Sunday Brunch at Bisou

Posted on August 12, 2007 by Lyrical Lemongrass

It promised to be a beautiful morning.

It was the kind of morning where it wasn’t too hot and the skies were contemplating whether or not to shed tears, and to complete the picture, I had found a parking spot right in front of Bisou. For Bald Eagle, the icing on the cake was Liverpool’s win over Aston Villa less than 12 hours earlier. 😀

We both had the Big Breakfast. At RM16(US$4.70), it came with 2 thick cut slices of toast, baked beans, a chicken sausage and two eggs (cooked to your liking). The chicken sausage wasn’t the run o’ the mill sausage sold in supermarket freezers in packs of 10 (and believe me, I have come across some, sold at premium prices, at restaurants); the herbs complemented the mild chicken flavour giving it a very pleasant bite. The sauteed mushrooms were exquisite – full of flavour although it was a little on the oily side. I thought the scrambled eggs were a little overcooked. I prefer my scrambled eggs slightly runny. But then again, it boils down to personal preference.

For an extra RM2 (US$0.60), we got a banana muffin. By this time, I was too full to enjoy anything else. I took one bite and passed the rest to Bald Eagle (who thankfully has a bottomless pit for a stomach and a high metabolic rate to burn the added calories quickly!).

I didn’t get to try the gorgeous looking cupcakes as I was too stuffed by this time. I did try the lemon polenta though (2nd row, centre pic), when I spent a perfect Saturday afternoon the day before at Nigel & Allan’s office being fed by the duo on noodles and the most delicious tempe (fermented soybeans), and Just Heavenly Pleasures’ extremely addictive sticky date pudding and Bisou’s lemon polenta cake. (This reminds me of the story of Hansel & Gretel where the evil witch fattened up children only to eat them up, but I’m quite sure that I am not their flavour of the month. 😉 The delectable Kenny Mah, who was also also hanging out with us, would have made a better dish.)

So…back to the lemon polenta. I loved the texture of the cake. It was sufficiently moist, yet not dripping in sauce, a little grainy due to the polenta (ground cornmeal) but the flavour of the rosemary sauce (drizzled on the surface of the cake) didn’t come through. It was, nevertheless, a lovely cake and I enjoyed every bite of it.

Bisou started operations on 20 July 2007 (same owners as Bijou and Bianco) and it has become progressively more popular as the office crowd seeks out new places to eat. It has just introduced some new items on its lunch menu, including baked eggplant, shepherd’s pie and bangers & mash.

Also check out:

So Much Food, So Little Stomach
Kampungkayell

Bisou
Asian Heritage Row
58 Jalan Doraisamy
50300 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2697 0131

Click here for map.

Opening hours: 9.00am – 11.00pm (Sun to Thur. Mon closed)
9.00am – 2.00am (Fri to Sat)

South Indian Aiyer Restaurant – indian vegetarian

Posted on August 8, 2007 by Lyrical Lemongrass

The rain poured in torrents as I pulled up near Palm Court in Brickfields. School buses lined up both sides of the road preventing me from finding a suitable parking lot.

I was desperate. I spied a parking lot reserved for school buses on the opposite side of the road. In one sweep that would have made Lewis Hamilton proud of me, I was safely parked in that lot with another car following close behind me thinking that I had found a way out of the hellhole. After much cursing, both on her part as well as mine, I managed to turn off my engine only to find that my umbrella refused to open.

The rain made my precious Hogan handbag look like a drenched puppy. Ah well, all in the pursuit of food…

It wasn’t just any food. Located within the apartment premises with a rather dingy exterior was an indian vegetarian restaurant. I absolutely love indian vegetarian food. It is not so much for health reasons that I eat vegetarian food (because it is easy enough to pile on the carbohydrates with the unlimited serving of white rice), but more for the variety of vegetarian dishes that are offered. I am not an avid fan of mock meat (although the occasional serving is acceptable) simply because I am not a vegetarian and when I do eat vegetarian food, it is not because I am looking for a meat replacement. What I do look for are the creatively prepared vegetarian dishes and the use of a multitude of spices to flavour the dishes.

My lunch, served on a banana leaf, comprised white rice, pepper rice, six different types of vegetables, pickled lime, fried chilli, papadum, several types of curries, dhal and rasam, moru (yoghurt drink) and desert. I loved the deep fried bittergourd (above, bottom left) which was crispy and had the right amount of spiciness. The mashed pumpkin was rather interesting; it was naturally sweet and was spiced with something that tasted of cardamoms. However, it would have tasted better as a dessert (and maybe it was!) rather than as a condiment to be eaten with the rice.

The pepper rice (second picture from the top of the post) was fluffy and the taste of pepper was rather distinct. It was flavourful enough to be eaten on its own. My favourite for the day was, without a doubt, the yoghurt curry. When I first saw it, I thought it was another popular curry known as “sothi”, essentially a thin curry made of coconut milk, tomatoes and turmeric. However, after tasting it, I found that it clearly tasted of yoghurt. The yoghurt made the curry extremely creamy while providing it with a naturally sour taste which went so well with the white rice. I must qualify this by saying that it may be an acquired taste for those who are not used to the tart taste of homemade yoghurt.

