Raj's Banana Leaf, Bangsar Baru, Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia

Address:
38, Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur (KL), Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
24 Hours, daily

Time Visited:
Close to 12:30pm

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Banana Leaf Rice set and Teh Ais (Ice Milk Tea)

It was the first day of Raya and I had nothing planned up. But one thing's for certainty and that is lunch. Didn't had a specific aim but just thought of eating banana leaf rice and so I decided to try Raj's Banana Leaf at Bangsar since I've never tried before.

Bangsar was crowded with people as usual even with the holidays. Nirwana was packed to the brim with the lunch crowd and if I were to dine there, I would have to wait for a place. But this day was for me to try Raj's Banana Leaf and see whether it taste good.

It's crowded with people but still, I managed to get a place for me. The staff came to me in a jiffy and I relayed my order to the person. Pretty soon, I had staffs coming over to my table and laying things in front of me. Of course it started off with the banana leaf, then came the vegetables and then the rice on top with my choice of curries rained all over it. They topped it off with papadoms and they're done with it. And so I started eating before my teh ais.

I would say that they were generous in their portion of and I somewhat liked their curry. The vegetables were well in order and decent enough for consumption and it's enough to cover my rice as I feast upon my hefty lunch. However, I would say that this meal serves merely the purpose of eating full and is not the pleasure of taste so much. Because to me, the food taste is just average. With the many good banana leaf rice in Bangsar around such as Nirwana and Devi's Corner and Anuar's Curry Fish Head just nearby, there's plentiful good choices to choose from before I would avail myself to this restaurant for banana leaf with their mediocre taste. With that in mind, I do find that their service was quite good and very quick and energetic to attend to you. This is something that you can hardly see when you're at Mamak restaurants. But of course, I think this is an Indian restaurant and not really Mamak.

Finally, their Teh Ais was not a bad order. It weren't too sweet like most Malaysian restaurant serve and is just right in it's taste. No wonder after a quick scanning around the restaurant, I saw most people ordering this here.

I don't really see a need or want to come over to this place to eat banana leaf rice. If anything, I'd most rather head on over to Nirwana's and if it's too full, over to Devi's corner before I succumb to coming over here. But of course, you can give it a try. Who knows. Maybe it's your kind of taste.

Total Wallet Damage:
The price has alluded me. But I think I paid around RM10 for the Banana Leaf Rice set.

Final Verdict:
5.5/10. Sorry for the lower than usual score but I really can't find a reason to come back here again.

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Sarawak Corner, Restoran Meisek (美食茶餐室), USJ14, Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Address:
No. 10 & 12, Jalan USJ 14/1k, 47630 Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Unsure. Rough estimation is:
Daily, 7am - 3pm, 6pm - 9pm

Time Visited:
11:45am, Thursday morning, Raya 2nd day.

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Laksa.

Though I'm no expert in Laksa (a spicy soup noodle dish), I've heard that the hawker shop Sarawak Corner has quite authentic Sarawak Laksa taste.

It was still a holiday for me that day and I had a thought of trying some Sarawak Laksa that day. So I head on over to Subang Jaya, USJ 14 where there's quite a few nice Chinese hawker stall restaurants around and Restoran Mei Sek is one of them around. That shop has occupied even 2 shoplots and had made them connected. There's plenty of variety on hawker eats at this place and even though they occupy 2 shoplots, they're still at full capacity on the day I visited and people were scrambling for a place to sit with some even sharing a table with me. Over at this hawker restaurant, there exist a hawker stall called Sarawak Corner which is quite authentic in their Sarawak noodle dishes and that's my intention of trying out.

In particular, I'm here for the Sarawak Laksa. As I mentioned before, I'm no avid fan of Laksa so I had a little research to see all the laksas I've tried before and what is the difference in Sarawak Laksa. For the Sarawak version of Laksa, the soup-based is more towards Sambal Belacan which contributes towards the crimson color of the broth and it also contains coconut milk in it and sour tamarind. What Sarawak Corner at Restoran Mei Sek put in their dish are shrimps, omelette strips (I must admit, I've never tried laksa with omelette strips before so this probably would be my first Sarawak Laksa dish) and chicken strips. The condiment that was accompanied with my Laksa dish is some sambal belacan and a lime to squeeze over it and the Laksa.

