Pappa Rich Dining, Nexus, Bangsar South- average taste, pricey meals

Honestly, we were planning to try the ‘off- peak’ app (we even used up our phone data just to download it) at Mango Chilli which was located in the same building but it was not opened yet so we decided to have an early lunch in Pappa Rich Dining, located at the ground floor of Nexus. We think Nexus is an office building because if it were a shopping mall, it will become the most boring mall on earth. Besides offering the usual Pappa Rich fares like nasi lemak, chicken chop and paratha, this eatery also offers side dishes that are not available in other branches, making it a unique dining experience.

But alas, the price kind of put us off. Sure,the food is palatable but we felt that we could have eaten this type of food for a cheaper price elsewhere. the ambience was nice and comfortable, with indoor air- conditioning provided to ease ourselves from the humid midday weather. Hence, we rated the environment a 8/10. Service was prompt too, with the waiter providing the menu immediately on sitting us down at the table and taking our order soon after. 8/10 for you there, sir.

R, still reeling from the disappointment of not being able to use his newly- downloaded app at the aforementioned restaurant, decided to have the Pappa cendol, priced at RM 6.13. He rated it a 5/10, an average fare with hard- as- rock shaved ice with the usual chendol condiments.

J tried the Dry Curry Mee with Steamed Chicken (RM 12.74). He also rated his food as 5/10. with nothing special to add to the review. He could probably eat the same food at half the price. He drank hot coffee (RM 3.68) and as you guessed it, was rated at 5/10 too.

N had the staple Nasi Lemak with Curry Chicken (RM 13.11) and Stevia white coffee (RM 8.02). Man, the longer we eat together the more we think alike. Scary. He felt his meal was okay with good portion but rated his food a 5/10.

The iced Stevia white coffee and hot coffee

S tried the koay teow beef with ginger and spring onion, priced at RM 18.40. Quite expensive for a hawker meal but the portion is super huge. Like abusing the tummy huge. But, S finished it as expected. She rated hers at 6/10 because it tasted nice with a tender strips of beef in smooth silky egg sauce and served in a huge dish-bowl but the price is a major drawback. The iced fresh lemon honey drink (RM 5.57) was refreshing and nice. 

Iced fresh lemon honey

Overall, the food here was okay but as we repeatedly observed, too expensive for a hawker fare. Our bill totalled to RM 78.90, including a RM 11.24 service charge with GST. Maybe if we were stuck in, let’s say London (we wish) and craved for Malaysian food then we will probably go to Pappa Rich but we will probably think twice about coming here to have a plate of char koay teow at the price they are selling.

From ain’t rich Pappas,

Honest Foodies Review Team.

Z-CUB3 Cafe & Gallery, PJ New Town

Laziness does pay off. Just look at us, we were too lazy to walk farther from our parking place to our intended original destination and stopped at the first decent- looking restaurant that crossed our path. We saw their value lunch meal deals menu displayed outside. They got us at ‘value’.

Once inside, we were pleasantly surprised by the nice decoration which resembled a pricey hipster cafe with air conditioning, wooden rustic tables, menu written on the chalkboard and those Ikea- like lighting chains. But in fact, the food are priced affordably and they actually looked and tasted good. So that was a major plus point for us and it was a unanimous 7/10 for ambience. The perplexing thing is that it is called a cafe and a gallery. The cafe part we get. But we could not figure out which part of this establishment was meant to become a gallery.Tables? Chairs? Food? Just curious.

The waiter was quick to get our order with no smartphone apps or tablets involved. The waiting time for the food was reasonable, maybe 5 to 10 minutes, we kind of lost count as we surfed through the free Wifi provided in the cafe. Service was good with N & S giving a 7/10 while R rated it an 8/10. The value lunch meals came with drinks and started at RM 10.95.

N had the teriyaki chicken rice set, priced at RM 13. The chicken chicken cutlets were tender and succulent cooked with capsicum and topped with grated carrots and cabbage. The accompanying sauce had the right balance of heat, sweet and salty flavours. The white rice was lightly sprinkled with crispy  fried onions and freshly chopped spring onion. The peppery aromatic soup was an added bonus as well as the crunchy crackers. N rated his food a 7/10.

