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.

Simon once told me about a famous Chinese restaurant in Serdang that serves some fried fish dish, which was eventually featured in The Star not too long after that.

According to the address, my friends and I ended up at this restaurant called Ya Lie, according to han yu pin yin that is. I wasn’t sure whether it was this restaurant featured by The Star and the one Simon referring to, but we decided to give it a try as there were quite a crowd at that moment.

Again, it’s another makeshift restaurant. Honestly, there are many houses in this new village that were converted into restaurants, shop lots, food courts and etc. You can see restaurants practically every where and at every corner inside this super packed new village.

There were also three cooks, just liked the Serdang Little Kitchen Restaurant that I blogged about few days back and the food was served in no time. I don’t know what 菜胆 is called in English, but it tasted average. We eat healthily, hence, the greens, not some stupid rip-you-off bean sprouts.

We ordered half herbal chicken, which tasted rather bland. The soup wasn’t boiled long enough to let the herbs release their flavour and the chicken wasn’t soft enough.

Deep fried calamaris with salted egg. What’s with salted egg? I just ate salted egg with bitter gourd the other day. Salted egg with Gardenia bread, anyone? It’s not pure salted egg anyway, as there were chunks of onions, gingers and spring onions, a mixture of everything. The calamaris weren’t crunchy either. Not that bad, but I might or might not order it again, depends.

Deep fried seafood tau fu. Didn’t I tell you that homemade seafood tau fu is so overrated these days that every single restaurant calls them his / her specialty when I suspect it all comes from the same supplier. Someone should start investigating the origin of the so called homemade seafood tau fu and bust it for once and for all. Average, for me.

Their specialty, stuffed ma yau ala yong tau fu style. Well, they took out all the meat from the fish, minced and turned them into fish paste, before stuffing it back to the fish to deep fry. Well, it tasted pretty much like those fish paste in yong tau fu. However, it has a firmer texture and more bouncy. Nice and definitely delicious.

The bill came to RM84 and all of us got a shock of our life. However, after getting into the car and talking about it, we came to a conclusion that it was within the reasonable range as we had half a chicken, sotongs and a fish. Overall, we had a pretty decent and fulfilling meal.

Every now and then, there are colleagues (reporters and photographers) from HQ will be sent down to Malacca for assignments. Among all of them, Tho Xin Yi and Sam Tham were probably the ones who stayed in Malacca for work for the longest time, close to a month to cover the general election in the historical state.

Hence, we hang out pretty often throughout their stint here as I was their food guide in Malacca. And when I was in KL, it was natural that I called them out for dinner.

She’s so going to kill me for this picture. Heh!

Initially, our plans were to drive to Klang for a round of seafood dinner but it was raining cats and dogs and source said that Klang was flooded. We ended up at Ole Ole Bali, after entering Actually Thai and coming out from it, after looking at its unappetizing menu.

It was my second visit and I am really glad that the food tasted still pretty much the same, taste wise and portion wise. Hence, I am not going to elaborate much this time but just briefly go through it.

Our drinks, my barley lime juice and their unknowns. The pictures are slightly blur due to shaky hands and dim lights. Besides, I didn’t really want my colleagues to wait for me to take my own sweet time to take pictures of their food.

I ordered something different although its just a slight variation of my previous Nasi Campur Ole Ole Bali and we also shared a seafood platter (Fish, squids and Balinese satay.).

Xin Yi had some chicken chop thing. while Sam had beef spaghetti alike.

Last, my awfully sweet banana, jack fruit and shredded coconut with sago and coconut milk dessert. It was so sweet that I didn’t manage to finish it.

The bill came up to RM160+, with Sam footing my part of the bill. Thanks, Sam! :D

Overall, I am really glad that they managed to maintain their standard after my last visit six months back. It’s not easy to do so and I got to applaud them just for that. If you have yet to visit Ole Ole Bali, do give them a try the next time when you are in Sunway Pyramid. For a more detailed post, you can read my first post on Ole Ole Bali.

I joined Ah Kit and his house mates for dinner during one of the evenings when I was bunking at his place. They brought me to this makeshift-from-a-house restaurant smacked right in the middle of Seri Kembangan Chinese New Village. The restaurant’s name is 沙登小厨美食馆 which loosely translated into Serdang’s Little Kitchen Restaurant.

It used to be a house, but has been turned into a restaurant, with plenty of tables and guests. Judging from the number of guests, I was pretty sure that either the taste was above average or the price was very cheap. There was a constant flow of customers in the shop.

We placed our orders and with three chefs working in the kitchen, it wasn’t too long when our dishes were being served. In fact, it was very fast compared to the number of customers they had at that moment.

Stir fried salted eggs with bitter gourd. It wasn’t very salty as they used just the right amount of salted eggs. The bitter gourds weren’t bitter at all as the egg yolks wrapped around the slices of bitter gourds like a piece of cloth. The dish was dry, hence, the slight crunchiness on the vegetable. Nice, in fact, it’s my first time eating bitter gourd this way. Unique, indeed.

