I am not a cafe lover because I don’t have much faith in their food quality. Most of the time, cafes here are mostly smoke filled and serve lame ass food that do not deserved to be blogged about.

However, someone tipped me off about a new cafe in Cheng recently and he assured me that the food there has a certain standard. Moreover, its new and has received positive feedback from the others.

No harm giving it a try. Again, the scapegoats were Sleepy Hao, Akiraceo Jian and Sleepy Hao’s sister, Jia Rou.

Finding the cafe is relatively easy as it is the commercial area right after Cowboy Town if you are coming from Batu Berendam direction and behind Mobil if you are coming from the Alor Gajah-Melaka-Jasin Highway.

With the brightly lit orange signboard, you shouldn’t miss it especially during night time. The cafe is called Dynasty Ice N’ Snack Cafe and judging from its new outlook and interior, it was opened for business less than two or three weeks ago. There were quite a lot of customers throughout our 60 minutes ordeal there.

As written on the menu, the cafe wants to give its patrons’ a home feeling. Hence, the rather simple seating arrangement and not too yellowish lighting. The whole restaurant is brightly lit (Damn nice for photography, if you ask me.) and best of all, it is fully air conditioned. However, there’s no door at the front to trap all the cold air inside. It’s like an open air air conditioned room, a huge wastage of energy and electricity. First and foremost, the owner needs to install a glass panel / door to save his electricity bill.

A big no-no is sticking yellow stickers across your menu item that you have planned to serve but decided to pull it off the menu after your opening. While I am fine with two or three, 10 or 20 yellow stickers across the menu is definitely a sight I don’t want to see when I patronize a restaurant. The management might as well reprint the menu and make it add-on-able at a later stage. The whole menu was literally plastered with yellow stickers and I actually forgot to take a picture of it.

They have the usual stuffs, ice blended, ABC, bubble tea and the normal stuffs you find in any other cafes. Hao and Jian both ordered the Blue Fairy, soda mixed with colouring, I supposed. Ah Rou ordered a variation of Blue Fairy, comes with a scoop of vanilla flavoured ice cream.

As for me, I ordered this really weird combination drink, mocha at the bottom with coke on the top. Stir them together and you get the mocha-ed coke, which didn’t taste as good as I thought. It was ok only lah! The fact that the drink wasn’t cold enough didn’t help at all. I am not going to order this the next time, for sure.

First up was Ah Rou’s herbal mee sua, which smelled surprisingly nice. The aroma was a good start. The various mushrooms, herbal ingredients and other ingredients made the whole pot looked really tempting and delicious. Instead of yee mee, they used a thinner version of the same kind, almost like bee hoons.

I didn’t manage to try it as it wasn’t my order. However, I took a sip of the soup and it was slightly disappointing as the taste wasn’t strong enough to make it a truly and double boiled herbal soup. It tasted ok, but lacked the ummppphhhh that I was looking for in herbal soup. Well, it is pretty easy to overcome this problem. Double the ingredients and boil it longer so that the ingredients are able to simmer and release their taste and flavour.

Jian ordered their special udon noodles. I don’t know about Jian, but I absolutely love the noodles. They were cooked just the way how I like them. Not too wet till it is overflowing the plate yet not too dry till as if I am eating a piece of plain white bread. A little bit of black fungus, a few prawns, some mushrooms and the right seasoning to dish out this noodle dish. However, I reckon it would taste even better when its hot or right from the wok. By the time we finished our “ritual”, the plate of noodles have cooled down. I am so gonna order this for my next visit.

Hao ordered the “treasure box” or more commonly known as the chicken curry in a bun dish. It was served with a layer of egg on it ala nasi goreng pattaya style. I didn’t try the bread but I did try the chicken curry. It was too dry, definitely not suitable to be eaten with bread. Moreover, it was powder-ish, probably too much curry powder or too little water. Lots of improvement needed if they want this dish to be their specialty. For now, its below average. It was really small too!

I ordered their Thai style mango chicken chop, which was another specialty of theirs, according to the source I read from. Served with a handful of frieds, spoonful of coleslaw and a few chunks of fruits with (Duh!) deep fried chicken chop. You have the option to choose whether to deep fry or pan fry your white meat though and I opted for the former, of course. The skin was really crunchy and delicious; most importantly, it wasn’t as oily as I expected. Probably, not oily at all. Two thumbs up for the chicken chop! The coleslaw passed and the honey dew cubes were just nice to wash off the sourness at a later time.

