16T09:21:00.003+08:00

Before we proceed with our Italy trip, we would like to post food that we have eaten during our short Christmas break back to Malaysia. The Bukit Bintang area has always been one of our favourite places to shop around. Since we were shopping at Sungei Wang, we figured we would go for Kim Gary since we haven’t had them for ages.

We went there early knowing that the restaurant would be easily crowded during dinner time.

Even before dinner time, the restaurant is packed as usual.

For RM16.90, ys’s Spanish seafood fried rice (西班牙海鲜炒饭) value set comes with a soup, a drink and a dessert. He had a tea with Hong Kong style (香岛奶茶) while I had a ‘ying yong’ in Hong Kong style (港式鸳鸯) for RM3. Their milk tea was as good as it used to be. The dessert was decent but not extraordinary.

The borsch soup (罗宋汤) was good, although the serving was a little small.

The Spanish seafood fried rice tasted better than we both expect. The serving was quite large, the ingredients served were generous, with mussels, squids, prawns and fish cakes. The fried rice was so delicious and fragrant, it was something that we might order again in the future.

Priced at RM15.50, the supreme mix grill curry baked with Swiss cheese (瑞士芝士炬咖喱鸡扒). This has been one of my favourite orders since I’ve started dining in Kim Gary many years ago. It still tastes good as usual. Given three different types of curry to choose from, I went for the supreme curry (巴辣咖喱), even though pineapple curry (凤梨咖喱) and coconut milk curry (椰香咖喱) both sounded tempting. Served with a choice of white rice or spaghetti, the serving was rather big. The chicken, sausages, egg, ham and potatoes cooked in curry were simply delicious, cheesy and spicy at the same time, the combination was hardly imaginable but do try it if you have yet to do so.

Service is fast and speedy. The serving of food is quite fast too despite the huge crowd in the restaurant. More information about the restaurant can be found on their well-designed website here.

Restaurant Information
G083 & 84, Sungei Wang Plaza,
Jalan Sultan Ismail,
55100 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-21448113

Caffè Paranà

2010-02-01T08:46:00.003+08:00

Ciao Rome! As soon as we arrived at Rome Ciampino Airport in the morning, we made our way to Roma Termini Railway station and checked in to our hotel which is located near the station. Excited and without wanting to waste our precious time in Italy, we went out to travel around Rome.

We took the Rome Metro (an underground public transportation system that operates in Rome) from the Termini Station until Ottaviano Station. This is the nearest underground station to the Vatican City, which is also where the well-known St. Peter’s Basilica is located in. The basilica can be seen afar in this photo. More information and photos about Vatican City and the basilica will be posted soon.

Having a good tourist map in our hands proved to be really handy. We followed the map to visit the most well-known places in Rome. After a short walk from the basilica, we arrived at Castel Sant’Angelo. The towering cylindrical building is the Mausoleum of Hadrian built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. It was later used as a fortress and a castle, and now a museum for tourists.

Along our way to the Mausoleum of Augustus, we captured photos of the breath-taking scenery along Tiber River, which is the third longest river in Italy.

There are many bridges which crosses the Tiber River, one of them is the Ponte Cavour.

The Trinità dei Monti, which was a Baroque church, can be seen from the Piazza di Spagna. The famous Spanish Steps is also visible from this photo. It is the longest and widest staircase in Europe.

We also visited the Trevi Fountain, which is the largest Baroque fountain in Rome. Even though it was during winter and the weather was extremely cold, there were many tourists eating ice-creams while enjoying the view of the fountain.

After that, we walked over to visit the Pantheon. It was built about two thousand years ago as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome and remained as the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome until today.

Back to our main theme of our blog – food. We had a quick lunch at Caffè Paranà which is located near the Termini Station before exploring Rome. The exterior of the café with the tram tracks are visible from the photo.

The café was warm and comfortable. Even though we have problems communicating in different languages, the staffs were very helpful and friendly.

The displays of food were appealing too.

We opted for a cotoletta di pollo sandwich. Priced at €5, the breaded chicken sandwich was delicious. It was toasted before served. Simple, juicy and warm, we love it!

There are many different types of pizzas in Italy, many of them which we couldn’t recognise without looking at their names. Priced at €4, the pizza rossa that we had comprise of aubergine, mozzarella cheese and tomato enfold by bread. The pizza was tasty, the fillings were appetising and juicy while the bread was dense and nice.

The visually appetising biscuit attracted my attention and we ordered it without hesitation. Although a little overpriced at €2.50, it was a delightful snack with generous chocolate fillings.

It was an enjoyable lunch for the start of our journey in Rome.

Café Information
Piazza Dei Cinquecento, 39,
00185, Roma,
Italy.
Tel: 06-4883885

La Nuova Grotta

2010-01-23T04:35:00.002+08:00

After visiting the Ponte di Rialto, we made our way to the Piazza San Marco.

The water level has risen significantly in Venice. The water rise in Venice suspended some ferry and water taxi services in the lagoon city. We often see boat drivers lowering their heads when passing through smaller bridges.

A photo taken from Ponte dell'Accademia.

We finally arrived at the Piazza San Marco aka Saint Mark’s Square. The Saint Mark’s Basilica can be seen from the photo.

The Procuratie are three connected buildings on the St Mark's Square. The oldest of the buildings is the Procuratie Vecchie on the north side of the Square, which can be seen from the photo. Saint Mark’s Square is the lowest point in the city. In the morning, tourists and the locals have to walk on the elevated walkways to allow access across the Square.

After a short walk from the Square, we arrived a Venice’s principal waterfront – Riva degli Schiavoni. The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute can be seen across the Grand Canal.

A photo taken near the infamous Ponte dei Sospiri. Unfortunately the Sospiri Bridge was closed for construction works during the time of our visit.

The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore located in the island of San Giorgio Maggiore can be seen from the Riva degli Schiavoni waterfront.

Along the streets in Venice, there are many shops and stalls selling Venetian masks. The masks are typically worn during the Carnival of Venice to hide the wearer’s identity and social status.

Since we still have time to spare before dinner time, we explored the east side of the island and arrived at Via Guiseppe Garibaldi.

There was a park in that area, known as Viale Guiseppe Garibaldi. It was rather serene and quiet.

Finally it’s time for dinner, something that we always look forward to ever since we set foot in Italy. Italian food was simply irresistible, suffice for me to say that if you fancy bread, cheese and tomato, Italy would be a food heaven to you!

There were displays of various seafood outside the restaurant.

The interior of the restaurant was romantic and comfortable. It was rather quiet when we went there, a nice place to chill after a long day of walking and travelling.

We were served with breads and breadsticks shortly after we placed our order. We were unaware that they actually charge for the bread. They were priced at €5.

We ordered a capricciosa pizza priced at €10. The pizza was topped with tomato, mozzarella cheese, ham, mushrooms and antichokes. Though it was topped with the simplest ingredients, the pizza tasted fantastic. The crust was thin and crispy, it was very juicy, cheesy and appetising. Every bite was sensational.

Just when we thought we’ve had the best main, the spaghetti ai fruitti di mare proved us wrong. The seafood spaghetti was excellent, probably one of the best pastas we’ve ever had in our life. Though a little overpriced at €15, the spaghetti was generously served with large mussels, clams and squids. The fresh seafood taste combined with the strong sense of white wine was fantastic, we love it so much that we longed to return for more.

After dinner, we walked back to the Saint Mark’s Square. The Procuratie were lighted up.

The next morning, we travelled back to the Piazzale Roma bus station to take our flight to Rome. The photo above was taken in Fondamenta Delle Burchielle, somewhere near the bus station. We bid farewell to Venice and say hello to Rome!

Restaurant Information
Calle delle Rasse, 358,
Castello, 4538
30122 Venezia,
Italy.
Tel: 041-2775746

Mister Sandwich

2010-01-06T12:21:00.002+08:00

Happy new year everyone! Wish you all the best in this new year and stay happy always! Back to our post on our Italy trip, the next day, we woke up early and travelled towards Ponte di Rialto.

The photo was taken in Fondamenta Venier. The water level has risen in Venice.

After a short walk, we arrived at Ponte dell'Accademia. We were taking photos around the area when we were approached by a gondolier who asked if we want to take a gondola trip around the Grand Canal. After bargaining on the price of the boat trip, we hopped on to the gondola.

A photo taken from the gondola. The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, commonly known as the Salute, can be seen from the photo.

The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat which was once the main transportation and most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times, the gondola is more commonly used to carry tourists. Our gondolier was very nice and friendly, he was striking different poses for us to capture photos. Throughout the gondola trip, he was singing Italian songs for us. Though a bit pricey, it was a pleasant trip!

Though the weather was tremendously cold in Venice, there are still many tourists around taking gondola rides.

Our half an hour boat trip ended and we continued our journey towards the Ponte di Rialto. The photo above was taken on the Ponte dell'Accademia, overlooking the Grand Canal.

Traffic jam with gondolas?

Finally we arrived at the well-known Ponte di Rialto. The Rialto Bridge is one of the four bridges which cross the Grand Canal. It is the oldest bridge across the canal.

The view from the Rialto Bridge. Water buses, water taxis and gondolas can be taken from the Rialto stop.

Another photo taken from the Rialto Bridge.

The view on the Rialto looking southwest down the Grand Canal. There are quite a number of restaurants along the Grand Canal. We decided to look for a café in that area for a light snack.

After walking around Riva del Ferro, we made up our mind to visit Mister Sandwich.

The interior of the café.

There are a number of sandwiches to choose from. Some of which we haven’t seen before in the UK before. They are all so delicious looking!

We had a tiny prosciutto vova sandwich for €1.50. The generously filled ham and egg sandwich was a nice snack for a light bite. Simple and delicious, we love it.

We also had a Nutella crepe for €3.50. Though a little overpriced, the crepe was intensely delicious. The crepe was served warm and filled with thick Nutella sauce topped with icing sugar. The crepe was irresistible, missing them so much right now.

We will be posting on Piazza San Marco in our coming post with more scrumptious Italian food. Stay tune!

Café Information
Bar Mister Sandwich,
San Marco 5120-5121,
Venice, Italy.

La Toletta

2009-12-26T08:01:00.001+08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Wish you all have a great day with friends and family! Finally winter holiday is here. Since we both have a few weeks free during Christmas break, we planned a trip to Italy last month.

Thanks to Ryanair, we purchased reasonably cheap air tickets and flew from London Stansted Airport to Venice Treviso Airport. After about an hour bus ride from the airport, we arrived in the city of Venice. The photo above was taken from Ponte Accademia, one of the four bridges of the Grand Canal. The night view in Venice is simply breath taking.

We took the water bus from the Venice Piazzale Roma and arrived at the Zettere station, one of the nearest stations to our hotel.

Along the way to our hotel, we took photos of the small canals.

After about 15 minutes walk, we arrived at our hotel. This photo is taken in Fondamenta Soranzo Detta Fornace, somewhere in front of our hotel.

Tummies rumbling and it’s time for dinner. We were told by the receptionist that Trovaso is one of the areas where we can look for good food. So we travelled by foot to that area.

Usually we would take our time to choose a restaurant which best fit our appetite. But we were extremely hungry at that moment and so we randomly chose a place to dine in. The café is small but nice and cozy. Though we had problems communicating, the staffs were very friendly and tried their best to assist us in ordering.

Our risotto alla pescatora were served shortly after we placed our order. Priced at €8, the seafood risotto was simply delicious. Somehow not visible from the photo, the risotto was cooked with tiny mussels, little octopus, fish, prawns and tomatoes. It was simple and authentic, very nice when eaten together with the bread too.

We can’t be in Italy without having a pizza. So here we go, we ordered a prosciutto crudo pizza for €9. The pizza was prepared with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, oregano and topped with thinly sliced raw ham. It was our first time trying out their raw ham, and it was delicious. The raw ham was rather salty but it blended well with the thick mozzarella cheese and the crunchy thin base of the pizza. A nice try for something new.

The snack bar closes quite early and we went to a next door confectionery to get some dessert. After difficulties choosing from a large variety of desserts, we finally settled for the torrone. It was incredibly expensive priced at €7 per slice, but also incredibly delicious. We love the taste of the soft nougat contrast with the crunchy toasted almonds, occasionally biting into the bitter sweet chocolate. It was excellent.

After dinner, we walked over to Chiesa di San Vidal to listen to a baroque music concert played by Interpreti Veneziani. Tickets for students under 25 years old is priced at €19 while normal tickets are priced at €24 each.

The music played during the night was the well-known Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi (a baroque composer who was born and raised in Venice), Divertimento K.137 per archi by W.A. Mozart and Suite n.1 per violoncello e archi by J.S. Bach. Though not the best concerts I’ve been to, it was still an enjoyable concert. More information about the concert can be found here. The next day we visited Piazza San Marco and took a gondola trip. Stay tune for more posts on Venice!

Café Information
Snack Bar,
Dorsoduro, 1191,
Venice, Italy.
Tel: 041-5200196

Henry’s Café Bar

2009-12-21T05:33:00.003+08:00

Last October during ys’s birthday, we decided to visit Henry’s Café Bar for dinner. Henry’s has been one of the few places that we always wanted to visit since we arrived in Cardiff. For some reasons, the outlook of the restaurant appealed to us.

The restaurant is situated near the New Theatre in Park Place, it is located right across Bellini's Italian Restaurant and the Parc Hotel.

The interior of the restaurant is large, cozy and very relaxing.

We placed our orders after we were seated in the restaurant. Disappointingly, it took them almost an hour just to serve us with our sharers. Also there weren’t enough people working in the restaurant, causing delays in serving customers. Our nachos was a bit of a letdown. Priced at £6.25, the warm tortilla chips topped with salsa, guacamole, sour cream, cheese and jalapeño tasted ordinary. In our opinion, they did nothing more than just putting the ingredients together.

Our mains were not good either. Initially, we ordered Lamb Henry and pork belly, but we were told that both mains were not available that day. We had no choice but to change our order to our second choice. We had a paprika chicken stroganoff for £9.45. The strips of chicken breast covered with paprika, onions and mushrooms were served with long grain rice and green beans. We hate to admit this, but it tasted awful. The sauce was bland but yet thick and filling. Tasteless chicken combined with white rice, how much worse things could get?

Priced at £10.25, the salmon with crushed new potatoes tasted rather average. The presentation of the dish was not up to expectation. The grilled salmon fillet coated with caper and butter sauce was too buttery and oily. The broccolis were overcooked too. We did not manage to finish our mains.

For their desserts, Henry's offers a free dessert on purchase of another dessert. Therefore we had two desserts (chocolate fondue and tangy lemon tart) for £3.95. The chocolate fondue was slightly below average. Pieces of chocolate brownies and waffle were served with strawberries, grapes, banana and a chocolate sauce to dip. The brownies, waffle and fruits were good, but there was too little chocolate sauce for dipping.

The tangy lemon tart tasted quite alright. The citrus tang filling of the tart went well with the double cream. But again, we find the presentation a little messy.

Surprisingly, we came across good feedback from other previous customers who visited Henry’s. But for our own experience in Henry’s, it is highly unlikely that we will revisit this restaurant in the future. More information of the café bar can be found on their website here.

Restaurant Information
Park Chambers,
Park Place,
Cardiff CF10 3DN,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920224672

Noble House (丽晶馆)

2009-12-16T05:21:00.002+08:00

On ys’s day off, we had a dinner with ys’s friends. One of his friends suggested that Noble House is quite a place for good Chinese food. Since we haven’t been there before, we decided to give this place a try.

Christmas is around the corner. On the way to the restaurant, we took photos of the Christmas decorations in the city centre.

Although the weather can be depressing at times, the beautiful lightings made things up.

A photo taken at St Mary Street.

Dazzling Christmas light up in Cardiff.

After a short walk, we arrived at the restaurant. Noble House is located across Cardiff Central Station. It is one of the few restaurants in Cardiff which serves both Chinese and Japanese food.

The restaurant was nice and cozy with dimmed lightings. It was rather quiet during the night of our visit.

We decided to go for their well-known Szechuan cuisine (四川菜) since it was highly recommended by our friend. Szechuan food is generally spicy, so be ready for a numbing sensation of Szechuan pepper. We ordered 5 main dishes and steamed white rice to go with the main dishes. We had a spicy deep fried chicken (辣子鸡) for £7.80. The chicken, moist and tender, was absolutely delicious and fragrant with the unique flavour of Szechuan peppercorn (花椒). Definitely something that one should order in this restaurant.

Priced at £7.80, the stir-fried water spinach aka kang kong with garlic (蒜茸空心菜) were quite good too. Despite a tad oily, the vegetable was crunchy and aromatic.

Recommended by our friend, we also ordered a sautéed pig’s kidney (火爆腰花) priced at £7.80. The dish might be a little uncommon for some people and to us too. We were quite careful when we took our initial bites, but fell in love with it instantly. The pig kidney’s taste was not too overwhelming and it was nicely suppressed by the chili oil and peppercorn. It was very well stir-fried as the pig’s kidney was moist and soft, every bite was sinfully delicious.

Also priced at £7.80, we had a spicy pork trotters (香辣猪手). The pork trotters were quite good too. Aromatic, fatty and juicy, the pork trotters were rather spicy as evidenced from the photo.

