For the first time trying out at this restaurant, PP and I have decided to order our ‘safe dish’. Defining ‘safe dish’; hmm.. its the general type of meal that we will order that helps us set the standard of a restaurant. Well for example, if we’re at a chinese restaurant, our safe dish would be their sweet and sour pork and a vegetable. If at a Penang restaurant, safe dishes will be Char Kuey Teow, Curry Noodle and Assam Laksa.

So, we had a bowl of curry noodle and assam laksa. Their version of asam laksa tastes very similar to the one at Jusco Mid Valley. Its sourish and you’ll need more than a saucer of the black prawn paste to make it slightly sweeter. The assam soup however is very thick and strong with flavor. This bowl of assam laksa also have loads of fish meat in it.

As per the curry noodles, it comes with dry bean curd, chunks of chicken meat, slices of fish paste and mint leaves. This is not the usual penang curry noodle. I would say that it resembles more like a Nyonya style. Both type suits us well. Needless to say, they’re not stingy at all with the ingredients for this bowl of noodle. Taste wise, the gravy is thick and rich in curry flavor.

penang recipe @ 1Utama
location: F66, 1st Floor, 1Utama
contact: 016 – 217 7496
business hour: opens daily from 10.00am – 10.30pm
food: curry noodles – RM7.90, assam laksa – RM6.90

Piccadilly serves more than 100 varieties of food. Out of these, we will introduce our all time favorite food from Piccadilly, their Nasi Goreng Pattaya and Tom Yam soup. Their plate of nasi goreng pattaya is as huge as the plate itself. Bear in mind that this portion is only for 1 pax. I bet a lot of students must be staying around here. Only they can afford to eat that much.

The plate of pattaya fried rice comes with squid, prawn and slices of fish cake. The egg that’s wrapping the rice is thick and juicy. They must have used close to 3 or 4 eggs for this. This plate of rice is just nice for the two of us to share with. Its rice is not too hard, has a very nice fragrant and most importantly not overly oily unlike other fried rice.

Whenever we order this rice to share, we would also order a tom yam soup to serve with the rice. Their tom yam soup tastes original. Its definitely not those tom yam cooked with instant flavoring. Even the tom yam soup itself comes in several types. They have it with coconut milk, green or red curry, and also the clear soup.

If you feel that the soup is not enough, you can also request to add noodles and turn this into a bowl of main dish. We’ve brought different colleagues here for lunch several times and all of them actually liked this place and wants to bring their partner here to try again. This is one good choice if you’re not sure what you want to eat. That’s because with more than 100 varieties of food, you’ll sure find something that you want to eat.

click here for more food from piccadilly

Piccadilly Restaurant
food: Nasi Pattaya – RM5.90
location: LG006 & LG007, Millennium Square, Dataran Millennium PJ, 98, Jalan 14/1, 46100 Petaling Jaya

Hon Kee had established their name for three generations starting from their late grandfather Wong Yu Wah, who managed a congee stall approximately 60 years ago in Petaling Street. It’s their vision to allow each patrons to experience the authenticity of their family’s recipes. The unadulterated original taste was what we were looking forward to everytime we visit a restaurant with so much deep-rooted profile.

This shop is very famous for their raw fish porridge. It is also one of hub’s favorite porridge. It is served with thin slices of fresh fish meat slightly coated with sesame oil, and topped with small strips of ginger. Mix the slices of fish meat in to the porridge and you’ll see it cooked immediately. They have a few more varieties of porridge such as the pix intestines, minced meat with salted egg, century egg, hong kong style porridge and many more.

As for me, I am not a big fan of gooey porridge. I favor more on the teo chew type where you can still see all the rice grains. So my favorite from this shop is their nasi lemak. They serve their nasi lemak with pork curry. You might not be able to get pork curry at anywhere except for the SS2′s pasar pagi. Nasi lemak tastes only moderate. Rice is not fragrant enough and there isn’t any sambal ikan bilis to eat with. You can definitely get better nasi lemak elsewhere.

