Shogun 2T

Our visit to the Shogun was rated 2T or TWO T - Total Waste Of Time. We were there for my wife's annual celebration. Oddly she chose this Japanese buffet place. And like  Tenji - the last Jap buffet place we visited - the experience was far from satisfactory. Somehow we do not have very good karma with Japanese buffet restaurants. 

Shogun is a relatively small restaurant chain. They have 5 outlets - all in the Klang Valley. The place we visited was in 1-Utama in PJ - on the 2nd floor of the new wing. It was our second visit to this chain. Our first was at the Sunway Pyramid about 3 years ago. I remember we enjoyed our first visit a lot more. This time around, the meal was a big yawn. 

We wanted to leave the moment we walked in. As a start, the place was crowded and noisy. Everybody was like rushing for food and snapping up choice dishes, which really were not many. It was a market more than a restaurant. If there was anything to celebrate, this certainly was not the place. 

We surveyed the food counters before settling down for our meal. The place was big and there were many serving stations. Most of them offered Japanese fares. But there were also local and western dishes. 

Except for a few, most of the dished displayed did not look appetizing. We actually did not know what to pick, not because we were spoilt for choices, but because they were all so uninteresting.

We started dinner with some soups. 

Then some sushi and sashimi. The raw fish were fresh but not of great quality.

The oysters were slightly better...

Some fish...

And various other dishes...

FInally, desserts.

The quality and freshness of the food were just so-so. The taste was less. It was definitely a meal to forget. We did not enjoy it. The only dish that etched my memory as being good was the salmon fish head. It was fresh and succulent. The rest were 2T. 


And it was not really cheap - at 60 bucks per head, ++. With one small consolation. As I was paying the bill at the cashier, she strangely asked me, "Uncle, are you senior citizen?" I guess I was senior enough. For that I got a 50% discount.

Mae Salong

We had a minor windfall on our joint 4-D bets amongst my in-laws during the CNY festivities in Sungai Petani. The winning was just enough for a dinner for the extended in-law family. And we did just that. When they mentioned this Thai restaurant, my wife and I thought the name was My Sarong. It turned out to be Mae Salong which is a small village in Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand. 

I will not attempt to provide directions to get there. I was totally lost in the many twists and turns in the outskirts of Sungai Petani. But I can provide the address - 199-F Kampung Bakar Bata, 08000 Sungai Petani. The co-ordinates are N03* 06.887' E101* 34.629'. 

Mae Salong is a mini theme park of sort. It covers a big area and the whole place is beautifully done. It has water as the theme. The whole place is built around a large pond, with fountains, water running down roofs, bridge walkways and even a functional water wheel that channels water from the pond to surrounding areas.

Everything is made of wood, with a lot of plants giving the place a very natural aura. The furnitures are naturally done. The tables are large slates of timber and the seats are benches fabricated from crude wood. They are housed in many attap huts located around the water. Even the wash basins are dug-out timber pieces. I truly admire the handiwork.

They do have an air conditioned dining room in the main building. What struck me was that this air cond room is below the water level. Very well thought of.

I liked the authenticity of the place. And it is apparently very well maintained too. I did not expect such a beautiful place in Sungai Petani. 

The place was fabulous. But the food...


Well, we started the dinner with the usual plates of tit bits that comprised of peanuts and crunchy ikan bilis. It was very tasty. The ikan bilis was very fresh. It was one of those once-started-cannot-stop kind of tit bits.

The fried glass noodle (tong fun 冬粉) was rather soggy and bland. There were prawns, chicken, egg and some veges in it. It looked very good but the did not have the taste to match.

This was a Thai salad. It had strips of mango, cucumber, tomato, peanut, etc, in a sour and spicy sauce. The flavor was a little too sour for my liking.

The other salad was milder. I believe this was the mango salad. It essentially had the same ingredients with some ikan bilis. I thought this salad tasted better the the first.

The otak otak was not bad at all. It was baked in a metal foil. In it was good portions of fish and other seafoods. The flavor was aromatic, seasoned with some basel leaves.

The la la (clams) did not appeal very much to me. It was steamed in a spicy soup which was rather sourish. The flavor was so-so.

The pandan leave chicken was also very average. The flavor was not something I could remember. The portion of meat in the pandan leaves was small.

This was a most ordinary plate of omelet. Nothing worthy to write about.

This vege is the leaves of the sweet potato. It is a popular alternate to kangkong. It was stir fried in sambal balacan. I liked the flavor. It was a little too salty but with rice, it was tolerable.

I had no interest at all in the prawn dish. It did not look good and I thought it was not worth the effort to use my fingers to de-shell them. So I gave it the skip.

The final dish was the fish. Like the la la, it was steamed in a soup. But unlike the la la, it was not sourish. The snapper was quite fresh. But the flavor like most other dishes that evening, was just average.

All in all, I was not impressed with the meal. I thought the quality and flavor of the food did not live up to the aura and splendor of the place. On that night they had an elaborate lion dance to commemorate CNY. I did not have the presence of mind to snap some pictures of the lions. That was probably their first day of business after the festivities. And with a maddening crowd, this could be one reason why the food did not live up to expectations.

MAS & Air Asia Inflight Meals

We had the occasions to make 2 trips to Australia over a period of 3 months on 2 different Malaysian carriers - MAS and Air Asia. I thought it was opportune for me to feature on the meals offered by the 2 airlines. I realize one is a full service airline and the other is a low cost carrier, and thus it is not justified to make comparisons on the level of services. But food is food - whether it is served in a 5-Star restaurant or a hawker centre. And I intend to do just that - focusing only on the meals onboard and not the other aspects of their inflight services.

