Buffet @ Pullman Putrajaya

Click on pictures to enlarge. The pictures are awesome :)

Mazlan's kambing-saturated dish.

I know you guys love buffets, so against all odds and all the rainy days this December I thought I'd stick this one in. This was a dinner buffet excursion at Pullman Putrajaya on 30th November 2013. And to sound crazy, Pullman is only 5 minutes drive away from MMU if you follow the road to Dengkil (take the Putrajaya exit right before Dengkil exit, and keep left all the way).

For a restaurant parked under a world class resort, the price was not bad at all: only RM60++ per pax. And to spare you the shocking finale, the '++' is RM15. Thank you to my personal banker and fellow diner for the awesome treat. May Allah reward you endlessly for your generosity.

Here's what was available that particular night. It was a TGIF night, by the way, which was why I was smiling so broadly in the picture. Not that work has never been so exciting in my life (it is, as usual), but I am done with undergraduate lecture, and now only have to deal with mature students who give me less--shall we say-- challenges. Hooray~~

Just Thai :: Just try it~

Chicken with cashews and dried chilis

Once again, I am expanding my territory beyond Bangi and Cyber. This review is on Just Thai in One Utama way over in PJ. Mazlan had a business meeting that afternoon which requires lots of muffins and coffee at shopping malls--much to my amazement and stupefaction, seeing as we never ever relocate our faculty meetings to Starbucks or even that mamak place across the street. Anyway, at the end of it, he sent his driver over to fetch me and join him for dinner. (In the perfect world that is how it would have happened. Of course I had to drive there myself in 6 o'clock traffic.)

So after maghrib prayer we scoured through the mall looking for a suitable restaurant. We passed by Kenny Rogers a few times but ironically on that day, Mazlan for once in his life didn't check my facebook status (it was "mengidam Kenny Rogers...") and being the extremely bashful person that I am, I couldn't figure out how to get him to click on his FB app without it seeming too obvious. He only read it out sometime later, while we chewed on desert *tongue in cheek!*. 

Fish cakes.

Tom yam. A++. Go for it!

But anyway, the Just Thai place was just marvelous. Definitely not my first Thai restaurant, but definitely the first Thai restaurant that got me blogging and that's saying a lot.  In the last intentional Thai food excursion (which I would rather forget), Nadia discovered cicak eggs in the tom yam and we swore Never Again. The curse is finally over! Though I would never reveal the restaurant name because they might have become a better place since then........ 

somewhere in Cyber. Near the street mall.

Belacan Kangkung.

The menu looked too complicated after a long day of work so we ordered the dinner set that was on offer. It came with rice, some 3 dishes, appetizer and desert. The Tom Yam was the most delicious entree, I couldn't get enough of it. It had santan (coconut milk) in it, something which I would never ever dream of putting into tom yam, but somehow it works. The fish cakes, chicken and the belacan kangkung was nice. The pandan jelly was good too, although it was a bit hard because it had too much agar-agar in it. But maybe that's how it was meant to be. You can never be too sure with these Siamese dishes. They probably toned down on a few ingredients to get it going for us Malaysians and that halal certification.

So the verdict? Just Thai comes highly recommended. Just give it a try. Just once!

Pandan Jelly. Very hard.

Just Thai

One Utama, PJ

Cleanliness: A+

Food: A

Price: Set A for 2 people. ~RM50++. Thank you Mazlan :)

Satisfaction Level: A+

Service: A++ waiters very friendly, food quick to arrive.

Atmosphere: A (nice crowd)

Garden (fundamentally female~)

Of course we had to sit next to the grand
piano because it was a grand birthday. 

Garden. The noun is missing an adjective, so at first, I was not really sure what type of garden to expect. But it was in this mysterious Garden that we celebrated Nadia--my bestie's--birthday today.

We soon discovered the Garden is positively female. I am guessing, the entire interior design team is too. A problem may arise if your guy is one of those strong, macho, non-sensitive types, --it's better to eat somewhere else. You'll probably have to drag him kicking and screaming into the restaurant cause there's a 100% chance he'll feel like he's shedded his pants for a dress. A beautiful white and flowery one..

The decoration was excruciatingly lovely. There is a white grand piano in the middle of the floor, below an antique-looking chandelier. A white lamp-post stood near the little stairs. Creeping vines and flowers were everywhere, ceilings were painted sky blue and clocks of every shape and kind covered the walls that kept reminding me of the ACP meeting I had to attend to at 2 o'clock.

Too many clocks puts pressure on the chef.
We're guessing there's only one.

