Restoran Rebung

Photo with the owner, Chef IsmailIt was my Mum’s birthday yesterday. She wanted a nice Malay restaurant to have dinner at and after much pondering, Anita came up with the idea of booking a table at Restoran Rebung. The one owned by a celebrity chef, Chef Ismail and the Angkasawan, Muszaphar Shukor. The hotel is situated at a couple of bungalows at Lorong Maarof in Bangsar, just round the corner from Bangsar Village. Lorong Maarof actually run parallel to Jalan Maarof, so getting there was easy. The hard part was getting a parking spot as there was no designated parking area for the restaurant.

It was raining heavily and getting there was rather slow as Julia - my sister - was driving the other car with my Mum and her children. Got there around 8.30 in heavy rain. With the earlier booking, we were given a room - a nice comfortable one I must add.

We were lucky as the owner, Chef Ismail was on hand to look after us, and he was at his charming best. Spending some time chatting with my Mum - she is a big fan of his - singing Happy Birthday to her and we were looked after very well indeed. The restaurant does buffet in the evening, although we a la carte was also available - at least to my boys. And the spread was authentically Malay and tasted like home-cooked meals. Very nice indeed.

The restaurant was only half full, that being a Monday evening and with the heavy rain outside. The ambiance was simple but cozy and homely. The restaurant itself was a couple of converted single story bungalow houses. There were sets in the lawn I an open garden concept - that was where the buffet spread was, and indoor dining, with air conditioning. There were function rooms inside which can easily seat at least 80 patrons.

The pick of the food was the satay, with a gorgeous peanut sauce. The sambal tumis that I had was not bad either. There were nice selection of Malay kueh and the bubur kacang was the best I had ever tasted. If you want and authentic Malay buffet in a nice cozy restaurant, nice food and frindly hospitality, I would recommend Rebung, no doubt about it. And there was an incident as well.

Irfan being all excited meeting his cousin went on to vomit out his dinner right in the middle of the room. Far from being rude, the waiters just came in with the napkins and mops, showed us where the wash area was. We got Irfan cleaned up and by the time we got back to our table, everything was cleaned up. I did not even have to say anything but apologise. The Chef then came over, brought Irfan some drinks and asked if he was feeling OK. Irfan proceeded to gobble down more satay and up and running before we knew it!

After an hour or so, the rain had subsided and it was time to go. Chef came over with some pulut for my Mum’s birthday and obliged for some photos. The price was also very reasonable. And my Mum really enjoyed the dinner and the hospitality.

Restaurant Rebung Chef Ismail, No 4-2 Lorong Maarof, Bangsar Park, 59000 Kuala Lumpur (Landmark: Dataran Maybank). Tel: Tel: 03 22832119. For more information, head to http://www.rebung.com.my/

Padang Besar

The original plan was to head back to KL on Tuesday. However, Julia - my sister - and her family will arrive on Monday and it was rather rushed to head home without spending the day with her family. We then decided to head back on the Wednesday instead. While waiting for Julia to travel all the way up from Melaka, we decided to go up north to Padang Besar to do some shopping.

Padang Besar is a border town in Perlis, where one can get cheap knock-offs from Thailand. Everything from shoes, handbags, watches and football jerseys can be found there. Puan Anita wanted to look for some rugs and clothes. The journey up took just under two hours even though we made the mistake of following my Nokia GPS direction. It took us via some kampongs and Arau town. My auntie who was traveling on another slower car managed to catch up with us since our route were much slower. We arrived there around noon. Finding a parking spot was not straight forward however. After driving around for a good 15 minutes, we finally decided to park at the side of a road, and had to walk half a kilometer to the nearest bazaar.

I mainly just walked around since I did not plan to buy anything. We got some toys for the boys to keep them quiet while Anita and my Mum and Auntie went out to shop. Finally, even Anita was disappointed. It was not that there were nothing to buy, the problem was, the bazaar was full of shops which basically sell the same stuffs. All the knock-offs looked the same, at a same fixed price. There was no variety. But the place was jam packed. I was not sure what others were buying actually.

