Bee's Bakery

I had lunch today at Bee's Bakery in Megan Phileo Promenade. Bee's is known more for their pastry and baked goods, and having bought their breads before, I was reasonably confident that their meal menu would not be much different. I was a bit wrong.

First, when we walked into the bakery, there almost all the tables were occupied and those that were not occupied had "reserved" signs on them. But then the waitress calmly swiped away the sign from one of the tables and seated us without question even though we did mention that we didn't have a reservation. I also noticed this happening similarly to the other "reserved" tables, and it makes me wonder if the tables had been reserved in the first place or not? Secondly, I really wonder if people would actually want to reserve tables at a bakery that happens to sell food as well? It's not a fancy restaurant, you know. But I thought that I was being too critical and decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

When we placed our order, the waitress seemed to be in a great hurry, and was a tad too impatient for my liking. It's not like we took ages dithering over what to eat. Barely had she slapped down the menu on the table, she whisked out her pen and asked, "What you order?" Since it was our first time there, we all decided to order their daily set menu (which changes according to the day of the week) and today's choice was either Curry Chicken with Rice or Curry Chicken with Noodles and came with an Ice Lemon Tea. We would have liked to look at the menu a little while more to get an idea of what kind of food they served, but Ms. Impatient tugged the menu away from under my colleague's fingers (she was turning the page). How rude! My colleague was not pleased, of course.

Our drinks, the Ice Lemon Tea, came soon after and of course, with the kind of service standards we'd already received so far, another waitress just dumped three glasses onto the corner of the table nearest to her. Our cutleries were also tossed onto the table with serviettes and we had to pass them out ourselves. Already I was not liking the place more and more.

Since we had all ordered the daily set menu, you would expect the service to be prompt. After all, there isn't much to do expect scoop the rice, ladle some curry on top and serve, right? No. My Curry Chicken with Rice came after a fifteen minute wait and even then, it wasn't hot at all. Not only was it not hot, the curry was slopped onto the plate any old how and served with two miserable slices of cucumber. The chicken that I got was mostly bones with precious little flesh and only 1 1/2 pieces of potato. Even the rice was cold and hard, as if it had been cooked early in the morning and left to turn cold.

I'm sorry there aren't any pictures because I was with colleagues, and I didn't want to expose myself as a food blogger. Heh.

To imagine I paid RM 8.50 for that lunch experience! Well, unless all the restaurants in the area closed down, I certainly won't be eating there again.

And I am going to think twice before I patronize that particular branch of Bee's Bakery for my breads and pastries too.

Bee's Bakery
Block EO3, Megan Avenue 1
189, Jalan Tun Razak
50450 Kuala Lumpur

Tel : 603-2780 7018 / 012-290 0607

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rinnah's makan hut rating - * : I liked you last week, but I didn't like you this week

Chili's

I meant to pick another restaurant to finally finish off Ehon's never-ending tag, but decided to fall back on this old faithful review that I had languishing somewhere in my half-finished drafts. *grin*

The logo found on the front of Chili's menu

Anyway, Chili's is one of my family's standby restaurants when we don't really know what else to eat in 1Utama. (Unfortunately, service is not very fantastic here and they've since fallen off the list of places we dine at.) Chili's is a very Western restaurant and I tend to prefer their style of cooking over Thank God It's Fridays. We prefer the Bangsar Shopping Centre outlet for the better service and ambience, but tend to frequent the 1Utama outlet just because it's more accessible for us.

Looking inside the Chili's menu

The menu can be quite comprehensive, and burgers are highly sought after, but I normally end up eating the salads or pastas instead because that's what I prefer. The kids menu is quite value for money, because kids eat for free when the adults take any one main course. Unfortunately, when we go there with kids, the kids end up eating the adult main course and the adult ends up with the kiddy meal! *grin*

The condiments on each table at Chili's

As with most highly popular restaurants, you should be prepared to wait for a bit before you are served your food, so take your time to look around and camwhore a bit. LOL! Every Chili's outlet is quirkily decorated, just like TGIF and makes for easy conversation starters. Sometimes we order a starter just so we have something to nibble on while we wait for the mains. Like this one below...

Bottomless tostada chips with salsa and cheesy dip

A closer look at the cheesy dip for the chips

Great if you have a party of four or more because the tostada chips and the salsa dip are bottomless, meaning that you can have endless refills or as much as your tummy can hold. Unfortunately, the cheesy dip is not refillable at all, so you'll have to go easy on this one.

The Boneless Buffalo Chicken Salad

I tend to order this salad when I'm at Chili's because it's really quite good and I always feel a need for greens to go along with all the other heavier foodstuffs.