Priced at £14.80, we also ordered one of the most well-known dishes in Szechuan cuisine – shuizhu yu (水煮鱼). Shuizhu yu literally means water boiled fish. This way of cooking maintained the tenderness of the meat and the freshness of the vegetables. We enjoyed this dish thoroughly.

Overall, food was good in this restaurant. But do bear in mind that some of the dishes might be over spicy for some people and they might be a little oily too. Service was average. Nevertheless, we would still recommend this place to anyone who would like to try out authentic Szechuan cuisine in Cardiff.

Restaurant Information
St. Davids House,
9 - 11 Wood Street,
Cardiff CF10 1ER,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920383317

Zero Degrees

2009-12-11T09:16:00.002+08:00

This post is dated back to last September when I came back from KL to the UK. We wanted to have a nice meal to start off another new academic year. Since we’ve heard a lot of positive reviews about this restaurant, we decided to give this place a try.

Zero Degrees is strategically located near the Cardiff Central Station and also the Millennium Stadium, which makes the restaurant an ideal venue to go to before or after any events at the stadium.

The interior of the restaurant is nice and interesting. The restaurant is aimed at providing customers with fresh, handcrafted beers brewed by microbreweries.

The busy kitchen, working brewery and traditional wood fire pizza oven are open to view.

Since the restaurant has a high reputation for its freshly brewed beer, we decided to give their beer a try. We ordered one pint of fruit beer priced at £2.90. The fruit beer was good, very refreshing and suitable for those who prefer lighter taste in beer.

Beside the seasonal fruit beer, we also had a Zero Degrees pale ale priced at £2.80. The copper ale is somewhat similar to an English bitter. The beer was slightly bitter in taste than the fruit beer but it also has fruity flavours combined with rich malt taste. Quite a good drink we would say.

The first thing which caught our attention when reading the menu is their mussels. Instinctively we knew this is something that we must order. Priced at £12.50, we decided to go for their marinière where mussels were steamed in garlic, onions, white wine and cream. The kilo pot of mussels was served with fries and mayo. It was superb, the mussels were undeniably fresh and the sauce was nice and creamy but not too overpowering at the same time. Definitely something that we would recommend you to try if when you visit this restaurant. But do note that on days where there are events held in the Millennium Stadium, the restaurant will have a special event menu where they will not be serving mussels. To avoid disappointment, do call in to ask beforehand.

We also had a smoky Mexican pizza priced at £8.35. The pizza was generously topped with spicy Mexican sausage, roasted mixed peppers, red onions, sweet corns, jalapeños, smoked cheese, coriander, chili oil and tomato sauce. The pizza was tasty and flavourful, nice and cheesy complemented with rich tomato sauce.

For our dessert, we had a chocolate orange torte for £4.75. The cake was served with a scoop of vanilla or chocolate ice-cream and decorative strawberry. The torte was heavenly delicious. It was very rich in flavour. I love the contrasting taste between the bitter sweet chocolate and the slightly sour orange taste.

Service was quite good but the restaurant might be very crowded on days where there are events in the stadium. Be sure to book your table before visiting the restaurant. Suffice for us to say that this would be a restaurant that we will certainly revisit in the future. For more information, please visit their website here.

Restaurant Information
27 Westgate Street,
Cardiff CF10 1DD,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920229494

Zi’s Café

2009-12-07T09:04:00.001+08:00

After a few times of visiting Zi’s, we finally have the chance to post it. After lectures ended, we went to Zi’s for lunch.

The restaurant was opened not too long ago, in July this year if I’m not mistaken. This place soon gained popularity among students as the food is good and the price was reasonable, plus the location was somewhat close to the university.

The homely feel restaurant is owned by a friendly couple. Although not luxurious, the restaurant is nice and pleasant. The restaurant offers special lunch deal every afternoon, customers are free to choose from a selection of dishes which they prepared beforehand from the food heater. Prices can go as low as £3.50 depending on the number of dishes taken.

We ordered an original pearl milk tea (珍珠奶茶) to share. Priced at £2.50, the drink was good, not too sweet and the pearl was rather nice and chewy. Would love to try out different flavours such as apple, strawberry, champagne and yam in our future visit.

For starters, we ordered a sesame prawn toast (芝麻虾吐司) for £4.50. This is one of my favourite orders in Zi’s, one of the best prawn toasts I’ve had in Chinese restaurants in the UK. The toast was very well deep fried, crunchy, aromatic and heavenly delicious when dipped in the chili sauce.

Priced at £4.50, the vegetarian ma po bean curd (斋麻婆豆腐) was very good as well. The bean curd was nicely stir fried with chopped preserved vegetables, mushrooms, bamboo shoots with chili paste. It was rather spicy and scrumptious, it will definitely go well with white rice.

We also ordered a house special grilled noodles (招牌烘面). Priced at £5.50, we find this noodle rather authentic. The serving was generous, with large king prawns, chicken slices, roast pork and vegetables. The wok hei was sufficient, adding more flavour to the dish.

We find the food here quite good generally, and service was excellent as the owners are really friendly and approachable. Students are able to get a 10% discount with a valid NUS card. Besides dining in, Zi's also offer home delivery for order over £10. If you have not been here yet, we would recommend you to give this place a try.

Restaurant Information
94, Woodville Road,
Cathays,
Cardiff CF24 4ED,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920216294

Ikea Restaurant

2009-11-30T08:17:00.001+08:00

Where would come to your mind when you’re thinking of getting furniture for your home or office? For us, Ikea is somewhere that is always nice to look around even if we’re not getting anything in particular. Walking around checking out for thoughtful ideas for home can be quite enjoyable. So here we are, when we recently moved into our new home in September, we decided to visit Cardiff’s Ikea for the first time.

Ikea is located Grangetown where we have to take the number 9 or 9A bus from the city centre to Ikea.

After a short bus ride, we arrived at Ikea.

The interior for every Ikea is almost the same, the same goes for the restaurant.

For our mains, we had fish and chips and organic pasta. Priced at £4.50, the oven baked breaded haddock served with chips and green peas were good. Not the best we’ve ever tasted, but it was nice and decent.

However, the organic pasta was a bit of a let down. Priced at £1.90, the penne were a little watery, and the tomato sauce just wasn’t that good. The serving was rather small but we wouldn’t complain about it since the price was rather low.

Couldn’t miss out something sweet to end our meal. We had an almond cake for 95p. It was nice and buttery, topped with almond flakes. Suitable for those with a sweet tooth.

We wouldn’t rate the food in Ikea as fantastic, but it wasn’t bad either. The food was value for money and it’s convenient for people shopping in Ikea to sit back and rest. Ikea restaurant also offers Swedish dishes, for those who are interested in their menu, do check out their website here.

Restaurant Information
IKEA Wales,
Ferry Road,
Grangetown,
Cardiff CF11 0JR,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 08453552267

Nando’s

2009-11-24T09:07:00.002+08:00

About two months ago, we were browsing through offers from Student Beans and found a good deal from Nando’s. Since we haven’t had Nando’s for quite some time, we decided to visit the restaurant.

The Nando's which we visited is located in the Old Brewery Quarter. It is located near Bali Restaurant and Chiquito.

The counter where we placed our orders.

We read from their website that they only use fresh and not frozen chicken and that it was marinated for 24 hours in their Portuguese peri-peri sauce. The chicken was grilled to order over an open flame so to reduce fat content. We like the open kitchen concept where we can see our food being prepared.

The counter where we refill our drinks and get cutleries and peri-peri sauce.

So here we go, we got ourselves an extra extra hot peri-peri sauce and a ketchup.

With the printed voucher and a valid NUS student card, we are able to get a free half chicken subject to ordering a bottomless drink (£1.95) and a side dish (£1.85). Here’s ys’s free half chicken and coleslaw. For the level of spiciness of the chicken, we chose extra hot to satisfy our cravings for spicy food.

I had a quarter chicken with two regular sides for £6.10. For the sides, we had chips and spicy rice. The chicken was good, very well-grilled, fresh and spicy. Complemented with the extra hot peri-peri sauce, it was fiery and perfect! The chips were nice and decent, nothing much to shout about. The spicy rice was good, albeit not spicy, it was quite nice and flavourful.

The servings were a little small to our surprise. Not too sure about other Nando’s outlets in the UK, but the floor of the restaurant which we visited in St Mary Street was a little slippery. We have to pay extra caution when carrying our drinks from the counter. Other than that, service and food was excellent. Would absolutely go back for more fiery chicken!

Restaurant Information
The Old Brewery Quarter,
St Mary Street,
Cardiff, CF10 1FG,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920 341263

Bite

2009-11-20T09:33:00.002+08:00

This post is dated back to last summer when I decided to return to Malaysia to spend my summer break. We arrived early in Heathrow airport. After checking in my luggage and settled everything, we decided to have a light meal in the airport.

After walking around and comparing the menu and ambiance of different restaurants, we decided to dine in Bite.

Love the theme of their colour – green. It somehow signifies healthy food.

For our drinks, we had a strawberry and papaya smoothie. Priced at £2.75, the smoothie was exceptionally good. It was rich in taste, smooth and very creamy too. We totally love this.

Priced at £2.95, the cheese and tomato baguette was good too. A simple sandwich with cheese and tomato will never go wrong. The black pepper boosted the taste of the baguette, making it more flavourful.

Besides the baguette, we also had a cheese, mayo and ham focaccia at £3.95. The oven baked Italian bread tasted fantastic. Served warm, the focaccia was delicious, juicy and cheesy on every bite. The ingredients served were generous, fresh and good.

Besides sandwiches, they also serve soups, jacket potatoes and hot snacks. The café was rather spacious and quiet compared to most of other restaurants in Terminal 3. Although the prices were slightly higher than average, we would highly recommend you to visit this restaurant for its fresh and good food.

Restaurant Information
Terminal 3, Arrivals,
Heathrow Airport,
234 Bath Road,
Hayes,
Middlesex UB3 5AP,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 020 8759 3607

Sri Nelayan, Berjaya Tioman Beach 2nd post

2009-11-16T09:02:00.002+08:00

This is the last post on our Tioman trip, previous food and photos taken in Tioman Island can be found here.

We love the sea a lot. And the beach too. Many were quite surprised and asked us if spending 7 days in Tioman would be a little bored. Our answer would be no. The sceneries were just too beautiful to get enough of them. And there are a lot to do on the island too, snorkeling, diving, cycling, jungle tracking, fishing and even reading a book makes me feel so good.

We watched the sunset almost everyday.

After sunset, we went to Sri Nelayan, Berjaya Tioman Beach’s coffee house, for dinner. In our previous post on Sri Nelayan, we mentioned that we had coupons which provided us with two dinner sets in Sri Nelayan. We dined in this place twice. This is a combination of the two dinners that we had in Sri Nelayan.

For starters, we had a choice of fresh salad or a soup. We had fresh salad as they allowed us to mix and match our own salad at the buffet counter.

For our mains, we had a Romano style braised lamb shank served with ratatouille and mashed potatoes. Though we were unsure how an authentic ratatouille would taste like, the mixed vegetables tasted quite good as an accompaniment with the lamb shank. The lamb shank was good, it was fleshy and juicy and the tomato sauce boosted our appetites.

Ys had a grilled t-bone steak served with roasted potatoes, chef’s selected vegetables and mushroom sauce. The portion of the steak served was rather large. The steak was a little dry on its own, but complemented with the mushroom sauce, it was good.

The quarter chicken briyani rice served with vegetable dhall curry, deep-fried egg, chicken pea crackers and assorted condiments tasted quite decent. It wasn’t extraordinary, but not too bad either.

The fried tiger prawns served with potato wedges, trio dip which includes mustard, chili and curry dip and mixed fresh salad with house dressing. The tiger prawns were fresh and juicy on its own, however, it wasn’t well-fried and ended up a little soggy. The trio dip was good, it was nice having a few choices of dipping sauce.

As for our desserts, we are free to choose from the assortment of desserts from the buffet counter. The little cakes and pastries were nicely arranged and presentation was good too. Suffice for us to say that their dessert tasted quite good generally.

We had a great stay in Berjaya Tioman Beach. It was a good resort. More information about Berjaya Tioman Beach can be found on their official website here. And Tioman Island was fantastic! The last photo was taken after dinner. The sky was full of stars, something that we can hardly find in KL. We would definitely be revisiting again.

Restaurant Information
Sri Nelayan, Berjaya Tioman Beach,
Golf & Spa Resort,
Pulau Tioman, P.O. Box 4,
86807 Mersing,
Johor Darul Takzim,
Malaysia.
Tel : 09-4191000

Sarang Seafood Restaurant (中西式海鲜楼)

2009-11-12T08:12:00.002+08:00

We truly apologise for delaying this post. This post was taken during our 7 days trip to Tioman Island during February 2008. Other posts in Tioman Island can be found here.

After having heard of the infamous ABC beach, which is also known as Air Batang Beach, we decided to ride our bicycles all the way from Berjaya Tioman Beach Resort to ABC. The road was quite rocky and there are also times when we need to carry our bikes up the stairs. Nevertheless, it was quite an adventure.

Hard work does pay off. The scenery was spectacular.

There are quite a number of chalets located in ABC beach, quite suitable for people who are planning for budget trips.

A village house surrounded by greeneries. Many Malay styled houses can be seen along ABC beach.

This is one of ys’s favourite photo, also my favourite. The sunset view was breath-taking.

Words can’t describe the beauty of the sunset. I’ll leave it to the photo.

A nice bistro in ABC beach overlooking the sea. We were quite surprise to find quite a number of foreigners staying in this area. Quite a number of restaurants in ABC offer Western food to suit their needs.

We rode back to Kampung Tekek before sunset, where we had our dinner. We randomly chose a restaurant and dined in Sarang.

We had an apple and watermelon juice priced at RM3 each.

Wanting to try something special, we decided to try something recommended by the staff. Unsure about the name of this dish, this seafood is rather similar to mantis shrimp or more commonly known as lai liu ha (攋尿蝦). The staff referred to this as ha po (虾婆). Priced at RM30, this black pepper ha po was delicious! The prawns were large, juicy, succulent and sweet, the black pepper sauce was fragrant and added more flavour to it. It was so good that we almost wanted to order another plate.

We also had a plate of Szechuan chicken (四川鸡) at RM10. The chicken was nice and soft, coupled with the spiciness of Szechuan flavoured gravy, it was fantastic.

We also had a mixed vegetables soup (什菜汤) at RM12. Even though various types of vegetables were found in the soup, the soup tasted rather bland.

Overall, it was a delightful dinner. Seafood was fresh and good and service was good. They even serve sandwiches, continental breakfast and Western food to cater the needs of foreign tourists. However, food can be overpriced in Tioman Island, especially for tourists. Guess the same applies to all tourist spots. Hope to return to Tioman Island soon, we really love this serene island.

Restaurant Information
Kampung Tekek,
Pulau Tioman,
86807 Pahang Darul Makmur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 013-7066484

Uni Hall Bar

2009-11-03T11:50:00.002+08:00

Uni Hall Bar is a bar located in University Hall. The post is dated back to June when we decided to pay them a visit before the bar's closed for summer.

Among all the university accommodations, University Hall is the furthest away from the Cardiff University and the city centre. It takes about 45 minutes by foot and 15 minutes by bus to travel to the university. Fortunately we were provided with free bus service throughout the study term so it’s not too inconvenient after all. A photo captured last winter when it was snowing.

We didn’t notice this park in University Hall before it snows, we were photo shooting in every corner of the accommodation when it was snowing.

Didn’t even realise how pretty it is until it snows.

This is the Uni Hall Bar, where it accommodates students' needs to have their meals or simply have a drink without having to walk a distance to other places.

It was crowded with students on the day when we went.

The interior of the bar.

We had dinner with Isaac, one of our closest friends in University Hall. From the left, Isaac had a pint of lemonade (£1.40), I had a bottle of VK vodka (£1.80) while ys had a pint of Stella (£2.70). The VK vodka, which was a mixture of pineapple and grapefruit juice with vodka, tasted quite nice and refreshing.

Other than the mains, we ordered some plates to share. Priced at £1.65, we find this nachos with cheese and salsa rather delicious. Ever since our pleasant experience in the Coal Grill and Bar, we fell in love with nachos. We enjoyed the crispiness of the warm-melted-cheese-topped nachos while the salsa sauce added a kick of excitement to it. We also had a portion of chips for £1.

Isaac had a chicken burger and chips which was priced at £2.25. He claimed that the burger was a little dry, but other than that, it was fine.

Ys had a brains and steak pie and chips at £2.30 which he commented that the black pepper gravy was rather fragrant and delicious and the chunks of beef were soft and nice.

Priced at £2.25, I find this chicken wrap with chips and salsa quite a good order. Though the chicken strips were a little tiny, nevertheless it tasted quite good with cheese and salsa.

Uni Hall Bar gave feeling of coziness to us, nice and warm. It would definitely be a great place to chill out with friends. Will be missing this place.

Bar Information
University Hall,
Birchwood Road,
Cardiff CF23 5YB,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920874444

Bali Restaurant

2009-10-27T10:01:00.002+08:00

For a year of staying in Cardiff, it was a shame on us of not knowing that there is an authentic Bali restaurant situated in the heart of Cardiff city centre. Despite visiting Thai Edge for a few times, I didn’t notice there is another restaurant located across it. So when ys finally had his day off, we went there to have our lunch.