Our first flight was to Perth on MAS flight MH125 in November 2011, returning on MH124 about a week later. Flight time each way was about 5 and half hours. 

Food services on both sectors were brisk and efficiently dispensed. We were seated quite far from the start of the food service and it didn't take very long before the food trolley arrived at our seat. The food was of course complimentary and had obviously been costed into the air fare. There was a choice of Malaysian or western meal. 

On our outgoing flight to Perth, breakfast was served. I opted for the nasi lemak. It was a substantial meal, compactly presented on a tray. The rice was served with a big portion of sambal prawn. There was half a boiled egg. The ikan bilis and peanuts were separately packed in a plastic container. Other items in the tray included a loaf of croissant together with small portions of butter and jam. There was a bowl of assorted fruits. Dessert was a piece of lemon cake. There was also Ferrero Rocher chocolate and a muesli bar. Drinks were a cup of orange juice and coffee or tea. Wines (red and white) were available on request. The quality of food was generally good. However, the rice somehow lacked the santan (coconut milk) flavor and the sambal prawns were hard and over-cooked.

The western breakfast was omelet with a piece of chicken sausage, button mushrooms, a grilled tomato and a piece of hash brown. All others items on the tray were the same. The meal was rather dry. There was no sauce or gravy. 

After the meal, ice cream bars were distributed.

On our return flight from Perth, the Malaysian selection was curry chicken and tomato rice, with some bland vegetables. The chicken and rice looked better than it tasted. It was not great. The vegetables were pathetic. On the tray was a bowl of chick-pea which was rather tasteless. There was a hard roll and butter. And a slab of cheese and crackers. Dessert was a piece of chocolate cake. Drinks were water, orange juice and coffee or tea. Again, wines were available on request. This return meal was apparently prepared in Perth. It was definitely not as good as the breakfast from Kuala Lumpur.

The western selection was baked fish and potato and the same bland vegetable. The fish was served with a tomato based sauce. The meal was rather boring. The taste was flat. It was OK if you were hungry, definitely not something to relish. As before the other items on the tray were the same.

Overall, the meals offered by MAS were satisfactory. They were substantial and adequate but not something I would look forward to. It was nourishment in a flight and not gourmet delight. 

Our flight on Air Asia X was to Melbourne (flight D7212) on in early February this year, returning on flight D7215 nine days later. Flight time on both sectors was nearly 8 hours. Meals on board were not complimentary. We booked the meals and paid for them when we made our flight bookings on line. Each meal was priced at RM20.

Meal service was accomplished from meal carts by the flight attendants in the same manner as MAS. They were selling their food. Available for sale were the hot meals, cup noodles, sandwiches, tit bits like chocolate bars, nuts, candies, etc, plus hot and cold drinks. Passengers who had pre-booked their meals on line like us, had to show their boarding passes to claim them. 

Service was slow. It took some time before the meal cart reached us.  This was probably because of the sale transactions. It was also probably because they did not stock enough food items to go around. I saw the flight attendants moving around from one meal cart to another getting stuffs requested by the passengers. This was particularly evident on the return flight from Melbourne.

Like MAS, there was a choice of Malaysian or western hot meals. The Malaysian option was nasi lemak on both the outgoing and return sectors. It was served in a thin plastic container. There was no tray or presentation - just the food container on a paper table mat and plastic fork and spoon. A small bottle of mineral water was provided with the pre-booked meal.

The portion of nasi lemak was rather small. With the rice was half an egg, a small portion of rendang chicken and some sambal sauce. The ikan bilis and peanuts were packed separately. The taste was good. I think it was much better than that served by MAS. The rice was aromatic and and the rendang was quite delicious. This nasi lemak was more genuine and did not taste like it was mass produced.

The western meal on the outgoing flight was Chicken Ala Kiev. It was presented like the nasi lemak, with a bottle of water. The chicken breast meat was fried in a batter and was served with some potato and boiled broccoli and carrots. The taste was not bad too. My only complaint was that it was rather dry - devoid of sauce or gravy. But the piece of meat was quite delicious. Again, I rate this western meal better than that served by MAS. However, like the nasi lemak, the portion was rather small.

On our return flight from Melbourne, while the Malaysian selection was the same nasi lemak, the western selection was different. It was Chicken BBQ. It was a small piece of grilled deboned chicken, served with some potato wedges, some carrots and beans with a dash of BBQ sauce If the Chicken Ala Kiev was small, this serving was even smaller. The taste of this chicken was not as good. Still I think it was better than the fish served by MAS.

Overall, I rate the flavor of food on Air Asia better than MAS. The biggest problem with Air Asia's meals was that they were too small. And there was no side dishes like starters or desserts or bread to fill the stomach. The KL-Melbourne flight at nearly 8 hours was a long one. Such tiny meals were definitely not enough. They did do a second meal service and sale before landing. But by then they had ran out of hot meals. Only cup instant noodles were available. Fortunately we had the foresight to bring along some sandwiches from home even though Air Asia declared that they practise a no-outside-food policy. As far as we were concerned, it was to hell with that policy. The flight to Melbourne landed after midnight. There was no way we could find any food at that ungodly hour after the flight. And we were not prepared to go hungry. Air Asia cannot impose their policy when it cannot even cater to the needs of its passengers.

Between the 2 airlines, without considering the matter of fare and pricing, I would prefer MAS as far as meals are concerned. Air Asia's meals were totally inadequate. MAS' provide full wholesome meals even though they are not as delicious. At least there is no need to resort to cup noodles, chocolate bars and peanuts.