HonKee Porridge Since 1949@ Damansara Utama
location: No 71, Jalan SS21/1A, Damansara Utama, 47400 Petaling Jaya.
food: raw fish porridge RM5.50, nasi lemak with pork curry – RM5.50, you tiao – RM1.00, ham chim peng – RM1.00, coffee – RM2.30
business hours: daily, 7am – 10pm
contact: +6019 982 4328
facebook fans page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Petaling-Jaya-Malaysia/Honkee-Porridge-Restaurant/162314091792

Like to know more about this shop? Read here, its the intro which PP managed to get from  the menu — With more than 20 years of cooking experience under his belt, the owner purchases fresh bonito fish everyday from the market at 4am. His famous Fish Head Noodles are prepared with fish maw, bonito fish, bean curd, tomatoes, salted vegetables, ikan bills, and boiled for long hours. A moderate amount of evaporated milk is added to the soup to enhance its taste before thick bee hoon is put in and cooked briefly. The resulting dish is fragrant and delicious when eaten with homemade chili cause. Foodies should also check out the excellent Tom Yam Seafood Noodles and Curry Seafood Noodles. –

Its fish head noodle and tom yam noodle looks very promising. PP ordered a bowl of fried fish head noodle while I ordered a bowl of homemade fish paste tom yam noodle. PP’s bowl of fish head noodle comes with tomato, salted vegie, fried fish head and tofu. Tofu is something extra which is not included by most of the fish head noodle stalls. This bowl of fish head noodle is not to PP’s liking. Soup’s taste is rather too bland, fish meat is too tough and noodle was not cooked well enough.

I don’t quite like my bowl of tom yam noodles either. Soup’s taste is super fake, just like its prepared from those ready make tom yam cubes. I can make better tom yam soups with the ingredients that Helen taught me. Noodle wise is just as PP have described, not well cooked. The ingredients are about the same as PP’s bowl of noodles, except for the fish head is replaced with fish paste. The only ingredient that I ate the most is their fish paste. Fish paste is tender and soft, and it’s rich in flavor. This is not as tough as those served in other stalls.

main branch – choy kee gou lou famous fish head noodle & tom yam seafood
location: 37, jalan alor, kuala lumpur
business hour: 7am – 4pm (opens daily)

damansara utama’s branch – restoran gou lou
location: 73, jalan ss21/60, damansara utama, petaling jaya
business hour: 8am – 10pm (closed on wednesday)

food: fried fish head noodle – RM7.50, homemade fish paste – tom yam noodle – RM8.50

WL told us that there’s a shop that sells quite good quality porridge. Food’s price is rather affordable too. This porridge stall is located at a corner of the mall, near Carrefour hypermart or Ninja Joe’s burger shop. This shop only serves porridge and dessert. PP and I had ordered a bowl of peanut porridge with salted egg and a bowl of porridge with frog legs.

Our bowls of porridge are served in a medium bowl. Judging on the amount, it is indeed quite affordable. Porridge is smooth but tastes rather bland. Good for hubby’s condition. PP’s porridge came with quite a few of frog legs. I’ve tried one, tastes just like chicken meat, nothing gross about it.

As for my porridge, its pure peanut and salted egg. Its salted egg don’t even taste salty. Wow. I couldn’t help it but dashes with lots of pepper and soy sauce. Well this is all depending on a person’s liking. Rather it bland and add saltiness than being too salty and you can’t do anything about it.

Come and try if you would like to have a decent porridge but in an air conditioned shop. There is also a branch at  Asian Avenue, Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall. However, our favorite is still the pork porridge at Seapark.

porridge time @ tropicana city mall, ss2 PJ
location: tropicana city mall (LG), near Carrefour and Ninja Joe
food: farm frog porridge – RM8.50, peanut porridge with salted egg – RM5.50, sweet potato soup – RM3.80, you tiao – RM1.40

Section 17 is located quite near to Damansara Heights. This is one of the lunch places whereby you can eat your lunch leisurely and be able to make it back to the office in an hour’s time. If you would like to dine at this place or rather eat this stall’s chicken rice, be sure to come at 12pm sharp.

Once you’re late, you’ll be stuck in a long queue at the stall. Its either that or some of their dishes have sold out. We would usually go in a group of 5 or 10 pax. We would also order ourselves one or sometimes when we’re too hungry, two huge platters of mix roasted meat to share with. One dish that can’t be missed is their spicy and sour vegetable. This dish really increases the appetite.

I must really introduce the char siew that’s sold here. Even Aman Suria’s Famous Seremban Favorites can’t even be compared to this. This stall’s char siew will simply melt in your mouth. No kidding. Their roast pork is PP’s favorite. The skin is crunchy and the rest of its meat is tender and juicy. I guess these info will be good enough. I won’t be doing too much of advertising here, else the next time we won’t be able to find seats over there during lunch. :p

chicken rice in kedai kopi & makanan hong seng
location: section 17, pj
food: chicken rice – RM4.00, roasted pork rice – RM4.20, bbq pork rice – RM4.20

This restaurant operates all day long, from breakfast to dinner time. There’s more food varieties here, if compared to Bao Bao’s shop. We have not tried their breakfast items yet. I saw in some blogs that they serve mee-siam and carrot/yam cake.