Though the condiment given had a spicy taste to it, the broth simply did not taste that spicy to me. I guess it's cause they do put quite a lot of coconut milk in their broth which is what I'm able to taste. Though a preference towards a more spicier broth for me, it is rather tasty and has a thick texture. The noodles were nice and soft enough but interestingly, there's yellow mee in the mix instead of just rice vermicelli so it's more towards curry laksa in this instance. The omelette strips added some sweetness to the overall dish which is a nice touch. The chicken strips were adequate in portion and went well blending in with the dish. Shrimps were the first thing I consumed finish because I don't really like shrimps. LOL. Due to my need of it being spicier, I need to dab the Sambal Belacan with the noodles and this certainly heightens the taste.

Though there's many customers and they were also frantically preparing dishes, but with their numbering system, they're able to provide me with my meal in quite a quick fashion which I'm well pleased. Next time around, I'm visiting this place again and try the kolo mee and other various foods around here since this place looks so interesting.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM7 for the laksa. I'm excluding the drinks since it's done by the main shop owner but if you must know the price of my Coffee Ice, it's RM2.10.

Final Verdict:
6/10. Not bad in their Sarawak Laksa. Since I've never had one before (yes, it's hard to believe since I'm Malaysian) I can't really say how good it is in comparison with other Sarawak Laksa or those that's at Sarawak itself but based on this alone, I'd say it's pretty nice. I certainly wouldn't mind coming back again to eat though the price of RM7 does put me off a bit.

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Brew & Bread, Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Address:
10, Jalan Anggerik Vanilla M 31/M, Kota Kemuning, 40460 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Mon-Wed:
8:00 am - 7:00 pm
Fri-Sun:
8:00 am - 7:00 pm

Time Visited:
11:30am, Sunday morning.

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Salmon Çilbir and Hot Latte (Sugardaddy)

Brew & Bread. A cafe place at Kota Kemuning which is quite a far area for me to venture just like my previous drive to Kepong. But due to me being in quite a central location, this place is also about a half an hour drive away for me which is quite fine.

When I reach that place, I was surprised that Kota Kemuning was such a bustling area. This was my first time venturing over there. There's plenty of food places to eat and many Chinese flock to that location till it's almost congested like Cheras area. However, due to the vast land area where this cafe is located, there's also plenty of parking abound should you not mind walking a wee bit. And by a wee bit, I mean from the behind row of shophouses.

At first glance, I thought that it was closed since it's signage was big and looks like it occupies the entire shoplot but upon closer inspection, it seems that only the downstairs place is closed. They were open for business upstairs. As I enter through the entrance door, I was shocked to find that the place was almost full house. There were loads of people having their breakfast there and chit chattering away with their family members and friends. Usually, this place has a menu paper laid out at the seating areas but due to the amount of people abound, I sat at the back area overlooking the back alleyway which isn't really a bad view, to be honest. The glorious sunshine beams in and enlighten the place tremendously making it a very cheery place. This place is also a full service cafe so you can just take your seat and the staff will come and take your order. I ordered the Salmon Çilbir which is one of their signature dish and a hot latte. For coffee, they have 2 types where they name it Driver and Sugardaddy. Driver has the words "Comforting, Familiar, Classical and Heavy" written on it while Sugardaddy has the words "Seductive, Wild, Charming and Elegant" associated with it. Really, it actually is just Driver being a single shot with a smaller cup while Sugardaddy is a double shot espresso with a bigger cup. That's just it. I went for double shot.

It took quite a long while for even just my coffee to arrive. I don't really blame them. They do have a lot of people coming through their door when I came and that had kept them occupied with the many orders coming in. It probably took almost close to half an hour before I actually receive my full order which is inclusive of the main I ordered. The coffee that they gave to me was named Finca Limoncillo Yellow Pacamara from the country, Nicaragua and was roasted medium. It mentioned in their tasting note that you'll get Passionfruit, Dried Pineapple, Lemon Tea, and Vanilla in it. I didn't taste any of that though. LOL. I just knew that it was sweeter than a lot of coffee that I've ever drank even though this do not contain syrup. It's very fruity and floral just that it tasted more of berries than those listed. LOL.