R had the butter cream chicken rice set, priced at RM 10.95, which was similar to N’s set except for the chicken cutlets deep fried in crispy batter garnished with shredded carrots and cabbage and served with a creamy rich butter sauce, salty and added with just the right level of spice. As the sauce was served separately from the chicken cutlets, the cutlets managed to keep its crisp flavour without becoming too soggy by the wetness of the cream sauce. R also rated his food a 7/10.

S had the lemon chicken rice set, also reasonably priced at RM 10.95 (really, can’t they just round it up to RM 11?). The lemon sauce tasted okay, but she still preferred R’s creamy sauce. The lemon sauce probably lacked more lemon juice. The generous portion of the deep fried chicken certainly helped with her review, though. She rated her set a 7 out of 10.

The iced lemon tea all of us had tasted nice. Not bad. I mean, how different can an iced lemon tea be?

Overall, a good eating experience in our continuing gastronomical journey of PJ New Town. We hope we can make further discoveries in this quaint (but insanely difficult to find parking) part of town and make our mentor Francis Light proud.

Here is the address should you feel excited to try this place out:

No 31, Jalan 52/8 PJ New Town. ( It is just besides the multi- level parking building. Yeah, N & S also did not notice this old, dingy multi- level parking building existed before until today.)

Until the next food- tastic review,

Honest Foodies Review Team.

Thai by Thai, New Town Petaling Jaya

It was quite by chance we stumbled across this restaurant. We were scouring New Town for affordable lunch meals when our paths crossed with this quaint place. It looked kind of new so we decided to give it a try. 

The ambience was nice. Of course R liked it because we were the only people in the air- conditioned eatery. The decor went well with the Thai theme with large paintings of elephants. J and S concurred with R’s opinion, rating it a 7/10.

The service was quite efficient too. Probably because, again, we were the only people there. They promptly served us our drinks after taking our order. So, that would probably be a 7/10.

The food and drinks were a different story though. In the menu’s introduction, the restaurant’s delicacies are based on the owner’s Thai wife who hails from Chiang Mai region (hence Thai by Thai). Maybe they have different palates in Chiang Mai? We dunno…but none of us particularly enjoyed our food. We love our Thai food and therefore we hold it to a certain high standard in our food circle.

S had the beef kuey teow soup (RM 5.90) and the iced Thai milk tea (RM4.90). She feels that the greatest Thai export after tom yum and lady boys would be the milk tea. Therefore, she was let down by the weird taste of her tea. She at first attributed the peculiar taste to the different region this restaurant’s food is claiming to be from but the more she thought about it, she just felt that it was plain awful. The tea was too sweet as they put sugar on top of the milk in the tea. She could not even finish her glass. And others pointed out that it must be so bad that S was eating the ice inside of the drink instead of drinking it. Yah, she felt slightly dizzy after drinking that uber sweet concoction. 

The beef kuey teow soup was pretty generic. In their defence, the beef was tender and thinly sliced. However, the soup base was tasteless. I mean, she gets it that customers can add salt and other condiments according to their personal preference but the soup really lacked any depth of flavour. It was just like plain water mixed with noodles and beef instead of being infused with aromatic herbs or beef stock. So she gave the soup a 5/10 for being meh and the milk tea 0/10 for even existing.

J ordered the pineapple fried rice (RM 15.90) with hot Thai coffee (RM 4.90). Do you remember a while back when he ordered the pineapple fried rice from Streat Thai in Jaya One? Now he is giving the fried rice a second chance at redemption. And he was not disappointed. Much. The fried rice was served in a pineapple (yay!) and had 3 pieces of prawns on top of it. And you could definitely see the pieces of chicken in the fried rice. The taste however was slightly disappointing as it was sorely lacking seasoning. The coffee tasted as awful as the tea as they added sugar to the already sweet milk coffee. We love our food and drinks but we do not wish to die from them, okay. Overall, he rated his eating experience a 5/10 there.

R also tried the pineapple fried rice and had similar comments regarding it as J. Instead of ordering a drink, he chose to try the iced dessert (RM 7.90), which looked totally different from the picture they showed in the menu. Overall, he also felt the food and drink deserved 5/10.

Overall our meal cost us RM 60.95 including a 10% service charge. We shall not bring up our best and most affordable Thai restaurant so far as it seems unfair (coughs, MyElephant).

