Showing posts with label mutton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mutton. Show all posts

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Tea Garden, Sunway Velocity Mall, Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia

Address:
Lot 4-01H & 4-01I,
Lingkaran Sunway Velocity, Sunway Velocity,
55100 Kuala Lumpur (KL),
Malaysia

Opening Hours:
10am - 10pm

Time Visited:
12:20pm, Sunday

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Mutton Rendang (Mee Hoon Mee), Milk Tea + Cincau
Tea Garden - unbeknownst to me this is actually something that already has quite a number of outlet and mostly slated at Johor area. And though there are several outlets in the Klang Valley and even in Indonesia, it still went unnoticed by me till I purposely made a trip to Sunway Velocity mall.

This was my first time going into Sunway Velocity mall. Though I've passed by countless of times until I'm so familiar that it has the Jalan Peel entrance where the Starbucks resides and the Jalan Cheras Entrance where....well, there's nothing there except the waiting area where few cars go that way to pick up passengers, I also know that there's a church behind and that's why there's loads of cars park alongside at the back of the road at Jalan Peel (which also serves as a free parking if it's the weekend since summonses won't be flying out with the Rela forces guarding the place) yet it took me a long time till I finally stepped into this mall. Anyway, there wasn't any reason for me to until this day I decided to try the Tea Garden here.

I decided to park inside the mall and as I went in, I saw a lot of cars circling around so I decided to head towards the basement level 2 to look for a vacant parking. It turns out, the office side of the place was full of vacant parking and so that's where I parked. I then headed off into the mall. Though I took note of where I parked, I forgotten how I got to the mall area from the office area since I didn't take note of the shops and that got me searching quite a while as I was leaving until I finally realized that the walkway that leads to the office area was located at the 1st floor of the mall.

Anyway, when I first stepped it, I tried to go all the way up but I didn't find any Tea Garden in the directory. I soon poked around the Internet and saw that it's supposed to be on the fourth floor. But oddly enough, the area that I went up from had only until the 3rd floor. It got me quite puzzled for awhile so I headed back down to the 1st floor and walked all the way till the end to see if there was a fourth floor at that area and sure enough, there was. Even though I managed to locate the fourth floor, Tea Garden was not easy to find at all. I circled the whole floor until I discovered that it's actually inside the food court area but hidden around the corner. But that place was quite rewarding because due to them occupying at the corner of such a high floor, they had a lot of sunlight that comes in and also you can see quite a distance from the place. Though Sunway Velocity was in an area where it wasn't really a pleasant site to behold, still there's something about being at such a high floor and able to see well into the distance draws my attention that I can't peel my eyes away from. I picked a good spot to overlook the place and sat myself down. I soon saw that this place is like those places like Papparich where you write down your orders in an order chit and when you're done, you press the bell to summon the staff to you. A very effective and efficient way of running such a wide area. I soon wrote down all my orders and press the bell and passed the order chit to the staff.

It didn't took long till my food appeared. Very fast indeed. And they were full of customers as well. Tea Garden serves what I call comfort food. Those kampung style meehoon mee but only this is with mutton rendang while back in Ipoh, my family use to buy from the lady who cycles in a trishaw peddling her tong shui as well as these kind of fried meehoon mee with the sweet chili which I call it Chinese style chili. That used to be my common breakfast and sometimes lunch as well. But here I am eating this here, inside an air conditioned mall overlooking grandiosely over the slums. The feelings different. But the food's good though even though it's charged double the portion size I'm used to back when I was a kid and triple the price. I have to say the food was most excellent. Even better than how I remember back then of how it tasted. The mutton has no bone at all and the meat was very tender. There were sweet chili given to me as well. It's put in a sauce dish. Tasted way better than the time I ate when I was young. The Milk Tea with cincau is something very new to me. I've never seen such a thing before but it tasted fine. They do serve quite aromatic milk tea. All in all, it was a splendid meal.

After that, I just walked around a while since I've never been here before before I headed back home to sleep the day away.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM19. RM5.50 for the milk tea with cincau and 13.50 for the mee hoon mee with mutton rendang. 6% GST is charged.

Final Verdict:
7/10. This certainly trumps the one I ate during my childhood years but nostalgia always gets the better of me.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Fierce Curry House, Bangsar Utama, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia

Address:
16 Jalan Kemuja, Bangsar Utama, Bangsar 59000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Mon-Sun:
10:30 am - 10:30 pm

Time Visited:
12:50pm. Merdeka Day!

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
North Indian Thali Set, Mutton Masala and Mango Lassi
Holiday and no work to do, not even part time work and so I decided to head on down to Fierce Curry House to try it out. It started raining when I parked and was forced to carry an umbrella in order not to appear soaking wet when I arrive at the restaurant. I soon sat myself down on the outer area and I didn't go in to the air conditioned area which is indoors. Outside, there was a college student counselor being interviewed by one of the college students I guess with regards to suicide. She related on how society condemns the tortured suicidal ones and that society as a general just shuns them. She lost some family members to suicide and something about one of them was her brother who's very, very bright or something like that and that suicide is something that can be cured. I phase in and out of their very long conversation as I await for somebody to approach me with the menu.

It seems that one of them is the owner of the restaurant and is busy with something with another guy at the cash register. The other guy notices me that I've been sitting down for awhile and not being attended to and motion to me to wait awhile as he continued further to attend to his boss. After at long last, he and the owner finally finished up their business at the cash register and the guy hurried to me with the menu. I studied it quick and started ordering the North Indian Thali Set. He said that it was vegetarian and I said it's okay because I wanted to try the mutton masala as well. And for drinks I went for the Mango Lassi. This is a place that serves both North Indian and the South Indian rice set. When asked what's the difference he said the North Indian set is non-spicy while the other is. Fair representation. That's quite true in any case.