Back to our food, we’ve ordered ourselves a bowl of Cha Cha original pan mee and a bowl of dry pan mee to try out. The original pan mee comes in the soup type. I like their soup base, its strong in anchovies taste. Like all the other soup pan mee, this bowl has mince meat, mushroom, vegetable and anchovies. Bao Bao’s version had one more extra ingredient, which is the fried fish skin.

As for the dry pan mee, it is not to our liking. The sauce is just plain sweet dark soy sauce. Nothing special about this noodle. Its served with the usual minced meat, mushroom, vegetable and anchovies.

Overall, the best pan mee stall to our liking is still the Loh Pan Mee at Paramount Garden. That is the place where we’ll eat at least once in a month.

restoran Cha Cha pan mee original
location: K-G-1 & K-G-3, Jalan PJU 1/43, Aman Suria, 47301 Petaling Jaya
business hour: breakfast from 7.30 am till 4pm, dinner from 5.30 – 9pm daily & (closed on alternate Wednesdays)
food: cha cha original (Pinch) – RM5.50, dry pan mee (Thick) – RM5.50

Betty’s Midwest Kitchen is now our favorite porky place. This place was first introduced by my current boss, D. We’ve passed by this shop quite a few times before, never had a good impression on it. Sometimes look does not matter, the food matters the most! This is a good lesson to learn.

This place serves all sorts of pork dishes, ranging from ribs, sausages, bacon, ham, meatloaf and many more. Our few favorites were their hog wild, grill baby back ribs, sausage platter and their pull pork burger.

This is the only place where after finishing the meal, I won’t feel too greasy or meaty. Appetizer wise, our favorite here is their pig in a blanket. This is a basket of small sausages wrapped in bacon and layered with some honey.

Most of the dishes here came with side dishes such as coleslaw or mashed potatos. I always crave for these two side dishes. Their coleslaw somehow tastes unique, not too much of mayonnaise but rich in vegetables and tastes rather sweet. Mashed potatos on the other hand is so soft, creamy and its best served with its mash potato gravy.

Food wise, every dish that we tried tasted so good. There nothing to complain about, not a bit! What I would suggest is for you to come here and try it out because all dishes has their own unique taste and flavor. You’ll have to identify your favorites then.

betty’s midwest kitchen
location: A-G-40, Jalan PJU 1/43, Aman Suria Damansara
contact: +603 – 7880 0196
business hours: tues – sun (11:00 am – 3:00 pm) (5:30 pm – 10:00 pm) // closed on mondays
food: pig in a blanket – RM8.00, lemonade – RM2.50, root beer – RM5.50

A colleague of ours recently introduced us to this budget restaurant that sells sang har mee. Its located at Seksyen 17. Just nice, we always pass by that area on our way home. This recommendation really came at the right time. We’re really out of idea of what else to eat for dinner. Been questioning each other all the time especially after work. What to eat? What to eat?

So, this sang har mee can be found at restaurant jackson right at seksyen 17. We’ve ordered a plate of the noodles and the portion is huge, would be just nice for us to share it out. The plate of noodle is served with two huge succulent fresh water prawn. The prawn is so fresh that it’s juicy and tender. As for their noodle, it taste slightly on the bland side.

Still, this is not the type of meal which we would order. We’ll only try this once in a blue moon.

sang har mee @ restaurant jackson sec 17
location: seksyen 17 morning market area
food: sang har mee (fresh water prawn noodle) – RM8.50 per pax

The shop is named as “Bad Ass Coffee”. When we first saw this shop name whenever we passes by the mall, we would always question ourselves. Would the shop ever survive with a name like this? Haha. Unfortunately, yes. And its kind of crowded during lunch. Why? I think most are attracted by their reasonably priced set lunches.

Our favorite dish from this shop is their beef burger. Trust us, the portion is huge. The beef steak is grilled till perfection and has a very nice BBQ fragrant. The burger is layered with veges, tomatoes and a thick piece of sweet juicy pineapple. Its also served with fries.

Other dishes from this shop are such as the foot long sausage, varieties of pasta and sandwiches. All sets of meal comes with BIG donut and Kona Coffee / Fruit Juice. Why wait, head over there to try it out.

bad ass coffee @ tropicana city mall
location: Lot G 37/38A, Ground Floor, Tropicana City Mall
food: Combo Bad Ass Set (Saugage) – RM13.90, Combo Hawaii Set (Beef Burger) – RM16.90
food for lessthanten: Coffee – RM6.90 + Donut – RM4.00