Here is the address lest you are interested:

No 10, Jalan 52/18, Lapangan Merdeka, 46200 Petaling Jaya

Until the next review,

Honest Foodies Review Team

UMAC House, Petaling Jaya

Ever in a rush for lunch but you cannot just eat another dish at your workplace’s overpriced food court? Fret no more, UMAC House is just around the corner. We know it seems as if we do not have to work judging by our long lunch entries, but we do need to rush our lunch most of the time due to work or family commitments.

So here we are, eating banana leaf rice to satisfy our hunger at a reasonable price and with a fairly quick service.

The ambience? Though seated outside, S quite liked it as they managed to put an awning to shade patrons from the searing KL heat. The last time she went there it was quite hot and humid. R wished it was air- conditioned. In fact, we begin to suspect that R wishes there was such a thing as an outdoor air conditioning everywhere. There is one, R. It is called Antartica. So our ambience rating fared between 6 and 7 out of 10.

Service was pretty efficient,with the banana leaves rolled out the moment we sat by our table, rated as 7 to 8. The basic banana leaf rice cost RM 6 per person with an assortment of refillable vegetable dishes, poppadom. As for the rice selection, we had to choose between the normal white rice or Indian rice. We do not know whether the guy made the Indian rice thing up but basically the grain is longer like Basmati rice but thicker than that. Ponni rice? Maybe, who knows. We don’t. Anyway, the meal was accompanied by a complimentary rasam which does wonders for your sinuses and the plain water was bottomless. 

The food itself was pretty basic but tasty. The vegetable dishes were laden with spices and authentic. Authentic Malaysian Indian mind you… we do not know how authentic Indian Indian food tastes like because we have never been there. The vegetable dishes are refillable but none of us did ask for seconds because we were quite full. R did add extra rice (for free, of course) as he needed to neutralise the heat. He has lower heat endurance so colour us (not) surprised, shall we?

S ordered the chicken varuval (RM 5) and fried pavaka (RM 3) while J had a slice of the fried mackerel (RM 7). The chicken packed a punch of heat and required several downings of water in order to finish the whole serving. J liked the crispy mackerel fried with a light batter of aromatic spices. The fried bitter gourd was a bit of a let down as they were not crispy at all and were decidedly soggy. All in all we rated the food 6 to 8 out of 10, depending on how spicy you like your food to be. A nice quick affordable lunch with refillable vegetables, poppadom, rice and water is a winning formula in our books on any day, we say.

Partially hidden in a row of abandoned houses, the place is located opposite MAHSA University College in Jalan Universiti. Here is the address for your reference: No 1, Jalan 12/5, 46200 Petaling Jaya.

Oiso, The Sphere, Bangsar South

Thank God it’s Friday so we can have an extra special lunch to review for you! S, N, Master Yoda and our newest team member, Baja Hitam, agreed for something a bit different than our usual fare and decided on embarking the journey to Bangsar South. It is a pretty decent up and coming place with growing choices of restaurants and cafes to cater for the ever so increasing number of white collar crowd from the surrounding new high rise office towers. Parking was surprisingly easy at the Sphere, or it may be just that we got lucky. Busy working people translates into hungry people, so the place was packed and we had to push our way through the throng of equally ravenous lunch crowd. Not to mention there was a supermarket conveniently located at the lower ground floor, giving way to opportunistic grocery shopping for the brave- hearted. 

We decided to try our luck at Oiso, a Korean restaurant. The fact that we had to queue for a table was something new for us. Usually, we tend to shy way from spending unnecessary energy expenditure for food, i.e. queueing. We waited for may be 5 minutes, or 8 minutes tops. Nobody was counting as they had the decency to provide us with a cooling drink while we waited. As we weren’t well versed in Korean cuisine, we honestly did not know what they served us. Looked like barley, or it could also be rice. Who knows? But it was clever ploy to keep the customers and for that Master Yoda gave the service a 7 out of 10 which N and S concurred with.

We really wanted to sit indoors as it was quite hot al fresco. Alas, hunger won and we agreed to sit outdoors. Though shaded and equipped with fans, we could not escape the fact that this is Malaysian humid afternoon weather we are talking about. And for that the ambience was rated 3 by Baja Hiram and 5 by Master Yoda. N & S scored somewhere in between. 