As for the Salmon Çilbir, it's a dish with a Turkish Poached Egg with Greek Yogurt, Chimichurri Paste, Aleppo Chili Butter and of course the Chargrilled Salmon Steak. What surprises me is that they have fried Mantou (Fried Steamed Bun) as a side with some lettuce on top. I must say I'm impressed with the taste. It does taste quite nice and was done to perfection. Everything from the poached egg to the salmon to the mantou, all done and cooked perfectly. The skin of the salmon was really nice as well and it's just crispy and has a salty taste to it. They've already deboned the salmon and you can rest easy eating it. My only complain would be that the salmon steak was far too small. Oh well. Can't have everything.

As I was leaving, the crowd had died down and the staff had a much more relax time once 12:30pm came about.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM39.20. RM25 for the salmon dish and RM12 for the coffee. 6% GST charged but interestingly, no service charge though they give full service.

Final Verdict:
6.5/10. The food is quite good and so is their coffee. The atmosphere may be a bit noisy and full of people but I guess due to their good coffee, people tend to flock to this place even though they open up only their upstairs area.

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Lui Cha King Restaurant, Kepong Baru, Kuala Lumpur (KL)

Address:
15, Jalan Ambong, Kepong Baru, Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Daily 9am - 4:30pm. Closed on Mondays

Time Visited:
12:30pm. Saturday afternoon.

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Lui Cha (what else) & White Coffee

It may seem unusual for me but I traveled all the way to Kepong which is a 30 minutes drive just to eat a healthy Lui Cha dish!

Though I'm known for my unhealthy lifestyle, I had this urge to eat Lui Cha on this day. For the uninformed, Lui Cha is a Hakka Chinese dish that's based on a green tea soup with rice added with nuts, vegetables, seeds, grains and stuff like that to it. It's known to be a very healthy dish due to the ingredients that are used to make this and the many herbs that's contained in the tea-based soup as well. Yes, I went all the way to Kepong just for that.

Lui Cha King Restaurant, from the name itself, you know that it's a restaurant that's specially dedicated to eating Lui Cha. I arrived just past noon and there's a half of their place occupied with it teeming with the older generation. Guess I fit right in. LOL. Pretty soon, before I left, it was a full house with many families in the mix and no longer just the older generation.

My order was quick to dispense to me. As expected, nothing unexpected from their white coffee which is one of those pre-mixed powders. As for the Lui Cha, I quite like the taste of the Lui Cha here. It has a slight herblish taste on the Lui Cha soup and some thick powdery substance in it. The different nuts and vegetables along with my requested white rice went well together as I mixed them up. I tasted some slight salty taste which nicely triggers my appetite. I initially thought it to be salted fish but turns out to be salted egg. Still, it was a nice addition that stimulated my taste buds out of those ordinary Lui Chas. There's also some shrimp flakes in there which is also a nice addition to the usual Lui Cha ingredients. All in all, I kinda like this one the most. Maybe because it's not as difficult to swallow as some and this actually tasted very, very pleasant to me. It's my kinda taste and is up my alley. Yum.

Since I'm not a person who's known to eat Lui Cha, I wonder if those Lui Cha enthusiast share the same taste as me and find this nicer than other Lui Cha as well? Hmm.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM10. RM7 is for Lui Cha which is steeper than those hawker stalls but is quite on par with places like MediFood and such. So I would say it's fairly reasonable and with a taste like that. I would say cheap enough. Haha

Final Verdict:
7/10. Despite my unhealthy tendencies, I'm giving this a score of 7 out of 10. It's something that I can eat more of and wouldn't mind going to eat again occasionally.

