Oriental Pavilion Revisited

The last time I dined at the Oriental Pavilion in Jaya 33, was at a wedding more than 3 years ago. Since then the couple have probably become parents and I had not returned. Until about a couple of months back - for a birthday celebration.

I looked forward to going there again. I knew we were in for a sumptuous meal. And we was not disappointed.

The place had not changed very much. The decor and furnishings were the same. It was still a very nice up-market Chinese restaurant. We were a party of about 20 people and had 2 tables booked into a private room. It was very conducive for pre dinner chats and socialising.

The tables were set for fine dining. It was very elegant.

Most Chinese restaurants offer peanuts for pre-meal munch. This place provided sambal long beans. They were delicious.

The appetisers were individually served and gracefully presented. The first of the hors d'oeuvre was a braised scallop in a mayo sauce with trims of salad and fried lotus root. In the middle was a succulent shrimp in a mango dip. On the right was half a soft shell crab deep fried in a batter. All three were exquisitely delicious. I took my time to savour them.

The soup was also individually served. It was uniquely and ingeniously presented in teapots. It was a chicken soup with fish maw, conpoy (dried scallop - 乾瑤柱) and other goodies. We had the soup in teacups. It suited me well because I prefer slurping soup from a bowl (or cup in this case) instead of a spoon. It was piping hot and so very tasty.

I do not know what they call this dish. It was a deep fried chicken topped with a mixture of deep fried minced crisps. I cannot tell what was in the mixture, but it tasted very nice with the chicken.

The grilled pork rib was succulent and tender, done with a caramelised soya sauce. It was marvellously prepared.

The cod fish was very fresh. It was pan fried with teriyaki sauce with an orange flavour, accompanied with some diced fresh shallots. The generous portion of the fish was presented in a large bamboo leave inside an orange dug-out. It was superb. I have never tasted a fish prepared in this manner. Such innovation.

The highlight of the meal was this abalone plate. Each diner was served with a mid size abalone. In the dish were also broccoli and mushroom, and soya skin wraps. In the wraps was a mixture of lotus seed, water chestnut, carrot, herbs and other goodies. The whole dish was a treat. Without doubt, it was the abalone I relished most.

In the Chinese tradition, noodles signify longevity and is normally served during birthday meals. This noodle was very nice but in the midst of so many wonderful dishes, it was quite ordinary.

This cheese sponge cake was made by our cousin Fong. I had always enjoyed her fluffy cheese cake. I particularly like the semi burnt cheese at the top of it.

I believe she also made this delicious cendol jelly - complete with gula melaka and santan.

Together with bowls of red bean broth, dessert was complete.

Oriental Pavilion - nice place, awesome food and prices to match.

Song Kah, Sungei Petani

We were in Sungei Petani on the last weekend of the recent school holidays to visit the in-laws. Almost everybody from the extended family was there. Dinner that Saturday evening was a little problem. There were 30 odd people and nobody was prepared for do the mass cooking. So it had to eaten out.

The most convenient place to be was a home restaurant which was a short walk from my parents-in-laws' place. It was a home restaurant in every sense of the word. The place was actually a single storey semi-D house in an housing sub-urb of Sungei Petani. I don't know how they managed to set up a restaurant in this locale for it was really a nice respectable housing area. I wondered if the neighbours had complained.

I have been to Song Kah on a previous trip back to S.P. a few months ago. I did not bother to write about it then. But I found the food pretty good then. So this time around, it made it to my blog.

The restaurant is apparently managed by the family living in the house. The 2 young men who took our orders and acted as waiters looked quite alike. So I guessed they were brothers. And they were apparently quite versatile people. At a corner of the restaurant was a counter, making and selling talismans.

And if you have a problem with your computer, you could come here too.

 The drinks they served were mostly home brewed. But the chrysanthemum was far too sweet.

Dinner was rice and dishes.

The first on our table was this sambal brinjal (egg plant). It was actually very tasty. The brinjal was stir fried in a rich mixture of sambal and minced dried shrimps. It was spicy. The brinjal was were cooked and was soft and smooth.

The dark sauce pork was another credible dish. It was lean pork stir fried in a dark soy sauce. The sugar in the dish made it kind of sticky and flavourful. They added in some spices and curry leaves. The final outcome was a very pleasant dish that went wonderfully with our rice.

This was chicken in a hot plate. Below the chicken was a layer of eggs, They fried the eggs on the hot plate and poured the chicken over it. The chicken was spicy but tasted good.

The curry fish was the best of the lot. The fish very fresh and there was plenty of okra, long beans and vege. The flavour of the curry was also very nice. It must had been the curry powder or curry mix they used, for the flavour was quite unlike the ordinary curry we find in most Chinese restaurants. This was more Indian in flavour. Anyway, we were scrapping the bottom for the last spoonfuls.

