Les Toasts Bakery, Bandar Puchong Jaya

When Gary brought us over to Les Toasts for the first time, I thought it was like any other bakery in town..

And as we approcahed the bakery, I could see that it's rather pack; business was good.

It was quite easy to identify the bakery's specialities, they make no qualms on highlighting it.

The Bamboo Charcoal Bread, which was supposed to be good for removing toxin from the body looks like a popular choice..

Though it looks rather greyish and dried up; it tasted like normal bread, texture was slightly chewy. Not too sure if any toxins were purged the next day though :p

The Japanese Chocolate Chiffon Cake

This was excellent. The cake was airy and melts-in-mouth immediately. The chocolate flavour had hints of bitterness, making this cake a breeze to eat for not being overly sweet. Very scrumptious indeed.

I noticed Les Toasts has a range of interesting stuff like Squid Ink Baguette, Yeast Free Bread, Takana Marble bread and Green Tea Azuki muffin. Will try those on my next visit.

Les Toasts Bakery is located at 05-01, Jalan Kenari 18B, Bandar Puchong Jaya, 47100 Puchong, Selangor.

Fitou, Desa ParkCity Waterfront

When I first went to Desa ParkCity Waterfront one late evening, I checked out the restaurants there and Fitou was the first place I'd like to have my meal..

Reason? Looks like they had the nicest looking alfresco dining compared to the other restaurants.

And as if the heavens above was pulling my leg; it was pouring heavily when I finally decided to dine at Fitou. :(

This was how it looks like on a misty, rainy night..

Since it's a cold night, we started off with some soup to warm us..

The mushroom soup(RM16)..

Thick blend of chopped fresh mushrooms with a thread of cream. Most unfortunately they were heavy on the pepper; doused most of the flavour of the soup.

Confetti Seafood Chowder (RM18)

One word. Sour. My tolerance for sour stuff has always been low. And having this soup was rather hard to..erm..swallow. Even Dragon girl, who likes sour stuff said that this was way sour. Seafood sweetens it? Nah...

Fitou's Feta Cheese Salad..

Fresh lettuce topped with lots of pork belly, cheese shavings and a sliver of mid grade anchovy. We enjoyed the salad; sans the anchovy which was extremely salty and fishy (which dragon girl avoided like a plague).

Grilled Prawn Bacon tapas (RM18)..

We were expecting nicer presentation. Oh well. Simple grilled prawn wrapped with pork bacon and a dollop of BBQ-ish sauce. Quite tasty.

Spicy pork sausage (RM12)

Lived up to it's name, it's spicy alright. The bird's eye chilli added enough kick to an ordinary pork sausage.

Sauteed mushroom..

Served compressed in a small cup. Well, at first I thought it was small. After picking on the mushrooms for a while, it was quite generous actually :p. Again, too heavy on the pepper.

The manager's recommendation

Iberico Back Ribs (RM45)
For that price, we got a long rib and 2 measly short ones. A tad pricey me thinks. The rib were juicy with lovely charred sides; the sauce was not needed actually. El cerdo's iberico was nicer though.

The seafood paella for 2 (RM70)..

A generous amount of prawns, mussels, squids, pork sausages, and chicken. Alas, it was only an average dish- the rice was too wet, the sausages very salty and the chicken had the freezer taste.

The spaghetti meatballs (RM18)

Came with 5 rather large beef balls. The meatballs were very flavourful and well marinated; and rather moist. The pasta texture was ok, but the sauce was again extremely sour! So sour that we could not finish this. I believe it's the same base they used for the soup. :(

Oh, we skipped desserts as all looks horrendous (it was displayed in the wine room)

Overall, I find the food mediocre. The only reason I'll revisit would be for the nice ambiance, lovely place to chill with family and friends.

Fitou is located at Lot GF2, The Waterfront @ Park City, 5 Persiaran Resdien, Desa Park City, KL.

Kimchi Korean Restaurant, Tropicana City

An unexpected visit to Tropicana City led us to Kimchi Restaurant, it was still brunch time and I was not too sure I was up for korean for brunch time.

Nonetheless we stepped in; being the first customer has it's perks I guess. The service was pretty good.

some drinks while waiting for our food..

The Korean Plum tea.

