However, during my recent purchase of a Japanese food deal, I wasn’t really glad with the experience I had at the restaurant. It is not the wrong of the voucher site, but it’s the food that I don’t really happy with.

I was actually pretty excited with the meal and the deal as it was RM33.90 deal which consist of 13 items for two and it’s discounted at 57& of it’s normal price of RM86.90. The deal was pretty reasonable and worthwhile with so many item to eat and somemore it’s a meal for two.

Shinjuku Japanese Restaurant is located on Jalan Chow Thye. It has a nice  welcoming space but the signboard of the shop names wasn’t clear to me as it has another name as Xiang Wei which promote Thai food. I was wondering, is it a Japanese food restaurant? Or a Thai food restaurant, but in fact they sell both Thai food and Japanese food. This combination started to make me doubt about their food quality and taste.

With no surprise, I wasn’t really happy with the sushi starter which isn’t fresh especially the shrimp sushi and crab stick sushi which is so hard when I put it into my mouth. It isn’t mouthwatering and it feels like the ingredient have been kept in the fridge for some times. I was hoping for salmon sushi or perhaps unagi, but they were no where to be seen. It’s all the low price sushi. One thing is it took that more than 15 minutes to serve the first dish.

Despite the bad sushi, I still have to stay to eat till the end as there were more than 10 items. The next dish, the Chawan Mushi, luckily did try to pull me back to a good comment of the place. What I like about this is this smoothness of the chawan mushi, it can be compare with local Taofu Fa, but I believe this is smoother. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any meat in it which usually does. Instead of tasting saltyness of the egg, it tasted sweet due to the Japanese sweet sauce that is poured a little bit on the surface of the Chawan Mushi. Overall, this is something better.

Next up was a Japanese Toufu with very small piece of unagi, mushroom and sweet sauce. It tasted different fromt he Chinese Taofu, but they looked the same. The skin of the toufu gives a soft feel and the inner toufu was smooth. I wasn’t ware of the unagi when I look at it until I put them in my mouth. The little brown-black thingy on the toufu was in fact super mini unagi. I wonder why they put such a small piece of unagi which makes it not interesting at all. The warm sweet sauce warm up the toufu and makes the dish tasted not bad too, but not good. It’s just hanging in the middle.

3 slices of abalone slice made it way to our table and into our mouth. Unfortunately, the abalone slice is unlike the one that came out from the can, or the one that is cut fresh from a cooked abalone. It’s, just so unfresh that it doesn’t consist the chewy experience of eating abalone. I was not happy with it and it didn’t spend so much time in my mouth, it just went right into my stomach and skipping my taste bud for a custom check.

It’s getting weird and suspicious with the sweet sauce and the cook at the Japanese restaurant as most of the dishes consist of a great amount of the sweet sauces. A little bit of it makes it good but many of it makes it tasted weird and overly-sweet. It’s the third dish – Teriyaki Chicken on Stick, that has so much sweet sauce in it which eventually ruin the dish and mindset for the food. The sweet tooth in me couldn’t stand the sweetness anymore and wanted a stop. Japanese food to me is always about wasabi and raw-ness, but with so much of sweet, it’s getting un-Japanese to me.

In the middle of the serving food, it comes a small little amount of Japanese Sake alcohol. I am not an alcoholic person, but I wasn’t mind trying it as I have no idea how’s a Japanese Sake tasted like. It’s deep in hot boiled water which makes the liquor warm. Upon entering my mouth, the liquor taste was there BUT it was diluted so much that it’s not like alcohol anymore. This is just like an decorative item among the 13 items.

The last dish was a Udon which I do not know the name of it and I didn’t even bother to know about the name due to the dissatisfaction of the food. I wasn’t excited as before only, I was just like – wait and eat and go. The Udon consisted a boiled egg, vegetable and teriyaki chicken in it. The broth (soup) tasted sweet and the only edible to me was the chicken teriyaki which was pretty tender. I dislike the broth of the udon.

After a few unhappy experience with the meal brought from groups deal website, I started to doubt about these promotion meal.