The fried cabbage was very ordinary.

The final dish was the mantis prawn. It was deep fried and then stir in a mixture of tau chu (豆醬 - soya paste) and other spices. I felt the mantis prawn was lost in the rich mixture. I couldn't tell it was the crustacean. The flavour was good but I felt it was a waste of nice mantis to be cooked this way.

It was simple good meal. And not that terribly expensive. It gave true meaning to a home cooked meal away from home, in a home.

Ming Yuan

This was my third birthday dinner this year. I did not expect it at all. Edwin very kindly hosted it. He said it gave us the opportunity to gather for a meal.

He met up at his place in Klang and he led us to Setia Alam in Shah Alam. As we got near, the bright lights of the restaurant was unmistakable. Ming Yuan is located along Jalan Setia Indah XU13/X in Section U13, Setia Alam, Shah Alam.

The place was as loud as it was bright. There was a multitude of white fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. The crowd was large and I don't think the acoustics of the place could cope with the noisy chatters. It was a heavy toll on the senses.

They offered curry fish at 16 bucks. Unfortunately it was a Saturday night when we were there. The lady at the table was quite taken aback when I took this shot. She thought I was taking a picture of them. But when she looked back and realised it was the fish, she smiled and shrugged as if to tell me "Too bad, this is weekend".

Edwin had booked the table and pre-ordered the dishes. Still it took a long time before we got to eat. Must had been the crowd.

I guess noodle is a must in any Chinese birthday dinner. The long strands represent longevity. It was the first dish on the table. The noodle was covered in a sea of gravy - almost like a soup. It was good. The noodles were very fine - like mee saui (面线). The flavour was mild and delicious. I was given the honour of the first serving. I wanted a second, but by the time it went round the table, there was nothing left.

This was a very nice dish of deep fried pork ribs in a sauce. It looked a little overdone, but it really wasn't. The meat was nice and succulent. Perhaps it was the marinade that made it look dark. The flavour was delicious.

This chicken was also deep fried. It had been marinated in fermented bean paste (南乳). I liked the crispy batter. The flavour was not bad.

This was a soup of fish. The fish was first deep fried and lightly cooked in a milky soup of a whole lot of ingredients which I tried to make out. They included seaweeds, wood fungus (木耳), salted vegetable (hum choy -咸菜), and a whole lot of things I could not identify. It was not unlike the typical fish head meehoon (魚頭米粉) - minus the noodles. The soup was definitely nice. Because it had already been deep fried, I could not tell if the fish was fresh. But it was not fishy.

The double yam pot (佛砵) was very dry. There was no trace of moisture or gravy in the fillings which was deep fried mantis prawn in salted egg. The mantis prawns tasted very nice. The yam pots were also well done. But they were a total mismatch. It was not the right combination. The yam pots should have some moisture and gravy in the fillings. The mantis prawns would had made a very credible dish by itself. I just wondered why they saw it fit to combine the two.

The vege dish was a mixture of green beans, celery, black fungus (云耳), mushroom and asparagus, sprinkled with nice crunchy almonds. I like the simplicity of the cooking. It was stir fried and not at all over done. The greens were crispy and fresh.

I believe this is the same curry fish they offer for RM16 on weekdays. And I can see why it is sold for such a cheap price. It was lousy. The curry was tasteless. The was no oomph at all. It was not much better than the curry flavour of instant noodles. The flavour of the various vegetables and dried tofu was also flat. The fish was fresh, but it did not amount to anything.

The awful fish curry was compensated by this delightful tofu in pumpkin sauce. I want to learn how to make pumpkin sauce like this. The flavour was excellent and made the tofu taste so very good. There was petai and pieces of crab sticks on top. I honestly thought they could do away with the mundane crab stick.

I think the dessert was complimentary. It was a mango pudding in a cream. The pudding was totally artificial.

Thanks Edwin, for the lovely meal. I enjoyed the company thoroughly. And I really appreciate the kind thoughts.

Grand Kingdom

We came back from Sungei Petani in time for me to host a dinner for my siblings, cousin and nephews who were back from Australia for the CNY. The dinner coincided with another commemorative occasion. 

The restaurant we picked was the Grand Kingdom at the Tropicana City Mall in SS2, PJ. Because of the festive season, we had to make our reservation 3 weeks in advance. And when we went there before the CNY to make our menu selection, we discovered that because of the same reason, they had limited ala carte selection. They recommended 4 set menus priced between RM888 to RM2188. We settled for one in the middle.

This was my first time in this restaurant. It was tucked at one corner on the 1st floor of the mall. The common dining area was not very big, but they had individual dining rooms all around. I did not have the presence of mind to ask for a room and we ended up with a table in the noisy dining hall.

