13 Cafe, Tropicana Avenue, Tropicana, Petaling Jaya (PJ), Selangor

Address:
Tropicana Avenue, Persiaran Tropicana, Tropicana, 47410 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
11am - 10pm, Tues - Sun. Close on Mondays.

Time Visited:
7pm, dinnertime on Sunday.

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Creamy Thai Curry Chicken with Lychee and Flower Tea

One day, I was passing by this area to get to Sunway Giza and I noticed for the first time, Tropicana Avenue. It's a new business centre cum apartment and retails and 13 Cafe stuck out with it's striking look to capture my attention that I told myself I gotta try this place. Today, as I was venturing towards Dear Azalea, I found out that it's already close for the day. I'm not sure of their opening hours. I'm not even sure whether they're a cafe that serves food and drinks but I just wanted to try my luck today. But when I passed by, I saw that it wasn't opened and so I decided to head to 13 Cafe to try. It has limited parking at the front but you can park at the basement level where I saw that it's free since there's no barrier gate. Just don't go into the resident parking which needs an access tag. Anyway, since it was getting dark and the basement parking looks creepily deserted, I decided to wait for a parking spot up front. There's some parking at the office area but I didn't wanna park that area and so I waited near the retail side. After awhile, I got one and off I went to 13 Cafe.

Night time wasn't wise for me to sit outside because there were some mosquitoes abound awaiting to suck whomever's blood that they can find. Anyway, I guess the mosquitoes bred from the greeneries at the front where there's shrubs and trees that separates the main road but still visible enough to see. I ordered from the waiter and await my orders. It took a normal waiting amount time for my food and tea to be served.

The Flower Tea resembles those of the Chinese Tea kind with a transparent teapot and a small tea cup for you to pour into. It was fragrant and full of it's tea flavors but wasn't as floral as I expected though to a certain degree it was. Afterall, you do see the flower inside the pot. LOL. As it got deeper and deeper into the pot, the tea got more and more bitter and stronger in it's tea taste. The bottom level was very concentrated and I wish to pour more water onto it but then again, I wouldn't wanna waste drops of water since I don't wanna drink more than 2 teapots.

The Creamy Thai Curry Chicken with Lychee was very bright and vibrant in it's colors. It looks considerably spicy but somewhat, it wasn't. The lone lychee in the dish just didn't belong in there since the sweetness of a lychee taste didn't jive well with the savory spicy curry taste. The same goes to the side salad which consists of some sweet taste with also some sambal like chili paste on top of it but it just tasted weird altogether. It would be best in my opinion if all of those were a separate dish. To me, it just doesn't go well together. It's not like those Thai curry taste where you get a little sweetness in it like lemongrass which those worked well. This was just plain weird. Anyway, it did satisfy my hunger pangs and the chicken was okay.

Overall, I would recommend going for the drinks instead of the food and as for the ambiance, the outside was okay if it weren't for those pesky mosquitoes. As for the indoors, there's not much room downstairs and I'm not quite sure how the upstairs looks like since I didn't have a peek there. But one things for sure, it's a very quiet place to hangout and do your work like 2 ladies over there with their laptops. It's mentioned in their menu that their signature is their angus beef steak but I'm not quite sure. Maybe it is good. But not my Creamy Thai Curry Chicken with Lychee.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM23.80. RM16.90 for food, RM6.90 for my drink. No GST, no service charge. Awesome.

Final Verdict:
6/10. It would be too harsh I feel if I were to give it a 5 because their drinks are quite decent and afterall, they are a cafe.

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Bebe Recipe, Digital Mall, Section 14, Petaling Jaya (PJ), Selangor

Address:
Lot G-02, Ground Floor, Digital Mall, No. 2, Jalan 14/20, Seksyen 14, 46100 Petaling Jaya (PJ), Selangor, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Daily, 10am - 10pm I guess.

Time Visited:
6:20pm, Saturday night.