Shinjuku Restaurant
36C Jalan Chow Thye,
10500 Penang.

Tel: +604-2287999, +6016-4921592

Business Hours: Daily 6pm-10pm

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I made a short video on my recent visit. Actually this is just a random post, but I want to share out the short video clip. =) Enjoy. If you have any nice tomyam mee place, do introduce to me. =)

Delicious Cafe origins from 1 Utama Shopping Centre in Damansara Utama, Klang Valley and the opening in Straits Quay is the first outlet in Penang and outside Klang Valley. I have not really dine out at there, just have been hearing many friends talk about the place, despite it’s a mid-end pricing restaurant.

On one night, I visited the place to eat some desert. It was crowded with people at about 9.30pm and it’s a little bit noisy. I didn’t want to sit outdoor as it was hot and humid. No choice that I have to bare the noisyness and eat my dessert.

The unfortunate event was my girlfriend ordered the Classic Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream at the counter but the waitress told us it’s not available after 5 minutes because it’s all been booked. That’s fine, and we changed to Strawberry Cheese Cake (RM15), and we waited 10 minutes for that. The cake was not that awesome when compare to Secret Recipe, some like it, but it’s not being friendly with my sweet tooth. It looks very pretty though.

We spent some times chatting and surfing the net with the free wifi then we went back. While going out of the door, we took a glance at the desserts cake counter, and shockingly found out that there’s still so many Classic Chocolate Cake. Damn. The waitress told us that they refilled it, they didn’t tell us that they would refill the thing at first this made me have a first bad impression about the service.

What do you think? I might give a second visit to see how it goes. =)

Delicious Cafe

3C-G-3 & 3A, Ground Floor,
Straits Quay.

Operation Hours:
10am – 12am (weekdays)
9am – 12am (weekends and public holidays)

Tel: 04-8998555

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My recent visit changed my view on Midlands Park Shopping Centre and found that there’s actually quite a number of F&B outlets serving office workers mostly and the locals.

Well, I am glad to be invited by Chin Wai, the owner of Tainan Restaurant in Midlands Park Centre for a little food testing and sharing session. I am a fan of Taiwanese food especially for those beef noodle, and fried chicken chop and of course bubble tea and when I got the invitation, I was so excited and surprised because I didn’t know there’s actually a Taiwanese restaurant at 1 Stop Midlands Park.

According to Chin Wai, this restaurant has over 10 years of history and features a classic and homey look which he said will be renovate and redesign the place to a more modern look. Even though the place looks classic and homey, there’s still frequent customers who visit the place quite often as some said it gives a sense of home.

So let’s get into some food shall we? =) He served us bubble tea nicely for each of us. It may not be the best bubble tea compare to Chatime, Gong Cha or whatever out there, but still it’s a good bubble tea at a Taiwanese restaurant.

Their food menu normally comes with a soup, beverage and dessert. Here what you see above is Golden Drumstick Rice (RM7.50). A crispy chicken drumstick with rice and minced pork topping and a little vegetable.

If you are a fan of chicken wings not the drumstick, they got the Golden Chicken Wing Rice (RM7) too, actually it comes with rice just but we didn’t want that many rice that day. It’s cheaper than the drumstick by RM0.50 and to me I like the chicken wing more than the drumstick, it’s even crispier and tastier.

Taiwan is always famous for crispy deep fried food. What you are seeing above is the Pork Chop (RM7 with rice) and it’s crispyness makes it tasted good and keep wanting more.

If you fancy something different with a little bit mayonnaise topping and crispyness, the Crispy Nestum Chicken Ball (RM8) is good. The Nestum added a little bit of cereal oats taste, making it feel more than chicken and it’s feel a little bit like chicken nugget, but in an oriental way.

Taiwan is famous for beef noodle. If you go to Taiwan, beef noodle can be seen almost at anywhere. At Tainan Restaurant, they do serve Beef Noodle too. What’s special is the soup which actually more creamy than normal Taiwanese beef noodle. The beef taste is strong and overall it’s OK-good.

I am a fan of Taiwanese sausage because of the tenderness and sweetness in the sausage. It tasted special and they have it too at RM8.50 which comes with rice.

