I am always in search for good deal and great promotion on the Internet for food discounts and meal voucher. With Groupon group deals website growing strongly, meal deal is easier to be found than ever.

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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Now I have a mission and that is pay all the F&B outlet in Taylor’s University a visit, I don’t really want to try all of what they offer but just eat out at all of the restaurant. This is because that there’s so many F&B outlet opening and opens at the commercial block area also known as Syopz @ Boardwalk, what a weird name. Being a student there, I need to try all only I allow myself to graduate. Haha.

For sure this can be done because this is only my first year in the university. =D I have tried a few and here’s one that I have been to lately, it’s a Japanese ramen and don restaurant called Marufuku.

Order and pay at the counter then a number will be given. Then wait for the food to be served.

This restaurant specialized in ramen but also do sell don (rice) and have a variety of choice to choose from starting from RM7. I ordered myself a Oyaku Don (RM10) which is just chicken and egg. I was wanting to order the Curry Don (RM8) but I did not cause I just had it lately from the food court. Well about the taste and the experience, it’s not super awesome but for the price, I think it’s good, there should be more chicken though, maybe come with a miso soup then it will be perfect.

Here’s a Curry Don (RM8) that my friend order, look simple so I think the price should be lower a bit.

Another one is my friend’s Niku Don (RM12) which is a beef rice. Looks like vegetable slice instead of beef.

This place is opens to public. =)

LG1-10, Syopz @ the Boardwalk,
Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus,
1, Jalan Taylors,
Subang Jaya.

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I don’t really understand why there’s a long queue every time I passed by Sushi Zanmai outlet in KL like at The Gardens and 1Utama. It was a Tuesday and I went to the Sushi Zanmai at Sunway Pyramid for a lunch. This Sushi Zanmai is just another Japanese restaurant with sushi belt like Sakae Sushi and Sushi King but then it’s not available in Penang. My friend told me that their food is low in price but to me it’s just almost the same except the salmon sushi is kinda cheap. =D

After all those wondering and don’t-understands, I finally made myself there to know why. Actually there’s no why. LOL. It’s just felt better than Sushi King and cheaper than Sakae Sushi IMO.

A plate of Salmon Sushi is priced at only RM3.90 of two but then I never see it on the belt and we have to order from the people there.

A nice big slice of fresh raw salmon covered a rice ball. The freshness cannot be said as super fresh but it’s fresh in my mouth, I felt. Some Japanese restaurant served salmon with smaller size. This is good.

My main dish was a I-ve-forgotten-the-name, Chicken Katsu something, it’s deep fried chicken with mayo sauce, a little bit of seaweed strips and Japanese rice. To be honest, it’s not really a good one as the chicken is kinda tasteless. I ate it with wasabi and soy sauce. This is only a small one, I wondered how big is it if I order a big one.

Here’s another I-ve-forgotten-the-name sushi, I know it’s Unagi something something. Haha. It’s a nice unagi sushi and it’s a must-order if you are a unagi lover like me! =)

Sushi Zanmai is available at:

• Sunway Pyramid
• 1 Utama
• The Gardens
• Low Yat Plaza
• Fahrenheit 88

This year’s Fathers’ Day, I brought dad to Sakae Sushi for lunch. Dad is not really a fan of western food and he only know local food and a little bit of Japanese food, and so, I brought him to Sakae Sushi at Gurney Plaza. Actually, it’s not planned. I just suggested to go there and eat and when the bill comes, SURPRISED, I payed for it, and it’s for my lovely daddy, and mommy and also myself. Haha.

Normal days, I wouldn’t go to Sakae Sushi because it’s expensive (to me) but every meal also very full one. Worth it or not, quite worth, but I didn’t have so much money all the time. Haha.

First up, one of our starter/appetizer. 6 slices of fresh raw salmon fillet. Yummy.

Another appetizer for me, taken from the belt is Unagi Sushi. =D I was so hungry so, I picked one from rotating belt.

Then here comes some main course. A combo of fried salmon fillet and teriyaki chicken, serve with steamed white rice. Mom and dad shared this.

Mine is Sakae Gozen. there’s a few dishes in the set. There’s Japanese curry chicken which is pretty good. There’s the cheesy scallop, two of them, and a fried salmon filled. Served with steamed rice and there’s miso soup and also chawan mushi too. It’s so much and I couldn’t finish my rice. Very full!

I love Japanese food, a lot! My teacher who went to Japan told me, once we tried the sushi in Japan, we will never want to eat the sushi here, because it’s too fresh at there. I’ve never been to Japan before, what do you think?