The restaurant caters a selection of Southeast Asian cuisine including Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai food.

The interior of the restaurant was rather Balinese we would say. Quite small so we would suggest you to make reservations before visiting to avoid disappointment.

The restaurant was quite quiet when we went there as there were only a few customers dining in.

Nice table settings.

For lunch, Bali offers a two course set lunch priced at £5.95 per person. For starters, we had pergedel. It was our first time trying this mashed potato cake. The lightly seasoned potato cake was delicious, very tasty but not overpowering. Also very appetising when dipped in the sweet chili sauce.

By looking at the photo we are sure most of our readers are familiar with satay ayam – skewers of char grilled chicken served with peanut sauce. The chicken was moist, meaty and delicious. The peanut sauce, although not superb, was good too. Would have preferred them to serve more peanut sauce though.

We had Singapore laksa for our main course. Served piping hot, the rice vermicelli were served with prawns, shrimps, fish cakes and bean sprouts. To our surprise, it was rather spicy, compared to other foods labeled in the UK which are usually not spicy at all. It has an intense coconut milk taste which I find slightly overwhelming but which ys seemed to enjoy a lot.

The sambal ayam was the right order for me as I enjoyed it thoroughly. The sliced chicken served in the sambal chili sauce was flavourful, spicy and definitely authentic. We wiped the plate clean with the sambal gravy. A recommended order if you miss the taste of home.

We also tried their nasi lemak and nasi goreng which we enjoyed a lot too. Service was good but do note that it can take up to 30 minutes for the chef to prepare your order. Nevertheless we can’t wait until our next visit to this restaurant.

Restaurant Information
30-32 Caroline Street,
Cardiff City Centre,
CF10 1FF
Tel: 02920374777

Restoran Satay Celup Zao Jiuu

2009-10-21T06:34:00.003+08:00

A post dated back to August 2008. We had a sudden urge to visit Malacca for its infamous satay celup since we were leaving to UK soon at that time and we have yet to try satay celup. Unprepared and without much hesitation, we departed to Malacca for a night trip.

We were told that there are quite a few satay celup restaurants located in Jalan Ong Kim Wee. And here we found two satay celup restaurants located next to each other. Randomly, we choose Zao Jiuu (潮洲).

As you can see, the restaurant is packed with customers. We had to wait for a table. Service was good and efficient. Despite the huge crowd, we were seated very quickly.

The barley with lime (薏米桔子水) was priced at RM2 while the barley drink was priced at RM1.50 (薏米水). Both local drinks were nice and refreshing and provided a nice contrast with the spicy steamboat satay. The bread was priced at RM0.50. It was good for dipping in the dense and aromatic peanut sauce. It was heavenly delicious as we have ordered plates and plates of bread to soak up the delicious peanut sauce.

Satay celup (串串锅), literally translated as steamboat satay, is where raw food, vegetables and seafood on skewers are cooked in a boiling pot of thick and spicy peanut sauce. In Zao Jiuu, the skewers are kept in the refrigerator and customers are free to choose from the wide selection of raw foods. The normal stick is price at RM0.50 each while the one with a blue end is priced at RM1. We have taken skewers of prawns, broccoli, Chinese leaf, mushrooms, bitter gourd, chili and dumplings.

Second round, more prawns, mushrooms, cockles and vegetables. Other than these, they also have squid, quail eggs, crab sticks, fish balls etc.

The peanut sauce was thick and spicy with a tinge of sweetness, it complemented so well with the fresh ingredients. It was sinfully delicious. Love it so much and we would definitely return to Malacca for more! Zao Jiuu is opened from Tuesday to Sunday from 5pm to 12am. For more information about this restaurant, please visit their website here.

After dinner, we drove to Jonker Street to visit their night market. There was a live cultural performance on stage during the night of our visit, adding to the liveliness of the historical city. Jonker Street has a lot to offer, varieties of souvenirs and local delicacies are available in the vibrant night market.

Geographer Café is one of the landmarks in Malacca. It is a nice building which has won an architectural award.

There are many heritage buildings located on this street.

Even though we were quite full after dinner, we can’t resist having desserts before leaving the night market. Again, randomly, we chose a place to sit down and have something that we have craved for since our previous visit to Malacca – Cendol.

The best thing about Malacca’s cendol is their gula Melaka aka palm sugar. The gula Melaka was so sweet and fragrant, combined with the icy cold shaved ice, coconut milk and starch noodles, the dessert was simply addictive.

It was a very enjoyable trip. Hope to return to Malacca and Jonker Street again to discover different food and treasures in the city.

Restaurant Information
No. 45-G, Jalan Ong Kim Wee,
75300 Melaka,
Malaysia.
Tel: 06-2865484

Beard Papa’s

2009-10-16T08:24:00.003+08:00

After a scrumptious meal at the Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant, I suddenly craved for Beard Papa’s cream puffs and texted Ai Wei for the address and the telephone of the café. Thank you Ai Wei for the immediate reply across half the globe. The puffs were simply addictive, they got my best friend travelled to Pavilion for cream puffs the next day. With the information, we traveled quickly to Beard Papa’s since we need to catch our bus back to Cardiff.

Beard Papa is located in Oxford Street, within walking distance either from Oxford Circus or Tottenham Court Road Underground Station.

The café was quite small but bright, clean and pleasant.

Beard Papa is a Japanese bakery chain founded in 1999. There are now 300 stores in 15 countries, selling 150 million cream puffs in 2007. One good thing about their products is that no additives and preservatives were used.

Instead of purchasing one or two cream puffs, we bought a box of cream puffs and brought it back to Cardiff for supper. There are a few sets available, we bought set A which consists of 3 cream puffs, a cornet, a cookie crunch puff and an éclair cream puff. Set A was originally priced at £7.90, but an additional 10p was added to the bill since we ordered a flavour of the day cream puff.

Our box of cream puffs getting ready to go home with us!

Got a little hungry during the journey and ate a cream puff, so there’re 5 left in the photo which was taken at home. The original vanilla cream puff (bottom left) is simply my favourite, it tasted so heavenly delicious! The cream puff was so fresh and fluffy, complemented with the smooth but not too sweet vanilla cream filling, it was excellent! There are 3 types of flavours offered in UK’s Beard Papa’s, namely green tea, chocolate and strawberry. The flavour of the day when we went was chocolate. It was our first time trying it and it was very good, very nice and light. The cornet (middle of the photo) was quite good too! It was generously filled with delicious vanilla cream, so soft and smooth when eaten. The éclair cream puff (upper right corner) tasted quite unique with rich chocolate topping and vanilla filling, something worth giving a try! The cookie crunch puff (right) was good too. Six is just not enough to satisfy my cravings!

Other than those introduced above, Beard Papa’s in London also offer chocolate fondant, cheesecake and tiramisu which we would love to try in the near future! Service was extremely good and friendly. More information about Beard Papa’s can be found on their UK website here.

Café Information
143 Oxford Street,
London W1D 2JB,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02074949020

Far East Restaurant (新界奇华饼家)

2009-10-12T07:52:00.000+08:00

This post is backdated to summer when we suddenly felt like visiting London for the sales. And so we had an impromptu trip to London.

We arrived at London at about half past eight. We thought of having Chinese breakfast since we haven’t had them for ages. So we took the underground to Chinatown. A photo of the London Chinatown gate.

Most restaurants are not open this early. Far East is one of the minority restaurants which open early. When we were looking at the menu outside, the staff politely invited us in and so we decided to give it a try.

The interior of the restaurant.

Unfortunately quite a lot of pastries were not ready as they were still in the process of preparing them. So we can only select from a limited number of choices. We had a red bean sesame ball (煎堆) for £1.50. It was nice and crispy on the outside but the red bean fillings were inadequate. Nevertheless, the taste was still good overall.

Priced at £1.50, the pineapple bun (菠萝包) aka bo lo pao was a little below average. Despite being served warm, the bun was bland without any sense of fragrance and the bread was too dense too our liking, a feeling that too much flour was added. Would definitely avoid this next time.

The wonton noodles in soup (云吞汤面) was also quite a letdown. Priced at £3.50, the serving was quite small, the broth was a rather bland and the noodles were a little soggy.

Service was average and the price was quite reasonable. However, we didn’t really enjoy the food. One good thing about this place is that they open for very long hour. The bakery opens from 9.15am to 7pm while the restaurant opens from 6pm to 5am daily.

Restaurant Information
13 Gerrard Street,
London W1D 5PS,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02074376148

Thai Edge

2009-10-06T08:05:00.005+08:00

Sorry for the delay, this is the final post on our marathon summer trip to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and our last destination, Leeds. Anyway, after about an hour bus journey from Manchester, we arrived in Leeds.

After a night’s rest, we begin our journey in Leeds. A photo taken near the Leeds Railway Station.

The Leeds Town Hall is one of the largest town halls in the UK.

The Leeds Civic Hall is located in the Millennium Square, which was a few steps away from Thai Edge Restaurant.

We took a short bus ride to the Kirkstall Abbey. The Abbey is one of the medieval Cistercian abbeys in the UK. This is the Western Elevation of the Abbey.

A photo taken from the Cloister. This open square is where the Cistercian monks spent most of their time when they were not attending services in the church.

This part of the building used to be the church, the most important building in the Abbey.

Leeds Kirkgate Market is one of the interesting places to visit in Leeds. It has more than 800 stalls in the market and it offers a wide array of specialist units selling. Learn more from their official website here.

The Victoria Quarter located in the Briggate features a variety of upmarket stores such as Kurt Geiger, Mulberry, Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith etc.

Back to food, we had our lunch in Thai Edge. The restaurant is quite easy to find, it is located near the Millennium Square and situated next to the NHS Infirmary Hospital.

The interior of the restaurant is modern and nice.

Very clean and pleasant. We noticed that the staffs constantly clean the tables.

It was a Sunday when we visited and the restaurant offers a buffet lunch starting from 12 to 3pm. The buffet is priced at £8.95 per adult.

Here are some of the foods which we managed to capture photos. The chicken satay was absolutely delicious. It was grilled to perfection and the meat was juicy and tender. There was peanut and chili sauce for dipping too. Perfect to go with the satay!

The vegetable samosa was something that we enjoyed a lot too. It was nice and crunchy with juicy fillings and not too oily too!

The dish on the left is the beef in coconut milk while the one on the right is the duck cooked in red curry. I did not try the beef in coconut milk as I do not take beef. The duck cooked in red curry was decent, not superb, but not too bad either.

Couldn’t recall myself trying the char-grilled chicken and the stir-fried lamb in chili paste but ys tried them out and claimed that they tasted pretty good.

They also have char-grilled pork with lemongrass and vermicelli that we have never tried before, it was quite delicious, and I assume quite healthy too!

The stir-fried egg noodles were rather tasty, flavourful and not too oily, simple and nice. Other dishes which we didn’t manage to capture good photos are the Thai papaya salad, Thai spicy vegetable, Thai spicy squid salad, stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts, vegetables in yellow curry, stir-fried pork in sweet and sour sauce, stir-fried mussels in chili and galangal, stir-fried tofu with bean sprouts and deep fried fish with mango sauce. For £8.95 per person, we think the buffet is worth it!

There is a separate counter where we can create our own Thai styled noodle. We were given a choice of vermicelli or flat rice noodles, chicken or beef soup, different types of meat, vegetables and seasonings. So this is our creation, a bowl of vermicelli noodles with chicken slices and chicken soup, garnished with scallions, crushed peanuts and chili flakes. It was simply delicious!

As for desserts, we had steamed banana with coconut flakes. It was soft and smooth, not too sweet but full of flavour.

The mung beans in sweet syrup and coconut milk aka tao suan is suitable for people who has a sweet tooth. It might be overly sweet for some people, but it tasted quite good to me, very fragrant, milky and nice to finish off this satisfying lunch. For those who are not into desserts, they also serve various tropical fruits.

Food was definitely satisfying, service was remarkably good too. More information about this restaurant can be found on their website. I recalled visiting Thai Edge once in Cardiff, the buffet dinner that I had was a good one! Will definitely revisit this restaurant in the future. This post marks the end of our 7 days journey to the north of the UK, it was a memorable trip, can’t wait to travel again!

Restaurant Information
New Portland Place,
7 Calverley Street,
Leeds LS1 3DY
Tel: 01132436333

PASTA de GOHAN (和風スパゲッティーのお店)

2009-09-28T02:43:00.001+08:00

Another post dated back to June 2008, after knowing Pasta de Gohan is finally here in Sunway Pyramid, we decided to pay them a visit. Pasta de Gohan is a Japanese pasta and café restaurant by Pasta de Waraku Singapore.

We find Pasta de Gohan slightly similar to Pasta Zanmai, which is a wafu style restaurant offering Japanese pasta.

The restaurant was clean, nice and comfortable. There were also showcases displaying various types of pasta offered by the restaurant. Take a good look at the plastic pasta models and you’ll probably get an idea of what you want eat for the night.

For our drinks, we had a Calpis (カルピス) for RM3.80 and a macha float (抹茶フロート) for RM4.80.

We had a Carbonara Waraku Style (カレボナーラ和楽風) for RM23.80. The creamy spaghetti was showered with bacon and yolk with carbonara sauce. It was delicious, the sauce was nice and creamy, coupled with the melted egg yolk, the spaghetti was made even smoother. Our only complain is that the bacon is a tad too salty.

Priced at RM26.80, the scallop and chicken rice (ホタテとチキン) was a little disappointing. The presentation was rather messy and the dish was a little over baked, causing the wafu cream sauce to dry up. Similarly, the scallops and chicken were dry and lost its juiciness.

Although the scallop and chicken rice was a little bit of a let down, we’ve read many positive reviews on this restaurant. And for the extensive range of pastas that they offer, we would still return to try out other food. Do check out their website for more information.

Restaurant Information
Unit No LG2.126A,
Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre,
No.3, Jalan PJS 11/15, Bandar Sunway,
46150 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-56218166

Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant (文兴酒家)

2009-09-21T00:01:00.001+08:00

Sorry for not updating for quite some time, we have been quite busy these few weeks. Anyway, here's a post on our 1 day trip to London. After we done enough of shopping in London, we took the underground to Bayswater to the Four Seasons Restaurant – the restaurant known for its legendary delicious roast duck.

Within minutes, we arrived at the Bayswater Underground Station.

The restaurant is only a few steps away from the underground station, very visible and easy to look for. There are quite a number of souvenir shops located in this area, a nice place to buy or just take a look at gifts.

It was only half past four when we arrived at the restaurant. We were early because we wanted to avoid the crowd and also simply because we were hungry after the rather unpleasant breakfast which we had in Chinatown, which we will post in the future. The restaurant was considerably small but clean and pleasant.

The various types of chili which went perfectly with the roast duck!

Priced at £10.50 for half a duck, the Cantonese style special roast duck (粤式烧鸭) was superb! It was simply one of the best roast ducks we have had so far, and it was quite hard to believe that London is the place we had it, instead of somewhere else in Malaysia. The skin was so nice and crispy while the meat was so sinfully delicious, very moist, flavourful and chewy. The sweet sauce complemented the duck so well, and the thick layer of fat beneath the skin of the duck was the hidden treasure. Every bite was sensational!

Priced at £6.80, the hot and spicy bean curd with minced pork (麻婆豆腐) tasted very good too! It was originally served with minced beef but we changed it to pork since I don’t take beef. The dish was moderate spicy, but very delicious, flavourful and aromatic! Very nice to go with white rice, we wiped the plates clean as we did the same for the roast duck.

Service was a little below average and it takes quite a long time for food to be served. Fortunately, food was excellent and authentic. If you really want to try good roast ducks, this would definitely be the place for it. Very highly recommended!

Restaurant Information
83 Queensway,
Bayswater,
London W2 3RL,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02072294320

The New Hong Kong Cantonese Restaurant (新香港大酒楼)

2009-09-03T02:37:00.003+08:00

Back from Old Trafford, we took the tram until St Peter’s Square.

The Manchester Central Library located in St Peter’s Square.

We decided to walk up north to Manchester Arndale. On the way, we captured photos of the Manchester Town Hall which is located in Albert Square.

About 10 minutes we arrived at Manchester Arndale, a large shopping centre with over 240 shops located in it.

Located in front of the Arndale lies the Wheel of Manchester. The weather wasn’t perfect for travelling and photo shooting the other day, it even rained a little.

Despite the gloomy weather, there was a huge crowd in the Exchange Square. The Triangle Shopping Centre can be seen from this photo.

The Old Wellington Inn and the Sinclairs Oyster Bar was incredibly packed with lots of people.

We decided to have an early dinner since our bus to Leeds will depart at 8pm. For some reasons, we happen to walk back to Chinatown naturally, to satisfy our cravings for more Chinese food! After much deliberation (every restaurant seemed so attractive!), we finally decided on The New Hong Kong Cantonese Restaurant, the reason being that they offer dim sum at half priced from 12 to 5pm daily.

The interior of the restaurant was nice and cozy. We actually arrived at the restaurant at 4.55pm and the waiter took our order at about 5 minutes past 5pm, it was nice for him to allow us to have the dim sum at half price. Prices stated below are original prices before discount.

