Al-Qasar: New BEST Arab Place in Cyberjaya.

FOE's favourite lecturers. Cause we're so kind and generous. And
don't scribble the students reports that much before it flies out the window.

And another one. Kinder one.

Thanks people, for stopping by and looking through my posts for the next best place to take the family. I find writing very therapeutic, and I am glad I could help, even if you just skim through the headlines. I used to write about my cat Koko, and she had a big fan-club going, but she ran out on me when she found out I was writing behind her back. I would love to write about Islam, but I am not learned and would probably implicate myself. I would love to write about my research but three of my papers got rejected in the past and the scars are just drying up. And if I wrote about my life experience, I would probably end up in court or someone's hit list. So lets talk about food instead~~

This next restaurant just baffles me, in the highest sense of the word. I am in turmoil and I am confused. But as an outrageously feminine woman, I need to unravel my confused mind via some complex nouns and FFT transforms in order to see a clearer picture of what the confusion is all about.

Steeping into Al-Qasar is like stepping into an Arab soap opera setting. The place itself is quite spectacular. A visit would propel you into an Arab palace complete with symmetrical arches and water fountain. If a flying carpet suddenly flung me in the air or a squad of belly dancers broke into song, I wouldn't blink an eyeball nor will BP be affected. Hanging from the center of the ceiling is a chandelier that looks ancient middle-eastern-Turkish. The chairs are wide and hard with cushions to lean on. Deco-wise, Al-Qasar makes other restaurants in Cyberjaya look like car wash centres.

Foodwise though -- pretty amazing. The makhzoon lamb was crazy delicious. The humus beiruti made us lick our fingers. My kids fought over the left-overs I brought home of the chicken-baked-in-bread dish -- I can't recall the sophisticated name. Miza was so impressed she vows never to set foot in Saba' again. I wouldn't be so cruel. Saba' has been good to me. But Saba' needs to step up a little now.

The chicken baked in bread dish.
BEFORE

AFTER.

Then what.is.the.problem?

It's the service. It sucked big time. But because the food literally tornado-ed us away, I gave it a second, third and fourth chance before I even wanted to write this review. I can honestly say on an average of 4 visits we were lucky with service 1 time. Thats a 25% probability of achieving a passing satisfaction rate at Al-Qasar. And I did everything on the mental checklist to grab the waiters attention: take out camera, wave hand, smile, act like I'm in a hurry and finally, pull bengang face. Food arrived at a rate of 1 dish per half hour, and drink  (read: just warm water) arrived before we were about to leave. At the second visit, food did not arrive at all, it disappeared like the MH370 and they told us to come back later. I wanted to flood them with my limited repertoire of French words, but I couldn't risk being banned from the place.

Chicken makhzoon

Lamb makhzoon. The meats came in the foil and was so tender.

Yesterday, when I told my husband the girl at the kitchen cabinet store pulled a sulky face at me, he said we'll do our cabinets elsewhere (that was before the ridiculous quotations arrived in email). But I would say Al-Qasar is an exception---the waiters can pull all the sulky face in the world, the cashier can reject your stained ten ringgit note and wave it in your face, and the manager can tell you to leave because your baby is pooping and howling, but you'd still come crawling back for more. Awesome food Al-Qasar. Please just be gentle with us. We Malays don't do kasar-kasar. We are peace-loving people you know.

The humus that captured my heart.
Humus beiruti. It runs out of stock frequently too.

Al-Qasar
Cyberjaya Street Mall

Cleanliness: A
Food: A
Price: A (appropriate)
Satisfaction level: B
Service: F

Kyros kebab :: go for lamb kebab!

The epitome's of kebab. Kyros Lamb Kebab. Not so good looking on the outside,
but very good-tasting on the inside. Please, do grab one now.

There's a little Kyros Kebab restaurant in Warta Bangi thats been there since time memorial but I've never even blinked at them --how haughty taughty of me (slap self). I guess the idea of kebab did not appeal, although I had kebabs nearly every other weekend back when I was studying in the UK. Tapi bak kata orang-orang bijak pandai kalau dah ada jodoh tu takkan ke mana. Tak pandang pun lama-lama boleh jatuh cinta (google translate on left). Nowadays I am an avid Kyros kebab fan. The lamb kebab.

The first time I had Kyros is quite a story. My husband probably doesn't even know he contributed to the meeting, even though he was the one who set us up. It was love at first bite~

Flashback:

We were on the way to Genting, and the car died on the way up the mountain, as normal love stories go. A kind Samaritan stopped to help us and by the time we reach the top, it was getting dark. We  had driven round looking for a carshop. My husband parked the car near a row of shops and left us to get some supplies while we waited for him in the car.

Something emerged from the forest and stumbled past our car. Relax, it was just a dog. With three kids in the car though, the excitement and commotion was like watching an elephant pass by in a drive-through safari. The dog was really skinny, and looked starved and half-dead. We took pity on it and searched around in the car for food. We found the kyros kebab hubs had bought before we left Bangi, and flung it at the dog. Before I did though, we all took a small bite each of the kebab.

