La La Chong Seafood Restaurant, Subang

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lemon1. The idea of bliss (or What Lyrical Lemongrass Did This Evening).Sitting in the kitchen of Just Heavenly in Bangsar.

Watching Allan, covered in flour from head to toe, kneading baby blue fondant.

Pleasant conversation.

Savouring moist chocolate cupcakes topped with freshly made icing.

2. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend

Bouncing BarbieJust as friends come and go, so do Makan Club members. Bouncing Barbie made a decision to choose polished diamonds over diamonds in the rough and we wish her well.

Bangsar isn’t that far away, dear friend, and we’ll definitely carry on our “makan” sessions. 14 years is a long time to know someone. I still remember going to work in Bus No. 5 when we were still new at the office! Now there won’t be anyone visiting my room at 12.30pm and asking me, “So what’s for lunch today??”. We wish you all the love and happiness that diamonds can’t buy.

3. A feast, no lessfour-angled beans with tuna salt-baked crabs
lala in superior soup salted egg yolk crabs

The Makan Club has been visiting La La Chong for close to 10 years. Many special moments have been celebrated here, birthdays mostly. On the occasion of Barbie’s farewell, it seemed only appropriate that it be spent here, in La La Chong, together with three of her closest friends and colleagues.

We wanted old favourites. So we asked for fern stir fried with tuna. Unfortunately, they had run out of fern, and offered to replace it with four-angled beans instead. Thankfully, the substitute was quite delicious with lots of tuna and chopped chillies stir fried with the vegetables.

Another old favourite is Siong Tong Lala (Lala in superior soup). The shellfish is cooked in a fragrant soup with a generous amount of wine thrown in to bring out the flavour of the dish. As always, we were extremely pleased with this dish.

The crabs, on the other hand, brought out mixed reactions. We all liked the salt baked crab dish which was fried with ginger. However, the salted egg yolk crab dish failed to impress us. The crabs appeared to have been deep fried, so any attempt to scrape the roe from the shell would have been futile, and the flavour of the dry sauce seemed to have been marred by an excessive usage of salt (presumably used to enhance the flavour of the salted egg yolk).grilled mackerel

The grilled mackerel is one of my favourite dishes here. The sauce used to marinade the mackerel tasted similar to a kabayaki sauce made of soy sauce, mirin and sugar. The fish was so delicious, I had no trouble finishing it up!

We still have fond memories of this place. I’m not ready to write it off just because of one botched recipe.

Also check out:

Living in Food Heaven
Da Wheel Of Life & Happiness
Masak-masak
Little Miss May

La La Chong Seafood Restaurant
Lot PT6824, Terminal 3, Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, Subang.

(directions: Head towards Terminal 3, Subang Airport. At the traffic light, turn right)

Tel: 03-7859 1906

Izakaya Ichiban, Hartamas Shopping Centre

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For some of you, seeing another japanese food post is like, “What?? Isn’t this supposed to be a Malaysian food blog??” Perhaps you’re right. And perhaps you’re wrong. Just like how the British claimed curry (or balti) as their national food, I’m hereby claiming Japanese food as my staple meal. The advent of Japanese food in Malaysia has created a cult following, and of late Korean food has enjoyed the same celebrity status. I am certainly not advocating that Japanese food replace Malaysian food, but I do welcome it as an additional item to our already diversified local cuisine. The cross-marrying of the various cultures in the early days have given us wonderful dishes. Why stop?And so, with the assistance of my ever helpful Japanese Food Kawan Association (JFKA), particularly our Secretary, Boo_licious, I was introduced to Izakaya Ichiban, a restaurant that had been open for approximately a month. I was accompanied by the bubbly Precious Pea whom I was interviewing that night for the post of Public Relations Officer for the Association. I had nothing to worry about. She passed with flying colours in two areas: 1. Her ability to eat more Japanese food as compared to the President, and 2. Her ability to charm the pants of anybody in a 10 foot vicinity.

salmon belly sashimi shishamo
kaki mayo yaki salmon belly sashimi

What I like about the food is the price. More importantly, the quality of the food at that price was unbelievable. Take for instance the Kaki Mayo Yaki, essentially grilled oysters with spicy mayonnaise sauce and sauteed mushrooms at RM15. Three pieces of juicy oysters served on a bed of mushrooms with an unbelievably tasty sauce that made us sigh with happiness. And the salmon belly sashimi, fresh and smooth on the palate, at RM28 was worth every cent paid. The shishamo (grilled capelin fish) is what I like to call a petrified fish. With the mouth wide open as if to yell “Help!”, and eyes as though they had seen hell, the shishamo can be quite scary to look at if you’re the type to appreciate a good horror movie. The Attack of the Shishamo. Okay, I know that’s corny. At RM11, it is the same price of a movie ticket in Malaysia but the taste may be more memorable than half the movies made in Hollywood these days. The shishamo is eaten whole with the egg sacs intact. Now that can be quite a sight as well for the horror movie enthusiast. Imagine the head tilted back as the slim fish is slowly lowered into the mouth and disappears down the throat.