The problem with this dish is the fries used. I absolutely hate such al cheapo fries. It is thin, it doesn’t have the texture and most importantly, it tastes like craps especially after it is cooled down. They could have change the fries to those bigger and fatter fries instead and that is going to add a few points to the dish.

The amount of mangoes on top was too little for my liking. After all, I ordered Thai-style mango chicken chop and that few strands of tasteless mangoes weren’t justifying the name of the dish. Probably, Thai style chicken chop would be more suitable.

Lastly, instead of pouring the sweet and sour sauce on top of the chicken chop before serving, they could have served it in a small bowl and let the customers pour it by themselves. Not only the patron is able to control how much sauce he or she wants, the crispiness of the chop won’t be soaked away and then lose its crunchy texture after some time. Moreover, they sort of poured too much sauce into my chicken chop and even my honey dew tasted sweet and sour.

We also ordered their pan fried dumplings which tasted surprisingly yummy for Malacca standard. There were lots of juices the moment I tore the skin apart with my teeth and the gravy was gushing down my throat in no time. Heh! A little exaggerating, I know, but I totally didn’t expect it to be that juicy. However, the amount of meat inside was too little. Put more, can ah?

As for the “sunflower”, it was nothing special to me. The boss took the time to explain to us why it was special. After biting it, it was just another deep fried kind of thingy.

The bill came up to roughly about RM10 per head. It was definitely cheaper than what I had expected initially and / or compared to other cafes that I have patronized who charged RM4.90 for a glasss of honey green tea. That said, RM0.50 for a glass of Diamond RO water? Hmm…

Will I return? Definitely.

However, there’s one problem. The distance from Bukit Beruang to Cheng Baru is not anywhere near and with the current petrol price, it is not a very good idea to go there that often, considering Cheng Baru has nothing to offer in terms of entertainment after the meal.

Unlike town, which I think is more or less the same distance, I still have places to roam around after my meal. That being said, if I am on my way back to Tampin using the Alor Gajah-Melaka-Jasin road or have something going on around Cheng or for those who stays nearby, it’s definitely worth visiting.

The boss asked for my contact and said he was looking forward to read my review. Hopefully, after reading, he would consider my suggestions / comments and make some adjustments. It should be a pretty good cafe if things go well for them. It was definitely satisfying compare to how shitty I always felt whenever I walked out a cafe.

Oh, did I mention they have free wi-fi?

Dynasty Ice N’ Snacks
No. 2A, Jalan CB1,
Taman Cheng Bestari,
75250 Melaka.

06-3373371
http://icensnacks.com.my

Sleepy Hao, Akiraceo Jian and I headed to town for a more decent (Anything better than Sushi King or maybe Sibaraku is considered decent.) Japanese food. Actually, I have nothing to blog anymore, so I dragged these two scapegoats along so that I have more pictures to be used in my post.

I read about this particular restaurant from Yung.’s blog and decided to give it a try. Who knows, I might have another place to have my all time favourite unagis whenever I feel like I want to.

Wa Zen 和膳 Japanese Restaurant, located not too far from Portuguese Hotel, operates quietly in Melaka Raya. It’s relatively easy to find and parking is ample. However, do take note the lane opposite the shop is drawn with yellow lines, so, try not to park there during the day time.

There aren’t many tables in the restaurants. A glance at it, there could be less than 10 tables, with separated cubicles on the left and a private room at the back. Warm lighting and fully air conditioned.

My complain is that, they actually allow their patrons to smoke inside the air conditioned restaurants. Not very wise, I would say. Ample space between each tables and still comfortable to sit in. I think the restaurant is quite popular in town, as we had to wait for a short while before being seated as all tables were occupied. There were a lot of Japanese customers having dinner there too, to my surprise.

Then, I noticed this cat again. Its in every Japanese restaurant, I believe. I seen it here, Sibaraku and also Sushi King. Meow~

Upon seated, hot towels are served to all patrons. However, with three photographers around, hot towels ended up being cold by the time we use it. As usual, pre-packed wooden chopsticks and chilled green tea.

While waiting for our food to arrive, I played with the stuffs available on the table. The Japanese soy sauce, chilies flakes and tooth picks.