They also ordered their tau fu which tasted rather average. You know, those seafood tau fu that they claimed to be their specialty dish but you get to eat them at any other Chinese restaurant.

Their deep fried calamari was absolutely fantastic, finger licking and crunchy-licious. It was really crunchy and appetizing. It has to do with the batter they used, as it was light and not too flourish. It was so crunchy that I thought I was eating some crackers / snacks and not squids. Heh!

Our last dish was the pork ribs in two flavours, the sweet and sour and mayonnaises. Not something to shout about yet something not to miss out, as it tasted quite nice. Normal for the dish, but nice for the taste. The colours of the garnishings (the “smelly” leaves and fried garlics) did complement each other; red and green, white and brown.

Best of all, there was a bowl of free soup for every table. Although not some fancy soup, but its free and nobody’s complaining.

The bill came up to RM48 for a table of four. That’s a freaking RM12 for a decent dinner, with meats, vegetables and tau fu. I don’t think you can get this price anywhere in KL. Not only the food was good, the price was cheap, no wonder there were so many people flocking to their restaurants throughout the night.

Honestly, I am going back there again and I am going to order a lot more dishes since the price is just way too cheap to be ignored. Worth a visit? Definitely.

Tiuniasing, you can try this restaurant, really!

I tried really hard to think of a decent place to bring my KL colleagues for a good meal but I can’t seem to think of any, until I recalled reading Yung.’s posts on a Teo Chew restaurant called Teo Soon Loong Chan, somewhere near Jonker Street.

My aunt and dad have both said that the food at the restaurant has deteriorated over the years and the price is really on the high side for Malacca’s standard. However, since KL people generally think that Malacca’s food are cheap, this is my best chance to try this restaurant as I was pretty sure my colleagues wouldn’t mind paying a little bit more for food.

The restaurant is situated right at a crossroad, connecting Jonker Street and Blacksmith Street. It is also near the pau shop that sells the famous small big pau that I once blogged about. It is also a few meters away from Cheng Hoon Ting temple.

It is believed that the business is so good that reservations are needed as there are only a few tables (Six, at most.) inside. The air-conditioned shop is rather small and very old school. Bottles of liquors are displayed on the shelves. Heh, I even saw some Jack Daniels on it. Since there’s not much space inside the shop, the kitchen is placed outside, along the road and you can see the chef in action.

There are two kinds of chilies placed on the table. The sambal belacan and the cili padis in some kind of lime sauce. However, I didn’t touch any of it though as I prefer my food to taste original.

An old man / waiter will then lead you to a corner where they placed their seafoods like oysters, clams, soft shell crabs, sea cucumbers and etc., with ice on top to keep it cold. All you have to do is point at the items you want to eat and the old man will decide the cooking style for you. He even wrote down our dessert even before we agreed to it. So much for customer first policy.

Their specialty is their oyster noodles. It tasted reasonably good but there are better ones out there, like the stall at Jalan Bunga Raya. The sauce wasn’t thick enough but the noodles were just nice. The biggest letdown was the oysters used weren’t fresh at all.

Another specialty is their tau fus with minced meat. The tau fus are briefly pan fried on the outside to give the slight crispiness and colour. I reckon the tau fus are homemade as they were really soft and smooth. Definitely a must order won’t go wrong dish when you dine in.

Clams cooked in sambal belacan sauce. The sauce was really great, mild spiciness with a bit of sweetness in it. However, the clams weren’t fresh and I reckon it has been frozen for too long. The shells were so fragile, as it would break into many pieces the moment you tried to suck the meat out of its shell. It was really irritating to eat the clams as I had to use my hands to slowly pull out the meat.

Fish (What fish is this anyway?) steamed teo chew style. This isn’t the teo chew style that I used to know, or at least, not even a single bit like my mum’s. Not only they over steamed the fish, I couldn’t taste the natural sweetness of the fish meat due to the heavy seasoning of the sauce. They even put tiny bits of minced meat in it. Something is really wrong with this dish.

At least the vegetables were really fresh and crunchy. Heh! I like the thick chicken stock based sauce they used to cook the vegetable too.

Actually, their dessert was the thing that I have been waiting throughout the dinner. As far as I know, their yam puree is one of the best, if not, the best, in Malacca. It was really smooth, not too thick yet not too watery, just the right amount of liquidness and solidness. Served with pumpkin’s puree and some ginkgo seeds. You mix all three together and you are
on your way to heaven, literally. My mum would only make either one of the two, but not both. I don’t really like the pumpkin’s on its own, but after mixing it with the yam, absolutely delicious.

The bill came up to RM150, with RM30 each for the five of us. Yes, it was definitely on the high side as expected. However, my KL colleagues looked really satisfied and happy walking out from the restaurant. At least, that’s what I could read from their facial expression and they didn’t complain as well. However, for me, it was a rather disappointing meal. While the tastes were nice, the freshness of the ingredients were really not up to the standard.

Will I be back? Perhaps, when I don’t know where to go, someone is footing the bill and I am craving for their dessert. And the odds of all three factors popping up at one time is relatively low.