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Thai Fried Rice and Carrot Juice

I use to go to this place everytime when I need to go to Digital Mall which used to be quite frequent back then due to the incompetence of my company for failing to come up with a backup plan in case a computer system goes wrong. And so far anything that I order from Bebe Recipe, they never fail to deliver a good dish. Till this day, that still is the case for me. It doesn't matter what food you order. It's bound to taste nice. The drink may not have that wow potential as their food but still it's a decent cup of drink always. I sure love the consistency of their cook. But why I stopped coming here even though I still go to Digital Mall from time to time is because I dislike their ambiance. The place though receives air cond from Digital Mall itself yet it's still quite warm indoors due to them having a huge opening with no doors to keep the air cond in. And also, the thing I most dislike about this place is the amount of flies that tend to settle around whichever table you sit at. There's always bound to be lots of flies here and I worry incessantly of the sanitary aspect over their cutleries which are left opened up at each table.

During this day, I decided to eat here because as soon as I was about to leave, a massive storm broke out cooping me in and rendering me immobile. The thunderstorm was so great that it took out and trip the servers at my office despite having generators and backup UPS and also took out one of my condo's lift. Anyway, since I couldn't leave, I decided to just have my dinner here. This time around, I decided to order the Thai Fried Rice and a Carrot Juice where I've never tasted their Thai Fried Rice before.

As usual, they took quite fast to bring me my orders and of course at one glance, it doesn't look that all impressive. But as usual, they manage to deliver on their consistency of good taste which is what I felt as I scoop a spoonful of the rice. The ingredients given were adequate and the portion of the dish was just right, enough to keep me full. The Thai Fried Rice is not a spicy dish though even though it contains chili. In fact, there are pockets of mouthful that tasted sweet and tomato-ish. However, for their onions, they were a little lazy in smashing them up and so there's large chunks of it in little ball-like marble sizes. Every part of the rice grain were perfectly cook despite it's less than presentable looks and there's none that are undercook nor portions missed out which throughout my life I've seen many doing so.

As for the carrot juice, though it's not really that fresh a carrot, you can tell they still use a genuine carrot instead of just using it out of a can or container. One thing though is that it lacks ice to chill the whole drink. It's not that super fantastic but it's average which is a passing mark to me.

When the storm had abated, it just so happens I had finished my meal and am ready to leave.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM13.80. RM8 for the Fried Rice and RM5 for the Carrot Juice. A 6% GST is imposed.

Final Verdict:
6/10. They consistently deliver good tasting food to me though presentation-wise don't look that appetizing. As for the ambiance, well, it's not very pleasant with the amount of flies the restaurant inside attracts. I think it's because it's really close to the dumpster at the back of the mall.

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Siam Coffee and Dining, Subang Parade, SS16, Subang Jaya, Selangor

Address:
G28, Ground Floor, Subang Parade, Jalan Ss16/1, 46500, Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
I assume 11am - 10pm.

Time Visited:
Around 12:30pm (lunchtime) on a Friday afternoon.

Attire worn:
Business

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
The Spicy Beef lunch set and a Hot Latte

DISCLAIMER: This was not a lone dining experience.

Out of nowhere, I was asked along to join my colleagues for lunch and we started going to Subang Parade since they said it was so hot and needed a place that's air conditioned. So they all hopped into my car and off we went to this nearby destination for our lunch feast.

The initial plan was to eat at Uncle Lim's but when we passed by this place called Siam Coffee and Dining, one of them said he wanted to try this and so we went in. It was there and then I was suddenly surprised by my other colleague with her dropping the news that this is actually a farewell lunch for the guy. Not only was this surprised spring on me, the guy himself whom we're giving farewell to were not even told about this. LOL. Going along with this plot twist, we finally settled down on a nice round table.

Although I don't even know this place existed, there's plenty of people who's of the working crowd lunching there. They have this lunch set menu with many choices and it comes with Lemon tea (hot or cold) and a free soup on top of your main of choice. I went with the Spicy Beef rice set and ordered a Latte as an extra drink.

The place has a Chinese restaurant feel to it but to me hardly seemed well maintain with a bit of a dirty look to me and a little run down. The consolation to the ambiance would be that it had sunlight beaming in from their wall windows at the side which is covered up. Still, ample brightness from the sunlight are able to penetrate through. The place is fully run by foreign labors that are dark skin and none of any Thai element can be seen by me. Although the staff speaks English well enough, it's hard for me to understand their accent for some reason.