Lastly, check out their Prawn Roll (RM7.50) which stuffed little shrimp in it and have a crispy skin outside. It looks like lobak but actually it’s shrimp. Comes with rice too!

So, here you go, a little intro of a mini Taiwanese restaurant at Midlands Park 1 Stop and you now have another place for lunch and dinner. Cheer~

Tainan Restaurant

(1 Stop) Midlands Park Centre
488-1-07 Burma Road
10350 Oenang

Tel: 016-4909795

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One of the nice place to have some local hawker food for lunch and tea is the Padang Brown Food Court, which located at Padang Brown, in line with Perak Road. Padang which literally means field, which on the other hand, Padang Brown means Brown’s Field.

There’s actually 3 food courts on Padang Brown, one houses under the official food court built for hawker, another 2 are not really official. It’s quite easy to spot this food court as it’s inline with Perak Road and also by the junction of Perak Road and Anson Road. There’s a monument in the middle of the food court too.

This food court only opens in the afternoon and offer a variety of local hawker food for you to try out like Char Koay Teow, Lok Lok, Asam Laksa and more.

People usually finds lok-lok at night time but at here you can find it in the afternoon. Lok-lok is actually raw food on stick, which you need to dip them in super hot boiling water and cook your own food. Then you eat it with different sauces. You can get as cheap as RM0.50 per stick.

I wasn’t that obsessed with char koay teow back then. All of this craving and obsession for char koay teow comes after I went to study at Kuala Lumpur and I had so much char koay teow during this holiday in my hometown, Penang.

I ordered myself a plate of char koay teow (RM3.00) at the food court and the redness looks spicy and yes it is, somehow it’s still good even it’s spicy. Although, it might not be the best, it’s still so much better than char koay teow in Kuala Lumpur and other places. You can always request for less spicyness. The only thing was it’s not dry enough.

Despite all the hotness, a glass of coconut juice was chilling at the food court and it’s a must try. =)

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Kopitan’s Coffee – RM3.50

I found it not bad last time, so it’s a OK-GOOD lunch place. Luckily we found a parking right outside the restaurant and it was full of people inside. Surprisingly, the serving time for beverage and rice meal was fast. But it take rather slow for the toast.

The rice dish was fast in serving is probably because it’s easy to prepare as the chicken is chicken chop, just poured with different type of sauces. I ordered myself a plate of Mushroom Chicken Chop Rice (RM8.90) which I couldn’t find any mushroom on it. It’s the sauce on the chicken that tasted mushroom. Somehow, I think this is s0-so only, nothing much special, I more prefer the Kam Heong’s.

Mom likes the toast at there. She always praised that the bread use for the toast and how good and soft it is. This time, she ordered a Sausage and Cheese Toast (RM5.90) which I could say, it’s good! I like the softness of the bread, the little sausage slice on top of the bread, the cheese melts in the mouth and the sweetness of sugar on the bread. This is good.

Kopitan Restaurant
4A/B Logan Heritage,
Beach Street,
10200 George Town,
Penang.

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Recently, I went to 600CC for lunch and found out they have set lunch menu, so I went to try out their dishes. I am not really a frequent visitor to 600CC because of I a little bit dislike paying 16% taxes, which result in a more expensive meal. Because of set lunch menu, it’s better than ordering a la carte.

Set lunch consists of a milk tea with grass jelly and a main dish which starts from RM9.90.

Mom ordered a Zha Jiang Mian 杂酱面 (Mixed Sauce Noodle with Minced Meat) – RM10.90. It tasted sweet and the noodle was springy enough, thought what’s weird was having cucumber in the dish. Some like it, some might not, I’ll say OKOK only.

As for me, I ordered a beef noodle (台湾牛肉面) – RM12.90. The soup was good and the noodle is actually same as the one used in the Zha Jiang Mian. I like they put crunchy salted vegetable in it which is kinda nice, in fact I was biting on the salted vegetable more than on the beef meat. Beef meat was soft. It’s really awesome eating a beef noodle for lunch, I felt it may not be the best, but it’s good to eat.