I didnt like it; reminds me of the cough medicine I had when I was young. BQ liked it though..

There were 4 types of side dishes. A lil less compared to other restaurants..Boring selection too.

Complimentary pan fried dumplings..

Juicy, moist center and crisp skin. Pretty good.

The beef bibimbap

Somehow, this felt like fast food korean. The ingredients looked unrefined and prepared haphazardly, i could even see 2 of the side dishes served earlier also served in my bibimbap. :(. Taste wise, it's average.

The sizzling chicken ..

BQ enjoyed it; the chicken was tender and the sauce gets spicier with every bite. I felt it was more chinese- aka chinese hot plate spicy chicken.

Overall an average experience that does not render a revisit from me.

Kimchi Korean Restaurant, L1-57, First Floor, Tropicana City Mall, PJ.

Cameron Highlands, Part 2, Pahang

Totally slipped my mind on part 2 of Cameron Highlands..
Which was my other meals at Cameron... :p

And back to Cameron we go...
By the time we reached Cameron, it was almost lunch time.
There's a row of restaurants in the middle of Brinchang town and we settled for OK Tuck; a place where Vincent and gang always popped by for a meal.

Since we're up here, and Cameron's known for it's fresh veggies, we had a variety of local produce..

The Stir Fried Mixed Mushroom

A good mix of oyster, shitake, straw mushrooms and chopped vegetables was served piping hot. The dish was tasty as the sauce was very light- letting us savour the woody flavour of the mushrooms.

Vince and Steph wanted the stir fried bitter gourd with chicken and fremented black beans..Decent dish; the bitter gourd was fresh, just a tad bitter. The sauce was average though.
The stir fried brinjalThis was an excellent dish and my favourite. It had wonderful wok hei; the brinjal was slightly caramelised but still tender soft inside. A bit oily, but still a hit with us nonetheless. So tasty that we ordered 2 plates of this :)

The sweet and sour spare ribs was absolutely disappointing though..

Meat was dry, hard and lacked marination. Enough said.

The venision with ginger fared better

Meat was tender, served with lots of fat, juicy sprigs of spring onions. Pretty nice.

We were out and about in the afternoon...

And soon after, it's dinner time..

As predictable as can be; yes, we had steamboat :p

I mean, it's only natural for us to go for ta pin lou on such a cold weather right?

We had our steamboat at Strawberry View

I was very glad to see that there were plates and plates of fresh vegetables for the steam boat. Water cress, siu bak choy, mushrooms, cabbages etc were served with some meat and seafood to make the soup sweeter. Must be one of the healthiest steamboat I've had. The herbal soup was tasty, tom yam was not impressive.

Great way to warm our bodies (and bellies) on such a windy, chilly night :)

OK Tuck
26, Jalan Besar, Brinchang, 39100 Cameron Highlands, Pahang

Strawberry View Cafe& Restaurant
Lot KF/04, Kea Farm 39100, Cameron Highlands, Pahang. Nearby Equatorial Hotel.

A day with the floggers..

Initially started off with Precious Pea's promise to bring WMW and Nic to try the pan mee; the end result turned out to be a large group of floggers joining her on a food crawl instead :)

We started our first stop, Kung Fu Smooth Pan Mee...

Boo and Nic were already there, we promptly rearranged the tables to fit in everyone and placed our orders..

Obviously noisy since there were 14 of us, and much more havoc ensued the moment the food was served..the number of DSLRs whipped out was quite a scene..hehe (p/s Jason, where's the 'shaolin masters' picture? :p)

I had the soup pan mee, as I wanted to try the soup base. It's very tasty, the soup had the anchovies sweetness and the mince meat added further flavour to the soup. I tried Jason's soup served with dry pan mee and we both agreed that the soup in my pan mee was more flavourful. The pan mee here was hand pulled, it's broader than normal pan mee and most length wise were about a feet long. The texture was springy and smooth, and the condiments of fried anchovies, mince meat and veggies goes nicely with this pan mee.

We had additional order of pandan chicken. Was average; though it's juicy, I find the marination lacking.

Floggers being floggers, how can one meal suffice?

And so we moved on to Restoran Yang Kee..