The drinks came first and foremost. After all, there's only a choice of either hot or cold Lemon Tea. Then, the guy later came with a tray of soup to distribute out to their customers. The free soup that was dispense was the Red Tom Yam Soup. It was spicy and pleasantly nice to drink. A quality soup which was proportioned in a small bowl to give as complimentary. This led to a good start. My Latte too came quite soon and I was surprised to see the ergonomic cup that I adore which is used at Coffee Sprex. Unfortunately, the coffee does not reflect the same level of goodness as Coffee Sprex as I felt that this coffee was bitter and seemed dark roasted. Though there's lots of milk being filled in with the coffee, it did little to downplay on it's bitterness. I fail to imagine how it would taste like espresso-wise.

The Spicy Beef Rice finally came to me and I dig in with my hungriness at an already alarming level. Basically, the Spicy Beef Rice is Kong Poh Beef Rice like the Chinese. But unlike the Chinese style which leans more towards spiciness, this one is sweeter in it's sauce rather than savory. Along with the meat, there's a side of salad placed beside the rice for your balance meal which as usual, I leave those things untouched. The taste is quite okay and I don't mind trying their other type of rice or even noodles from their ala carte menu. Just that the ambiance does nothing to impress me.

Total Wallet Damage:
Again, not sure. LOL. But I think their set lunch amount to RM13.90 while the Latte is RM7.50? Didn't take note of it.

Final Verdict:
6/10. It's nice to have something different like this once in a while. I also see a lot of Malays coming to this place as well so I guess their pork free ways are clearly very acceptable with them. Didn't see any Halal certification though.

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Boat Noodle at Siam, Publika, Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur (KL)

Address:
Lot30A, Level G3, 
Publika Shopping Gallery,
Solaris Dutamas, Jalan Dutamas 1,
50480 Kuala Lumpur

Opening Hours:
Daily, 11am-9pm

Time Visited:
Around 5pm, Wednesday evening

Attire worn:
Business

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
1 Pathumthani Beef Thai Rice Noodle, 1 Ayutthaya Beef Thai Rice Noodle, 1 Pathumthani Chicken Thai Rice Noodle, 1 Ayutthaya Chicken Thai Rice Noodle and 1 Ice Blended Thai Coffee

The place wasn't as nice and cooling as I expected. I'm not sure if there's any air cond but I know that there's fans above. So it's quite warm inside. The wooden furnitures is quite uncomfortable for me but bearable for an hour or so. Despite having sat down without a menu in front of me, the wait staff saw me sitting down but did not notice that I'm waiting for the menu. The best thing that one of the staff ever did for me is smile at me. I had to signal him to give me a menu then only out of nowhere another wait staff from behind provided me one.

Their menu is the steel kind and is quite colorful with some pictures in it provided. It's just a one page menu. They also had recently added a few new items and printed it out on a smaller separate sheet of paper.

In order to order, you have to write down what you want. I didn't fully understand the menu because there were 2 items indicating beef rice noodle but differently named and there were 2 items indicating chicken rice noodle but also differently named exactly like the beef counterpart. I asked the waiter to fully explain this queer naming convention and he clarified for me that the Pathumthani is the spicy dish and the Ayutthaya is the less spicy dish. I was wondering to myself, if that's they case, can't they just add in the word spicy in one of the dish? A quick google tells me that these are Thai Province names.

The Ice Blended Thai Coffee came in a fancy plastic cup equipped with a straw poking out from the cover for easy access to the beverage. The taste of coffee was strong enough but all in all average. Or maybe slightly above average.

When the bowls of noodles came, I had such a difficult time differentiating which is which. LOL. They all look the same! The only thing I can differentiate is the meat which darker one means beef and lighter ones means chicken. But if you were to mix the bowls together, I bet even the staff can't recognize which is the spicy one and which is not.

The Pathumthani is indeed the bowl with the spicy taste and at times even I couldn't stand the lingering spiciness and I'm a cili padi eater! But it's not all too spicy. It should be bearable to most people but not for those who's unable to eat spicy food. As for the Ayutthaya, it contains a sweet taste to it instead of spicy and is quite a weird combo for me for noodles. But nice enough to be eaten by me. A bowl of boat noodle probably took me about three mouthful to finish. The meat balls that represents the beef and chicken are nice but it's merely half a ball. :(

Due to the uncomfy nature of the place, I left after about an hour later.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM18.35. RM1.90 for each bowl of noodle and the coffee cost RM8.90. 6% GST implemented and a 5% service charge as well.