We ordered a Shanghai mini dumplings (上海小笼包) more commonly known as xiu long bao at £3.60. Though not the best that we’ve had, the xiu long bao was decent and meaty and filled with naturally sweet soup.

Priced at £3.60, the Cantonese barbecue pork buns aka char siew bao (蚝油叉烧包) was delicious and authentic. Our only minor complain is that the fillings were a little dry. Other than that, the bun was good.

The preserved meat pot rice (腊味饭) was something that we enjoyed a lot. Priced at £4.80, the Chinese pork sausages aka lap cheong and char siew tasted very well with rice, they were distinctly sweet and salty, but not too overwhelming. The sauce infused into the rice made the rice fragrant and flavourful.

Priced at £3.60, the Malaysian sponge roll or more commonly known as ma lai kou (全蛋马来卷) tasted fantastic! Served steaming hot, the steamed brown sugar cake was very soft, fluffy, loose and lightly sweet. It was very nice to eat, something that we definitely would reorder again!

Other than steamed delicacies, we also ordered something from the deep fried menu. Priced at £3.60, the deep fried custard bun (酥炸奶皇包) was absolutely delightful! The bun was very well deep fried, fragrant, crunchy on the outside while the custard was not overly sweet. Simply love it!

The coconut pudding (香滑椰汁糕) which we somehow ordered by mistake was served shortly after we placed our order. Since it appealed to us, we accepted it without much hesitation. It was taste at first sight, the coconut pudding was excellent! It was smooth, silky and fragrant with a sense of coconut milk but not too overwhelming at the same time. The red bean complemented well with the cold pudding too. I am already salivating when writing this post. Very highly recommended!

It was a delightful dinner, we enjoyed the dim sum a lot. Dim sum served in this restaurant are generally flavourful but not too oily or overwhelming. Service was good too. We would definitely revisit this restaurant if we visit Manchester again. So many different types of dim sum that we would like to try! For more information, please visit their official website here.

Restaurant Information
47 Faulkner Street,
Manchester M1 4EE,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01612360565

Red Café

2009-08-27T00:24:00.004+08:00

The second morning in Manchester, we seek for directions from the reception and took a tram from St Peter’s Square to Old Trafford, the infamous football stadium which is the home to the Premier League club Manchester United.

A tram at St Peter’s Square.

After a short ride we arrived at the Old Trafford tram station. It takes about 10 minutes walk from the tram station and here we are, in front of the Old Trafford East Stand, where the United Trinity statue stood proudly in front of us.

Tickets to visit the stadium and the museum are priced at £11.74 for an adult while tickets for students are priced at £7.83. The stadium tour lasted for about an hour, with a tour guide explaining each and every corner of the stadium and the history to us. Honestly, both of us are no football fans, but the tour was interesting.

Up to 76,212 spectators can be seated in this stadium. Old Trafford has the second largest capacity in the English football stadium after the Wembley Stadium.

After the tour at the stadium, we visited the museum where the history of the club and various trophies can be seen.

A section displaying and introducing Christiano Ronaldo. Not a big fan of him though.

Besides the museum tour, we also visited the Megastore, arguably the largest store devoted to football.

We were quite surprised to find so many Malaysians in Old Trafford, in the store, in the museum and even in our tour, where there are only about 20 persons per tour.

These counters will be opened during match days to avoid the long queue.

Goodies that we bought from the store. Jerserys, t-shirts, key chains and a lucky bag.

Feeling a little hungry, we went to the Red Café to grab a bite. The café is located at the third floor of the North Stand at Old Trafford, right across the entrance to the museum. There are televisions constantly showing non-stop Manchester United action and even the chairs are labeled with names and numbers of the football players. Guess it’s heaven for football fans!

Not feeling hungry, we only got ourselves a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich (BLT) and a mineral water at the total of £5. The sandwich was fresh and good, generously filled with small strips of bacon. Instead of the food, it was the tissue which caught our attention. It was printed with the Manchester United logo and the tissue was so thick and nice. Besides sandwiches, the Red Café features a variety of light snacks, main courses, pastas, side dishes, desserts and beverages. More information about their menu and restaurant can be found here.

On the way back to the tram station, we noticed a huge crowd queuing up in front of the Old Trafford Cricket Ground. It was when we came home and read that the Take That summer concert was held on that day. Fortunately we avoided the heavy traffic and went back to St Peter’s Square easily.

Restaurant Information
Manchester United Football Club,
Old Trafford,
Manchester M16 0RA,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01618688303

Red N Hot (红满天)

2009-08-17T02:28:00.000+08:00

After a delayed long bus journey, we arrived at Manchester city centre. After checking in the hotel, we make our way to Chinatown to have our dinner.

Out of our expectation, the Chinatown in Manchester is larger than we have in mind, which means more choices for food!

After spending some time checking out menus of some restaurants, we decided that we would have Szechuan cuisine for the night. Hence, we chose Red N Hot Szechuan restaurant.

The interior of the restaurant was comfortable, modern, spacious and quiet.

From the left, we had a plum juice (酸梅汁) and an aloe vera drink (芦荟) priced at £2 and £1.80 each. The plum juice was very good, it provided a cure for the fiery meal that we had and possessed a sense of Chinese herbal tea which we missed a lot.

We had a jellyfish with bean sprouts (银芽海蜇) as our appetiser. Priced at £8.50, the starter was rather pricey but generously served with loads of fresh jellyfish topped with sesame seeds. It was quite different from the Japanese version, where Chinese vinegar was used for this dish. The jellyfish, when eaten with the bean sprouts, were crunchy and tasty, definitely a good start!

Since we haven’t had hot pot for ages, we decided to have their hot pot buffet, priced at £18 per person. For the soup base, we had the combination of soup bases (鸳鸯锅底) which includes the white soup base and the hot chicken soup base. The hot soup is completely covered with chilies, which triggered our excitement!

As for the ingredients, we are able to choose from the 16 options stated in the menu. We had a plate of thinly sliced lamb (肥羊).

The serving of the lamb slices were surprisingly large! The lamb were wonderfully delicious after soaking the spicy broth, they were so fresh and meaty. Tasted even better when dipped in the Szechuan garlic dipping (川味油碟) which they provided. Definitely something that you should not miss if you’re having hot pot in this restaurant!

We also had some Chinese leaves (白菜), fresh chicken meat (鸡肉), dried bean curd sticks (腐竹) and golden needle mushrooms (金针菇). The dried bean curd sticks, when cooked in the spicy soup, tasted extremely spicy, do challenge it if you’re after hot food!

Other than that, we also had fish balls (鱼丸), luncheon meat (午餐肉), king prawns (明虾), spinach (菠菜) and bean curd (豆腐). The king prawns were fresh, large, succulent and delicious, another item that we highly recommend to order! All ingredients are very fresh, the quality of food is definitely guaranteed.

We were so full after dinner that we find it really hard to make our way back to the hotel. Service was a little below average. But fortunately the quality of the food is worth a revisit! Other than hot pot buffet, the restaurant also offers a variety of Szechuan dishes which we would love to return for. For more information and their complete menu, please check out their official website here.

Restaurant Information
56 Faulkner Street,
Manchester M1 4FH,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01612362650

Galloways Bakers

2009-08-06T10:03:00.002+08:00

After a night’s rest in Edinburgh, we woke up early in the morning to take the bus back to Glasgow for a connecting bus to Manchester. The bus journey from Glasgow to Manchester takes about 5 hours. And unfortunately, the bus that we took had a flat tyre.

All passengers have to get off the bus to wait for the tyre to be fixed before we can continue with our journey. Since we have 45 minutes to spare, we decided to discover areas around Preston Bus Station to look for a bakery.

About 5 minutes walk from the bus station, we found a bakery and went on in.

The kitchen where various pies and pastries are prepared.

The interior of the bakery.

Not too sure what they are, but cookies I suppose. Very cute, aren’t they?

The problem with this place is that they did not label their products. And since we are in a rush to return to the bus station (a feeling that it would be better to wait at the station), we only chosen a tuna savoury baguette priced at £2.05. The baguette was fresh and nice, nothing much to shout about.

After some reading from their official website, we realised that they were famous for their potato and meat pies, chunky steak pie and other pies. It’s a waste that we didn’t order any of their pies. Hopefully we would have the chance to revisit again.

Shop Information
70-72 Lancaster road,
PR1 1LB Preston,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01772561110

Dragon Dynasty Restaurant (龙乡点心粥面)

2009-07-31T07:00:00.001+08:00

Another post dated back to June 2008. I was happy to know that my father discovered a nice restaurant for dim sum near my place. Without much hesitation, we went to this restaurant for dinner on a weekend.

Do note that parking can be really hard to find in this area, especially during lunch and dinner time.

The interior of the restaurant is clean and bright and comfortable.

For our drinks, we had a passion fruit bubble tea (百里香果龙珠奶茶) priced at RM3.90. It was not too sweet and slightly sour, just right to our liking.

Similarly, their apple bubble tea (苹果园龙珠奶茶) was as good as the passion fruit bubble tea. A good start for the dinner.

We had their caviar siew mai (鱼子烧卖王) for RM4.50. The siew mai tasted quite delicious. The pork was juicy, delicious and flavourful. However, we were quite disappointed to find many other dim sums sold out at night. We didn’t get to try their pan fried carrot cake (腊味萝卜糕), lotus rice (腊味荷叶饭) and most importantly, Shanghai steamed pork dumpling (上海小龙包).

Fortunately, char siew bao (蜜味叉烧包) was still available. This is definitely something to try out in this restaurant. Priced at RM3.50, the Chinese pork bun was excellent, very flavourful but not too oily. The sesames that they added in the bun made it more aromatic and delicious. We enjoyed every bite of it.

I had a roast duck noodle (烧鸭面) as my main. The overall taste was quite good, only if they could add a little more sauce onto the duck and the noodles, it would taste better and also not too dry.

Ys had a combination of roast chicken rice (烧鸡饭). Priced at RM5, the chicken rice tasted quite decent. The portion served was reasonable, nothing much to shout about.

We would definitely go back for more dim sum for our next visit. Perhaps it would be safer to visit in the afternoon if you want to try their recommended dishes. Service was good and speedy and prices were reasonable. Overall, a good place to drop by for dim sum and other Chinese food.

Restaurant Information
47G, Jalan Kuchai Maju 1,
Off Jalan Kuchai Lama,
58200 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-79828881

Tippoo Sahib

2009-07-27T07:00:00.001+08:00

This would be the final post on our journey in Edinburgh.

Some photos taken before dinner. This was taken in High Street, Royal Mile.

Located on the Chambers Street, we also visited the National Museum of Scotland where admission is free.

The Ellesmere Locomotive which we saw in the museum.

A man playing music with the Scottish bagpipe in front of the High Court of Justiciary in the Royal Mile.

Located near the Edinburgh Castle, the Tartan Weaving Mill and Exhibition is quite an interesting place to visit. The cashmere factory outlet was really large, couldn’t tell from the outside though. Inside, the exhibition shows the whole process of tartan production from shearing sheep to making a kilt.

The public entrance of the Scottish Parliament Building.

Time for dinner, as we haven’t had Indian food in the UK before, we decided to give this place a try.

The interior of the restaurant was quiet and dim, nice and comfortable. But again, dim lighting means hindrance to taking good photos.

We had their 2 for 1 offer starting from 5 to 7.30pm. If we purchase 2 starters, 2 main courses, rice and nan, we will be able to get the cheapest main course for free. For our starters, we opted for the somosa which was priced at £3.85. The minced meat enclosed with ginger, garlic and coriander in a crunchy triangular pastry was delicious. It was crispy on the outside and very sweet and crunchy on the inside, not too oily too!

Priced at £4.50, the king prawn puri was as good as the somosa. The curried king prawns were sandwiched in a wafer-thin chapati. The king prawns were very fresh and flavourful. The sauces also complemented the starters very well.

For our mains, we had a chicken tikka masala priced at £8.25. Chicken tikka masala is a curry dish of roast chicken chunks served in red, rich, lightly spiced and tomato based sauce. It is a very popular dish in the UK. In fact, some claimed that it is the national dish of Britain. The chicken tikka masala served in this restaurant was tasty. The chicken was soft and tender while the sauce was exceptionally rich with thick tomato flavour, slightly sour and very appetising. Love it!

Another main course that we had was the lamb vindaloo priced at £8.25. Quoted from the menu, a vindaloo is “a South Indian dish with a very fiery fabulous rich and hot taste”. When placing our orders, the waiter repeatedly told us that the dish would be very spicy. We were so excited when the dish was served, took a bite and expecting to blow fire out of our mouths. But it hasn’t reach that level, it was very spicy, but bearable. The lamb was tender and nice, the sauce was rich, thick and aromatic too. Recommended if you’re looking for a spicy Indian dish!

We also had a garlic nan and a pilau rice. Priced at £2.95, the flavoursome garlic nan was very nice with a hint of aromatic garlic and ginger. The rice was good too. Both complemented very well with the curry dishes above.

It was a very pleasant dining experience, though the total bill came out to be slightly expensive. However, the quality of the food is guaranteed and service was good and speedy. For more information, please visit their official website here. Next stop – Manchester. Stay tune everyone!

Restaurant Information
129a Rose Street,
EH2 3DT Edinburgh,
Scotland,
United Kingdom.

The Fudge House of Edinburgh

2009-07-23T06:00:00.000+08:00

Other than the Edinburgh Castle, we also visited other attractions in Edinburgh.

The weather was fantastic and ideal for photo shooting. It was getting warmer, nearly as hot as Malaysia! This is the view of the city of Edinburgh taken somewhere near the National Gallery of Scotland.

The Scott Monument can be seen from this photo.

A close up on the Scott Monument. The building is open for public to climb 287 steps to the top.

This is the High Court of Justiciary located on the Royal Mile. The blue flag with a white cross is the flag of Scotland. Notice the three brass plates which resemble the letter “I” at the bottom of the photo? This is the site of the last public execution in Edinburgh which was held on 1864.

The Queen’s Gallery, located at the bottom of the Royal Mile, forms part of the Palace of Holyroodhouse complex. The Holyrood Palace is the official residence of the monarch of the United Kingdom in Scotland. It was once occupied by the famous Mary Queen of Scots.

A photo of the Saint Giles’ Cathedral taken in the Parliament Square.

The interior of the Saint Giles’ Cathedral.

Time for some refreshments. After the misfortune in Rabbie Burns café and bar, things moved on to the brighter side. As we passed by this shop selling hand made fudges which caught our attention, we knew we had to try it and went inside.

The fudge house was the home of the original Edinburgh fudge. It was established in the Royal Miles since 1949. The place was filled with tourists, so many of them, all of them speaking different languages.

When queuing up, we snapped a few photos from the glass display.

They offer a large selection of fudge. Here are some of them – the Italian nougat fudge.

Chocolate walnut fudge.

Highland cream fudge.

Chocolate coconut cream fudge. Other than these, they also have rum and raisin fudge, whisky fudge, mocha coffee cream fudge, dark chocolate and strawberry fudge, fudge house special and etc.

The fudge costs £2.35 per 100g. Each bar weights approximately 50 to 70g. We tried 2 types of fudge, the chocolate walnut and the hazelnut fudge. We love anything with nuts, which is why we had two different types of fudge with nuts. Both fudges tasted very sweet, they were very smooth and creamy and it melted in our mouths. They were heavenly delicious and the nuts added crunchiness to it too.

We would recommend you to pay this place a visit. The fudge are really good and while writing this, I am already craving for more fudge! For more information, do visit their official website here.

Café Information
197 Canongate, Royal Mile,
EH8 8BN, Edinburgh,
Scotland,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01315564172

The Rabbie Burns Café and Bar

2009-07-20T05:30:00.004+08:00

After a pleasant stay at Christine and Chris’s place in Glasgow, we continue our journey by taking a bus in the evening from Glasgow to Edinburgh. About an hour later, we arrived in Edinburgh.

It was approximately 9pm when we arrived but the sky was still bright. The city of Edinburgh can be seen from the photo with the Bank of Scotland visible on the right.

The next day we visited the National Museum of Scotland. From the top floor of the museum, we are able to capture photos of the Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh Castle is where we visited after lunch. The admission fee for the castle was rather expensive, £13 per adult. This is the Crown Square located inside the castle.

The Laich Hall is located in the ground floor of the Royal Palace. It was created in the 1617 to serve as an outer reception room and dining chamber for King James VI. Today, the hall is used for government functions.

The Great Hall is the castle’s main banqueting chamber. For more information about the castle, please visit their official website here.

Back to our main theme – food. There are many restaurants, café and bars located on Royal Mile, Edinburgh Old Town’s busiest tourist street. We were thinking of having a light lunch and randomly chosen a café to have our meal. The café is named after Robert Burns aka Rabbie Burns, a famous poet and lyricist. One of his best known poem was the Auld Lang Syne.

The interior of the café was nice and cozy, very unique with various cooking utensils hanging on the ceiling.