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Here comes some cheap Thai food hawker stall that I’ve visited recently for lunch. Few days ago, I went to the Pinang Delicious Food Court on Macalister Road for lunch. I heard that there’s some nice fried rice at there from friend, so I decided to order fried rice for me for lunch that day.

The fried rice is actually from a Thai Food hawker stall and they serve various Thai dishes too but mainly fried rice.

So, I ordered a Thai Tomyam fried rice (RM4). I found it pretty nice, but a little bit not so dry, and surprised to find crab stick in there which makes it tasted sweet. The tomyam taste was just nice, not too strong and feels good. If you are craving from strong tomyam, it maybe not enough for you. In my opinion, if it’s drier, then it’s perfect!

Mom ordered a Pad Thai With Tomyam Soup served with white rice (RM4). The tomyam soup was pretty sour and the pad thai was filled with vegetable. I like the tomyam soup more. =D

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On a lovely evening, I went dating with my dearest one, Hueisean at the tree house restaurant on Burma Road, the Jemputree Restaurant. It’s a Malay style tree house serving halal western and local Malay cuisine. I was kinda attracted by the tree house concept and it’s kinda cool and cute.

It was a Tuesday night and there’s not many people at there so we could go up the tree house and for your information, there’s only one tree house seating. It’s actually not a tree house, it’s a elevated platform right under the tree, so it seems to be dining on a “tree house”. Some says that the area need to be made reserve as it’s quite a hot spot.

Anyway, let’s get into the food of that night. I didn’t feel of having local food that night, so I went for western food ala Asian style. I ordered the local famous Chicken Cordon Blue. Surprisingly, the chicken is kinda small in portion. Taste is O-K but too little. It’s kinda not enough for the small stomach of mine.

Next up is a pizza, the Hawaiian Chicken pizza. Wanted to order the four season but it’s out of stock and hawaiian chicken it was. Thin crust pizza with cheesy ingredient. Yummy, but the ingredient doesn’t stick to the bread well.

Overall, the food is OK-GOOD only. It’s just another nice place to chill out with friends of have a romantic time on the tree. =) Beware of mosquitoes.

Tel: +6-04-2286607

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Happy New Year! What a lovely new year. 2010 is over and 2011 is here and which means more food are coming! So on the New Year’s Eve, I went to Straits Quay. I was with my dearest Hueisean that night, but a little bit tight on budget. Was checking out all the restaurant, some need to wait for an hour, some offering only-New Year’s menu and they are over hundred bucks. In the end, we went to queue half an hour for Secret Recipe.

It’s New Year’s Eve and it’s people everywhere!

After waiting for half an hour, finally it’s our turn and we made our order. They some more told us that the serving time is about 30 minutes. Since it’s New Year’s Eve, so I forgive them for the slowness. Hehe.

I ordered a slice of New York Cheese cake to be our appetizer because we were so hungry already. There’s a little layer or chocolate at the bottom. Wonder is cheese cake in New York made this way? Though it’s delicious, but it’s not nicely cut into slice and served. The food presentation suck a bit. Haha. We didn’t care so much already because of HUNGRY.

Then the ice blended chocolate came next, with nice cream on top and I have nothing much to say about this. Yummy beverage. I love chocolate and chocolate makes people happy! =)

Well, my main course for that night was a chicken lasagna. Hueisean couldn’t eat beef so it’s chicken. I didn’t know what’s the bun for, is it to eat with the lasagna? I didn’t really eat out at Secret Recipe before nor eating a lot of lasagna but to me, I felt it’s kinda nice.

Although the lasagna is good, I prefer the chicken cordon bleu ordered by Hueisean, it’s a better one IMO. Surprisingly, it’s as good as JF Western Food’s, in fact, I felt it’s better. I can actually feel the melting of cheese and ham in my mouth. This is awesome.

After having our meal, we payed and we went out to countdown because there’s still many people queuing up for food and we are good people. Haha.

What do you think about Secret Recipe? Any recommendation besides cake which they are famous for?

Tel: +6-04-8982313

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