It didn't take long for it to be served. The Mango Lassi was quite delightful. Thick and creamy with good mango taste and not too sweet. It may not be as thick as Tetra House of Briyani which is a place that serves excellent Briyani rice that leaves you craving for it at times but it's just as good.

Pretty soon, the Thali Rice set arrived and the waiter who served me noticed that I still had not gotten my Mutton Masala and signaled to some staff to serve it to me. They put everything sitting pretty in the Thali with 5 different vegetables, Vegetable Curry and Dhal, Rasam for appetizer some Pappadoms, my fave Salted Fried Chili, a Chapati along with rice and oddly enough, Kesari is given together with this set straight away though Kesari to me is known to be a dessert. I guess it's like those set where it comes with dessert like fruits and they serve the whole thing all at once. Everything's handy dandy and nice except that the Pappadom disappointed me a bit. It wasn't crispy and already gone soft. The rest were what I expected it to taste like and was good especially the Mutton Masala which I could eat more off than just that small plate.

The service here is quite good too with the owner going around making sure that things are okay with his patrons by asking them and he even stop and have a chatter with some of them too. I find that to be quite nice of him to make sure everything's alright.  The rain stopped before I even started eating and the scorching sun came out again after that. I headed off as soon as I've finished my meal in satisfaction. Mmm, but my short recall of the time had Tetra has got me craving for there again. Maybe it's high time I go back to Tetra to try.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM29. RM10 for the North Indian Thali Set and RM12 for the Mutton Masala. Mango Lassi is RM6. GST 6% is required.

Final Verdict:
7/10. Not a bad place to eat instead of the overcrowded area opposite, this is a more quieter side of town.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Tetra House of Briyani, Bandar Bukit Tinggi, Klang, Selangor

Address:
10, Lorong Batu Nilam 4a, Bandar Bukit Tinggi, 41200 Klang, Selangor, Malaysia

Opening Hours:
Mon-Sun:
7:00 am - 11:00 pm

Time Visited:
12:30pm(?) on a Wednesday afternoon

Attire worn:
Business

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Tetra Mutton Briyani and Mango Lassi
DISCLAIMER: This was not a lone dining experience.

Regarded by some as the Best Nasi Briyani (in Klang), my colleagues purposely took the opportunity on the lack of traffic during this Chinese New Year season to head on over to Klang for their favorite Tetra's Nasi Briyani. Though I'm not an avid eater of Nasi Briyani, I do enjoy some eats out of the norm and this Nasi Briyani will splendidly do for me. So they took me down all the way on a journey that would normally take 1 hour plus should it be normal traffic.

Tetra House of Briyani looks like your normal Indian restaurant and is situated in a humble looking shoplot that just looks nothing out of the ordinary. The only decor that probably would most catch your eye would be the fountain next to the cashier counter. The tables are placed closed together with not much ample walkway for you to move around. Though they may seemed like a small unknown restaurant, they're actually well known among the local Klang residents and when we arrived there, there's already 2 big tables reserved for big groups. That leaves the other 40 - 50 odd places left for the public to sit on. We got ourselves a place next to the fountain and the guy started to come around to take our orders. I went for their Mutton Briyani and their Mango Lassi which both items are what they're most famous for.

It didn't take long till our orders came to us and that helps when you're hungry like the wolf. The mango lassi has a nice striking orangey yellow color and was served to me in a usual teh tarik ice glass. The mango lassi was thick and you can tell that it's made with real mango, a great fun type of drink to further bloat you up with it's creaminess. The sweetness was once complained by another colleague of mine but I find nothing of that sort with me. It tasted perfect; the right kind of sweetness where most of it derives from the mango taste itself and further enhanced by probably some sugar added together.

The presentation on the mutton briyani was nice and lovely. Served in a silver pot, the mutton all sits at a bottom with a whole hard boiled egg hidden underneath the briyani rice as well. Please note that the mutton that you see on my picture is merely for aesthetic purpose. They don't really serve it that way. It's all inside the pot. There's also 2 small servings, one with dhal and another with their cucumber salad of which both are also delicious.

The Nasi Briyani although may not be of striking yellow as the mango lassi, don't let the dullness in color fool you. It's soft and well cooked and works very well with whatever that's served together with. Smooth and easy on it's rice texture unlike the usual kind where it's usually more coarse. The mutton too was delectable. Soft and easy to consume. Nice and not too spicy in taste. Though the pungent spice taste in Briyani is not that strong, there's still a little bit of it. That kind of taste is the thing that puts me off the most in eating Briyani so I took care so as to not chew on those strong spices and sift it off.

The place filled up in a jiffy with lots of Indian and even some Chinese walking in to have their meal there. After tasting the Nasi Briyani, I can understand why my colleagues love it so much and regard it as the best in Klang or for them, the best Nasi Briyani, period.

Total Wallet Damage:
Um, I don't know really. But I'm sure it's not really expensive. That reminds me, I forgot to pay back my colleague cause I'm so used to paying first. D:

Final Verdict:
7.5/10. A really nice Nasi Briyani place and I can understand why some say it's the best. And yet, it's not really recognized in magazines and food awards. Well, I say keep this hidden gem hidden. We don't want it crowded with it's already small outlet nor wanting it to open another branch and then having their food quality standard start deteriorating. Try the Mango Lassi too. It's good. I heard that their masala tea is not bad either but I didn't try it. Perhaps I'll do so at another time.