We ordered a spicy baguette with grilled spicy sausage, mozzarella cheese and jalapeño peppers served with salad. Priced at £6.50, the baguette was definitely overpriced. We hate to admit it, but this is probably one of the worst sandwiches we’ve ever had in our life. For the high price that we paid, we were only served with a few pathetic pieces of sausages, jalapeño peppers and cheese. Worst still, the sandwich was way too spicy for us and it burnt our lips! It was unbelievable as most of you would’ve known that we love and take spicy food.

Overpriced at £2.75, the croissant with jam and butter was also a disaster. The plain croissant was too soggy. We could’ve gotten something better from a nearby shop, and at a much lower price too!

Probably the worst place we’ve dined in for food in the UK so far. Read quite a number of negative feedbacks on the internet too. Would definitely avoid this place in the future!

Café Information
Royal Mile, 103 High Street,
EH1 1SG Edinburgh,
Scotland,
United Kingdom.

1901 Hot Dog

2009-07-17T06:05:00.002+08:00

This post is dated back to June 2008. Guess the price and menu might have changed now. This chain operates hot dog stalls in Malaysia. It is one of our favourite places to visit for hot dogs.

A photo of the kiosk.

A regular orange juice is priced at RM2.20 while a regular iced lemon tea is priced at RM2.30.

Priced at RM6.50 for a regular deal, the well-known New York Chicken is our all time favourite from 1901. The sausage was soft and nice, plus a simple combination of mayonnaise and pickles, it was good to the last bite.

The Texas Ted was quite good too. Priced at RM6.50 for the regular deal, the hot dog which was topped with cheese was very tasty, the cheese was rather mild but blended well with the sausage. A very good snack!

We learned from their website that they are now offering new hot dogs such as the Wild Wild West (sausage covered with BBQ baked bean), The Silenz of the Lamb (steamed lamb sausage with mustard and onions) and Sate Riang (chicken sate hot dog covered with peanut gravy). Besides, they also offer a variety of platters and burgers. 1901 hot dogs are also available for sale in GSC cinemas, so that if you’re looking for something else than popcorn, this would be a good choice!

Kiosk Information
LG2.31 & F1.K2,
Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre,
No.3, Jalan PJS 11/15,
Bandar Sunway, 46150 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor Darul Ehsan,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-55121901

La Tasca

2009-07-15T07:02:00.002+08:00

After dinner, we traveled to the west central of Scotland by the underground services from Buchanan Street Station.

The photo above shows the Clyde Arc, crossing River Clyde. Attractions such as the Clyde Auditorium, Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC), IMAX cinema and the Glasgow Science Centre are located in this area.

Situated next to the IMAX cinema, the Glasgow Tower is currently the tallest building in Scotland, 127 metres high.

From the left, the BBC Pacific Quay, IMAX cinema and the Glasgow Tower can be seen in the photo.

The Tall Ship at the Glasgow Harbour.

Back to dinner, we had our dinner in La Tasca, a Spanish tapas restaurant and bar.

The interior of the restaurant was dim and comfortable, but unfortunately, not suitable for photo taking.

Our drinks were served in thin and tall drinking glasses, even taller than the fork! Can you see Christine behind the glasses? Haha!

Since La Tasca was well-known for their tapas, we ordered a chef’s selection of tapas which includes 8 different types of tapas. Tapas is the name of a wide variety of appetisers in Spanish cuisine. Priced at £26.95, the set menu is recommended for newcomers to tapas and serves 2 persons. Clockwise from top left is the Pollo con Salsa (chicken breast and sliced mushrooms served in rich sherry cream sauce), Patatas Bravas (fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce), Albóndigas a la Jardinera (Spanish style beef meatballs served in tomato sauce) and Berenjenas Gratinadas (fresh aubergine baked in tomato, garlic and wine sauce topped with cheese). Out of the four tapas above, my personal favourite would be the fried potatoes in spicy tomato sauce, it wasn’t spicy at all, but very appetising. Pollo con Salsa was good too, a subtle sense of alcohol can be tasted from the cream sauce and the chicken and mushrooms were soft and nice.

Again, clockwise and beginning from the top left is the Ensalada de la Casa (mixed leaves, avocado, cucumber, pine nuts and pimento peppers drizzled with house dressing), Gambas Gabardina (deep-fried king prawns served in roasted garlic mayonnaise and fresh lemon), Paella Valenciana (Paella with chicken and mixed seafood) and Alitas de Pollo (marinated chicken wings). The one which won the most votes was the Gambas Gabardina, the king prawns were large, fresh and juicy while the batter was nice and crunchy. Suffice for us to conclude that all tapas were good and delectable, something that we would definitely reorder in our future visits!

Next up was the Paella de Mariscos. Paella is a Spanish rice dish. In this restaurant Paella is served in the Spanish paella pan, recommended for sharing. When taking our order, the waitress informed us that it takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour for them to prepare to paella. A moment after we finished the tapas, our paella was served, good timing. Priced at £19.95, the large serving of seafood paella was topped with prawns, squids, mussels and white fish. It was heavenly delicious, the rice was soft and full of flavour, the seafood were fresh and juicy and every bite was sensational. Love it!

Since La Tasca is having 50% off all food everyday until the 31st of July 2009 (more information about the promotion can be found here) and Christine printed the voucher beforehand, we enjoyed the privilege of having a good dinner with everything halved price! Visit Christine’s blog for her previous post on La Tasca. And click here for the restaurant’s official website.

Our stay in Glasgow was fantastic, thank you Chris and Christine for spending time and effort and catering our needs at all time during our stay. Thank you so much for the short bread as well! And really, we would agree that Dean’s shortbread is even better than Walkers! Missing you both a lot!

Restaurant Information
39-43 Renfield Street,
GlasgowG2 1JS,
Scotland,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01412045188

Rumours Kopitiam (讲士讲啡)

2009-07-13T07:24:00.003+08:00

The second day of our journey, we continue to visit attractions in Glasgow with Chris and Christine.

Here are some photos that we have taken throughout the journey and we would like to share it in our blog. Shown on the photo above, the Merchant City is one of the oldest quarters of Glasgow and the cultural heart of the city. The place is situated in the eastern quarter of Glasgow City Centre, takes about 5 minutes walk from Buchanan and Argyle Street.

Glasgow Green is the oldest park in the city. The Nelson’s monument can be seen from this photo.

After a stroll in the park, we arrived in one of Glasgow’s museums – the People’s Palace and Winter Gardens. Contrary to what we thought, it felt extremely warm and cozy in the winter gardens. There is a café inside the glasshouse where one could sit back and enjoy the colourful tropical plants. In the People’s Palace, one could have a chance to see the story of the people and the city of Glasgow from 1750 to the present.

We also visited the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Christine told us about the myth that the architect of the building jumped to his death from one of the towers because the main entrance was built back-to-front.

The interior of the museum.

The museum exhibits a variety of art collections and also collections of arms and armour in the world. One of the most interesting museums that we have visited in the UK, definitely worth a visit if you’re visiting Glasgow.

The University of Glasgow is within walking distance from the Kelvingrove Museum. There was where we visited the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, a free admission museum located on the main campus of the university.

The Wellington Church of Glasgow.

Back to food, we visited Rumours Kopitiam, a Malaysian café style restaurant for lunch. It was very thoughtful of Christine and Chris for bringing us to this restaurant, since we haven’t had Malaysian food for ages!

The interior was small but nice and cozy, plus a sense of belonging too.

The lunch time special offer was a great deal. For £6.90, we get to choose from a variety of starters and main courses. Beverage was also included, we were given choices of Chinese tea, English tea or English coffee. I had an English tea while ys had an English coffee.

As for starters, we had chicken satay (沙爹鸡) which was recommended by Chris. Served with their self-made peanut sauce, cucumbers and pineapples, the chicken satay was fantastic. The chicken was grilled to perfection, meaty and juicy while the peanut sauce, though not spicy, was aromatic and delicious. We wiped the peanut sauce bowl clean.

The Malaysian style pancake, or more commonly known as roti canai (马来煎饼) in Malaysia, was delicious too! Served with authentic curry sauce, the roti canai tasted nice and crispy. It has a heavier sense of butter which we enjoyed a lot.

Fried flat rice noodles aka char kway teow (马式干炒河粉) which Chris had.

The Singapore laksa vermicelli (辣沙汤米粉) that we had was good. The noodles were rich in ingredients such as fresh prawns, cockles and fish cakes. The soup was spicy and flavourful, with a hint of fragrant coconut milk. Satisfied our cravings for authentic Malaysian food! It was very good and addictive!

The nasi lemak (咖喱鸡椰汁饭) was superb. Served with curry chicken, sambal (hot chilli sauce), peanuts, fried anchovies, achar (pickled vegetables), half-boiled eggs, slices of cucumbers and tomato, the serving was huge and filling. The sambal which was spicy and sour boosted our appetites, the chicken was moist and tasty and the curry gravy provides a good accompaniment to the fragrant coconut rice. There is nothing else that we can ask for, the lunch was perfect! Glasgow citizens are so fortunate to have this restaurant in their area! For better photos and more information, check out Christine's post on Rumours Kopitiam.

After lunch, we were introduced to Irn-bru by the couple, a well-known carbonated soft drink produced in Scotland for more than a century. Taste wise, I find it very hard to describe. It was very unique and sweet, not something that I really enjoy but ys claimed that it was good. Nevertheless, it was good trying new things. Thanks again to Christine and Chris for introducing everything to us!

Restaurant Information
21 Bath Street,
G2 1HW Glasgow,
Scotland,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01413530678

Shun Japanese Restaurant (旬家庭料理)

2009-07-10T06:44:00.001+08:00

A post dated back to April 2008. After an exhausting day in the Zoo Negara, we decided to head to Subang Jaya to look for some good Japanese food.

We drove around that area and spotted this restaurant which is located across Subang Jaya Medical Centre. We found a parking and went inside after taking a look at their menu.

The sushi counter of the restaurant.

This is the upper floor of the restaurant, it was empty when we went there. But when we left, it was packed with customers.

The table settings in Shun. The green tea was complimentary.

They were having a promotion that day. Customers could get 50% discount upon ordering salmon sashimi (サーモン刺身) or tempura moriawase (天ぷら盛り合わせ). We had salmon sashimi for RM15 after discount. The presentation was neat and pretty and the sashimi was fresh and delectable. The salmon slices were quite thick and we enjoyed every bite of it.

For our mains, we had a kimuchi nabe (キムチ鍋) for RM30. This kimchi based soup steamboat serves two. The ingredients look rather fresh but the amount served was quite moderate.

First, the waitress placed the vegetables into the boiling soup. Then she put the meat and the rest of the ingredients into the soup. She told us that this step was insisted by her Japanese boss, which we later learn that he is also the owner of Yuzu Japanese Restaurant in The Gardens.

Waiting for the ingredients to be cooked.

Finally, the food was ready and the waitress served them into two small bowls. The prawns and squids were large and fresh, they were really delicious. Compared to the spicy and sour Korean kimchi soup, the Japanese version tasted rather sweet and mild. It was quite different but we enjoy it, it was very flavourful and we enjoy the sweetness of it.

This would be a nice place to enjoy a drink after work as they offer a variety of Japanese liquors. But if you’re a non-smoker, bear in mind that it might be a little stuffy when others started to smoke because the restaurant was quite small. Nevertheless, the food was good and they also offer bento sets priced at about RM30. No harm to give it a try!

Restaurant Information
4 &4A, Jalan SS12/1B,
47500 Subang Jaya,
Selangor Darul Ehsan.
Tel : 03-56379185

The Junction Bar

2009-07-08T07:15:00.002+08:00

After about an hour flight from London Stansted Airport, we arrived in Glasgow Prestwick, welcomed by a bright and sunny weather.

A photo of the Ryanair Boeing 737 aircraft.

Prestwick Airport was rather quiet when we arrived. Without wasting time, we made our way to the bus station and took a bus to the Buchanan bus station.

We were greeted with warm welcomes from Christine and Chris when we arrived. Placed our luggage in their room and went out sightseeing in Glasgow. Our first stop was the Glasgow Cathedral, the photo was taken from the Cathedral Square.

This is the nave which marks the entrance of the cathedral. There was a person playing the organ when we arrived in the cathedral, love the sound of pipe organs, sounded very peaceful to me.

The Blacader’s Aisle is located in the lower church. It was said to occupy the site of cemetery consecrated at the beginning of the 5th century. We both agreed with what Christine and Chris told us earlier, it did felt kind of cold when visiting the lower church, creepy huh?

Nope, the spookiness has not end, our next stop was the Glasgow Necropolis. This Victorian cemetery adjacent to the Glasgow Cathedral is actually a garden and park open for public recreation.

The Glasgow City Chambers taken in George Square.

Finally, it’s time for dinner. We arrived at Junction Bar, a bar and restaurant recommended by Christine and Chris for good beers and food.

The bar was rather crowded when we arrived. The interior was warm and cozy, definitely a good place to warm you up during winter!

Chris said it’s a must to try the Guinness Stout in Glasgow, and we have to cover our upper lips with froth from the beer! The beer was nice and smooth, we’ve never thought that Guinness Stout would taste this good, and fun too!

Junction Bar offers 2 main meals at £7.99 from 3pm onwards everyday. The 8 options available are sausage and mash, fish and chips, haggis, neeps and tatties, chilli con carne, macaroni cheese, steak pie, vegetable lasagne and beef lasagne. Christine had a steak pie where chunks of prime steaks marinated with Belhaven beer were topped with puff pastry. The steak pie was served with peas and chips.

Chris had a chilli con carne where spicy beef chilli con carne was served with long grain rice, tortilla chips and sour cream.

The sausage and mash which ys and I ordered was quite delicious. Two local butcher’s jumbo pork and leek sausages were served on a mountain of mash and smothered with onion gravy. The sausage has a strong and heavy taste compared to sausages that we had back in Malaysia, we enjoyed every bite of it. The mashed potatoes were smooth and sweet when eaten with the onion gravy.

We heard about haggis from Christine during their stay in Cardiff. Without much hesitation we had this haggis, neeps and tatties. The Chieftain haggis was served with mashed potatoes, bashed neeps, oatcakes and homemade whisky sauce. Haggis is actually a Scottish dish consisting of a mixture of intestines of lambs boiled in the stomach of the lamb. Sounds a little intimidating at first but after we took the first bite, it tasted good, very unique in fact, tasted like minced meat heavily seasoned with hints of spices. We were quite surprise to find no traces of gamey taste. Looked it up in the dictionary and found that neeps is actually a type of Swedish turnip usually used as an accompaniment with haggis. Tasted rather similar to mashed pumpkins. We also didn’t realise that tatties are actually potatoes until we googled it out.

We had a scrumptious dinner and it was very pleasant and filling. Learned a lot from the trip too. A great thank you to Christine and Chris. For more information about the bar, do visit Christine’s blog.

Restaurant Information
14-16, West George Street,
Glasgow G2 1DA,
Scotland,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01413536082

Giraffe Juice and Coffee Bar

2009-07-06T06:41:00.005+08:00

Like I said in one of our previous post, summer is meant to travel. So here we are, in London Stansted Airport waiting for our flight to Glasgow.

We were lucky to bought air tickets from Ryanair at £1 per person, plus the airport tax and other charges, the total for two air tickets only cost £16. It was our first time travelling by Ryanair, it was quite funny reading their tagline which says “Bye Bye EasyJet”. Quite true though, Ryanair is growing bigger and stronger, other airlines might be at stake.

While waiting for our flight, we decided to grab a bite. The Giraffe Juice Bar is the nearest café located to our departure gate. Since we didn’t have much time to spare, we decided to buy a sandwich from the café. The food display shows a variety of pastries, cakes, muffins and sandwiches offered by the Giraffe. Other than these, the bar also features a variety of fresh juices, milkshakes, hot drinks, fruit bars, light snacks, hot soups, yoghurts and smoothies.

This was what caught our attention – the stacked deli sandwich.

Priced at £3.85, the sandwich tasted very good. Though a little expensive, the sandwich was generously filled with thick cheddar, chicken and ham slices, pickled gherkins, onion slices and lettuce. The bread was spreaded with a thin layer of mustard. The ingredients were fresh and good, we enjoyed it a lot.

After a light lunch, we boarded the plane to Glasgow. Stay tune for our upcoming posts on our one week trip to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and Leeds!

Café Information
Satellite 3, Terminal Building,
Airside, Stansted Airport,
Bassingbourne Road,
CM2 8QW London,
United Kingdom.

Restaurant Shin (레스토랑신)

2009-07-04T06:28:00.002+08:00

This is a post dated back to June 2008. We were shopping around in Bukit Bintang area. When dinner time, we decided to visit the top floor of Sungei Wang since there are quite a lot of eateries located on that floor.

Since we were craving for Korean food, we decided to visit the only restaurant which serves Korean cuisine. The restaurant is located on the sixth floor, where Green Box Karaoke, Gasoline and Sushi Station are located in.

The restaurant was small but clean and it has an open concept kitchen.

It is decorated with many posters with Korean artists and countless colourful notes written by the customers.

We were served with a bowl of soup and three types of side dishes shortly after placing our orders.

I ordered a cheese kimbab (치즈김밥) without hesitation as this is one of my favourite food in Korean cuisine. Priced at RM10.50, this Korean style sushi roll with cheese, egg, pickled radish, spinach and carrot sprinkled with sesame seeds tasted simple, healthy and crunchy. It would have been perfect had they added more cheese to it.