The Apartment

Inspired by Boolicious' review of The Apartment, I popped by for lunch three Saturdays ago with Mum (Dad was away at work. Heh.). I gotta say first up that if I hadn't read that foodie review, I was under the impression that it was a bar (must've been the opening weekend when I saw all the wine bottles and stuff. LOL!). There is one, but that's on the first floor. Well, back to the review!

I love the decor of The Apartment. It's got this SoHo kind of feeling - an artist's loft. It feels very homey but yet manages to feel urban chic too, if you can get my meaning. They have an interesting concept where they decorated the whole restaurant to look like an apartment, with a living room, dining room, reading nook, bathroom and bedroom!

When we went there, we were given seats in the bedroom, where they have daybeds doubling as both decor and seating. Unfortunately, there was a group of 8 - 10 youngsters celebrating a friend's birthday and after ten minutes or so of their shrieks, laughter, incessant camwhoring and walking about, we asked the hostess if we could change tables. Luckily, the restaurant was not too packed and we were escorted to a table near the reading nook where it was much better. Thumbs up for the hostess for being so understanding!

Since I've always hankered to try cooking like Jamie Oliver, I just *had* to try the Chicken in a Bag, while my Mum opted for the Baked Fish. The waiter who took our order had told us that it could take 20 - 30 minutes for the baked fish to arrive (that's what I call good training!) but to our pleasant surprise, it only took 15 minutes. Maybe because the restaurant was not that full? My chicken arrived almost immediately, because I was still busy snapping shots of the fish and the waiter offered to cut open the bag for me. I felt so special, can?

Mum felt that the fish was not bad, altho' she did ask for salt and pepper to garnish it to her liking and she thought the potatoes were a tad underdone. My only gripe about the fish was that it wasn't a fillet and you had to look out for bones whilst you ate. My chicken was yummy. It was soft and not overcooked and the cheesy gravy was just right for me. I don't like it overly cheesy because then you'll feel too full afterwards.

Since I had such a good experience there, I brought my gang there to do a farewell party for one of us. This time around, I tried Andrew's pasta. Don't ask me who Andrew is, because when I asked the waiter who it was, he had no clue either! This is strictly only for those who like pesto in their pasta. I asked for (and received!) some parmesan cheese and liberally garnished every forkful. Not because it wasn't nice, but just because I like my pastas with lots and lots of cheese. Other items tried by my friends that day include the imported mussels, Jamie's duck pasta and the steak sandwich. All in all, we had a good time there and it was voted as a "can return" restaurant.

So Ehon, after much searching, this is part four of your never-ending tag. *phew* Only one more to go, and I think I found it too. *grin*

The Apartment
G72-74 and 152
Ground Floor and First Floor
Western Courtyard
The Curve
Mutiara Damansara
Petaling Jaya

Tel No: 03 – 7727 8330


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rinnah's makan hut rating - ** 1/2 * Every (dish) tells a story, and you did it this time

I scream, you scream

If you're an ice-creamoholic, you'll be rejoicing over this ad just out from Haagen Dazs. From now until 31 October 2007, you can have all the Haagen Dazs ice cream you can eat for only RM33.90. However, this promotion is only available at Haagen Dazs Bangsar Village II on Monday to Friday between 10.30am to 10.00pm.

What are you waiting for? Go get some of that yummylicious ice cream now!

Moony over mooncakes - Part Two

Since the start of the mooncake season, I have officially tasted mooncakes from five different places and am hoping to add to my tally by the time the festival ends. This is the review of the remaining three brands...

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Six Happiness
Pandan with one yolk
I reiterate that pandan is not my favorite flavor so I may be biased towards it. However I found it to be not as good as the previous brands I've tried above. The filling was not smooth and the skin was too thick. But the pandan taste was stronger than Eastin.

Lotus paste with one yolk
The standard filling - I was rather dismayed that it was not smooth like the others and tasted rather "cheap". The skin was the thickest to date while the yolk was normal. So far, Six Happiness is the lowest ranked of the brands I've eaten this year.

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Sheraton Towers, Singapore
Lotus paste with one yolk
If Shangri-La was the Mercedes Benz, then Sheraton Towers must be the Rolls Royce. Everything about it was just perfect, except that I found the skin to be a bit on the oily side. The color of the lotus paste is a bit off-putting at first, a very off-color yellowy brown, unlike other brands' mooncakes, but if you look past that, every bite is pure heaven. It even came in a golden brocade box, you know!

