Restaurant Andes, Aman Suria Damansara

To follow up on my promise of more porky post, I've decided to write on Andes.
Andes is located in a spot which I called "cursed" spot.
Why? The same location have been changing restaurant (owners) for many years and when Andes took over and opened it's doors, I felt it may just share the same fate.
The skeptic in me just refuse to try the food..since it always looked quite empty (in the evening). One day, Alicia told me that when she googled "Best pork burger" in Klang Valley, the most talked about place was Andes.
Really? Well, it still didnt motivate me to try it :p
It took another post in the papers and Ho Chiak on it's burger that I finally decided to pop over.
Ordering was prompt, since our main aim was the Pork Burger (RM13.90).
The menu offers mainly pork dishes, with a handful of fish, beef and chooks mains.
We were extremely hungry, but a mistake in ordering by the waitress costs me a 35 mins waiting time for my burger (and we were the first customer to order- a couple came later). :(

What caught my immediate attention was the thickness of the pattie. Almost 2 inches in height, this must be the thickest pork burger pattie I've seen. The shape of the pattie was rather rotund, there was no way I could take all in with one bite..

Have to use the knife and fork to cut it into dainty pieces....

And wahlah, gooey, melting cheese flowed freely and quickly- I hardly had time to snap a picture. So, was the purported 'best pork burger' really that fantastic? Well, I must say that the pattie was extremely juicy- quite a feat since the pattie was so thick. The pork was minced, not too finely, so we still get bits to chew, which I quite enjoyed. The cheese on the other hand, added more richness and flavour to the burger.
I wont say Andes makes the best pork burger- I find the pattie too thick with so much pork that it took quite an effort to finish it (Alicia cant even finish her portion- she said it was very 'jelak').
Will I order again? I doubt it.
But I'll come back and try other dishes which caught my eye..
We ordered dessert to 'cleanse' our palette..
Cookies and Cream cheese cake (RM7.90)
The base was too hard and the cheesecake had too much gelatine in it. Not that good.

Restaurant Andes is located at K-G-11, Jalan PJU 1/43, Aman Suria Damansara, 47301 Petaling Jaya.

Pork Place, Bandar Puchong Jaya

It was for my belated birthday treat.

A couple of my friends decided to feed me pork, somehow I exuded porkiness and keenness for porcine... haha

And so we trooped over to Pork Place, brought to us by the same owner of Sanbanto.

I expected a rather similar menu per Sanbanto's but nope, not the same at all.

Pork Place seems to focus towards fusion Japanese, which we ordered a few to sample...

The Sliced Pork Belly Salad..

A rather generous portion of greens served with slices of pork belly, ebiko and topped with goma sauce. The goma sauce definitely heightens the otherwise mild flavoured salad. It's enjoyable, but I still prefer Sanbanto's Pork belly salad.

The Grilled Pork belly with linguine (RM24) was served almost immediately with the salad..

Served alfredo with peas, the pasta was pretty decent. I do find it a tad bland, but hey, less salt in our diet is always good, no?

The Breaded Pork with Japanese curry served with spiralini was the least popular..
Sounds adventurous but the flavours just don't gel together. The curry was runny, the breaded pork was a dry and the pasta just cant absorb any of curry sauce to it.

Luckily for us, the Pork Loin steak was the saving grace..

Though it's the most expensive dish on the menu (RM45) the pork was wonderfully prepared- slightly crisp and charred on the inside while the meat remains succulent. It was served with black pepper sauce which I find absolutely redundant as the pork loin was well marinated and tasted lip smacking on its own. The side dishes were tasty too, an added bonus.

We actually had the bacon and cheese burger too, which, for the life of me, could not figure out why I didnt take a picture of. The burger pattie was not the usual coarse ground pork version, but smooth pattie ala pork sausage. It was quite nice, but not as fantastic as others raved about.
If I really had to choose between Sanbanto and Pork Place, I'd go for Sanbanto. Though it paled in ambiance, I prefer Sanbanto's menu.

Pork Place is located at 31, IOI Boulevard, Jalan Kenari 5, Bandar Puchong Jaya.

Euro Deli, Damansara Kim

A pleasant, family place for some porcine goodness at a reasonable price, Euro Deli has always enjoyed a steady stream of loyal customers.