For starters, Hao and I had the fresh salmon handroll and soft shell crabs handroll. Taste wise, it was edible but definitely lost out in terms of taste. The seaweed used to wrap around the ingredients were not easy to tear off, making it quite a little troublesome to eat and with all the egg roes falling off. I wonder the seaweed got “stiffed” because of our photo taking time. The waiter did remind us to eat them quickly.

We ordered the sets, which come with a bowl of white rice, salads, steamed eggs, two slices of watermelons and whatever you ordered main dish. It was really disappointing to see a small pool of water after I finished the bowl of salads, which could only mean they didn’t drain the lettuce properly before serving. The steamed egg contained too much water and has lost its texture. A failed cawanmushi.

Hao ordered tori rose katsu set (deep fried pork chop) while Jian ordered teriyaki chicken rice set. I don’t know how it tasted, so let it be.

As for me, definitely and nothing else but unagis. Yummy! I was telling May Gin this early evening that I was having cravings for unagis.

The unagis were much drier compare to many other unagis that I have tried in other Japanese restaurants. However, the taste was there albeit not that strong. The delicate white meat was cooked to perfection, retaining its firm texture and yet soft and smooth enough to glide down my throat. Again, some sweet sauce onto the white rice would be nice, for its too dry, the whole set that is.

In Malacca, there are only a few Japanese restaurants, with Sushi King dominating the market. However, with Wa Zen around, the locals have another options. I would definitely come back again, especially when I feel like having a more proper Japanese food rather than the sucky but still edible Sushi King. There’s another Japanese restaurant that is about to open soon in Dataran Pahlawan, but that will be another post.

Wa Zen Japanese Restaurant
38, Jalan Melaka Raya 15,
Taman Melaka Raya, 75000 Melaka.

06-2823882

Sim Koa Yen is not just a durian orchard farm located somewhere near Durian Tunggal. It is a durian orchard that uses minimal pesticides, only organic fertilizers and was awarded SALM (Farm Accreditation Scheme of Malaysia). Those are not the important facts, the important thing is that they serve durian buffet for only RM35 per adult, RM18 per child below age 12 and F.O.C for child below age 5.

Unlike D’ Paradise that served low quality durians or none at all (Read Jesslyn’s first hand experience of D’ Paradise by clicking here.), Sim Koa Yen up a notch by serving high grade durians such as “Red Prawn”, D24, “Jiabili”, “Cibei”, “Raja Kunyit” and etc.

They had such good reputations that Singaporeans would organize tours to pay the farm a visit. He even had customers from Taiwan too!

Finding the “entrance” was easy, but from the main road to the orchard, the 2.5km route took us almost 30 minutes, passing by rubber plantations, dragon fruit plantations, vast fields, lakes and chicken farm.

Finally, we saw some really big durians, waiting for the “ripe” time to drop. At the “station”, piles of durians were gathered at one corner, which were to be served later at a private function. Come to think of it, it could probably be my first visit to a durian orchard. Heh!

Instead of using chopping knife to open the durians, the owner has created a specially crafted “device” to pry those durians by just pressing down the handle. Seriously, opening a durian is as easy as ABC and probably takes less than 30 seconds to fully open it.

Since it was a buffet, we were served with a huge varieties of durians. From the dry to wet type, sweet to bitterish type, branded species to kampung species, you name it, they serve it. Considering that I didn’t manage to eat a single pulp of durian last year, I whacked as many as I could. My favourite got to be “Raja Kunyit”, sweet and creamy. My mum would probably prefer “Horlor”, wet and slightly bitter kind though.

Seriously, I never eat so much durians at one go in my life. I was there from 12.30pm until 3pm, all I ever did throughout my time there was, eat, eat, and eat. In fact, by the time I left the orchard, I already felt the heat inside me and my throat was acting funny.

Some artistic shot. :D

If you are a durian lover, like me, you should give it a try. One needs to make appointment before paying visit as they need to collect the durians before that.

Sim Koa Yen
MC-2-34 & MC-2-35,
Jalan SB Utama, Taman Seri Bayan,
76100 Durian Tunggal,
Alor Gajah, Melaka.

RM35 per adult.
RM18 per child (below age 12).
F.O.C per child (below age 5).

012-6816895 / 012-6786895 / 06-5532500 / 06-5532600 (Reservation is a MUST!)