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Palace Group
Shanghai style with one yolk
I'm not really too sure what the filling was for this one... it tasted like a mixture of lotus paste and yam. A bit on the rough side, but that was to be expected if the filling was yam. Because Shanghainese style mooncake is flaky like pastry, its taste is very much different from normal mooncake. I have no other brands to compare it with, so I'd say this was alright for me.


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I am glad that my discerning taste is the same as that of a panel of experts in a blind taste test conducted by the News Straits Times here.

Happy mooncake festival, everyone!

Moony over mooncakes - Part One

The mooncake festival is round the corner... how many of you have started eating your mooncakes already? I have officially tasted mooncakes from four different places and am hoping to add to my tally by the time the festival ends. Let me start by reviewing two brands...

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Shangri-La
Lotus paste with one yolk
Renowned for their mooncakes, Shangri-la can easily claim to be the best of the bunch. Dare I call them the Mercedes Benz of mooncakes? Yes. Good, smooth filling, the salted egg yolk was not dried out and crumbly, the skin of the pastry was not too thick either. The lotus paste was a tad on the sweet side though. That was the first one. The second one received one week later was a bit on the dry side, so I can only suppose that quality control was not working hard enough?

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Eastin
Green tea with one yolk
Nice smooth filling, but not as smooth as Shangri-La. The salted egg yolk was on its way to drying out, but the skin was the best. Thin and well done. There was just the barest hint of green tea taste, just enough to tickle your tastebuds into thinking "What was that?" but not strong enough to make it really good. Because the taste was so refined it was a bit blah for me.

Seaweed king with one yolk
Same as the green tea one, nice smooth filling, but not as smooth as it could be and the salted egg yolk was a mite dry. The outer skin was thin and well done. If not for the label that said it was supposed to be seaweed flavored, I would have thought I was eating a normal mooncake. No difference here.

Coffee flavor
Same as the green tea one, nice smooth filling, but not as smooth as it could be and this time no salted egg yolk. Again, the outer skin was thin and well done. There was just the barest hint of coffee taste, didn't really have the oomph I was expecting.

Lotus paste with one yolk
The best of all the Eastin flavors I tried. Again, smooth filling and the salted egg yolk was alright in this one. No exceptionally adverse comments.

Pandan with one yolk
Pandan is not my favorite flavor so I may be biased towards it. Other comments are the same as above.

Restoran Fei Loh Hokkien Mee

With a name for your restaurant like Fei Loh Hokkien Mee (literally translated as Fat Man Hokkien Mee), their signature dish had better live up to expectations or you might as well tear down the signboard. So the stakes were indeed high when I visited this restaurant some three weeks back. Did it pass the test? Well, it did alright - I've been going back there when I cannot think of what else to eat. *grin*

This restaurant is actually a branch of the original from SS2. Tucked away in an end lot on a row of new shops in Dataran Sunway, it's fair to say that very few people know of its existence. In fact, I stumbled upon it by accident too, by just cruising the shops to see if I could spy some new restaurants to try. Business should pick up once the corner 24hr Nasi Kandar restaurant (opposite the Honda showroom) opens for business. The environment is a far cry from your normal coffeeshop. Wooden tables and chairs, decorative pictures on the walls, airy, clean and bright is how the shop is. They even have music playing in the background and the staff are attentive to your calls.

The highlight of the menu is of course the hokkien mee. You can choose just mee, just meehoon or mixed. My personal favorite is the mixed mee / meehoon. The hokkien mee comes in a thick dark sauce with lots of veges, prawns, cuttlefish (aka sotong), pork and crunchy bits of pork lard. Of course, I take mine vegetarian since I can't eat all of the above! But it's still good that way, which means the cook really knows his stuff as I've gone from stall to stall searching for a cook who can still produce that hokkien mee taste even though it's vegetarian only. They have other noodle dishes on the menu like cantonese fried, etc and some fried rice dishes, but they are nothing to shout about (in fact, I wouldn't order those dishes again). So, my recommendation for this restaurant is just the hokkien mee and only that. Heh.

A small portion (for one) costs RM6.00 while a large portion costs RM10.00. Normal pricing nowadays for the Kota Damansara area, so I'm not too fussed about it although some may say it's pricey.

Other bloggers who have reviewed Fei Loh Hokkien Mee are:
~ Galvin
~ yongkailoon

Restoran Fei Loh Hokkien Mee
23-1, Jalan PJU 5/12
Dataran Sunway
Kota Damansara
Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan

Business hours: 11.30am - 12.30am, Monday - Sunday


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rinnah's makan hut rating - ** It was good, but it lacked the wow factor