A not so loyal customer like yours truly, aherm, only popped by recently hearing that the damansara kim branch went through renovation and is a much larger restaurant now. And I was pleasantly surprise that now it does look like a proper family restaurant, seating more than double it's previous size.

As we were still full from lunch, we could only manage a main each, no starters nor desserts.

Some hot rolls on the house while waiting for our mains..

Soft bread with lightly salted butter.

It didnt take that long for our mains to arrive..
I had the Emmenthaler Sausage (pork sausage), RM19

Came in 2 nice, plump pork sausages and 3 sides. The sausages was delicious, it was not too salty and oozing with light cheese filling. The sides, which was usually unappreciated, won us over with it's simple (not too sour) sauerkraut, good sampling version of potato egg salad and coleslaw.

Amy ordered a Pork Chop (RM23)

Thick slab of pork chop smothered with creamy mushroom sauce. The pork chop was solid, with the right amount of chewiness and was quite juicy. The sauce was an excellent accompaniment to the pork, we almost lapped everything up :p

I'm glad that Euro Deli's food still remains satisfactory even though I've not stepped in for ages. Amy, who have never tried Euro Deli's selection before was suitably impressed.

Euro Deli is located 41, Jalan ss20/11, Damansara Kim. They have other branches around PJ and KL too.

Jonker's other trail, Melaka, Part 1

When one is in Melaka, it's inevitable that you'll end up at Jonker's Street one way or another.

But I was bored of the usual Jonker fare. No more chicken rice. No more long queue for sticky cendol. And brief check in magazines and googling, we got some new places to try, all within or near Jonker, you can easily walk over to..

We popped by Lorong Hang Jebat, just off Jonker, to try some mee sua soup...

We ordered a large bowl of mee sua soup (RM9) to share, since we already had lunch..

The mee sua was smooth and slippery, the soup was light and had the pork sweetness infused into the soup. Main ingredients for this mee sua was pork- we got sliced pork, minced pork, pork liver and intestines. It was pretty satisfying to me, but for those who liks strong flavoured food, you may find this rather bland.

Men being men, how can they be satisfied with just mee sua although they had lunch already right?

Andrew and jeremy insisted we should have some oyster omelette and special pork ribs for snacking..yeah yeah..

We got the oyster omelette and we were like..what the??

No bumpy surface to indicate any presence of oysters. I took a bite and could not detect any oysters. Heck, I think I bit into some egg shells.. :(. After wondering much on the oysters, we realised those crackly bits in the omelette were oysters. It's just so tiny that we didnt realised it's oysters...How tiny? Many the picture can give an indication..

After the disappointing oyster omelette, we got out special pork ribs..

Hey, but this looks like hainanese pork chop! Albeit a huge plate of it. The pork was ok, quite tender and crunchy. The thick sauce was quite tasty though, nicer than Yut Kee's. What I enjoyed most in this dish was the potatoes. Absolutely yummy, the texture was powdery soft.

Jeremy got a call from his mum, a request to buy back some nyonya chang.

My mum wants some nyonya chang..bak chang right? he said.

But why you wanna get bak chang in Melaka when there's nyonya chang?

Aint it the same?

Only then I realised most of them have not tried a nyonya chang before.

Lucky us, just a few shops away, there's a tiny shop selling nyonya dumplings..

They were making it fresh, so we tried the nyonya chang (RM3.80)..

Andrew, whose grandma is a nyonya and makes good nyonya chang, said this was acceptable. I have been eating homemade nyonya chang since I was a kid as my aunt's a nyonya thought this was just ok. Not as nice as homemade ones, this was filled with lots of ingredients- generous amount of diced pork, mushrooms and winter melon, but I find the filling slightly pasty/ powdery and sweet. Overall still acceptable if you do crave for nyonya chang and there's no nyonya relatives preparing it for you :p

A pleasant suprise came in the form of durian cendol..

The cendol shaved ice was topped with lots of durian paste/ sauce, enveloping the whole dessert with it's heady aroma. No complaints here, the sweetness was just perfect, the fibrous durian bits was delicious. Much nicer compared to Jonker 88 and Tan Kim Hock's durian cendol.

Pin Pin Hiong is located at the T junction between Lorong Hang Jebat and Jalan Tukang Besi, 75200 Melaka. Just next to the famed Orang Utan mural.

East & West Rendezvous (durian cendol and nyonya chang) is located at 60, Lorong Hang Jebat, 75200 Melaka.