I ordered the Kung Pao Chicken Shanghai noodles and Nadia ordered Pasta Fiesta. Both came in enormous, over-sized, heavy ceramic plates that made the food looked insignificant. But even though the Garden was beautiful, there's something definitely lacking with the food. A little love and a lot of flavour. The chicken on mine was undercooked and the soy sauce and dried chillis were not fused well. The marinara sauce on Nadia's pasta tasted like a modified version of Lingham cili sauce. And much as we're crazy for Lingham with jemput-jemput, on pasta it doesn't taste that good. Desert was ordinary. For the RM9 price, I felt ripped off by exotic Charlotte.

Although it was lunch hour, there weren't a lot of customers and with all the clocks hanging on the walls showing London time, you'd think the food would be served quickly. They didn't. We did get complimentary mushroom soup to make up for it but, it tasted Pizza Hutty.

Kung Pao Chicken Shanghai  noodles. No.

Lemon tea and Jasmine tea. Yes.

Exotic Charlotte. No.

British Strawberry. Overpriced but Yes.

With all these shortcomings on the food, I'd still recommend you to go, at least for drinks. Experience the beautiful overgrown wonderland yourself, why not?

Great place for serious mother-daughter bonding, make-up & hair tips sessions, and girls day-or-night out. There's tables with swings for chairs, draped in vine--where you can swing all day like Jane from Tarzan as you sip flowery Jasmine tea. And if your Tarzan swings with you, doubt not his blossoming love.

Garden, Alamanda, Putrajaya (in front of TGIFs)

Cleanliness: A
Food: C- (mediocre and overpriced)
Price: ~RM35 per pax (including drinks and dessert)
Satisfaction Level: B (the beautifully decorated place made up for the lack in food)
Service: C+ (friendly waiters but long wait)
Atmosphere: calming, girly, very girly, extremely girly, pick one.

p/s Free food on weekends starting 19th November. Go.

Islamic Kitchen (generous portions of Salmon!)

You know how there's Pizza Hut, Ice Room, Noodle Station, Manhattan Fish Market, and Kedai Kita? (feel free to suggest some more examples). Well now there's Islamic Kitchen, and though the name implies middle-eastern food (to me at least), you'll be surprised to find that it serves mainstream food from every continent including awesome chicken nachos complete with cheese dips. Yep. Mexican. (Yo quiero Taco Bell!).

Grilled lamb and salmon with black pepper sauce,
corn on the cob and fries. Heavenly.

The thing about Islamic Kitchen is that it's like a down-graded version of those big western food chains, you know, like Cili's, or TGIFs. The menu interestingly displays the chefs who cooks your food. A few are not bad-looking, and though I haven't tried (Dor was not with me), I don't think you can order them. 

The menu also states that there's no MSG in their food and that they make their own ice. Which makes you wonder about all those other restaurants you eat at: who makes their ice?!

Nasi goreng Mr Pow.  So-so.

So last hot Thursday, I picked Armand up from school and we decided to eat out, seeing as Armand just found out he got number 2 in class for his exams. Don't tell him this but I was quite proud of him for doing well. I had literally dragged him to Port Dickson the weekend just before his exams to accompany me on a health workshop and he spent the entire two days in the swimming pool in front of the hotel room instead of studying. Bravo babes.  

I was feeling 1Malaysia that day so I went for the Ah Pow fried rice (that's nasi goreng Cina sans normal, --yep, its gone down from an entire nation to just one guy with Islamic Kitchen, apparently). Armand ordered the salmon and grilled lamb. He usually goes for the salmon in butter lemon sauce, which I must admit is quite heavenly, and for around RM25  is very reasonable given the big portion of salmon. 

So here's the deal. If you go to Islamic kitchen, order the western meals. They are delicious and good value for money. But the nasi gorengs (i,e., fried rice), tastes mediocre and are over-priced, considering also the ordinary table and open-air space you're eating it in. Comprendo? :)

Everything else about Islamic Kitchen is cool. I mean, which other restaurant lists their chefs in the menu and make their own ice these days? 

Islamic Kitchen, Bandar Baru Bangi
Cleanliness: B
Food: B (asian food can be better and cheaper)
Price: ~RM25 per pax (including drinks)
Satisfaction Level:  B+ (definitely halal)
Service: B/C (sometimes wait is quite long. Food does not arrive together)
Atmosphere: B (hustle and bustle, open air)

Red Wok BBB (A family affair)

Red wok is this awesome relatively new restaurant in Bandar Baru Bangi that is located right up there in Section 7. Going to Red Wok is always a family affair; in fact, the trip there a few Saturdays back was to celebrate my sister's birthday. She turned 25. Which is surprising as so am I.