My boss, Allison, Pelf Yeen and myself so happened had to go to a place together and after finishing what we were supposed to do, we headed out for lunch.

Seeing that we needed to pass by Cheng and recalling that there’s a bah kut teh restaurant that I wanted to try but yet to, I suggested it and most of us agreed, except for 50%-vegetarian Pelf Yeen. She only eats chicken and fish, the white meat. Sad, right?

SH (Shun Fatt) Bah Kut Teh Restaurant, said to be a branch from somewhere else, and this particular branched could be the 17th or 19th. Why not 18th? There’s a branch in Bachang and that branch is the 18th, according to the signboard, that is.

As it was lunch time, there were quite a lot of customers, occupying most of the tables at that moment.

Garlics, cili padis, dark soy sauce with red chilies. A must, in every bah kut teh meal, together with a pot of Chinese tea.

Since the invention of gas stove, many has ditched charcoal fire but in this particular restaurant, they use charcoals to boil / cook your pot of bah kut teh. Yes, old school style. While using charcoals will give you a smoky smell to your already fragrant dishes, it is not easy to control the heat and fire. Slightly bigger, there goes your food. Anything too small, you get uncooked food.

The pot of bah kut teh, surprisingly, tasted nothing like bah kut teh. The soup was way too clear for bah kut teh, it was almost like those noodles soup. Taste wise, it was more of herbal soup with somewhat slightly stronger angelica (当归) taste. Honestly, after patronizing a few bah kut teh stalls, I wouldn’t call this as bah kut teh.

However, my boss like the soup though.

For the non pork eater, we ordered a small pot of chicken cooked in sesame oil.

The aromatic sesame oil was simply irresistible and I quickly dug in once I took my photos. While it wasn’t the best, it was definitely delicious. Just the right amount of oiliness, with thick soy sauce for the flavour and sesame oil for the fragrance. Yummy! However, it is either they used a very skinny chicken or they simply chopped the meat. There were bones everywhere, I found myself chewing on the bones more than the meat itself. Probably they should have diced it into chicken cubes instead of chopping it like minced meat.

While it wasn’t entirely disappointing, their bah kut teh is definitely not my kind of bah kut teh. However, I got to applaud them for using pork ribs instead of those pathetic sliced meat and meat balls yet proudly declaring it as bah kut teh. It always give me the WTF-feeling whenever I order bah kut teh yet seeing meat balls floating on the soup like some fish balls.

Will I return? Nope.

Just not my kind of bah kut teh lah! It’s an acquired taste kind of bah kut teh. You can try, if you want to. Probably, you, like my boss, would like it!

Le Garden cafe, probably the latest eatery in Dataran Pahlawan, is definitely the rising star and popular place for good food among students recently.

Nothing fancy about the contemporary interior design. Just some oval shaped ceilings and warm lighting to give the restaurant a warm fuzzy mood. Although the spaces between each table could have been wider to avoid the cramped feeling and able to dine in comfortably.

Malacca lacks of decent buffet places. Seoul Garden at Mahkota Parade? Horrendous. Carry On at Melaka Raya? It used to be THE place but it has outlived its glory and era. Its been operating since my secondary schooling days and the food are still the same old same old even until today. Hence, the move to introduce buffet in Le Garden cafe is just the right time and definitely money making.

For RM25, you get to eat all you can eat steamboat buffet.

Of course, we (Allison, Jun Hao and I) weren’t there for the buffet. They have a la carte menu, serving both western and local dishes. We were there for that, in the name of food review write up. Heh! I love my job. *gloats*

Anyway, beverage wise, we were served with the fantasy series. White Fantasy, made using ribena syrup, vanilla flavoured ice cream and shaved ice. A recommendation came from the floor manager. As for Sunrise, its ribena and orange juice.

I had the Fantasy, also mixed with ribena syrup but with lychee and peach syrup this time. Seriously, very refreshing and unique indeed. Why nobody thought of that before? I didn’t take any picture of my drink though.

Kicking off our free lunch was the bruschetta. Cold and thick tar tar sauce mixed with chunks of smoked salmon fish, carrots, spring onions and bla bla bla, topped on lightly toasted crunchy bruschetta. Finger licking good, it was seconds later after I finished my first one when I hurriedly grabbed the last piece. I sure hope the amount of tar tar sauce on the bread doesn’t decrease greatly in my next visit.