I washed down the food with a tumbler full of moru, a drink made by diluting yoghurt with water and adding a pinch of salt. It is refreshing and doesn’t have the cloying feeling that fresh milk sometimes gives. At home, I would sometimes chop raw onions and chillies and throw them into the moru for some added crunchiness and flavour. The complimentary dessert was payasam, a drink with a thick, soupy consistency made of milk, cardamoms, cashewnuts and vermicelli.

All these, with unlimited servings of rice and vegetables, for just RM5 (US$1.50) per person!

Other sweetmeats are also available for sale, including ladoo (picture above) and pal kova.

South Indian Aiyer Restaurant
B1 Block B, Palm Courts Condo
Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad, Brickfields, 50470 Kuala Lumpur.Tel: 03-2272 1009

Opens 6.30am to 12.30am daily.

Note: This restaurant uses alliums in the preparation of food.

Dim sum, Dim sum, wherefore art thou, Dim sum?

Posted on August 5, 2007 by Lyrical Lemongrass

1.

Monday
Ecstatic Eeyore barged into my room. “We’re doing lunch together on Friday!”, he announced.

“Where?”, I asked.

“Restoran Clan in Sri Petaling. 8TV’s Ho Chak featured their delicious looking tai bao/loh mai kai! So are you game?”

That was like asking the President of the Japanese Food Kawan’s Association if she liked sashimi.

Tuesday

Ecstatic Eeyore suggested going on a diet to prepare himself for the big lunch on Friday.

Wednesday

Ecstatic Eeyore checked and rechecked his schedule to make sure that he didn’t have any meeting between 12.30pm and 2.30pm.

Thursday

“Don’t forget! Lunch on Friday!!”, Ecstatic Eeyore reminded me.

“What lunch?”, I teased.

“Hmmmphhh!”

Ecstatic Eeyore walked out of my room in disgust.

I made a mental note to not mess with his head until after that lunch.

Friday

We found the restaurant. A few tables were occupied. We asked for the star item. “Sorry, don’t have”, the waitress said with a wry smile.

Our faces fell.

BUT….

….it was a dim sum place, after all, and since we were planning to have dim sum together with the star item, we decided to go ahead with our plans.

The trays laden with dim sum arrived.

We weren’t about to let a minor setback spoil our day (yes, we’re highly positive people), so we picked out our favourites.

Instead of describing each item in detail, I shall categorise the food as follows:-

Average (pass the pepper please)

The fried dim sum fared better than the steamed ones. The yam puff (extreme left) was crispy and the filling was substantial. The Hong Kong style chee cheong fun (extreme right) came with a tasty sambal that was rich with aromatic crushed dried prawns.

Bland (no salt?)

The char siew bao (extreme left) was scant in fillings, while the dough was too thick. The porridge came with a generous serving of chopped century eggs but it lacked flavour.

Where’s the toilet bowl?? (I really need to throw up)

The brinjal appeared to have been steamed over and over again – probably leftovers from the previous night. The flesh was mushy and tasteless. I almost threw up.

Oh wait a minute. I did throw up.

Restoran Clan
140, Jalan Radin Anum
1, Sri Petaling, 57000 KL

Tel: 019-382 5455

2.Saturday

After relating my tear-jerker to Boo_licious, she agreed to have breakfast with me on Saturday. It was going to be a replacement of sorts, to get rid of the awful taste from the day before. We also managed to rope in fellow foodies, Precious Pea and Unkaleong to join us at Hong Kee Tim Sum at Damansara Jaya at an ungodly hour of 8.30 on a Saturday morning. I can still hear Unkaleong’s whines of “Ohhh….I’m so sleepy!!! Why so early???” *sounds of stretching like a half-dead kitten in the background*.

And the food? Everything tasted soooo gooooood. Yes, I am probably biased, having almost died from eating bad food the day before, but hey, it really was good.

I experienced a burst of flavour as I bit into the siu mai with minced pork filling. The spinach version was equally good too. We had the Hong Kong chee cheong fun with prawn filling, and if I were to compare it to the HK CCF which I had the previous day, I’d say that the CCF here is a lot smoother but the sambal did not have the “kick” that the other one provided.

We tried an interesting looking dim sum which was essentially fish paste with salted egg yolk filling and coated with almond flakes (3rd row, centre pic). I didn’t quite like the combination of the ingredients; firstly, it tasted rather dry, and secondly, the ingredients just didn’t blend together.

If prizes were given out for the best item on the menu, the Sang Chau Loh Mai Fan (fried glutinous rice) would have ranked tops. The glutinous rice is painstakingly fried together with bits of lup cheong (chinese sausage), dried prawns, sliced mushrooms, eggs and chive. This dish may look rather oily, but it is considerably lighter on the palate as compared to eating loh mai kai (steamed glutinous rice) as less oil is used for the former.

The dim sum is priced between RM2 and RM5 per plate.

Also check out:

Masak-masak
You Get What You Give…Sometimes
Precious Pea

Hong Kee Tim Sum Restaurant (behind Atria)
No 18 & 20, Jalan SS22/25
Damansara Jaya
47400 Petaling Jaya.

Tel: 012-6069787

Opening hours: 7.00am to 3.00pm daily.

A Whiff of Lemongrass

NOT a food blog

Sunday Brunch at Bisou

South Indian Aiyer Restaurant – indian vegetarian

Dim sum, Dim sum, wherefore art thou, Dim sum?