Ore9i

The name of this place is rather cumbersome to pronounce - Ore9i - ore nine i. What a name for a restaurant. Unique, no doubt. But imagine - "Where shall we go for dinner tonight?". "Ore nine i." So for convenience, most people apparently substitute a "g" for the "9" and call the place "Oregi". The restaurant serves western and arabic cuisines.

The place is located on No 44, Jalan SS15/4B in Subang Jaya. It caters to a young crowd. When I was there, I felt a bit out of place, even with my family beside me, for the people surrounding us were all so young. A lot of them were apparently from the nearby universities and colleges.

A lot of the students go there to smoke the shisha. This place apparently offers shishas at cheap prices. I don't know if that is a good thing for our young people. When we were there I noticed a young girl sitting alone with a laptop nonchalantly smoking away, in a world of her own. 

This restaurant is very simply furnish. No attempt was made to decorate the place. No pretence to sophistication or exclusiveness. Just simple table and chairs. In this way, they manage to keep their food prices to very reason levels. I guess they succeed in meeting the requirement of budget-minded students and young adults.

Crystal, representative of the generation who frequent this place, did the meal orders. The first to arrive on our table was this arabic style mixed grill. In the plate were pieces of heavily marinated beef and chicken tenders, and lamb kebab - all charcoal grilled. They were served with pita breads, some salad and a garlic dip. The meats were delicious. The garlic dip was also very good. The spices made the meat tender and absolutely aromatic. My only complaint was that it was not quite enough. I wished they had served a bigger portion.

Crystal was gaga about this fahsah arabic lamb stew before she brought us to the restaurant. However it did not turn out to be so great. Perhaps it was my expectation arising from her gaganess. I had expected chunks of mutton. It turned out to be shredded meat. But the flavour was very good. Again it was all in the spices. The stew was served in a clay pot (they have clay pot in the arab world?); which I felt was not quite suitable as the heat from the pot eventually made the stew rather dry. Again, it was served with pita bread.

For my non mutton-eating wife, Crystal ordered this dory fish in herbed oil and tomato coulis. It was a rather unusual dish. The dory was pan fried. The herbed oil was plentiful and aromatic. However I didn't like the tomato coulis. 

Finally, this ordinary carbonara spaghetti with some mundane strips of grilled chicken breast. Ordinary, but the flavour was really not bad. The carbonara sauce was well done. But the chicken stripa... hey, can you be a little more innovative?

Crystal, an ardent mint hater, ordered this Oregi signature special drink for me. It was a lemon juice heavily flavoured with fresh mint leaves. It tasted rather weird at first sip, but I eventually began to like it. Some people may not like its strong sourish flavour.

My verdict of the place.... Good worthwhile food at very reasonable prices. The mix grill was RM15.90; the lamb stew was RM11.70; the dory was RM13.00; and the pasta was RM14.00. All at student-affordable prices. Maybe I am of a different generation. But they really shouldn't offer the shishas. 

Ramadan Bazaar 2012

Our Ramadan bazaar walk this year was in Taman Tun Dr Ismail. We drove to TTDI and entered Jalan Tun Mohd Fuad 3, thinking that we would park our car a good distant away from the bazaar to avoid the congestion. The Ramadan bazaar in TTDI used to be located along Jalan Wan Kadir, near the VADS building (ex IBM). What we didn't know was that they shifted the bazaar to Jalan Tun Mohd Fuad 3. So we drove speck into the centre of all the actions. But we were lucky. One kind soul was just leaving and we slotted into his parking space at the fringe of the bazaar.

The weather was also kind to us that Sunday evening. It was a bit overcast and wasn't scorching. Still I was drenched at the end of our walk.

Sunday is also pasar malam night in TTDI. I think they assimilated the Ramadan bazaar into the pasar malam. One side of the road was the bazaar. The other side was the pasar malan selling fruits, vegetables and the usual pasar malam stuffs. 

There were even some fireworks stalls to add on to the festive mood.

The first food we encountered was this Turkish doner kebab in pita bread stall operated by the 2 ladies. The kebab looked very dry and even over-burnt. We bought a piece and it wasn't bad at all.

The normal Malay nasi bungkus.

This nasi briyani looked very good. I couldn't resist. Fortunately I bought only one packet, for it did not turn out to be great. 

This man declared that his buns were the best in KL - made by his wife. He had various flavours - coconut, cream caramel, etc. My wife bought a packet. Again it was one packet too many. The buns were soggy and the fillings inadequate. Not even near to good.