Rendang chicken, a very popular dish in Malaysia and goes along very well with almost any dishes at any given time of the day. As normal as it sounds, the chef didn’t screw it up and tasted pretty well.

Lamb shank, the portion is a little huge for most average person but still manageable. Unlike most lamb shank served in other places, theirs is more on the dry side. You don’t see overflowing gravy and sauce poured over the lamb. The meat was tender and somewhat juicy, due to the natural fat in the meat itself and full of flavours. It was served with portions of potato wedges and sauteed vegetables. Yes, broccolis and cauliflowers, how I hate them.

I never like udang masak lemak. That’s because I never like the sourness that the pineapples give to the food, especially when I taste more sourness / pineapple taste than the curry itself. They got the sour and curry taste ratio just right (or maybe just the way how I like it to be), not overpowering each other. However, the prawns used weren’t that fresh that day else it would have been a great dish. I should have ordered white rice.

“This city deserves a better class of beef steaks.” - Jason Lioh.

Yes, this line sounds very familiar if you have watched the latest “The Dark Knight“’s trailer.

In this historical city, its close to impossible to get an affordable and decent enough steak. I am talking about real juicy, thick and tender beef steak, not those over cooked, thinner than a piece of A4 paper beef slices served in most cafes. Apart from Rock & Roll Blues Cafe, I can now add Le Garden Cafe as another place to have beef steak.

The chef is a proper chef and I am sure that he can cook it just the way how you want your steak to be. We had the beef sirloin, a huge slab of beef meat with less fat, although I still prefer my rib eye. Again, it is served with potato wedges and some greens. Maybe they should give the customers to choose between potato wedges or mashed potatoes, better still, baked potatoes. Oh, and I noticed they really like to use alfalfa to garnish the dishes too.

Lady fingers with belacans, a classic Nyonya dish. It was very sour due to the lime juice but Allison said she didn’t taste any sourness in it. Preparing the lady fingers is the easy part, its getting the right taste of belacan that is difficult. There are so many brands of belacans out there, made by different manufacturers, but which one is the best, I don’t know but I do know that I have tasted better ones. Although not perfect, its decent enough. I like my belacans to be spicier and slightly saltier. for your information.

We also had clay pot asam fish head, which we didn’t touch and save it for the kitchen staffs. Well, we didn’t really know how to eat and enjoy fish head like most elderly would. Instead of “dirtying” it, we left it for the kitchen staffs to finish them. How nice of us, right?

Udang goreng asam jawa. Whatever it is, its another Nyonya dish, if not mistaken. Most of the time, my mum would cook big and fresh prawns in this style. Unlike the previous udang masak lemak, the prawns used in this dish were fresh. It tasted pretty nice but it would be even better if some chopped cili padis are added, which my mum would do.

I found myself taking one after another one with my hands, and the whole plate of prawns were finished in no time. Come to think of it, I wonder whether Allison and Jun Hao managed to try this dish.

The salmon fillet with spaghetti and tomato based sauce were really good too! The big, really big, slab of salmon fish were nicely pan fried, sealing the natural sweetness of the white meat in it. Spoonful of brown sauce spread across the meat to give the extra flavouring. The spaghettis were cooked al dente and mixed together with the slightly sourish tomato sauce, and voila!, you get a really delicious main course.

For mozzarella cheese lovers, this is the errm… appetizer that you should order. Two thick slices of mozzarella cheese sandwiched between three slices of bread, then dipped into some flour liked mixture before being deep fried. Crunchy bread on the outside, melting cheese on the inside. To avoid too much cheese aftertaste, they have the slightly sourish pizzaiola sauce at the bottom to offset it. Black olives for garnishing. We even ordered another one to eat.

Well, that was our food review. Although a few of my friends said their buffet weren’t that good, from what I have tasted, their a la carte dishes were absolutely above average. They weren’t disappointing and I might be returning to Le Garden Cafe for a decent western food.

I didn’t manage to look at the price list, but from the food and decoration, it should be on the high side for Malacca’s standard. However, for the price you are going to pay, it is definitely more worth it than the so-bad-until-I-didn’t-want-to-blog-about-it Taro Restaurant.

Hmm… Makes me wonder why the name Le Garden.