One our way there, Pea mentioned that we must not order the noodles, as they have changed supplier recently and the noodles was a no-no. Most unfortunately, we were one of the last to arrive, and the others were already there and ordered their bowl of noodles. We decided to share some loh shu fun, mixed beef and pork parts and braised beef with radish. The loh shu fun was ok, the mince meat (paste?) was slightly gooey. The mixed beef and pork parts were mediocre too. Pea recommended the braised beef, and after a spoonful, she said it was no longer that good :(. I did try, the beef was tender and the radish soft; just that the sauce lacked that 'kick' we were looking for..

The group split after that; some went off, others in search of the nice buttercake at the pasar pagi nearby..

Pea, WMW, Jason, J2kfm, Nic, Simon and I decided for some K session instead. And such wonderful voices they have, I was throughly entertained by the very serious and professional singing (floggers have excellent voice i tell ya!). Of course Simon's dancing added in much laughter and cheers ;p

After karaoke? It's tea time, what else?

Popped over to Otak otak place, which we had some grilled otak otak, steamed otak otak and cucur otak otak. The otak otaks had soft-tofu like texture , with visible chunks of fish (esp the steamed ones). I find it ok, I'd fancy a more solid texture in my otak otak. The cucur was oily and a tad hard though.

Did we continue with more food crawl after that? No la. Floggers also needed a break. Well, maybe an hour or so before I continue for dinner :p

It was nice meeting the rest (some for the first time); citygal, tankiasu, meng keat, food cookies, the nomad gourmand and unkaleong.

And thanks Pea for taking the time to arrange this (esp logistically!). xoxo

Kung Fu Smooth Pan Mee

28, Jalan Seri Sentosa 9A/ 133, Taman Sri Sentosa, Bt 6 1/2, Jalan Klang Lama, KL.

Restoran Yang Kee

52, Jalan Hujan Rahmat 2, Taman UOG, Jalan Kelang Lama, KL.

Otak Otak Place

One Utama (New Wing), 311B, Lower Ground Oval. Near Cold Storage.

Au Revoir Bollywood Queen

After a tumulous, uncertain direction from her company, Bollywood Queen was the 'lucky' one to be posted (more likely forced upon) out station indefinitely.... a smaller, less vibrant town for such a drama queen I guess.

I knew she was not looking forward to it; I was not either...she was one of my usual hang-out makan kaki :(

Not to make her farewell somber, we decided to sign up for a nibbleish adventure (as recommended in cumi&ciki)....in which I was very certain that Bollywood Queen would enjoy tremendously.

What's nibblish? BQ asked

This allows us to taste different food at different restaurant- all located within walking distance..

That is so cool dude!

And so we selected the Jalan Bangkung combo at Bangsar..

We started off our appetizers at Cava..

The tapas platter consists of mushroom bruschetta, spanish lamb boulette and prawn pil pil. Cute presentation and very tasty; the ladies enjoyed this tremendously. The smoked salmon salad with mayo, pomelo and citrus dressing was refreshing and tangy; we liked it too. Cauliflower soup was a less popular option though; most didnt like the flavour. I find it ok, not that bad.

All this while, BQ was regaling us with her many tales, leaving everyone with guffaws of laughters...

We adjourned next for our mains at The Tasting Room..

Still loud and boisterous, we make our way upstairs and gosh, it was so quiet! The other tables were just quiet and eating their meals....Except for us :p

Main course was Roasted Cod fish-served on squid ink pasta, sundried tomatoes, asparagus and cepes volute sauce; Roasted Lamb Rack- on new potatoes, garden veg and lam jus; and Pan Fried Angus tenderloin- served on mushroom risotto, veg and portobello confit with carbenet reduction. I liked the juicy cod in which flakes nicely, but the pasta was way too salty. Lamb rack was mediocre. Angus was tender and moist; goes prettily with the creamy risotto.

By now, amy was already stuffed, while the rest of us?

Well, we're ready for desserts!

And we scooted over to Leonardo's for desserts..