We ordered a kimchi jigage (김치찌개) as we usually will when we dine in Korean restaurant. Priced at RM13.90, the kimchi stew with pork tasted quite good and appetising, spicy and slightly sour.

Overall, the food was quite good in this restaurant. The staffs were nice and friendly too. But if you’re craving for good Korean food, it is still advisable that you explore Korean restaurants in Desa Sri Hartamas area since there are more choices and more side dishes served in those restaurants.

Restaurant Information
6F-6(A-C), Sungei Wang Plaza,
SWP Box No. 009,
Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03 - 2145 6717

Prezzo

2009-07-02T06:17:00.004+08:00

After a hearty and filling lunch at Happy Gathering, we continue to bring kw to visit Cardiff. Since our friend was interested to visit Cardiff Castle, we all went in for a visit.

Even though we have been staying in Cardiff for quite some time, we have not enter the Castle before, the reason being that the admission fees were a little pricey. The essential ticket was priced at £8.95 for adults and £7.50 for students while the premium tour ticket was priced at £11.95 for adults and £9.95 for students. The photo above is the Clock Tower of Cardiff Castle.

The Norman Keep was set upon an artificial hill built by the Norman invaders during about 1081. The building was not roofed and we can view sceneries of Cardiff from the top.

A photo taken from the Norman Keep.

The House is located next to the Clock Tower. The residential block was between 1423 and 1439 by Richard Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick.

The interior of The House. The banqueting hall is the largest room in the castle and it is the oldest part of the building. All the surface decoration, ceiling and floors are Victorian.

The library was located in the oldest part of The House and it still contains the original William Burges bookcases and tables.

This is the small dining room which was used as a dining room for members of the Bute family when there were few or no guests. Overall, we think that the trip to Cardiff Castle was educational and quite worth the price paid. More information about the Castle can be found here.

For dinner, we visited Prezzo for Italian cuisine. The reason for our visit was because we had a voucher offering 2 for 1 on main meals, which means we would get a free main meal by getting one main meal. We have not heard about studentbeans.com until Christine told us about it, thanks a lot for the information!

The interior of the restaurant was nice, warm and cozy, lively with lots of people dining in during dinner time. The traditional stone oven can be seen in this photo.

Since there were 3 of us, we ordered 3 main courses to share. Kw ordered a risotto mediterraneo for £9.75. In this classic Italian rice dish, tiger prawns and rice were cooked in creamy saffron sauce. The sauce was light and creamy, the prawns were fresh and crunchy too. However, we find the rice a little too hard to our liking.

Ys chose a vesuvio pizza topped with double pepperoni sausage, red chili, mozzarella and tomato. Priced at £8.75, we find this freshly baked pizza in traditional oven really good. We love taste of the crispy thin base of the pizza which is slightly burnt. The cheese was tasty and not too overwhelming, simply delicious!

The il carltoni calzone stuffed with pepperoni sausage, seasoned chicken, pancetta bacon, roasted peppers, pomodoro sauce and cheese tasted fantastic too! Priced at £9.25, this folded pizza which was also baked in their traditional oven was served with pomodoro sauce and side salad. The bread was dense and nice, the fillings were juicy and cheesy and the sour pomodoro sauce enhanced the taste of it. Every bite was sensational. A highly recommended order!

Since we still have rooms in our stomachs to spare, we decided to have a dessert to share. We had a sticky toffee pudding for £4.50. The traditional sponge pudding was served with hot butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice-cream. Though the sponge pudding was sweet, the vanilla ice-cream toned down the sweetness of it. The meeting of the warmth of the pudding and the iciness of the ice-cream was delicious, love it.

We had a scrumptious dinner in Prezzo. Though there were limited number of staffs in the restaurant, service was good and speedy. For more information, do click on their official website here. We would definitely be going back for more delicious stone-baked food!

Restaurant Information
106 St Mary Street
Cardiff CF10 1DX,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920227785

Happy Gathering (好相逢)

2009-06-30T08:24:00.002+08:00

Two days after Chris and Christine’s visit to Cardiff, our friend, kw, came all the way from Leeds to visit us in Cardiff. So here we go again, this time being more skilled and experienced in guiding friends around Cardiff.

A souvenir shop which is located across the Cardiff Castle.

Since our friend was craving for Chinese food, we decided to visit Happy Gathering as many friends have recommended this restaurant to us. We read from their website that the restaurant was voted as Britain’s number one Chinese restaurant in year 2007 by The Times. The restaurant is located in Cowbridge Road, it takes about 15 minutes walk from the Cardiff Castle.

A photo of a statue taken at the entrance of the restaurant.

The interior of the restaurant was clean, pleasant and comfortable. A piano can be seen from the left corner of the photo. The restaurant has 250 seating capacity, as seen from their website.

Our turnip cake (XO酱萝卜糕) arrived shortly we placed our order. Priced at £2.50, we find this fried carrot cake rather delicious. The outer layer is nice and crispy and it was pillow soft on the inside. The turnip cake would have been perfect if it is less oily.

We hardly have dim sum without having pork dumplings (鱼子蒸烧卖). Priced at £2.50, we find this shaomai rather delicious, it was large and generously filled with sweet and juicy pork meat. A highly recommended dish!

Priced at £3, the har gao aka prawn dumplings (相逢虾饺皇) were as good as the pork dumplings. The fillings were dense and rich in fresh and crunchy prawns, it was juicy and succulent. The skin a little too thick to our liking but nevertheless tasted delicious overall.

The rice noodle roll filled with pork (蜜汁叉烧肠粉) was quite good too. Priced at £3.30, the Hong Kong style chee cheong fun was generously stuffed with delicious char siu. Having the same problem as the har gao, we found the skin of the rice noodle roll a tad too thick.

We also had steamed glutinous rice in lotus leaf wrap (糯米鸡). It tasted rather decent, filled with Chinese sausage, chicken, pork and etc. But then again, it was on the oily side.

Kw had a braised beef noodles (牛腩汤面) for £6.50. We were quite surprise to see the serving of this noodle this large. Though kw had a great appetite, he couldn’t manage to finish it. Large chunks of beef slices were served and our friend claimed that the main course tasted nice and authentic.

The serving of the char siu rice (叉烧饭) which ys had was also enormous. The roasted pork was moist and flavourful and it went well with the rice. Priced at £6.50, we think that it was a good order.

The fried yee mee noodles (干烧伊面) which was priced at £6.50 was value for money. The large serving of noodles was soft and full of flavour and the shredded mushrooms complemented the noodles very well. We were too full to finish the noodles and the proprietor of the restaurant was really nice and friendly and gave us a box to pack the leftovers home for supper.

Overall, food was very good in the restaurant. It is hard to find authentic Chinese restaurants in the UK and we’re really grateful that we have found one in Cardiff. Service was extremely good and the staffs were nice and polite. We would definitely go back for more!

Restaurant Information
233 Cowbridge Road East
Cardiff CF11 9AL,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920397531

Restoran Chongqing Chicken Hot Pot (重庆鸡公煲)

2009-06-28T06:00:00.000+08:00

This post is dated back to November 2007 when there were lots of restaurants mushrooming in Kuchai Lama area. We decided to give this place a try after knowing that Ho Chak introduced this restaurant.

Chongqing Chicken Hot Pot is a chain restaurant founded in China. It has many outlets all over China and new branches are also found in the Philippines, Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong and Malaysia. As far as we know, there are 3 branches located in Malaysia – Kuchai Lama, Kepong and Johor.

The interior of the restaurant was nice and simple. But bear in mind that it could be a little warm during the day as I have experienced it with Ai Wei quite some time ago.

There are several types of meat to choose for the hot pot, namely chicken, pork, beef, fish and prawns. Small hot pots are priced at RM18.80, medium at RM25.80 and large at RM34.80. You can also tailor the level of spiciness to your own preference. We had a small chicken hot pot (鸡公煲) with medium level of spiciness. Unlike normal hot pots, this restaurant serves hot pot without soup and little gravy. Served piping hot, the chicken was rather spicy, soft and springy, it was garnished with celery, onions, parsley and carrots. It was very nice when eaten with plain white rice.

Next, we had an extremely spicy pork ribs hot pot (恐龙骨煲). Dried chilies are visible in the pot and the pork ribs were spicy, it was delicious! Meat wise, we would prefer chicken to pork because of the softness and the bounciness of the chicken meat. As for the level of spiciness, the spicier the better!

The staff poured the soup into the hot pot when we’re almost done eating the meat and vegetables. The flaming soup was very spicy and flavourful, especially after cooking the ingredients for a long time. Other than that, customers are free to choose additional ingredients such as fish balls, bean curd and other vegetables to add into their hot pot. Prices ranged from RM1 to RM4.

Overall, it was a delightful meal, it suits people like us who craved for spicy food at all times. Remember to bring along a box of tissue with you when you decided to challenge the fiery meal! For more information, please visit the Chinese official website here.

Restaurant Information
21, Jalan Kuchai Maju 8,
Off Jalan Kuchai Lama,
Taman Entrepreneurs Park,
58200 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-79806008

Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK)

2009-06-26T06:00:00.001+08:00

Since it was the last day before the voucher for GBK expires, we made a decision to visit this restaurant for lunch. Again, the voucher was printed out from Studentbeans and we are grateful to learn this from Christine, really saved us a great deal!

There are two GBK outlets located in Cardiff, one in Cardiff Bay and another in Cardiff Library. The newly opened central library is located in Mill Lane, near the Marriott Hotel. We have visited the library once. It was a quiet and tranquil place where one can study, borrow a variety of different books, CDs, DVDs, Welsh language items etc.

GBK is located in Cardiff Library, right beside Wagamama, a Japanese noodle bar.

The interior of the restaurant was rather modern and interesting, with sandals and surfboards attached to the wall.

A container containing ketchup which mimics a real tomato.

The view from the restaurant.

In GBK, customers have to order their food from the counter and pay before the foods are served. Our burgers were served shortly after we placed our order. Priced at £7.35, the chicken satay burger was delicious. Fresh breast of chicken, satay sauce, mayonnaise and relish formed a great combination. The satay sauce, though slightly different from the Malaysian version, was rich and creamy, with a loads of crunchy peanuts and a tinge of spiciness. The chicken breast was tender and juicy and we also enjoy the slightly burnt edge of the bread. However, we would prefer the cranberry relish to be less sweet.

The Greek lamb burger was just as good as the chicken satay burger. In fact, ys claimed that the Greek lamb was tastier. Priced at £7.75, the burger was made by fresh lamb, houmous, cucumber raita, fresh chilli sauce and salad. The burger was rather photogenic, as described by the Metro, GBK is “a Rolls Royce of a Burger”. The combination of houmous, cucumber raita and chilli sauce form a spicy, sweet and sour taste which boosted our appetites. If you’re one who worries about the gamy flavour of the lamb, fear not because the delicious sauce overpowered the lamb, leaving only the juiciness and tenderness of the lamb to be tasted.

With the voucher we only paid £7.75 in total, purchasing 2 burgers at the price of 1. It was not a heavy meal but if you would like to have something else, GBK also offers chips and a variety of salads. For beef lovers, this might be the right place for you as GBK is known for its burgers from Aberdeen-Angus Scotch beef. If you’re looking for something different, they also serve buffalo, organic wild boar and organic pork burgers. Check out more from their website here.

Restaurant Information
Unit 2, Library Building,
Mill Lane,
Cardiff, CF10 2EZ,
United Kingdom.
Te: 02920668379

Chiquito – The Original Mexican Grill & Bar

2009-06-24T06:00:00.002+08:00

We were excited to welcome the arrival of Chris and Christine to Cardiff for a 2 days visit. We were thinking hard of where to visit in Cardiff. Though we’ve read through most visitors’ information on Cardiff, we felt as though Cardiff has not much to offer. Sorry if we did bored you guys, but really, it was fun having you guys around. We enjoyed your company a lot, so much laughter and enjoyment, we would be missing you guys a lot after you guys returned to KL.

Here are a few photos taken in Cardiff Bay when sightseeing around Cardiff. We took a boat trip which lasted for approximately 40 minutes in Cardiff Bay. The Flag of Wales, represented by the Red Dragon is flying proudly on the boat. The Pierhead Building can also be seen from the boat.

The waterfront where we boarded the yellow waterbus.

The Logos Hope ship in Cardiff Bay.

For dinner, we dined in Chiquito since all of us haven’t tried Mexican food before. Chiquito is located in the Old Brewery Quarter, quite near to the Cardiff Central Bus Station, where other eateries such as La Tasca and Hard Rock Café are located in.

The interior was quite cozy and warm with lively Mexican music playing in the restaurant. There were quite limited number of staff working and so it took some time to get seated.

Chris and Christine ordered Mexican Paella at £10.95. Vegetables and rice were topped with calamari, chicken, chorizo, prawns, green lipped mussels and a wedge of lime.

They also had a San Miguel Beer Battered Cod at £9.95. The cod fillet in a San Miguel beer batter was served on a bed of seasoned fries.

We had a Tequila red snapper at £12.95. The dish was served with Mexican style rice with spicy roasted vegetables topped with baked red snapper fillet with Cuervo Tequila sauce. The rice was nice and flavourful, slightly spicy and suitable for those who enjoy mildly spicy food. The red snapper fillet was large and fresh but it was a little bland.

We also had a chicken fajitas famosas at £11.95. The chicken was served on a sizzling platter with smoky onions and peppers.

Cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole and lettuce were also served.

The flour tortillas were used to wrap all the ingredients above. The combination of the chicken with cheese and sauces were good, I especially enjoy the wrap with loads of sour cream and salsa, it was very appetising. The flour tortillas tasted good too, anything with bread is always good to us.

It was a pleasant dinner, the reason being that there’s great company for the night. Thanks for Chris and Christine for visiting, and thanks for the invitation to Glasgow. At the time you're reading this post (this is a automatic scheduled post), we're probably traveling in Glasgow! For more information about this restaurant, please check out their website here.

Restaurant Information
The Old Brewery Quarter,
Cardiff City Centre,
CF10 1FG, Cardiff,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920387465

Sam Sam Korean Cuisine (삼삼)

2009-06-22T06:00:00.001+08:00

This post is dated back to May 2008. We were craving for Korean food when shopping in Pavilion. For a moment we were thinking of visiting Da On (나온) located on the sixth floor but gave up this thought since we were broke after shopping. Money is always a limited resource.

So we explored Food Republic on the ground floor and happily found that there is a stall offering Korean food.

As usual, Food Republic is filled with loads of people. Though it was crowded, we find the place rather clean, bright and well-maintained.

We had a dol sot bibim bap (돌솥비빔밥) at RM13.90. The hot stone rice was served with two types of side dishes and a bowl of soup. The hot stone rice tasted nice flavourful. We enjoy biting into the crispy layer of rice which touches the hot bowl. The sauce was quite good too, neither too sweet nor salty. However, it would be tastier if they added more sauce to it. Besides, the portion of the side dishes served were too small.

We also had a kimchi jigae (김치찌개) for RM12. Though not superb, it was good. They put in lots of glass noodles, which we enjoyed a lot. The glass noodles soaked up the sour and spicy kimchi soup, somewhat resembles eating kimchi noodles.

After lunch, we went for a movie in the Pavilion cinema. That was when Kung Fu Panda was on show. Anyway, it was a pleasant lunch. Would be looking forward to explore other eateries in the Food Republic since there is so much to choose from.

Restaurant Information
Food Republic, Apex Excellent,
Lot 1.41.00, Level 1,
Pavilion, 168, Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.

Masa Japanese Restaurant (正)

2009-06-20T05:55:00.001+08:00

Our trip to Bristol continues in this post. For dinner, we had Japanese food, our all time favourite cuisine.

Before going into food, there are a few photos taken when sight-seeing around Bristol which we would like to share here. We were at Park Street, walking up the hill towards the City Museum and Art Gallery. The University of Bristol – Wills Memorial Building can be seen at the top of the hill.

The building on the left is where we were heading, the City Museum and Art Gallery.

The interior of the museum.

The centre in Bristol where the Ferry Station and City Sightseeing bus stop is located nearby.

The Ferry Station in Narrow Quay is where one could sit back and enjoy their food and drinks from their café while sunbathing under the excellent weather.

The Cabot Tower can be seen from the Brandon Hill Park.

A group of people were skateboarding near College Green.

Back to food, we were so excited having Japanese food since there are only a limited number of Japanese restaurants in the UK compared to Malaysia. Masa is located on Baldwin Street, across Obento Japanese restaurant.

The interior was nice and comfortable. Business was flourishing, quite a number of Asians were dining in the restaurant.

We had a tempura teishoku (天ぷら定食) for £11. The set includes a selection of mixed tempura with 8 pieces of maki roll served with Japanese steamed rice, miso soup and pickles. The tempuras were nicely deep-fried and the batter was nice and crispy while the prawns were juicy and crunchy. We were surprise to find the maki roll deep-fried as well. The maki roll was good too, but it was slightly oily.

The goma sake udon (胡麻鮭うどん) was rather delicious. Priced at £7.50, we found this order quite worth the price as the serving of salmon fish was rather generous and the bowl of noodles were large. Out of our expectation, the salmon fish was served separately from the udon. (It was written in the menu that it will be served on top of the noodles.) Nevertheless the grilled fillet of salmon garnished with mixed sesame seeds tasted naturally sweet and delicious.