The place was pleasantly furnished with a very contemporary setting. It was rather congested, and I suspected that the acoustic of the dining hall could be better as it was really very noisy with a packed house. Service was prompt and efficient. A couple of guys who appeared to be foreign workers attended to our needs. Unlike some foreign workers in other establishments, they knew exactly what to do and seemed to be very well trained.

We sipped some wine and soon the dishes began to arrive at our table.

Being the CNY season, the starter was obviously the Yee Sang (魚生). It was served in a big round tray. The ingredients were varied and colourful.

Two types of seafood came with the Yee Sang - fresh salmon and the Muki Amaebi (Japanese fresh shrimps).

We were provided with long chopsticks for the toss. I was still harping on my jackpot. If indeed it is granted, there will be another feast in this restaurant, and a lot grander. But coming back to reality, the yee sang was very good. The flavour from the sauces and spices was just right. There was nothing to complain about the freshness of the ingredients.

The soup was individually served. It was a double boiled ginseng soup with fish maw. There was a choice of fish maw or shark fin. And of course, our option was against the fin. The soup was delicious. The flavour of the ginseng was distinct. Disappointedly, there was only a single piece of fish maw in the soup. Fish maw is really not that expensive. Instead, it was filled with chunks of chicken breast that most probably contributed to the main flavour of the soup. We were in no mood to eat the bland coarse breast meat. So we collected them all and got the waiter to tar pau (打包) them for Bob and Alex.

Next was a whole roasted suckling pig. It was presented in a golden platter and served with a sweet sauce and spring onions. What we got was just the thin layer of the piglet's skin - with the head and 4 legs as adornments. It was delightfully crispy and delicious. But where was the animal's meat? There was no trace of any. Naturally we did not touch the head and the legs. And without any request from us, the waiters promptly tar pau the head and leg for us. But shouldn't they also include the meat? After all, we had paid for the whole piglet.

The fish was superbly steamed. It was a giant tiger grouper (龍虎斑). It was very very fresh. The meat was soft and succulent and broke off in flakes. The sauce was light and did not mask the sweetness and flavour of the fish.

The stir fried fresh scallops with sea cucumber (海参) in XO sauce was another delightful dish. There was also some very nice crunchy green beans. The scallops were big and thick. The sea cucumbers, which are very expensive nowadays, were likewise thick and of very good quality. I tasted a tinge of chilli in the dish. It worked perfectly.

The was probably the highlight of the meal. It was braised whole abalone with Chinese mushrooms, dried oysters, and fatt choy (髮菜- black hair moss). The abalone were of decent sizes. They were marvellous. I also liked the big dried oysters. The fatt choy were sparse; they could had been a little more generous on that. Again the sauce was light and secondary to the original flavour of the various delicacies in the dish.

The last savoury course was the claypot Hongkong lap mei rice (腊味飯 - waxed meat rice). I was looking forward to this dish. We normally eat lap mei (腊味 - assorted waxed meat) only during CNY, and I had tasted some really nice lap mei rice. But the lap mei rice was not to expectations. It wasn't bad, but it did not turn out like how I expected it to be. I was actually surprised when this large plate of lap mei showed up on our table. It comprised delicious Chinese meat sausage (腊肠), Chinese liver sausage (肝肠), waxed duck (腊鸭) and waxed pork (腊肉). I had expected all these meats in the pot of rice.

A large claypot of rice did arrive and in it were more lap mei meats. They served the rice into individual bowls. The large plate of meats were the extras. There was a lot of meats - so much so, there were leftovers to tar pau back. The rice did not taste as good as I had experienced before. It some how lacked the flavour of the lap mei. Still I enjoyed it thoroughly.

They even scrapped up the rice crusts at the bottom of the claypot. The crusts were aromatic and crispy. Hard to believe we paid so much money to eat rice crusts.

Dessert was wonderful. There was this large bowl of chilled snow fungus with aloe vera. It was deliciously refreshing.

And we also had a plate of 2 different desserts. On the left were the lemon puffs. They were absolutely gorgeous. The pastry was soft and fluffy. Inside was a lemony sweet creamy filling. It was very very good.

On the right were the Nein Kuo (年糕 - traditional CNY rice cake). It was deep fried in a yam pastry - much like Woo Kok (芋角- yam puff), only the filling was not meat but Nein Kuo. It was very innovative. This was the first time I had Nein Kuo this way, and I enjoyed both the flavour and innovation.

It was a most satisfactory quality meal. But pricey. Grand Kingdom is apparently known to be an expensive place to dine. The meal costed me a small fortune - made worse perhaps by the festive season. I would like to return to try out their ala carte. Such places need to have an occasion to be there.

Perhaps I need to wager more into 4Ds.