wagyu beef don una-cheese maki
hawaiian maki

We thoroughly enjoyed the Wagyu Beef Don (RM28). The beef was tender and had a lovely sweet flavour provided by the marinade and the sauce. The Una-Cheese Maki (RM20), a rice roll filled with eel and topped with cheese, was nice but not outstanding. Sadly, the cheese slices looked like something one could purchase at a supermarket, individually wrapped! The Hawaiian Maki (RM18) came highly recommended. This was a salmon roll made with honeydew and apple mayo sauce. However, I found it rather tasteless; I was unable to taste the salmon and I felt that the flavours didn’t blend very well.

I would definitely like to come back to try Izakaya Ichiban’s lunch menu priced between RM18++ and RM33++. The ambience allows for a certain amount of privacy with private booths accommodating 4 people comfortably. Service is also attentive.

Izakaya Ichiban (2 doors away from Starbucks)
Lot P-3M, Plaza Ground Floor,
Hartamas Shopping Centre,
60, Jalan Sri Hartamas 1,
50480 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-6201 5905

Paddington House of Pancakes @ Hartamas Shopping Centre and Where the Customer is Always Right

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Everyone has bad days.The past 48 hours were a culmination of several irritants which by themselves, wouldn’t have been worse than mosquito bites, but together, became cancerous to my usually pleasant demeanor.

1.

VIPs. On the road, these guys are escorted by police outriders who shoo away the irrelevant, ordinary, unimportant people to create a path, somewhat like the parting of the Red Sea, so that the sparkling, polished, heavily tinted cars carrying their precious cargo can make their way through the clear roads to their destinations, and be damned about the other folk whose lives don’t matter.

I was leaving Sri Hartamas and having a pleasant drive towards the City Centre and was approaching a fork, the left leading to Sungai Buloh/Shah Alam, and the right leading to my chosen destination. Suddenly, I was ambushed by a police outrider who forced me to move to the extreme left lane (i.e. to Sg Buloh) without giving a damn about the fact that there were no U-turns on a major highway.

Mr VIP sir, is my life that unimportant? Am I that dispensable?

2.

I had internet problems and called the service provider’s customer service.

12 midnite

Me: My DSL light is not showing. I can’t connect to the internet.

Customer Service: We’ve taken note of your complaint. Please turn off your modem and turn it on again in 15 minutes after we’ve reset your port. If the problem still persists, please call us back. Have a nice day.

8.30am

Me: I still can’t connect to the internet.

Customer Service: Yes, according to the report, your DSL light is blinking.

Me: No, my DSL light is not even showing. Please amend your report.

Customer Service: OK, will do. Please hold, I’ll connect you to a technician.

(telephone music…sound of sea and waves)

Customer Service: I’m sorry. All our technicians are currently busy. I’ll have one of them call you soon.

Me: When?

Customer Service: In 2 or 3 minutes.

10.00am

Me: Your technician hasn’t called back. I still can’t connect to the internet.

Customer Service: I’ll have a look at your report. Yes, your report says that your DSL light is blinking.

Me: No, I already told you guys that my DSL light is not showing. PLEASE amend your report.

Customer Service: OK. Haha. I guess the previous person didn’t amend the report. I’ll do it now. And hang on, I’ll connect you to the technician.

(telephone music again)

Customer Service: Sorry, they’re all busy. I’ll get one of them to call you back soon.

Me: Can you ask them to get back to me in the next hour please? It’s urgent. (I need to blog)

6.00pm

Me: Your technician hasn’t called me. What does it take to get your technician to call me? My internet connection is still down.

Customer Service: Hang on, I’ll have to look at your report. Uh huh, the report says that your DSL light is blinking.

Me: For the fourth time today, my DSL LIGHT IS NOT BLINKING. IT’S NOT EVEN SHOWING. AND WHY ISN’T YOUR TECHNICIAN RETURNING MY CALL? IS HE PLANNING ON CALLING ME IN THE NEXT DECADE OR SO, AT LEAST?

