Category: Food Reviews

Awesomesauce lor mee in Ulu Yam Lama.

My Mom, who is a lor mee connoisseur of sorts has been raving about this restaurant in Ulu Yam for a while. We finally got the chance to check out the place yesterday. It was about 45 minutes drive from Genting.

# – A family of cows walking along the long and winding road.

The restaurant is situated deep inside Ulu Yam Lama and if you’re not familiar with the area, I hope you’ve got a GPS unit or at least would intensely pore through Google Map.

# – Swee Yen restaurant is on the right of these row of old shops, obstructed by a tree.

The restaurant is clean and air-conditioned with seating outside.

# – Check out those cute mini fans hanging off the ceiling.

# – Brilliant way of keeping an old folding table stable.

# – Awesomesauce belacan dip.

We ordered several dishes, with the famous lor mee included of course.

# – Deep fried fish paste. Great as an appetizer, bouncy and light.

# – Kung pow sotong. The bf loved this and he doesn’t even like this type of squid much. The squid was not overcooked, the sauce lovely with a bit of kick from the sliced chillies.

# – Braised terrapin in claypot. I loved, loved, loved this. The gelatinous bits absorbed all the taste of the sauce and although we didn’t eat rice, I could wallop at least 2 bowls of rice with this dish alone.

# – The super fresh stir-fried potato leaves with garlic. Crunchy with not a single unchewable fibre!

# – The famous lor mee. True to my mom’s words, it was fantastic. The noodle was springy and apparently made by Swee Yen Restaurant itself. The uncooked noodles can also be bought from the restaurant so you can go home to make your own lor mee. The soup was surprisingly light and not at all starchy. It’s very flavourful and perfect with a dash of black vinegar. Oooh, and check those pork lard croutons out :D

The bill came to RM85 on the dot inclusive of a pot of chinese tea. Pretty cheap if you asked me. I’d love to go back again for the lor mee and braised terrapin. Damn, my stomach is growling now :(

# – Properly peeled potato leaves make all the difference.

# – Obligatory I-Was-There picture.

Swee Yen Restaurant
No 38, Jalan Besar, Ulu Yam Lama,
43300 Batang Kali,
Selangor Darul Ehsan.
Tel: 03-6075 1123
H/P: 012 360 4837

Mom’s Birthday Dinner at Woo Ga Chon Korean Restaurant

Woo Ga Chon is possibly our most favoured Korean restaurant ever. It’s located in the “Korean Village” area in Ampang. We have celebrated a lot of anniversaries, birthdays and mother/father days there. You can check out my 23rd birthday dinner there in this post. There are a few reasons why we love going there:

1. Consistency: The food is always good. There was not once we were let down by the food there.

2. Generosity: They are very generous with their free flow side dishes. On top of that, they have a good variety of them and the stuff are never boring.

3. Price: Very, very reasonably priced. In fact it’s bordering cheap, as long as you avoid ordering grilled beef that is. The fact is the pork stuff are much tastier and more satisfying :)

For mom’s birthday last month, we went to Woo Ga Chon again for a celebratory dinner.

# – As usual, the impressive array of Korean side dishes were served first. A few variations of kimchi, chili cockles, salad, blanched vegetables, you name it, they’ve got it.

# – The bibimbap. It’s made up of cooked rice topped with a variety of vegetables and meats and an egg yolk in the middle. It never gets boring eating this because every bite is different from the one before (unless you have super hand-mixing power, hehe). The mortar stays hot enough till the end and often you’d find your self with slight burnt rice crusts that are oh so delicious to nibble on!

# – Delicious kimchi soup. It’s very flavourful and packed with goodies like mushrooms, clams, tofu, radish, chillies and many more.

# – Korean pancake. This is actually my least favourite of the dishes. I found it a little bland and it’s not as crispy as I like it to be. It’s almost like eating a thinner fritata. My mom loves this though so I’d say it’s subjective, just like how people like their eggs cooked in different ways.

# – Bulgogi. The entire family including me love this. It’s a little sweet but when balanced out with some rice, it’s absolutely delicious. The sauce, the well-marinaded beef and pleasantly chewy glass noodles….yummy!

# – Grilled marinaded pork. Perfect to be eaten wrapped in lettuce and slathered with the sesame oil/plum power/salt dipping sauce. This is our staple at Woo Ga Chon.

# – Behold the star of the evening, duck bacon! I’ve never eaten duck bacon before so this was a first for me. It looked almost too beautiful to be eaten, unfortunately nothing on the table escaped me. So how was this duck bacon? It was delicious! I was expecting it to taste like pork bacon but it was surprisingly different. For one, it’s not as salty and the meat was not very tough. It’s like a cross between eating smoked and cured meat, does that make sense to you? The fatty bits really complemented the meat too, I couldn’t stop popping them into my mouth. In fact, I think this dish will be regularly ordered whenever we eat at Woo Ga Chon.

# – Dad got a little adventurous and ordered grilled beef tongues. If you’re into these sort of stuff, you should definitely order this dish. The tongues were well-marinaded and were chewy in a way obscure body parts should taste like. Dad loved it too but he didn’t eat much due to health concerns and guess who ended up finishing the entire plate of tongues? :P

# – The mom agrees :D

The bill came to a little over RM200 for 6 people and all those food. You can check out another review at: WeAteThis.com

Woo Ga Chon Korean Restaurant
G20 Jalan Sulaiman 1, Taman Putra Sulaiman,
68000 Ampang
Tel: 03-4270 4211

Italian food at Silver Spoon Trattoria, Kepong.