We had all 3 choices; the Affagato, Waffles and homemade Tiramisu. The Affogato was cooling and not too sweet. Would have preferred a stronger dose of kahlua. The Tiramisu was fresh and moist, though we felt more alcohol would have enhanced this piece of cake. The Waffles on the other hand, was a big hit; have the warm waffles with ripe grilled bananas, bits of crunch from the almond slivers, drizzled it with syrup and a dollop of smooth vanilla gelato and the ladies mouth were shut (for a while) :p

It was good fun, I'm glad Bollywood Queen enjoyed herself that night. And all for RM70 per person. Dear BQ, hope all is well over there now? Who knows, maybe you'll learn to enjoy the slower paced, less dramatic town? :p Yes, yes, we know you'll be back.

Cava

71, Jalan Bangkung, Bukit Bandaraya

Tasting Room

65-1 (1st Floor), Jalan Bangkung, Bukit Bandaraya

Leonardo's

61-1, Jalan Bangkung, Bukit Bandaraya.

Restoran Makanan Laut Zhen Liew Siang, Sentul Raya

It was raining heavily.

Followed by a horrendous jam, near accident and a series of lost and finally found, Vincent eventually managed to lead us there.

We were having the famed Sentul pork knuckle, something that Vincent had mention for umpteen times until we were so sick of it.

Vince didnt take too long to order; he knew what he wanted us to try..

Of course the first dish we had was the pork knuckle..

The large pork knuckle was served on a creamy concoction, so that the skin at the top part remains crisp. The skin was thin and crisp, like those you get on suckling pg. As it's served immediately after deep frying, the layer of fat underneath the skin was melt-in-mouth and the meat was moist and tender. The accompanying sauce was heavy; creamy sour plumish-cream based. A wee bit of sauce complements the meat; too much and it gets way too rich.

Most unfortunately, I didnt know what was ordered (i went to the ladies); I was in for a very sinful meal that night.

Next up was the seafood with special sauce serve on hot plate.

Consisting of squids and prawns, it's served piping hot with spicy cream sauce which was very tasty at the first bite. But as I took more of it, it gets rather taxing for the tastebuds.

Luckily I got a break with some stir fried vegetables..

Simple, light and sweet.

Alas, my light dish was short lived when they placed a huge claypot of curry fish head right in front of me.

Vincent was happily tucking in, very satisfied with this dish. I, on the otherhand, find the curry diluted while Jo said the fishiness was too much for her. An average curry in my opinion.

I guess if I do come for a meal again; I'll order lighter dishes to complement the knuckle. This meal was just too overwhelming for me :p

Total bill was RM102 inclusive of drinks.

Restoran Makanan Laut Zhen Liew Xiang is located at 30, Jalan 14/48A, Sentul Raya, Off Jalan Sentul, 51000 Kuala Lumpur.

Restoran Kudu Bin Abdul, Jalan TAR

Geraldine asked Diha and me along for Kudu recently; it's famed for it's nasi kandar, but it seemed quite far, hence I never went over for a meal before this. We walked from our office, and after crossing a few shortcuts, we realised that Kudu was actually very nearby! Hehehe.....

It was a humid day, but it was already full house at Kudu.. and it was not even 12:30 at that time. So we queued patiently..under the hot sun and finally we reached the counter..

One look and you'll know what's popular here..those deeper trays that carries spicy chicken, curry fish and sauces.

Ordering was brisk, the person serving had no time for small talk..

Apa you mau? Apa you mau?

Ini, itu...sikit...separuh...cukup, cukup, Cukup!

And my end result..

I had the spicy chicken, 1 small chunk of daging kicap, some boiled ladies fingers, cucumber pineapple pickle, and very spicy chutney..The spicy chicken was very well marinated and tasty; the exterior was rather dry, but had absorbed the spices, while the meat was sweet and springy to the bite. The daging kicap was tender and soaked with flavours, and I liked the fact that I could order just one small chunk for "cuba rasa" (to taste) :p. The sauces smothering the rice was also very rich and delicious; making us sweat buckets, but we just continued savouring this yummy meal.

I cant recall the exact price I paid, it was about RM8+ inclusive of drinks.

Restoran Kudu bun Abdul is located at No. 335, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, 50100 Kuala Lumpur. It's a corner shop facing the Honda Showroom, the same corner before you turn into Kin Kin Pan Mee. Do try to come before 12:30, else be prepared to queue under the hot sun for at least 10-15 minutes.