The pork and chicken soup with udon noodles was served piping hot and it tasted sweet and awesomely flavourful. This is evidenced from the fact that ys finished the soup to its very last drop.

Priced at £2, we find this white daifuku (白大福) was rather tasty. The glutinous rice cake was stuffed with sweetened red bean paste made from azuki beans, we enjoy the sweetness of the red bean paste. But we might not have order it if we knew that we could buy this from shops.

Overall, it was a pleasant dinner in a restaurant serving authentic Japanese food. We read from their leaflets saying that there will be karaoke rooms opening soon, and it’ll be priced at £100 for 10-15 persons if we're not mistaken. Service was really good as the waiters and waitresses were really nice and friendly. We also found out that their proprietors are Malaysians, it’s a small world after all. Do check out their official website here for more information.

Restaurant Information
42-46 Baldwin Street,
Bristol BS1 1PN,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01179300600

Coal Grill and Bar

2009-06-18T06:18:00.003+08:00

Summer holiday is meant to travel. We were blessed with sunny and good weather when we traveled to Bristol for a one day trip. Bristol is a city located on the south west of England, approximately 2 hours by train from London. From Cardiff, the train journey only takes about an hour.

So here we are, arriving in Bristol Temple Meads Station in the morning.

This is the Castle Park where we had a stroll. The weather was so lovely, so many people were sunbathing in the park.

This is the Bristol Bridge which crosses River Frome.

The Cabot Circus is the main shopping mall in Bristol. It was newly opened during last September. We love the glass-panelled roof which allows natural sunlight to shine into the complex.

After much contemplation we finally decided to dine in Coal Grill and Bar, a chain restaurant based in Wimbledon which offers char-grilled cuisine.

The restaurant is located on the top floor of Cabot Circus, adjacent to the cinema. We love the atmosphere, a nice place to relax and lay back to enjoy our meal.

Their two course lunch menu was priced at £6.95. It was quite a good deal and we ordered two sets of it. Being a soup lover, ys just can’t resist ordering the roasted cherry tomato and basil soup as his starter. The soup was thick and filling compared to other tomato soups, it was nice and flavourful. The bread accompanying the soup was fantastic, the crust was nice and crispy and the bread was so soft and fluffy. It was a good starter.

I opted for the nachos with chipotle salsa, sour cream and jalapeño peppers. This was excellent, the best dish we’ve tried in this restaurant. The tortilla chips were served warm topped with melted cheese and it was crispy when eaten, the salsa sauce was nice and appetising while the jalapeño peppers, though not too spicy, added a tinge of excitement to the entire dish. It was intensely delicious.

For our mains, we had a pitta bread filled with char-grilled chicken and rocket and chips. This tasted really good as well, the bread was nice and crusty while the char-grilled chicken was well-grilled with coal and it provides a nice contrast with the vegetables.

However, the penne pasta with mushrooms, spicy tomato sauce and melting cheese was a little disappointing. Despite generous serving of mushrooms, tomato and cheese, the pasta tasted bland and the sauce was a little watery, as evidenced from the photo. Perhaps it is better to order their char-grilled dishes instead of pastas.

Overall, it was a pleasant dining experience. Service was excellent and the environment was good. Wouldn’t mind visiting this restaurant again when we are craving for char-grilled food. For more information about this restaurant, please find out from their official website.

Restaurant Information
Cabot Circus, Glass House,
Bristol BS1 3BD,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01179544624

Sushi Zanmai (寿司三昧) 2nd post

2009-06-16T06:14:00.005+08:00

A one year backdated post. This post is a combination of our visits to Sushi Zanmai. We’ve fell in love with this place ever since our first visit and have been their frequent customers ever since.

At that time, when we knew that there was a new outlet in The Gardens, we happily visited it.

We had a Coral Roll (コーラルロール) for RM12.80. We chose this because the presentation of it appeals to us when we saw it from the menu. However, you can never tell a book from its cover. We find this smoked salmon topped with salmon roe sushi rather average.

We had a Mini California Maki (ミニカリフォルニア巻) priced at RM4.80, we find this quite decent. After all, the combination of avocado, crabmeat, omelette and smelt roe can never go wrong.

Priced at RM4.80, the tobiko sushi (とびこ寿司) was rather delicious, the flying fish roe was fresh and we enjoy cracking every tiny bit of it. On the right, the inari tuna salad (いなりツナサラダ), priced at RM3.80, was equally good. Generally we enjoy any sushi with inari, love the sweetness of it.

From the left, we had chuka chinmi (中華珍味), tsubu kimuchi (ツブキムチ) and chuka iidako (中華イイダコ). All three types of sushi are priced at RM3.80. Chuka chinmi tasted quite good, the seasoned scallop wings sushi was quite springy and slightly sweet and spicy. It was our first time trying out tsubu kimuchi, the top shell seasoned with kimuchi tasted rather average. The top shell was alright but the kimuchi tasted rather weird. Chuka iidako was decent, seasoned octopus is one of our favourite orders in Japanese restaurants.

It was our first time ordering Shiitake Kushiyaki (しいたけ串焼) in Sushi Zanmai. Priced at RM4.80, we find this grilled shiitake mushrooms a little below our expectation. It was a little bland. Though it wasn't well-grilled, the mushroom itself tasted good.

Their salmon don (サーモン丼) is one of our favourite orders in Zanmai. You can have a choice of small or large portion, priced at RM10.80 and RM19.80 respectively. The salmon sashimi served were fresh and generous, it went really well with the sushi rice.

Yosenabe (寄せ鍋), priced at RM15.80, is a recommended order if you’re looking for something to warm your tummy. The seafood and vegetables are cooked in a hot pot. The soup was sweet and flavourful and the seafood served was fresh.

We enjoy their curry rice (カレーライス) too. The small portion is priced at RM8.80 while the larger one is priced at RM15.80. Though not spicy, the curry was aromatic and flavourful. The chicken was moist and soft. If you’re looking for mild and fragrant curry rice, this would be right for you.

Sansai udon (山菜うどん) is also one of our favourite orders. The price for the udon is the same as the curry rice. Even though the soup was flavourful, to tailor it to our taste buds, we would usually add in loads of shichimi powder (七味) too make it spicier.

We’ve also tried their Macha & Macha Parfait (抹茶&抹茶パフェ). Priced at RM12, this green tea ice-cream with green tea jelly and red bean was a nice dessert to end the meal. The red bean was rather sweet, but if blended with the green tea ice-cream, it tasted just right, a good dessert to end the meal.

Our opinion remain the same on Sushi Zanmai, we think that this is the best kaiten belt Japanese restaurant in Klang Valley so far. Food, location and environment are good and prices are reasonable. Would revisit again and again and again…

Restaurant Information
T-217 Third Floor, The Gardens,
Mid Valley City,
Lingkaran Syed Putra,
59200 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-22811160

H K Diner (荷李活)

2009-06-14T02:39:00.010+08:00

This post is dated back to last Christmas when we went to London for a trip. We arrived on 26th of December early in the morning and our friends gave us a call, telling us to go to Selfridges department store near Bond Street Underground to meet up. Designer brands were at half price discounts on boxing day, it is understandable that Selfridges is overcrowded. Later at night, we heard from the BBC news that the first person who queues in front of Selfridges started waiting at about 4am, withstanding the cold weather for branded products.

The same goes for Harrods which is located near Knightsbridge Underground.

Gucci was having half price discount, the queue was extremely long.

As for Louis Vuitton, there was no discount that day but their business flourishes as other brands. It was quite hard to tell at that moment whether Britain is really having an economy downfall.

Anyway, to get away from the crowd, we decided to visit the Harrods food hall instead. So here we are, in a food paradise.

The fruits look so fresh and pretty that we thought they were fake.

A variety of cheeses offered by Harrods.

Harrods offers a wide variety of food, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Dutch, German, Russian, you name it, they have it. The way the arrange food counters are arranged are fascinating, the sight of it would make our stomach growl wildly.

Chinese food by Harrods, it looks tempting, but of course, extremely expensive.

Took a shot of the lobster salad which appealed to us.

Can’t afford to spend too much for food in Harrods. So here we are, in China Town looking for a Chinese restaurant with great food at reasonable price. We passed by this restaurant and I suggested that we would have our lunch here. This was where I used to dine in during my short stay in London. I’ve been here quite a few times and the food never let me down.

Priced at £3.30, this grape bubble tea (香槟葡萄珍珠茶) was obviously expensive if converted to Ringgit Malaysia but we went on to order it since we missed it so much. It tasted great, nothing much to shout about.

Ys had a curry beef rice (咖喱牛腩饭) for £5.50. According to him, it tasted great, the curry was not too spicy but very aromatic. The portion served was really large and the beef was moist, smooth and tender. A reasonable price for good food.

As for me, I had stir-fried pork, eggplant and vegetables with chilli sauce (鱼香茄子饭) for £6.00. The taste did not change since I’ve been there about two years ago, it remained delicious, they are still serving authentic Chinese food as before. It was rather spicy, exactly how I want it to be.

Service was rather moderate somehow. But it didn’t matter much to us. The environment was clean and most of all, the food was delicious and the price for main meals was reasonable. However, drinks were a little expensive. The location was strategic and it opens at midday until 4am, it might be a good place for food after a drink at the pub. For more tourist spots photos in London, please refer to our previous post here.

Restaurant Information
22 Wardour Street,
Soho,
London W1D 3HD,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02074349455

Coconut Flower Seafoods Restaurant (椰花园海鲜餐馆)

2009-06-11T20:06:00.007+08:00

This post is dated back to May 2008 when we were wondering what to have for dinner during a Friday night. I couldn’t remember exactly why but we made an impromptu decision to visit this restaurant in Klang since ys has been there and told me that the food was good.

After about an hour drive from KL, we finally arrived at Coconut Flower with two growling stomachs.

The main entrance to the restaurant.

We arrived rather late at about 8.30pm. The restaurant was already packed with many customers, but yet many are still looking for a table. After a tough time finding an empty table, we finally settled down at a rather quiet area.

Perhaps they didn’t hire enough staff, or customers were simply outnumbered on that day, we waited for more than 15 minutes for the waitress to take our order, and so waited quite long for our food to arrive. Anyway, both carrot milk and watermelon juice were decent and they were priced at RM2.80 each.

Finally our long-anticipated sweet and sour crab (酸甜螃蟹) has arrived. Priced at RM28, we find this quite delicious, the crab meat was fresh and juicy and the sweet and sour taste boosted our appetites.

We find their mini buns (馒头) extremely good! It complemented the sweet and sour crab really well. The bun was crusty on the outside but soft and fluffy on the inside. It was really tasty and we had 3 plates of them!

Since we came all the way for good seafood, we couldn’t afford to miss this kam heong kepah (甘香甲巴), a type of fresh clams. Kepah is larger and heavier compared to the normal clams. Priced at RM10, the shellfish was aromatic and nicely stir-fried. The spiciness of the curry leaves and the chilli padi satisfied our desire for spicy stuff.

Priced at RM8, the stir-fried vegetable (清炒菜胆) was ok, but a little oily. White rice was priced at RM1 per plate. Other recommend orders as read from other food blogs would be their la la mee hoon, deep dried calamari, salad prawns and their specialty bean curd.

It is enjoyable to have dinner out of KL once in a while, and this place is definitely good for fresh seafood. Our complaints are that service was below average, the waitress seems a little impatient while taking our orders and other staffs hardly catered our needs. Would definitely hope that they’ll improve their service, if not they’ll be driving customers away.

Restaurant Information
702, Jalan Udang Galah,
Kampong Teluk Gong,
42000 Port Klang, Selangor,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-31341218

The Hole in the Wall Restaurant

2009-06-10T02:02:00.007+08:00

In our previous post on Bath, we have introduced Sally Lunn’s bun. This time around, we’ll bring you to modern British food in the Hole in the Wall restaurant.

Before lunch, we were sight-seeing around Bath to capture some photos. From afar, you can see Pulteney Bridge which crosses River Avon.

A panoramic view of the Royal Crescent.

Jane Austen is Bath’s most famous resident. The Jane Austen Centre offers a snapshot of her life during Regency times and explores how the city affected her life and writing.

A performer was playing music on his violin in front of the Roman Bath.

The entrance of the restaurant which does look a little like a hole in the wall.

We read about this restaurant from the internet on the day before our visit to Bath, heard about their two course award winning lunches and decided to pay them a visit. The restaurant has been established for 60 years, one of the oldest restaurants in Bath.

The ambience is perfect for a quiet lunch or dinner. It was dim and comfortable, somewhere to sit back and relax to have a good meal.

After placing our orders, we were served with bread and butter to satisfy our starving tummies.

We ordered a two course lunch and a three course lunch, both priced at £9.95 and £13.95 each. For the starters, we have opted for their homemade slow-roasted tomato and basil soup. We love this. It tasted fantastic, very flavourful and sour with subtle aroma of basil leaves.

We also had a chicken liver and brandy parfait with apple chutney and Melba toast as our starter. The thick chicken liver tasted quite good, the texture was smooth, rich and creamy. It was tastier when eaten with the apple chutney, which was tangy and sweet. The Melba toast was good too, simple, nice and crispy.

As for our mains, we had a pan fried loin of pork steak on mashed potatoes with green peppercorn and garlic sauce. We enjoyed this as well, the meat was on the dry side, but the peppercorn and garlic sauce complemented the pork steak very well, adding to it a sense of smoothness and creaminess. Occasionally biting into the green peppercorns gave us a tinge of excitement. The mashed potatoes tasted light and creamy, it was good.

Instead of choosing salmon and prawns as we would usually do, we felt adventurous to try out something new to us – roasted beetroot and goats cheese risotto with parmigiano reggiano and sour cream. The risotto was rich, creamy and cheesy. Even so, it wasn’t overwhelmingly strong and delicious to the last bite.

We ended our meal with local cheeses with home-made chutney and Bath Olivers. We were served with 2 types of cheese, Stilton and Cheddar cheese. Both cheeses went really well with the biscuits. But unfortunately, we were too full to finish our dessert due to the heavy starters and mains.

Service was good, people are generally very friendly in Bath, which is why we like Bath a lot. It might be pricey to dine in this restaurant in the evening, to avoid burning a hole in your pocket, it is advisable to visit the restaurant in the afternoon for its 2 course lunch. For more information, please visit their website here. We had a great experience in Bath, do visit Bath if you happen to visit the UK.

Restaurant Information
16 George Street,
Bath BA1 2EN,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01225425242

Sally Lunn’s Restaurant

2009-06-08T05:36:00.003+08:00

We welcome the arrival of summer holiday by visiting Bath for a one day trip. Bath is a city located in the south west of England, about 2 and a half hours away from London by train and about an hour away from Cardiff by train.

This is the west front of Bath Abbey, which is an Anglican parish church founded in the 7th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th century, one of the most recognised architectures in Bath. We love the carefree lifestyle of the city, it was Tuesday when we visited, but we couldn’t really tell if it’s weekday or weekend. Reminded me of Stratford-upon-Avon, where I used to stayed for a year.

The south side of the Bath Abbey. The tourist information centre is located nearby, where we obtained maps and information from.

Ever wonder why is Bath known as Bath? This is because Bath is gifted with natural mineral spring and it has been a spa town for 2000 years. This is the Roman Bath. The Romans were the first to realise the value of the hot mineral water and built their religious spa of Aquae Sulis around the springs.

The Stall Street has many to offer, arts and paintings, food etc.

A man was playing Celtic and Bluegrass music on his 5-string banjo. The music was fantastic, it contributed to the cheery and relaxed atmosphere of Bath.

Tummies rumbling and it’s time for food. We read from the leaflet which says that “You cannot visit Bath without experiencing the taste of the World Famous Sally Lunn Bath Bun”. This caught our attention. Without second thoughts, we popped into Sally Lunn’s for its infamous Bath bun.

Before having our afternoon tea, we visited the museum which is located inside the building. We learned that Sally Lunn is a young French refugee who arrived in England more than 300 years ago. She baked a rich, round and generous bread which is now known as the Sally Lunn Bun. This is the original kitchen with its faggot oven, Georgian range and old baking utensils.

The restaurant was cozy and comfortable with dim lightings.

We had an iced fruit tea at £2.08 to quench our thirst. It was nice and sour.

What is an afternoon tea without some tea? We had a Sally Lunn Cream Tea at £5.68 which includes half a Sally Lunn Bun and their House tea.

The tea was nice and fragrant without any need to add in sugar. A warm cup of tea definitely complemented well with the bun.

Here comes the Sally Lunn Bun which we have anticipated. The toasted and buttered bun was served with Tiptree Strawberry Jam and local clotted cream. The bun was served warm, it was mildly sweet and very aromatic. Coupled with the strawberry jam and local clotted cream, it was fantastic.

We also had another Sally Lunn Bun served with traditional thick cut orange Marmalade at £3.08. The Marmalade tasted authentic, we love the sense of bitterness in it, and occasionally biting on the thinly sliced orange. Both strawberry and Marmalade weren’t overly sweet, the original taste of the fruits were exceptionally good.