After a couple of hours, hungry, we decided to head home. We took a different route this time, driving towards Sintok, joining the PLUS Highway there. Sintok is where UUM campus is. The nearest town to the campus was Changloon, and we stopped there for a late lunch. We finally made it to Sungai Petani at around 5, before joining Julia and her family at my Aunt’s place later that evening.

Another day at Sg Buloh

I have been spending yesterday and today at Hospital Sungai Buloh examining and teaching the MRCP candidate. The course was organised by the ever energetic Chris Lee and his team of bulldogs. Can trust him to run everything by clockwork.

A day of visits

Get up boys!After a long day of travel, a good night sleep can really do wonders. We got up pretty late the next morning, managing to head to the breakfast room just in time. The place was crowded and we had to sit out in the lobby, and the food was almost gone. We gobbled what we could as we planned to head out to Penang that day.

At the old mosque at the front of my Grandmother's houseFirst of all, we stopped by at one of my Uncles’ in Sungai Petani itself where we were joined by my parents. We then carpooled to the island, first stopping at my eldest uncle’s house at Pantai Jerjak. My cousin - his daughter - just had a baby girl. She was barely a week old. Well behaved. Slept the whole time we were there. It has been a couple of years since I stopped by my this particular Uncle’s house. After some drinks, we then headed out for some nasi kandar. To be perfectly honest, we were not really sure where to head. Some of the restaurants may be better avoided due to the holiday crowd. We settled at one o Penang Road. Not particularly good - Craven’s at Bukit Antarabangsa was much better - but enough to get by. Idlan refused to eat as expected but Irfan was really digging the pappadoms.

I don't like this restaurantI like this restaurantAfter lunch was done, we went next to my Grandmother’s at Pahang Road. It was the third day of Aidilfitri and most of my family has been around to visit. One of my Aunt was there, so was the Uncle from Sungai Petani. After a couple of hours, it was time to go. We wanted to stop by at another Uncle’s place in Seberang Jaya, but he did not pick up the phone. We were not sure if he was in. We headed straight back to Sungai Petani, got changed and went out again for dinner at another Uncle’s house in Kepala Batas - there were 8 of them from my father’s side, plus 3 Aunties. 

The boys playing with their cousinsMy grandmother's house is the one by the corner. Surrounded by high-rise apartments.The dinner was particularly good. Anita really liked the Raya cookies there. Apparently, my Aunt ordered them all the way from Johor. We hang around there for around a couple of hours before everyone getting tired. The day was done.

Off to Sungai Petani

Idlan helping with the unpackingAn early start for Puan Anita and me before the mayhem started at around 8.30 when the boys woke up. Breakfast. Shower. Shouting about which toys to bring an which clothes to wear. We finally got our act together and left just before 11am.

This time around we decided to stay in the mainland rather than on the island. It turned out to be a brilliant plan. The Penang Bridge had a fire on the island-bound lanes causing a tailback close to 10 kms. A couple of my uncles were caught up in the jam and it took them over three hours to cross the bridge. Imagine, after a four hour drive up to Seberang Perai and having to endure a few more hours caught in the car with the grumpy boys?

View of Gunung Jerai from our floorWe stopped over at Tapah for lunch. A simple KFC affair where Puan Anita did the ordering and the waitress messed up the order completely! But since it was Hari Raya, we kept our feelings to ourselves ….. The journey went very smoothly. There was a couple of crawls just before Ipoh, but otherwise fine. We reached Sungai Petani just after 4, checked in, and the kids was already jumping on the bed soon after. We stayed at Park Avenue Hotel, just by the Sungai Petani (South) exit along the PLUS highway. Very convenient actually!

One of the drawback of the hotel was there was no Astro Sports channel. I had dinner at my auntie’s place while watching United given away a two-goal lead to Everton. My Toffee-mad friends must have exploded that evening!

I thought my boys would have been tired after the journey and the dinner, but how wrong was I. They were still bubbly and energetic close to midnight when we finally went to sleep. Another long day looming tomorrow.