It was Yih Tian’s birthday and the girls (Yih Tian, Pei San, Suet Lei and Sha Ly) called for a lunch gathering to celebrate her birthday on a lovely Sunday afternoon.

They chose Wok & Pan Restaurant, which is just opposite Nadeje Patisserie at Plaza Mahkota. It’s at the corner lot and painted in bright orange.

The shop is rather small and obviously, they tried to pack in as many tables as possible. Hence, the restaurant is rather cramped and the not-really-working air conditioners aren’t really helping at all. Moreover, the tables are really small especially when the tables are all occupied, fulled with dishes and drinks. It isn’t a really comfortable place if you want to have a nice meal and chit chat after that.

The chef used to work in one of the hotels in Malacca before he resigned and started this restaurant. You basically can get everything from pastas to steaks or Nyonya foods to Chinese cuisines in their menu. However, taste wise isn’t really that great. The steaks’ price aren’t as expensive as Rock & Roll Blues Cafe, but its still on the high side, roughly RM20+.

Anyway, we placed our orders not long after being seated. The girls also took the time to pass Yih Tian her birthday present, a necklace from VOIR. It’s a black coloured dragonfly pendant.

Food was served rather quickly, I would say. We ordered lamb shanks, rib eye steak, pork chop, chicken chop and salmon fish chop, all in different gravies. Craps! I took everyone’s dishes except my rib eye steaks. I am getting really forgetful these days. Sighs.

That aside, we also ordered two bowls of mushroom soup and garlic bread. The mushroom soup tasted really nice and it’s really thick too. Most likely it’s home cooked too. However, the garlic bread sucked totally. There’s no garlic taste in it and the breads weren’t crunchy at all.

First up was the deep fried chicken chop with secret Hainanese sauce. A lot of flour has been used to coat the chicken before being deep fried. Hence, the chicken may looked big but actually it wasn’t. The sauce tasted something like sweet and sour sauce and certainly, there’s no secret in it. Suet Lei said a restaurant back in Tampin could cook better chicken chop than that.

The salmon was quite fresh and didn’t has the over powering fishy smell. It was grilled till it’s slightly burnt on the outside, sealing the freshness and juiciness of the white meat. The sauce was creamy and tasted fairly good. I can’t recall what sauce was it but not bad.

I certainly didn’t like the lamb shank at all. The sauce was awful and the meat wasn’t tender as it should be. I don’t recommend this dish at all. Enough said.

Then, it was the pork chop with sauce made from herbs and spices. The herbal sauce tasted not bad and I quite like it. However, the pork was over cooked and rather difficult to chew. More over, part of the meat were pork ribs and that certainly not helping.

For my rib eye steak, it wasn’t as good as the one I had at Rock & Roll Blues Cafe. The rib eye wasn’t really rib eyes although it looked like one. The meat was sort of chunky, rough and patty like whereas it should be firm. However, the red wine sauce was good though.

Another two things that I really don’t like were their coleslaws and fries that came along with our chops and steaks. The coleslaws tasted like craps and has big chunks of cabbage instead of finely chopped ones. On top of that, the amount of mayonnaise in it was really pathetic. As for the fries, it was those cheap tiny fries that you can buy at any regular supermarkets. These fries don’t taste good at all and I am expecting freshly cut and own made fries.

The bill came up to RM108. Not too bad for the food, but the food could have been very much better because the chef used to work in a hotel.

We then walked over to Nadeje Patisserie to have some cakes and drinks.