It was a pleasant afternoon tea. In our humble opinion, this restaurant is certainly worth a visit. Service was very good and the prices justify the quality of the food. For more information, please visit their website here.

Restaurant Information
4 North Parade Passage,
Bath BA1 1NX,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 01225461634

Station Kopitiam

2009-06-06T01:43:00.007+08:00

This is a post dated back to July 2008. Endah Parade is one of the places which we used to visit since it is quite near my place. We noticed this restaurant after a renovation has taken place in the entrance to the Carrefour supermarket. Since we haven’t tried it before, we decided to have a go.

The menu was appealing, offering more than 50 dishes from with photos and neatly labeled, ranging from Malaysian to Western food. Quite a number of dishes captured our attention, namely Thai sizzling chicken, belacan mee goreng, black pepper chicken, petai prawns with rice, Tomyam seafood with rice, spicy fried glass noodles and the list goes on…

We were a little early for dinner, which explains the emptiness of the restaurant. The environment was good, spacious and clean.

Ys had a Sotong Lala Set which was served with a fish ball soup, ice lemon tea and fruits. Since they were having an opening promotion at that time, the price was reduced from RM13.80 to RM9.50.

We actually thought that it was a good deal, until we noticed that the portion served was relatively small and there were hardly any squid served. Taste wise, it was fine, rather fragrant with the spiciness of the chili to enhance the taste of the clams.

The fish ball soup was rather bland. And fish ball soup without fish balls but with small and almost unseen fish dices seems a little pathetic.

I craved for fish and chips that day. Without further doubts I ordered fish and chips which was priced at RM11.90. For an addition of RM1, you can have a bowl of fried rice with the fish and chips. The portion served was large, but the colour of the fish was a little intimidating to me, it looks a tad too orange I guess. Tasted quite average, not superb but not too bad either.

The food was rather average to us, perhaps it was due to the fact that they were newly open at that time. But we’ve actually read positive feedbacks about Station Kopitiam in Berjaya Times Square. Hopefully they have improved since then, with the wide range of varieties which they offer coupled with the reasonable price, it would be great if the quality of food is guaranteed.

Restaurant Information
Lot F2.11, Ground Floor,
Carrefour Shopping Centre,
Endah Parade, Sri Petaling,
57000 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.

Albany Fish Bar

2009-06-03T06:34:00.007+08:00

There is no way that we have not posted on fish and chips since we are in the UK. So here it is, a post on Albany Fish Bar.

The shop is strategically located on Albany Road, on the same row as Benny’s Chicken and across Tesco Metro.

We did our weekly grocery shopping in Tesco Metro and Albany Fish Bar caught our attention as there’re many customers queuing up every time we pass by the shop. It triggered our curiosity and we decided to try it out.

There are many battered and crumbled food on display. They have a lot to offer, jumbo sausage, fish cake, saveloy, pineapple fritter, samosas, popadums, chicken, burger and curry. So you’re not into fish, you have many other alternatives. We were eyeing on the large piece of cod on the right side of the photo since we stepped in the place.

The staff was preparing our fish and chips in a box.

The fish and chips in a box cost £4.39. It consisted of a large cod, chips and a choice of mushy peas, gravy or curry. We opted for gravy, which we thought is a good choice. Though it was a tad salty, the gravy was flavourful and nicely complemented the fish. As for the fish and chips, they turned soggy as it took us about 30 minutes walk to reach home. Even so the fish still tasted quite good, it was fresh and as evidenced from the photo, the fish was really large and good for sharing. We suppose it would be better if it was less oily.

The chicken and mushroom pie, priced at £1.40, was rather delicious. The outer layer of the pie was nice and crunchy while the filling was tasty and flavourful with large chunks of chicken and generous mushroom slices.

Albany Fish Bar is opened from 11am to 2pm and 5pm to 12am on weekdays, all day on Saturday and 5pm to 12am on Sunday. Not a bad place to order take out if you’re hungry during late hour.

Information
18 Albany Road,
Cardiff CF24 3RQ,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920482022

Tenkaichi Sushi & Noodle Bar (テンカイチ)

2009-06-01T05:17:00.010+08:00

Finally, a post on a Japanese restaurant in Cardiff. After hearing many compliments about this restaurant from our friends, we decided to give it a try.

We arrived at the restaurant rather late at about 9pm in the evening, and the sky is still bright.

The seats were rather similar to that of Sushi Groove. It was clean and comfortable.

We had a Red Ninja cocktail at £3.95. This cocktail is prepared with sake, Malibu, pineapple juice, cranberry and blackcurrant juice. At first sip, I didn’t really like the taste of it. But it felt rather good and refreshing after I continue drinking it. The sense of coconut is rather strong, if you’re someone who enjoy Malibu rum, this cocktail would be right for you.

We also had an Asahi Super Dry Beer at £2.70 in a bottle. If you ask me, I would say Asahi is one of the beers which we enjoy at all times. The fresh crisp karakuchi taste was really good, it felt like ages since we last had Japanese beer. It was really enjoyable.

Here’s our portion of mixed sashimi (刺身盛り合わせ) at £13.90. The presentation was rather average. But the serving of sashimi was considerably generous as the tuna and salmon sashimi were thickly sliced. The salmon sashimi was fresh and delicious, the same goes for the rest. We especially love the hokkigai (ホッキ貝) aka surf clam sashimi, too bad it was buried beneath the squid sashimi (イカ刺身) so it cannot be seen from the photo. Only the tuna slightly fell out of expectation. Overall, it was good.

The seafood kushi katsu (海鮮串カツ) priced at £4.40 was good stuff too. Marinated scallops, oysters and prawns were deep fried in bread crumbs. It was served warm, fresh, crispy and juicy when eaten. The Worcestershire sauce, which was slightly sour, boosted the taste of the kushi katsu. The seafoods were large and fresh. It was definitely worth the price.

The ten don (天丼), priced at £7.20, was served almost at the same time as the skewers and the sashimi, so at the time we indulged in it, it turned a little soggy. The batter was slightly thick, but other than that, the ten don was good. The prawns were large and fresh and the amount of rice served was enormous!

The spicy chicken ramen priced at £6.90 did not let us down either. It was served piping hot, and to our surprise, it was rather spicy compared to other food labeled “spicy” served in the UK. The chili soup base was flavourful and the slices of char-grilled chicken served were generous. The serving was huge, the bowl was larger than my palm. We love this.

It was a delightful meal. We will be happy to revisit this restaurant in the near future. And we would recommend this restaurant to people in Cardiff looking for authentic Japanese food. The price was proportionate to the generous serving, definitely worth every penny paid. Service was good and serving of food was speedy. The restaurant is open for long hours, from 12pm to 12am during Friday and Saturday. Do check out their website here for more information.

Restaurant Information
236, City Road Roath,
Cardiff CF24 3JJ,
United Kingdom.
Tel : 02920481888

The Loaf

2009-05-30T11:20:00.006+08:00

Another 1 year old post, sorry for posting everything this late. I need to make this reminder to readers that the prices and menus might be different now. Anyway, this Japanese style bakery is owned by Tun Dr. Mahathir, Malaysia's former prime minister. The first bakery and bistro is located in Langkawi, which we wish to visit in the future.

The third floor of The Loaf is a bakery while the upper floor is a fine dining restaurant.

The Loaf offers different types of breads, sandwiches and cheesecakes. Many times when we passed by The Loaf, it is filled with customers choosing and buying breads.

They also offer marble cookies.

We were attracted by their Uhu! hu! cheesecakes and went on to purchase a box which contains 6 cheesecake priced at RM25 in total. A single cheesecake would cost RM5 so we thought of getting a box instead. We learned that the cheesecakes were made without artificial preservatives and only natural ingredients were used. The paper box packaging is lovely and it can be recycled.

We shall name the cheesecakes clockwise beginning from the upper left corner with the harmonious green tea, the glitzy strawberries, luxurious chocolate, blueberry treasures, inspiring fluffy and passionate red bean. The Uhu! hu! cheesecakes tasted really soft and fluffy, the cheese was light and creamy, all flavours are equally delicious in their own unique way! The harmonious green tea is one of our favourites, the green tea aroma was rather strong and it tasted slightly bitter. Green tea lovers would definitely enjoy this. Glitzy strawberries and luxurious chocolate were good too, nothing would go wrong with these two flavours. We enjoyed the blueberry treasures too, the blueberries were sour and appetising and the taste blended well with the light and fluffy cheesecake. The inspiring fluffy was cute and delicious, a smiley face cheesecake can definitely cheer up the day! The passionate red bean was good but a little sweet compared to the rest of the cheesecakes. Other than these flavours, the durian obsession also received much compliments, I’ve tried it once and it tasted really good, definitely something not to miss out!

We would definitely go back for more cheesecakes. We might also try their cookies, sandwiches and breads next time. For more information, please visit their website here.

Café Information
Lot 3.13.00 and 4.12.02 Pavilion,
168, Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-21453036

Koryo-won (고려원)

2009-05-27T05:23:00.017+08:00

Another backdated post taken in Malaysia before we left for the UK. We were thinking of having Korean food in KLCC when we were shopping around there. If we are not mistaken, Koryo-won is the only Korean restaurant in KLCC.

A photo of KLCC when we finished shopping for the day.

A place to be if you're looking for fine Korean dining restaurant.

The exterior of the restaurant.

The restaurant is clean, well-designed, modern and equipped with good ventilation.

It was nicely decorated with Korean dolls.

For our drinks, we had a watermelon juice at RM12 and a mineral water for RM5. Yes, we do agree that food and drinks in this restaurant are pricey. For most Korean restaurants in Sri Hartamas, they usually serve drinking water for free.

Our side dishes (반찬) arrived shortly after we placed our order. They served 6 different types of side dishes. To be frank, we weren’t too impressed by their side dishes. The taste was rather average.

For our mains, we had a dol sot bibim bap (돌솥비빔밥) priced at RM28. This hot stone fragrant rice was topped with fresh seasonal vegetables, marinated sweet chicken, egg, chilli paste and sesame oil. It tasted quite delicious, the rice touching the bowl was crispy and tasty. It was neither too sweet nor spicy, just right for us. It was also served with a bowl of miyeok guk (미역국), a type of Korean seaweed soup which is usually eaten by the Koreans on their birthday.

The next main dish would be our all time favourite - kimchi jigae (김치찌개). Priced at RM25, this spicy kimchi soup was served with side dishes and rice. This, too, tasted rather good, the soup was sourish and boosted our appetites. Even though it was rather expensive, the ingredients served were proportionate to the price.

Other than the common food found in most Korean restaurants, Koryo-won offers grilled Wagyu beef marinated with their special BBQ recipe. Superior wagyu beef (M9) is priced at RM360 while premium wagyu beef (M7) is priced at RM260. Wagyu shabu-shabu is priced at RM160 with a minimum order of 2 persons. Do check it out if you’re looking for a fine dining Korean restaurant.

Restaurant Information
Lot 418-419, Ramlee Mall
Suria KLCC,
Kuala Lumpur City Centre,
50088 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-21666189

Adonis Kebab House

2009-05-24T05:21:00.007+08:00

This is the first time we dined in a kebab restaurant in Cardiff. This post is dated back to last autumn when we first arrived at Cardiff.

This kebab house is situated in City Road, about 10 minutes walk away the city centre.

We chose to dine in instead of having it take away. The floor and tables are rather oily but the environment was fine overall.

We were drooling when looking at the chef slicing the doner kebab off the rotating vertical spit.

These are the various pickles, vegetables and sauces used to complement the kebab.

I had a lamb doner meal priced at £4.50 which includes a lamb doner, chips and a soft drink. The lamb doner tasted quite good, it was well-roasted and thinly sliced but a little dry. Tasted quite good with chilli sauce. Perhaps next time we would try the chicken doner.

Ys had a chicken tikka for £4.90. Personally we prefer the chicken tikka more than the lamb doner. The skewered chicken was served on a pita bread, decorated with vegetables and pickles. It was grilled to perfection, aromatic and juicy. Very messy when eaten but couldn't care too much about table manners when the food is so mouth-watering delicious.

Service was fine and food was good. Worth to give it a shot. For people in Cardiff, please do recommend us good kebab house or other restaurants so we could explore others next time. Thank you!

Restaurant Information
190, City Road,
Cardiff CF24 3JF
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920483777

Inner Mongolia (内蒙古酒家)

2009-05-21T01:21:00.005+08:00

A post dated back to March 2008, when Sugar Bean had a date with Ai Wei. We were deciding where to have our lunch on a Sunday afternoon and decided to visit this steamboat restaurant which we love and visited countless times.

We were first introduced to this restaurant by our Chinese friends. As steamboat and spicy food lovers, we fell in love with this restaurant at first taste.

The restaurant was pleasant and well air-conditioned so you don’t have to worry about getting too warm when challenging the spicy steamboat.

For our starters, we had Mongolian starch jelly sheet (蒙古拉皮) priced at RM4.80. This cold dish is our all time favourite, the jelly sheet was light and chewy, coupled with cucumber and carrot strips, it was definitely a good start for the fiery meal. Other than this, we have also tried their vinegared jelly fish (老醋蜇丝) and dried bean curd (凉拌香干) which was really good too.

On the day of our visit, they were offering buffet priced at RM22.90 per person for lunch and RM29.90 for dinner. It was quite a good deal and we gave it a go. At RM22.90, we can order as many steamboat ingredients as we want as long as we can finish it. We had a spicy soup and a herbal soup (鸳鸯锅) so that we can have both at the same time. The spicy soup was layered with chilli oil and consists of dried chilli and other herbs to boost its spiciness. But be careful of chewing into the herbs, because it might numb your tongue.

This is the fermented bean and sesame sauce (豆腐乳) which is prepared by their restaurant specially for the steamboat, it was heavenly to eat the lamb slices with their specialty sauce.

Their thin lamb slices (羊肉片) is one of the must-order-item in their restaurant. It is fresh, thinly sliced and very delicious after it soaked up the spicy broth. It was so tasty that we lost count of the number of plates of lamb slices that we ordered.

Though we have been here many times, it was our first time trying out their deer slices (鹿肉片). This too, tasted quite good, but we somehow prefer the lamb slices compared to their deer slices.

Fresh bean curd (鲜豆腐) is our favourite food of all time so for sure we would order it. Besides, we also had their frozen bean curd (冻豆腐) which is ideal for the spicy soup.

We also had mushrooms (香菇) and other vegetables for steamboat.

We had a great time having steamboat with Ai Wei, perhaps this is the best way to have steamboat, to have a good chat and take your time cooking and eating. Service was quite good, nothing to shout about. No doubt we would definitely revisit this restaurant in the future.

Restaurant Information
290, Ground Floor,
Jalan Pudu,
55100 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: 03-21449688

Signor Valentino

2009-05-18T07:40:00.011+08:00

This was where we went to celebrate Valentines Day about three months ago. At first, we planned to revisit Bayside Brasseriebut unfortunately when we arrived at the restaurant, it was occupied for a company lunch the other day. We had no choice but to explore other restaurants in the same area.

We were spoilt with choices of food available in that area, from Indian to Thai. Finally we chose Signor Valentino after some deliberation, one of the reasons being that this restaurant has a splendid sea view.

Perfect view of the sea.

The interior of the restaurant is pleasant, quiet and perhaps more romantic at night.

Not wanting wine or other heavy drinks for lunch, we had just plain water for our lunch.

We started our lunch by having bruschetta con mozzarella at £3.50 as our starter. This toasted bread and mozzarella cheese looks quite delicious when served but we were a little disappointed when we tasted it. I am not quite too sure how to describe how it tastes like, perhaps it wasn’t well toasted, and so causing it not too aromatic overall.

Ys had pollo nero as his main dish. Priced at £8.95, this breast of chicken with black peppercorns, red wine, brandy and French mustard was served with potatoes and vegetables of the day. We were a little disappointed with the portion of the chicken served but fortunately it tasted quite good. The gravy was good, with a light sense of black peppercorn, tasted quite light overall.

The potatoes and vegetables which came with the chicken were served separately. The portion of potatoes served was huge and it was more than enough to fill our stomach. It was fine overall, but a little too oily to our liking.

I had linguine fruitti di mare, which is linguine served with mixed seafood, garlic, tomato and herbs. The price was the same as the pollo nero. It tasted quite good, very appetizing with strong senses of garlic and tomato and the portion was very large and filling. The prawns and mussels were quite fresh and delicious but sadly they were rather small compared to the one that we had in Bella Italia.

Undeniably, we were more than full when we finished our main course. But I just can’t leave the restaurant without having a dessert. So we had this white chocolate and blackcurrant cheesecake for £4.95. The cheesecake was fantastic! The cheesecake was rich and creamy and it made a great combination with the slightly sourish blackcurrant topping. For anyone visiting this restaurant, we would highly recommend you to try this cheesecake.

Food and service were satisfactory overall, but the presentation was a little disappointing. It was a delightful meal overall, with pleasant environment and dazzling sea view. It will be useful to visit their official website here for more information. We will be looking forward to explore other restaurants in Cardiff Bay next time.

Restaurant Information

Unit Upper 15,
Mermaid Quay,
Cardiff Bay,
CF10 5 BZ
United Kingdom.
Tel: 02920487070