I believe these nasi dagang and nasi kerabu could be nice. It was very popular. We did not buy any.

Were these nasi ayam? It was fried chicken in nasi tomato (I think). Perhaps nasi hybrid.

What were these? Beef, chicken or fish deep fried in a batter. No we did not try.

Laksa Johor...

This little girl was selling nasi goreng (fried rice). They looked very nice, especially the nasi goreng ikan masin (salted fish fried rice). But we did not buy.

Ah... keropok, lekor... They are my favourites. Still we did not buy any. Regrets.

These apom looked better than they tasted. The core was too thick. By the time we took them home, the "skin" had lost its crispiness. 

I love lemang. I really regret that I didn't get any. I must get some before the Raya season is over.

Ayam percik... they looked nice.

These kebabs were perhaps the best food we bought in the bazaar. We got 2 sticks - one lamb and one chicken. They were delicious. But look at the pan...

Samosa and curry puffs. 

Popiahs by the dozens.

And of course, satays.

This was a soto ayam and soup stall. He had a big container of boiling soup that looked very good. We bought a packet of the chicken soup. It was a big disappointment. The soup tasted of ikan bilis. The so-called "sup ayam" was obviously flavoured by ikan bilis. I felt cheated.

Yong tau fu...

"Jus durian asli - yang pertama di Malaysia". No we didn't try.

Kueh muih - very popular for breaking of fast.

Vadai, spring rolls, donuts, curry puffs. This guy was screaming his head off. But not many people bought from him.

Murtabak is a popular food during Ramadan. There were so many stalls selling the stuff. We bought one chicken piece. I don't remember from which stall. It was absolutely the worse murtabak I had ever tasted.

Keropok, murukku and crispy munchies of different varieties.

I was very curious what these triangular packings were. The guy told me it was otak-otak. I bought 3 of them. Otak-otak my foot. Did not look like otak-otak. Did not taste like otak-otak. They were terrible. They were greyish lumps of I-don't-know-what. Yucks!

I don't remember what these are called. Bought some for dessert. Not too bad.

Bubur lambuk and rendang.

Ikan bakar utara. Was she posing for me or did she had enough of nosy photographers?

Apam balik was another popular food. Several stalls offered this.

Finally, drinks of all varieties.

And then we inched our way out of the car park and went home for dinner.

Ipoh Sedap

Breakfasts during weekends are always "Where to eat?". So coming to Restoran Ipoh Sedap was a refreshing change. I had not even heard of this place before. I guess it is pretty new.

Ipoh Sedap (食好料) is located on Jalan SS2/60 in Petaling Jaya, at the end of a row of shops, just next to the SS2 police station. As far as I could remember this was the shop where I used to buy "bak kua" (BBQ pork slices - 切片豬肉乾). 

The shop is apparently an off-shoot of a famous makan place in Ipoh. All the food they serve here - yong tau fu (釀豆腐), sar hor fun (沙河粉), chee cheong fun (猪肠粉), fish balls, hakka noodles, even the stubby bean sprouts - are apparently delivered fresh from Ipoh everyday.

The place is small with air-conditioning that struggle to keep cool. It was kind of congested. Perhaps it was because it was full house on the Sunday morning that bespoke its popularity.

At the front of the shop was the "kitchen" where they prepare the noodles.

And the self-pick yong tau fu (釀豆腐) counter that reminded me so much of the similar stall at the Ipoh hawkers under the trees in Pasir Pinji.

This was their signature Hor Hee (河嘻) noodles. It was basically fish ball noodles. I have no idea why they call it Hor Hee in Ipoh, and what the words really mean. It was served with springy fish ball and slices of fish cake.

My bowl of curry noodles was no where near what I had tasted in Ipoh. They serve it with some mint leaves, and I think that was where the similarity ended. Still it was not so bad. My only complaint was the thick layer of oil floating at the top.

The chee cheong fun (猪肠粉) was really quite good. It had some nice dried shrimps in it. It was served with chilli and sweet sauces as well as some pickled green chilli. The sesame seeds completed the dish.

The hakka noodles served with minced pork was apparently quite good.

So was the sar hor fun (沙河粉). If indeed it was delivered fresh from Ipoh, it is a must try, for Ipoh sar hor fun is second to none. Notice the stubby bean sprouts. Only in Ipoh do we find such bean sprouts.

We had a good variety of yong tau fu. Some in soup...

And some crispy and aromatic.

Finally, this bowl of delightful meat balls and sea weeds.

It was a big breakfast for 6 of us. And worthwhile too. We will definitely return. One more choice to "Where to eat?".