I have always loved Chinese food. So I may be bias in my review of this restaurant. Back during the days when my taste buds were wild, the King's Buffet (which was a chinese restaurant close to my university) was a favourite hangout for lunch and dinner. In fact, if they also opened for breakfast, I would have set up camp on the premises. Kung Pao, General Tao's, orange, cashew, and Hunan chicken were my excruciatingly favourite dishes when ravenous. Red Wok is as close as I can get to all the food mentioned above without having to purchase a ticket from Air Asia, where apparently now everyone can fly.

So back to Red Wok, we ordered our regular favourites: lemon chicken, sweet and sour prawns, an entire tray of seafood fried rice, soft-shelled fried crabs, prawns fried in crispy batter, broccoli and garlic, bean curd in claypot and the main protien dish: kerapu in kerabu mangga (kerapu is a type of fish that is fleshy with minimal bones and kerabu mangga is mango salad). 

Now lets recap the experience.

Ignore the cake. Its from Secret Recipe.

The lemon chicken is drenched in this lemony sauce that is just the right level of sweetness to go with the rice and yet, still crunchy. I am not a big fan of prawns and crabs, mainly because I find shelling them tedious, but they were fresh and sweet and crispy and the shells --edible, for some indescribable reason, so you just swallow them whole, which to me  is a whole new experience. Soft-shelled crabs? wow. Never cease to amaze me. How do these little guys get along in real life when the shell no longer serves a purpose?

The kerabu mangga with the fish was OK, since I am not so into fish and mango combined. But it does taste very healthy.. and that's important. They also have all this garnishing on it that makes it look really special. Like you're a favourite customer. But then you notice everyone else is a favourite customer. Bummer.

The broccoli and garlic, for lack of a better word: delicious. The broccoli was bright green, which means perfectly cooked, and the garlic was white and crunchy and perfectly sliced, which means perfectly cooked. If the chef was a guy, he could go four.

Last but not least the seafood fried rice. Simple yet tasty. One does not really concentrate on the carbs when there's so much good protein to go around.

And finally, the best thing about Red Wok and that is the bill never cease to amaze me. For everything that we ordered, including fruit drinks, tea, and ABC combined, served to 7 over-the-average-sized loyal citizens of Malaysia, the bill was only about RM150++. And even better, the wait was too short to be true, was hot when it arrived, and nearly all at once. Gordon Ramsey would have been speechless.

We are already planning sister's no 6 birthday there next month. She's turning 19, which, surprise surprise, so am I :)

Cleanliness: B 

Food: A- (delicious and fresh)

Price: ~RM20 per pax (including drinks)

Satisfaction Level: A-

Service: A- (friendly waiters, very short wait)

Atmosphere: B (bit noisy, lots of customers, open-air restaurant, can be quite warm unless it rains)

Note: handicap friendly because it is in a lot all by itself.

Facebook them here.

Secret Recipe Cyberjaya (go only for cake and coffee)

Its no secret anymore that Secret Recipe has no secret recipe. They mass package the food, distribute it to their restaurants across town and store it in the freezers until you order it. Which is why we always drop by for just cake and coffee these days (don't we Ning?). But desperate times call for desperate measures. And today I was really desperate. One mugful of Nestle cereal with low-fat milk isn't exactly a fantastic substitute for lunch. By 3pm I was running low. By 4 I nearly fainted. Trust me, the guy I will eventually end up with will love me for all my soft spots even if he is dead skinny.

So, with the will of Conan the Barbarian, I made a near bee-line for Secret recipe. It was 4:45pm, I had class at 6pm, so it wasn't really a leisure meal. For the first time since birth, I probably had a meal in a restaurant alone. It was a defining experience because it was quite enjoyable and the waiters were practically all over me with the menu.

So I ordered the Tom Yam noodle thingy, which looked really good in the picture with two big prawns sitting fine and pretty on it. And got just one -- what a conn. The waiter remembers I like chopsticks with my noodles, and he had them ready for me which was nice. I only had warm water though, after reading that article on water therapy from Japan about all the sludge accumulating in your gut if you had your meal with cold drinks. Whilst slurping noodles like Lady and the Tramp, I pretended not to eaves-drop on the relatively flat, monotonous and unexciting conversation the couple next to me were having. 

Then I called for my bill, paid the RM20 (tax and service was RM4) and left with renewed energy for class. Not that the noodles brimmed with goodness and tasted awesome. Just had more gas to work on before bed. Looking forward to the Nestle cereal before dinner. 

Cleanliness: B (sofa could do with a wash)
Food: C+ (not the same with picture in menu)
Price: ~RM20 per pax (excluding drinks or cake)
Satisfaction Level: B
Service: B+ (friendly waiters, short wait)
Atmosphere: B+ (nice and quite, sofa can do PDA)