Enak KL at Starhill Gallery

As I mentioned in my previous entry, we made another excuse to go out for a family dinner last weekend celebrating Mum's birthday. I was given the task of picking the venue. It turned out to be a tough one. Mum wanted a Malay restaurant, preferably buffet.

I searched online as well as taken out my restaurant guidebook. A few names came to mind. We did Rebung last year. Ibunda was full. Seri Malaysia and Warisan was closed on Sunday. We did not fancy going up the KL Tower or KLCC again. Hotel restaurants? None of them offer a real Malay treat, plus we did Le Meridien the other evening.

I wonder what Imran actually picked?The boys got their order of nasi goreng first. And a yummy one at that.In the end, we went to Enak KL at Starhill Gallery, Bukit Bintang. It came highly recommended, winning the best Malay restaurant accolades in the last couple of years. Plus we never been there before. I booked a table for the 11 of us, and we arrived at around 8.30. There was no buffet, so we picked items of the menu to share.

The food were surprisingly good. The ambiance was exciting, the children could not stand still, while being mesmerised by the dimmed lighting of the whole of the Lower Ground floor of Starhill. The service was excellent! The staffs there made us really felt welcomed, and Mum was happy.

The order has arrived. From left clockwise, asam pedas jenahak, ayam gurung berempah, daging hitam and gulai udang.Kerabu asparagus.We had asam pedas, prawn curry, daging hitam and kerabu asparagus, among other things. They tasted nice. I must warn you however that the place was not exactly cheap ….. but I supposed you would get what you paid for, and everybody had a good time.

Some of the items however ran out. I was told that the daging bakar was a specialty. Maybe net time ...

More information on Enak KL can be found here.

La La Chong Seafood, Damansara

Usually, we drove all the way to Kuala Selangor for our routine seafood feast. Yesterday was the first time we actually had something similar to this - a Chinese seafood meal - in town. And it was near Damansara, a place I was not really familiar with, but was glad to have come.

The occasion was Puan Anita's birthday. I wouldn't tell you how old she would be then, but there was a reason why all our cars carry the plate number 9972.

Earlier in the day, she was treated to a day at the spa in Ampang by my friends from the UK. After she was done, I picked her up from the spa, and we drove across to Damansara. The traffic was kind. The direction to the place was a bit tricky though, but I just followed the car in front.

There, we were joined by other friends - Amin and Syahril. In the end, it was a table for 13. We had the usual stuff - steamed fish, sweet and sour crab, soup, prawns etc. Azida, one of our friend, ordered lala - cockles - which was appropriate given the name of the restaurant. We were well bloated by the end of it.

My favorites were the steamed fish and crab. God knows how high my cholesterol went. The sauce went down really well with the hot steamed bun. All sticky and yummy. Unfortunately, I forgotten to snap pictures before we settled down for the food as there were plenty to catch up with the friends. And of course, I was busy stuffing myself as well.

The sight of my plate at the end of it. And this was my forst plate. I had two more after that ....I pity whoever having to clear the table after us .....I swore Syahril did this ....All the photos I had were of the damage that was done after the meal. I would definitely recommend the place again. Parking was aplenty, but the trick would be to find the restaurant in the first place. If you were keen, just enter these coordinates on your GPS - 3.124067, 101.607992 - and hopefully you'd be pointed to the right direction. Oh! And the Thai fresh coconut drinks were not to be missed as well!

I could see that the place would be packed for an evening meal. We actually arrived at the place after 3 pm, and there were hardly anybody there. The place were opened from lunch till late evening, and there was a separate air-conditioned area. The facilities there were clean, with plenty of places for handwashing as well. Refer at the photo above for the address and telephone number. Oh! They provide free wifi at the venue - albeit a slow one.

Iftar at Bumbu Desa KLCC

This year, the family Iftar was at Bumbu Desa, KLCC. It was yours truly given the task to pick the venue. My first choice was supposed to be Restoran Warisan near Dataran Merdeka. Unfortunately, despite numerous attempt at calling, no one picked up the phone.

I tried my luck with a few other places but they were all fully booked. During lunchtime today, I headed over to KLCC to make the booking as again, nobody answered the restaurant number, nor the supposedly Iftar booking hotline. I went straight to book the tables and made the food order for Iftar as they only cater for ala carte. They did not have a Ramadhan buffet.

Not expecting much, we gathered at the venue just before 7pm, surprised to see that all the order was already on the table. Cold. The place was packed, so we just sat down, ordered drinks and chatted until Iftar time. And that was when the second surprise came in.

The food was actually quite nice. Better than we hoped for as the expectation was rock bottom to start with. They offer Sumatran - Sunda and Padang - cuisine. Most of the item in the menu were already familiar to us. Sufficed to say, even their sambal and vegetable were very well prepared. Their specialty dish was ayam bakar. It looked plain, but the meat was really succulent. They also had a variety of tempeh - a Java offering. There were also grilled prawns which was lightly buttered, again a must-try.

The place had a reputation for bad service. It was packed, but we got what we ordered for. Not much ground for us to complain about service tonight really.

