Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Malaysian @ Malay Village

Being a Malaysian, having a feast at a Malaysian restaurant is always a delight, although I do get a bit more critical than usual. So for lunch one day, a friend and I went to Malay Village in Chinatown Sydney. This place is diagonally opposite to the crazily popular Mamak. It serves more variety than Mamak and yet is quite empty whilst Mamak has a continuous line outside the shop right opposite.

The reason was clear why this was so. The food is significantly more expensive and I am not sure if it is necessarily of better quality.

Otak-otak
For entree, we had Otak-otak ("brains"), which is a savoury cake made of fish and spices. It tasted good but the portion definitely could have been more generous.




Roti Canai








A Malaysian meal is not complete without roti!  Strangely, the roti was served in a ball haha... normally, roti is crispy, flaky and flat... the taste was not bad but it definitely didn't have the texture that I was looking for... can't recommend it unfortunately... the curry sauces were watery and they didn't serve dhal curry which is my favourite type of curry that goes best with roti
Penang Char Kuay Teow




One of the most popular and my favourites is Char Kuay Teow. This one tasted quite good especially considering that it didn't have any pork lard in it. The price for the noodles was a bit steep though. At $14.90, I reckon it should be 2 or 3 bucks less.
 
Nasi lemak
We tried another classic Malaysian dish, nasi lemak with beef rendang. This tasted quite good but again, I will be able to get this in another store for at least 3 bucks less. The piece of egg given was a tiny eighth of a full egg. Not very impressed I was.


For dessert, I tried the cendol, which is a green dessert originating from Southeast Asia. It is served with coconut milk, brown sugar and red bean sometimes. This dish was decently good. Not the best I have tasted but I can't complain.

My friend got the pandan sago. Pandan is a leaf that is fragrant and used as flavour for many Asian desserts and even used to cook nasi lemak. This dish again was very small, although because it is quite rich the size may be enough for most people. Still, it wouldn't hurt for the restaurant to be a bit more generous in its serving size.
Rating

Food: Tasty and authentic. As a Malaysian, I couldn't complain really.

Ambience:

Sitting outside in the fresh air on elevated grounds of Chinatown is a luxury that is not easily found in the area.


Value: Poor value for money, when comparing to other Malaysian restaurants

Nutritional value: The ingredients seemed reasonable in quality, but being Malaysian it is not particularly highly nutritious given the high carb and sugar content.

Overall: Not dazzling but quite deelicious...

Malay Village on Urbanspoon

Monday, June 10, 2013

Breakfast @ XXII

On a public holiday Monday noon, a girlfriend and I caught up in our local breakfast institution... XXII... been here a couple of times and must say that althought it serves decently good food, there is nothing to wow about... one of the pluses was that we were not charged a public holiday surcharge.

Coffee and tea were good with nothing to complain about... service on the other hand was a bit questionable in quality... the waitress who looked like she is Eastern European was not friendly and was speaking to us in tone that felt agressive (although it could just be the accent)... we asked to have 2 little plates to eat on as we were sharing our food but when the food came, she insisted that we removed those plates as the table would be too crowded... we didn't mind having a crowded table and she was probably right that it would be better without the plates but the way she told us what we should do made us feel like it was a bit rude... We were asked a couple of times if we were done with our food when clearly I was still eating

Big Breakfast - mushrooms missing
I had the big breakfast... It was definitely big but it promised mushrooms but didn't have any... the sourdough bread was cut too thick and so I could only chew off half of one slice... the sausage was not very tasty... the hash brown was delicious... overall, it was edible but nothing to write home about...

 







Breakfast stack - weirdly placed on side of plate
My girlfriend had the breakfast stack which had poached eggs, haloumi, avocado, tomatoes on sourdough bread... it tasted good... but was placed weirdly on one side of the plate, which showed the lack of care for the presentation... it wasn't even a busy day so there wasn't a good reason for this








Rating

Food: Good but nothing to write home about



Ambience: Situated in a nice old building in an open space
              

Value: Big breakfast for $16 and breakfast stack for $15.50... pretty good value
              

Nutritional value: Couldn't taste very fresh ingredients but meal was quite balanced nonetheless
              

Overall: Not dazzling but quite deelicious

Cafe XXII on Urbanspoon


Thursday, June 6, 2013

Appalling rip off @ The Century

This experience was the worst dinner I have ever had.  We were on a company dinner and paid $80 per person. There were 50 of us and all up we spent $5000 here and all of us could not give it more than a 3 out of 10! Where do I even begin...

Firstly, we had to wait for ages before food started to be served. When you go to a chinese restaurant, where you sit with a turntable, you expect to be eating lots and be very satisfied, especially if you are paying $80pp! Totally opposite! Food came out to us and were apportioned and each of us got a tiny bit of everything

We had a couple of pieces of cucumber, a piece of pancake, a tasteless san choy bow, a couple of pieces of beef, Mongolian lamb (like seriously of all dishes this???), tasteless fried rice, 3 pieces of brocolli, 3 pieces of snow peas, 2 pieces of roast chicken, a spoonful of steamed fish and 2 small pieces of crab. For dessert, we had a fruit platter and cookies.

The food arrived at different pace. The service was bad, one of us was vegetarian and wanted to have a look at the menu to get his food and was refused.

None of the food tasted great. We felt so hungry after the meal. There are no photos I can post up because we didn't get a proper plate of food on the turntable!

Rating

Food: Mostly tasteless, poor!






Ambience: We had our own private room, the only saving grace about this place
 


Value: Worst rip off ever!






Nutritional value: Hungry at the end of it






Overall: Not dazzling and not deelicious!

The Century on Urbanspoon