Customer Service: Hang on, I’ll connect you to our technician.

(background music to calm nerves, sound of birds chirping and sunshine everywhere)

Customer Service: I’m sorry, I can’t get through to the technician. Is it okay if I get him to return your call?

Me: NO, IT’S NOT OKAY. I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR TECHNICIAN NOW. YOU CAN’T GET HIM TO RETURN MY CALL, BECAUSE HE WON’T.

Customer Service: Yes, he will.

Me: When? At midnight when I’m fast asleep?

Customer Service: No, before that.

8.00pm

Customer Service: We’ve just reset your port. Can you try to connect now?

Me: No. I’m not at home. Besides, resetting my port didn’t help the last time.

Customer Service: Well, when you’re at home, do try to connect, and if you can’t, please call us.

The next day, at 12 noon

(ting tong – house bell sounds)

Technician at my doorstep: I’m here to look at your modem. According to your report, your DSL light is blinking and you’re not able to connect to the internet.

Me: Sigh. My DSL light is not showing at all.

Technician: Then why didn’t you say so? If your DSL light is not showing, your modem is fried. You’ll have to get a new modem. I’ll need you to sign this report to verify that I’ve visited you to attend to your problems. Have a nice day!

3.

I picked up The Star at 7.30 in the morning only to see the headlines stating that four of the giant bookstores were not going to carry Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on their bookshelves in protest of the fact that a couple of hypermarkets were selling the book at a much lower price.

Firstly, O great booksellers, I was already intending to pay a visit to your bookstore to purchase the book at the recommended retail price of RM109.90 as I’m a pretty much a lazy person who values her comfort above everything else, and rubbing shoulders with five hundred other people at the hypermarket wasn’t my idea of fun on a Saturday morning.

Instead, arrogance and a sense of self-pity prevailed and a full page ad was taken out by these bookstores. Me, I’m not loyal, you see. If you’re not selling the book, I’m not standing by your side. I’ll just get the book at Borders.

Be reminded of what happened 10 years ago when a huge hypermarket landed on our shores and decided to sell Milo at a much lower price. The local retailers were furious and refused to carry Milo in their shops, protesting against the manufacturer. What they realised later was that water would always find its natural source, and customers would always look for alternatives. The hypermarket which carried Milo at a loss didn’t end up losing; the local retailers wised up and life went on.

Later that morning, I found a tiny bookstore in Bangsar which carried the book at RM69.90. I had a pleasant chat with the lady at the counter, and we both laughed at the big boys. I even managed to get a copy of The Edge there, so all was well.

4.

We were in the mood for pancakes, so we hopped over to Paddington House of Pancakes in Hartamas Shopping Centre for a quick bite. It started out rather promising; the place was awash with sunlight, the white gleaming tabletops a welcome sight to us, 3 starving girls. Paddington was having an offer: Ladies Have It Lucky! Lucky Ladies Get A Dessert Pannekoek With Cinnamon And Sugar At Only RM5.00++ With Any Savoury Pancake Meal.

We were all having savoury pancake meals, and we sure felt lucky, so two of us ordered the RM5 dessert pancake. No problems there.

P1040310 P1040306

P1040304 P1040297

Although the Dollar Buckwheat Bruschetta was nice (and certainly, it would be sinful to go wrong with something so simple!), I thought the Fried Pancake filled with Spicy Minced Mexican Beef was rather appalling. The pancake was stuffed with a simple minced beef mix, and the entire dish lacked flavour. Salt was my best friend for the duration of the meal.

Then the trouble started.

We requested for our dessert pancakes to be served. The waitress came back and told us that the offer was one pancake for one bill, so she would have to split our bill into two. I asked if they were charging the same price. She said yes. Okay, no problems there, we figured.

A couple of minutes later, the waitress turned up again and said that her manager said that they couldn’t split the bill into two. And the offer was still the same. One offer per bill. I looked at the sign and sure enough it was a matter of interpretation. What irked me was that we weren’t informed about it earlier, when they were taking our orders that we were only entitled to ONE pancake. What further upset me was that the promotional sign was deliberately misleading. At first glance, it is easy to interpret it as one dessert pancake with one savoury pancake meal. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact that the manager was not interested in coming to our table to explain the situation to us and instead sent his pawn to defend the fort.

I was tired of all the lame explanations and cancelled the dessert orders completely.

The manager’s attempt to save the establishment RM5++ has only caused the loss of further business. And a loss of goodwill for the restaurant.

It doesn’t take a marketing person to figure that out.