Pause remote:

The kebab was superb. 

Continue story:

So superb the kids began fighting over it and I nearly changed my mind about giving it to the dog. But in a matter of seconds it was flying out the window anyway, and the dog gobbled it up and wobbled off. Hubs returned safe sound and unscratched and I apologized for his lost kebab and promised to get him another. He nearly strangled me in the car and threw me off the cliff--actually no, that was an ending to another movie. Just to fast forward a bit, while hubs was immersed in watching a really boring movie recently, I went out to Warta and bought him the replacement kebab. Promise fulfilled--although it was 9 months later. I hope you realized you were eating a kebab that day Abang.

Ida with black pepper spaghetti. A!

Miza with rootbeer float. A!

Present Day:

Last week me and [Assoc Prof] Miza went to Streetmall for a late lunch after another long meeting discussing the future of the younger generation (the ones who are currently stuck in FOE) and how we can get them to do the AES evaluation online without tying them to their chairs. There is a Kyros Kebab restaurant at the streetmall and remembering the one lingering bite so long ago at Genting, I suggested we get the lamb kebab to Miza.

She loved it, as did I (flashback: Genting episode). And Miza liked it so much that she stopped to get one for her husband too the next day, who said it tasted better than a Subway sandwich. I agree. Subway seems to taste the same nowadays regardless of the different fillings; it's like drinking different brands of mineral water. But if Subway was Air Mineral Petronas, Kyros Lamb kebab would be Evian.

Black pepper spaghetti. A!

Current promotion at Kyros Kebab @ Street Mall Cyberjaya. Make it a lamb kebab night!

Anyway, the pictures you see here was visit number 3 this month with Ida tagging along. Ida said the black pepper spaghetti is good too. Me and Miza remained faithful to our lamb kebab, we were women on a lamb kebab mission that day. It was as awesome as expected and as filling as a plateful of rice with 3 sides and an extra dash of tempoyak/sambal belacan/budu (insert favourite condiment here). The shredded lamb gives you an extra boost of energy to patiently finish off that thesis which reads suspiciously like its been copied off Wikipedia. And the bread was warm and crunchy enough to make you feel all optimistic for another semester of marking scrawling assignments, quizzes, lab reports and exam papers. Thank you Kyros for the awesome lamb kebab. Alhamdulillah.

Lamb kebab --> recommended!!

Kyros Kebab

Warta Bangi or Streetmall Cyberjaya

Cleanliness: A
Food: A

Price: Appropriate

Satisfaction level: A

Service: B++ 

Atmosphere: B++

Saba' :: Still the best!

I love it when my husband has meetings in Cyberjaya. He would call me up and we'd go out for lunch. Or coffee. Regardless, it makes the laboring day pass by faster. Which is just great. Before you know it, I'm in the car on my way home humming a happy tune.

I've done two of reviews on Saba' before, so I won't re-iterate and bog down your brain cells when you can use them for something more productive; like concentrating really hard on the sermon during Friday prayer and becoming a better person an hour later. You can just skim through them old entries here. The pictures are gone, but trust me, its just food photos. Google has a lot of them.

We'd already concluded from the last Saba' post that ordering something else apart from lamb kabsah may be disappointing, so today again, I had ordered the lamb kabsah (awesome as always) and I didn't think to do a review. But my husband had an epiphany and ordered that red-bean dish (picture number 3 below) which I thought tasted extraordinaryly like good spaghetti sauce. I can't recall the name but there's a picture of it in the menu if you want to try it (point and order). It came with an enormous chewy black sesame bread that reminded me of Elfen bread from LOTR ---it keeps you full for hours. Definitely a must-try.

Muttabbal. Best best most awesome appetizer on earth.

Lamb kabsah. A dish so simple the lamb stands out.

Bread and red bean sauce. A!

Saba' is great for going when you are extraordinarily hungry because the dishes are gigantic Arab-size servings served really quickly. Regardless of the so many new places that have popped up in Cyberjaya, Saba' still remains my favourite Arab food place. 

Abang with his schawerma.

Saba'
Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia


Cleanliness: B
Food: A!
Price: Just right.
Satisfaction Level: A+-- I always love eating with hubs.
Service: B++
Atmosphere: A-- too many people. They need to open up a bigger restaurant!

Al-Ulfah: Arabic Food, Rocking Malaysian Flavour!

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Mazlan's 

Awesome mint tea!

Al-Ulfa is this little restaurant by 7/11 Ampang. The tagline: Arabic Food, Malaysian Flavour! Mazlan had been going on about the place ages. He took me there approximately 5 months after he first mentioned it, so now I kindoff have a rough idea of how long it will take for him to do something once he's set his mind on it (i.e., approximately half a year). That means we'll hit Legoland sometime in April 2013. And I should be getting my ring sometime next month. :P