About 5 years ago, there was an Italian restaurant in Kepong called Chef Ken’s. We used to go to Chef Ken’s quite regularly for its nice selection of Italian food and its signature dessert, the tiramisu. The tiramisu was so good it could rival the stuff you get from fine dining establishment, so imagine our happiness when one day, after a call to the restaurant for a reservation, we were told that the restaurant had shifted to somewhere even closer to where we live, at Desa Parkcity’s Waterfront. It had been renamed as La Casa.

With excitement, we went to La Casa but to our disappointment, the quality of food just wasn’t there anymore. Alas, we left La Casa thinking perhaps Chef Ken had lost his mojo.

The truth emerged when we were invited to a food review at Silver Spoon in Bandar Manjalara.

# – Silver Spoon.

While I was happy that a new Italian joint has taken roots in Kepong, I was even more delighted when I heard that Chef Ken had actually sold off his restaurant to La Casa and had taken a position at Silver Spoon. So he never really lost his mojo, he just wasn’t there to begin with, haha.

# – Chef Ken.

Silver Spoon is a very nicely decorated restaurant. The interior is modern & classy but yet feels very cosy.

# – Interior of Silver Spoon.

It has an open kitchen, where you can watch your food expertly prepared by Chef Ken and his staff.

# – Open kitchen.

One of the appetizers served was Arrancini. Arrancini are deep-fried Italian rice balls stuffed with smoked salmon and brie. I really enjoyed this as the rice balls were crispy on the outside but juicy & cheesy on the inside. I think the amount of smoked salmon in the rice balls was just nice as too much of the salty smoked fish would render the rice balls inedible.

# – Arrancini. They were also deep fried mozarella sticks on the side which were truly heaven sent for cheese lovers like myself.

Then there was stuffed portobello mushrooms. I really love mushrooms but I never really like portobellos. I know it’s a tasty mushroom but my experiences with them so far had always rendered me unable to bring myself to order anything portobello related. The reason? Well, portobellos were always cooked in a way where the liquid in them were never properly drawn out. I guess by undercooking them you may get beautiful, plump mushrooms on your plate but as soon one bites onto it, there’s always a burst of unsavoury liquid in your mouth. I really do not like that part of eating a portobello :P

Fortunately at Silver Spoon, the portobellos are properly cooked till they’re shrunk and full of real body. The stuffings, made of breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and herbs were really delicious and went really well the the mushrooms. In fact, I think it might be the best dish at the review!

# – Stuffed portobellos.

The prawn and avocado stack was what you’d refer to as a great idea. The idea of it was so delicious; rich, creamy avocado paired off with freshly grilled prawns? My mouth waters at the sound of it. However, the truth was I felt the prawns were slightly overcooked. The dish wasn’t bad at all, no, no, but I personally feel that it would hit a new level of awesomesauceness had the prawns were not overcooked. So I only had a piece of prawn but I totally devoured the rest of the dish.

# – Prawn & avocado stack.

Over and done with appetizers, lets move on the the main courses. To me, eating pizza is enjoying the entire combination of the crust, sauce and ingredients. Just because it doesn’t have a lot of the ingredients in its official name does not mean it’s a bad pizza. Do you want to eat meatballs pizza or do you want to eat meatballs?

So how’s the smoked salmon pizza at Silver Spoon? Nice, crispy thin crust, checked. Abundance of capers, checked. Brie, avocados, smoked salmon, checked, checked, checked. Basically, you won’t go wrong ordering pizzas at Silver Spoon :D

# – Smoked salmon pizza.

Now the part that appeals to the chinese in me. Rice! I love, love, love risotto. It’s so rich, creamy and decadent. Throw in a couple of porcini mushrooms? You got yourself a slave, baby.

The risotto was cooked just right, not too creamy like it’s eating Goldilocks’ gruel or too hard you might as well stick to Jasmine grains. The abundance of meaty porcinis really made the dish :)

# – Wild mushroom risotto.

An Italian dinner would not be complete without some pasta eh? So we were served some spaghetti marinara which was delicious. The sauce was not too tart and all the seafoods were not overcooked. The white wine also gave the dish a kick it needs in an otherwise boring choice.

# – Spaghetti marinara.

When we first saw the menu, we were all looking forward to the duck confit. A duck’s leg slowly cooked in its own fat served with polenta and orange campari sauce, sounds heavenly! In reality, I found the duck and polenta a little dry till I realised I had forgotten to pour the sauce all over it. My bad :P After I did that, the dish transformed into proper comfort food and I wish I had more belly space to accommodate it.

Finally, it’s dessert time! I was looking forward to the tiramisu and when it arrived I almost did not take picture of it :P As soon as I popped a spoonful into my mouth, I knew Chef Ken was back. It was just like how I remembered it; not too sweet, creamy but light. It was beautiful…

# – Tiramisu.

The chocolate pot deserves another mention but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why I hadn’t taken any picture of it. It was gooey bitter chocolate goodness, very tasty. In fact, I think it could very well hold its own against the tiramisu.

# – Full & happy people; God, Horng, Haze, KY, Jessica (Silver Spoon’s lady boss), Joe and partner (hidden), Cheng Yi, Rebecca’s bf and Rebecca.

# – And one with the slim head, please head on to Cheng Yi’s post for reference.

So yeah, I had a wonderful time at Silver Spoon. I’ll definitely go back there again especially since it’s only 10 minutes drive from where I live. The food and drinks are reasonably priced but most importantly all bear the marks of Chef Ken’s, whom we had genuinely thought we’ve lost ;)

Silver Spoon Trattoria (above AmBank),
1st Floor, Wisma Manjalara,
Bandar Menjalara,
52200, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-6277 0445