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Hamasho, Desa Sri Hartamas, Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia

Address:
No. 42, Jalan 27/70A, Desa Sri Hartamas, Wilayah Persekutuan, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Daily, 6pm - 1am. Close on Sundays

Time Visited:
6:30pm, Thursday evening on a public holiday

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
1 Person Set Meal. (Banshaku Set).

It was a really fruitful day in finding some extra moolah and I was thinking of off to this place in Sri Hartamas for my dinner before tiredly heading to bed.

This place is right off the back where in going further down heads to Naughty Nuri's and from it's appearance, it gives off a typical Japanese restaurant vibe, cluttered with the many signage advertising their many intricate dishes inside. It stands out over here though even though the outlook is plain in appearance and doesn't really capture your attention. This is because the other shops in the area don't really look like it while in Japan, most restaurants will look almost like this.

As an entrance, it has a really heavy sliding door and as I slide to enter inside this establishment, I see a generally quiet atmosphere unlike a typical Japanese restaurant. There are some patrons inside but not many. I guess it's because they open at 6pm and it's just half hour into their business time. Later on during the night, they did get filled up with many other patrons with mostly their regular customers and many of them Japanese. As I enter and sat at the bar area, I noticed that this place is actually owned by Japanese. The 2 cooks are Japanese while only one isn't and the 2 Japanese women clad in Kimono are the ones that communicate with the customers and take their orders since they're the 2 who know more English than your average Japanese while they have one wait staff that's Japanese and another is a foreign worker. They explain their many things in their menu whereby most are written in a white board that they carry and show it to you when you wanna order while the book file menu contains some main items. There's also another laminated piece of paper that promotes the 1 person meal set and I ordered that straight away because I'm too lazy to order so many separate individual dishes. It's gonna take me forever to decide should I do so. LOL.

So the 1 person meal set it is. Though it wasn't the cheery Japanese greeting each other every step of the way in this establishment, they still maintain that tradition around. Just a much more "Yes, I heard you kind of way." Interesting. Never encounter such kind before. After my trip to their toilet (which by the way, inside is also plastered with a lot of what they're offering as well. LOL) I came back to my seat with some dishes already laid out for me. First up was the 3 items appetizer. It consisted of a Potato Salad, a Bowl of Tako (squid) wasabi and a sashimi.

Next to it served was the big bottle of Tiger Beer and some crispy cabbage to go with their homemade sauce. The cabbage was nice and fresh to eat on it's own but the homemade sauce that you put in it would make it much much better. A predominant taste of saltiness but some hints of sweetness and citrusy. I wasn't aware that it's gonna be a big bottle of beer since on the menu, it's only written as 1 bottle of tiger beer. I see. So this explains the price tag of RM98. Else when I add up the other things with just 1 small bottle of tiger beer, it of course would be overprice.

Anyway, the next I savored was the fried seafood and fried chicken in one platter. There's more potato salad in that platter and I quite like the taste of the fried chicken. I also was given a bowl of clam soup. In the soup, they had loads of ingredients in it. An awful loads of clam and mushrooms with some seaweed. It's so loaded with ingredients that there's barely enough soup for it. LOL. Of course it's delicious and I think this soup was well worth it for the many ingredients in it.

Next came the main dish which is a soup rice. When you're ready to receive your main dish, you're suppose to tell them to bring it to you. But the waiter noticed I've finished most things and ask me I still have the rice and do I want them to bring it to me now which I said yes. The rice as mentioned earlier, is a soup rice. To be exact, it's called the Ochazuke Syake. Green tea rice soup with salmon. A somewhat similar dish as the Chinese mun faan which is a soupy rice dish as well. Only this is a green tea infused soup and contains salmon. The salmon has a very strong taste that didn't get watered down by the soup at all. Hence, it makes a very good combination to go along with the food.

The bottle of beer proved quite a lot to me and so I staggered on home quickly since it's been a long time that I was able to finish a big bottle of beer on my own. At least I managed quite well that night. LOL.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM98 nett for the 1 person set meal. Inclusive of GST and 10% service charge.

Final Verdict:
6/10. A nice Japanese touch to it just that it's kinda a hassle to order dishes since there's so many things to choose from and you can't just order one thing because that would be insufficient to eat.

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