Unfortunately, the lack of a Ramadhan menu made ordering for food rather awkward. There were no starters, and at the end we did not bother to order desserts. They did bot Wen offer dates for us. Room was at a premium. There were not much room to maneuver in and out of our seats. We had to leave early since the surau was five floors down. The children were getting loud by then. And the price was not exactly cheap either.

Even if the food was nice, I wouldn't recommend the venue for Iftar mainly due to the way the menu was set up. Ordering ala carte for Iftar lead you to either under or overestimate the amount of food to order. Plus, you had to order in advance to make sure there weren't any wait for the food. Even Spice of India next door had a special Iftar menu. And don't bother calling the restaurant beforehand to make a booking. Nobody would bother to pick up, and you might as well just come personally you make the booking.

I thought I also include this video taken after Iftar with the children on the ride.

Anniversary Dinner at Favola

The nice welcoming ambiance. Nice seats, dimmed romantic lighting. Expecting a nice meal.Puan Anita and I celebrated our 14th wedding Anniversary last evening. Being Ramadhan, we planned for an Iftar in town, but since it was Saturday, most of places were already fully booked. I wanted to go to Latest Recipe in Le Meridien, but the only seats we could get were by the lift. Not exactly romantic.

As an alternative, I booked a table at Favola, the place where I had a superb lunch a couple of weeks ago. It was a true Italian affair, with nice motifs and decorations. The seats and ambiance were very welcoming, and we had our seat overlooking the kitchen, and was able to see how the food were prepared. The lighting were suitably dimmed, and the waitresses were kind and attentive. We arrived early, and made our orders for the food for Iftar. We then took a stroll around the hotel lobby.

The place promised much, but unfortunately for the evening, it did not deliver. We were left disappointed. The entre and pizza were delicious, but unfortunately, the same could not be said about the main dishes. This was a similar complaint I had when I had the lunch there previously. The antipasta was superb, but not the mains.

For starters, I has grilled peach with buffalo mozzarella and rocket salad. Anita had some seafood salad - calimari and clams basically, all served with Italian bread. The bread and the salad were excellent.

My buffalo mozzerella and rocket salad. Definitely something to order again should I return.Now you see it ...... now you don'tNext came the pizza. It was not bad. But the wood-fired pizza at Alexis Ampang - my children favorite - was much better. And this was the chef's specialty pizza - called Favola.

Then came the disappointing main dishes. Anita ordered spaghetti marinara. It was on the dry side to start with, and despite adding tobacco Tabasco (thanks Jools!) and sliced parmesan, she still did not finish her meal. The pasta tasted bland, and was overpowered by the overspiced thick marinara sauce. I suspected that there too much olive oil as well. By the end of the meal, when the pasta cooled down, it started to absorb the oil and became soggy. Thumbs down unfortunately.

Anita's main dish, the marinara. The least we say about it, the better.The top layer was crisp. Blowtorch may be?If you think that the pasta was bad, I ordered another chef's recommendation in a lasagna for my main meal. It was well overcooked, and the top crust layer was more or less as crisp as a piece of wood. It was burned, while the minced meat at the bottom still tasted rare! A basic culinary mistake I must say, and one I did not expect from such a prestigious outlet! The top burnt layer tasted bitter and …… burnt, while the oily bottom layer tasted like ….. olive oil. You can see the herbs still separated from the minced meat, as if they were added in as an afterthought. Did they use a blowtorch to burn the top layer?

To cap things off, my mango juice smelt as if they were fresh ….. out from a box. We did not bother to order dessert or coffee. We would rather head home and see what our boys were up to.

The meal experience could have been much better .... if the meal was as good as the ambiance.The main lobby at Le Meridien. Nice and compact.Well, Favola may be a nice place to have afternoon tea and salad, but that was just about it. The main meals were disappointing, despite me picking up the chef's specialties. The ambiance was nice and the waitresses were competent and attentive, but this did not make up for the disappointment in terms of the overall gastronomic experience. We were expecting better.

Favola was located on the 8th floor of Le Meridien, on the level of the swimming pool and the Grand Salon. The official Le Meridien website featured the restaurant here. Remember to show your FourSquare check-in to claim your 10% discount! Sorry about the quality of the snaps since the lights were dim, too dim for my iPhone.

To Sungai Petani

I am not going to deny that I am rather tired at the moment. After the trip to the butterfly farm, we had lunch at Batu Feringghi, at one of the Indian outlet there. What unique was that the joint actually do fusion of eastern and western food. And they dis not do that badly at all. We has some tandoori and tikka masalla. Yes, it was adjusted to the western palate, but the taste was definitely there. Shame about the price though. It was rather expensive! Comparable to KL rate.

Straight after lunch, we headed back to the hotel. The boys were buzzing for the pool. We obliged and spend more than an hour there. Understandably, Irfan was asleep when we travel to Sungai Petani to visit my Auntie. We planned to have dinner there.

Ikan tiga rasa ...... Nice!Unfortunately, my favorite store was closed and it was currently past 9 pm and my Aunt and Mum were still out ordering dinner. The children were getting restless and tired. It was going to be a horrible night!