Final Verdict:
4/10. Environment not comfortable and the staff were unattentive, hard of understanding and do very little unless being told by the customer. Despite an easy open situation where one glance you can see all of the tables, some customer still need to catch the staffs attention a few times before being noticed. I know the staff are foreign workers but can't they learn a little bit more on basic English and Bahasa Malaysia? I see a lot of the customers struggling to convey certain messages to the staff including myself. I'm not sure whether this behavior stems from being a low peak period or if it's the same during busy dining times. Well, at least one of the staff smiled at me when he saw me.

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Amarin Heavenly Thai, Mid Valley Megamall

Address:
S-045, 2nd floor, Mid Valley Megamall, Lingkaran Syed Putra, Mid Valley City, 58000 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Stated at Mid Valley Megamall webpage that it is from 10am to 10pm, but when I was there at 10 plus close to 11am, they weren't opened yet hence I believe it's 12pm-10pm, daily.

Time Visited:
12:16pm, Saturday

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Khow ob Sapparod (Pineapple Fried Rice), Tab Tim Krob (Iced Waterchestnuts with Coconut Milk & Jackfruits) and Thai Lemon Grass Juice

A dimly lit restaurant that's placed in a corner of Mid Valley Megamall close to the Center Court area. They soon opened up the boards that blockade the windows to allow a bit of sunlight in since it was a cloudy day that day.

The place screams of fancy and it sure is. When I began to step into the restaurant, I was greeted by a Malay lady greeting me sawadeeka and as soon as I browse through the menu, it is pretty clear that fancy is the word that suits this restaurant. Prices are higher than your average other Thai restaurants that I know of but I don't mind it since I'm just trying it out.

For a single dish to eat without calling for meat, vegetable and rice, there were merely 6 dishes on that portion of the menu. So I ended up picking the Pineapple fried rice with chicken since I don't really like prawns. I guess, if you're eating alone, you can also call for meat, vegetable and rice for 1 person but then again, I'm not sure how big a portion they're gonna give and whether it's suitable for 1 person.

No surprises, my drink was the first to arrive at my table and upon sipping it up, I instantly get the whiff of the lemongrass. It was very fragrant, very much like perfume but bearable and upon sipping up more, I kinda get the hang of the taste. The drink wasn't too sweet too, which is a relief to me cause I can't drink too sweet anymore.

A little while longer, the pineapple fried rice came. It certainly is impressive on it's presentation, serving the rice neatly packed in a cut-out pineapple. There was a lime, a tomato and a cucumber served at the side of it where none of which were touched by me at all. LOL. The colors of the dish was vibrant full of different contrasting ingredients spread all around which contributed to the great presentation of the dish. As I took my first bite, my immediate feel was from the cashew nuts and the raisins which both ingredients are an unusual find in a meal. The cashew nuts provided a bit of a crunch for the dish while the raisins gave out some sweetness to it. However, the pineapples were nowhere to be tasted until I got closer to the middle. Being served in a pineapple this way, the portion of the rice seemed to be smaller to my perception. But I guess if you empty out onto a plate, you'll probably get the same amount from when you dine fried rice at a hawker stall. Overall, I would have to say that it's quite delicious but it still don't warrant for such a high price.

After finishing my rice, I waited for awhile before signalling for my dessert to come.

The dessert came in a small bowl which is a little bit of a disappointment. I expected it to be double that portion. I demolished the ice shavings at the center and mixed it in with the coconut milk. All in all, the dessert that I tasted was sweet upon sweet upon sweet. The ice shavings did nothing to prevent it from being so sweet. Upon finishing my dessert, my lemongrass juice tasted more like water than anything else.

Total Wallet Damage:
Surprisingly, I still managed a bill less than RM50. Total is RM49.50. Lemongrass Juice is RM10.85, dessert RM10.85 and the fried rice RM20.75. 10% service charge + 6% GST were imposed.

Final Verdict:
6/10. The service overall was good however they missed saying thanks to me. Maybe I overstayed my welcome. LOL. The ambiance made me more sleepy than hungry. You get all different kinds of people as customers here, families, friends, couples and even another lone diner besides me. Despite being on a weekend lunchtime, the place wasn't crowded and ample of place to sit and eat. I guess most would probably be put off by it's price since it's so close to the food court. Also, it's hidden at the corner where few venture upon. That could be the reason too.

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