The service was quite fast in obtaining our order and delivering our food and drinks, now coined as ‘order to table’ by Baja Hitam. You know, like ‘door to needle’ time in treating patients with heart attacks. My, my… we have quite a reviewer here. Though some mishap did occur with our order due to miscommunication. The attending waiter did not enter our order for kimchi pancake but it turned out for the best anyway as we sincerely could not even attempt to eat another dish after finishing our own lunch sets. S scored the service as 7/10 while Baja Hitam scored it lower at 4/10 as he was a fan of kimchi pancakes, even though we doubted he could have finished it. All of us ordered the lunch sets which came with 3 refillable side dishes.

Baja Hitam opted for the less famous noodle soup with beef set. See, it is so not typical Korean that it did not even have a Korean name. He did not think drinks were necessary as he was having soup and soup is basically flavoured water after all. You wonder what is inside Baja Hitam’s head sometimes. He scored his food as 7/10, managing to finish his noodles and beef but raising the white flag on the absurdly large amount of soup. His lunch set cost around RM 16.50 post taxes which is typical of restaurant food price in most shopping malls nowadays.

Being a Korean food virgin, Master Yoda had nothing to compare her beef bibimbap to. So she scored her food a 6/10. The iced plum juice helped to quench her thirst in the hot and humid ambience. We hope this eating experience did not in any way detract Master Yoda in reviewing other Korean food in the future. The beef bibimbap was RM 16.90 and the drink was RM 5.90, costing RM 25.30 overall after taxes (6% GST and 5% service charge).

S also had the beef bibimbap, along with iced honey citron tea. The bibimbap was tasty once mixed with the sauce. She did wish there was a little bit more of the crunchy rice crust at the bottom of the bowl though. The sides were so- so. The fried salty anchovies were not as crunchy as hoped but tasted nice nevertheless while the kimchi was edible. As long as the kimchi does not sting her throat, hey that’s fine with her. The last side dish was some pickled radish. She gave it a miss because she was not a big fan of radish in general. The honey citron tea was heavenly in the hot weather. The candied marmalade bits added a bittersweet twist to the otherwise typical drink. The price of her food and drink was the same as Master Yoda’s.

N had the kimchi stew with rice and iced organic barley tea. He felt that the food was nothing special compared to other Korean food he has tasted. Hence he rated his food as 6/10. His lunch set was RM 15.90 and coupled with the RM 1.90 drink, his lunch came to RM 19.70 including taxes.

Overall, a good lunch outing with friends at a relatively different place than the usual spots. We left with our tummies full and ready to bring our A game back to work. Who are we kidding? I bet most of us wish that we had siestas over here like the clever Spaniards in our post- lunch stupor.

As they say in Korea, annyeonghi kaseyo!

Honest Foodies Review Team

Aroma, Persatuan Alumni Universiti Malaya, near UM Damansara Gate

Run by Eden Catering, this is the poshest place some of us can go to in these difficult times. The restaurant is located in the clubhouse, with waiters in their black and white attire and expansive air- conditioned dining area. The best part is that there is a student’s lunch special, which cost just below RM 10. The bad part is it is always char key tiaw every time we ask. Our best bet is their lunch set menu which rotates on a weekly basis on a 7 week cycle. You will also get an iced lemon tea with a dessert with the set ranging from RM 10- RM 15. 

This week, after much debating (“Where do you want to go?” “ I don’t know, you decide lah” “ I don’t mind” “ I don’t mind either” “Urghhhh…”) N and S decided to try the nasi bukhara lunch set at Aroma, PAUM.

S has been eyeing the set for months but was never lucky enough to come when it was the weekly special. So, this time, she keyed in the lunch menu sets into her smartphone. Smart gal.

The food itself tastes alright. You have a crispy poppadom on top of your rice. The rice, though not seasoned with spices enough was adequate to satisfy our hunger. The tandoori chicken was not too overwhelmingly seasoned, though S certainly hoped for while the dhal with potatoes and vegetables completed our food group. Health conscious N gave his a 6- 7/10 as he expected fresh vegetables and wilted vegetables in a dhal curry did not count as a vegetable serving for him. S scored the food higher with 8/10 because she especially liked the tandoori chicken. Not the best tandoori chicken she has ever had, but certainly the best one with the easiest access to around her workplace.

Next came the dessert. It was a bubur cha cha with tender sweet banana. Or is it a pengat pisang mixed with pulut cha cha? Either way, the chewy cha cha and sago with sweet banana gave us the kick needed to continue our work after a draining morning (oh, we were just being melodramatic by the way). The sweet creamy coconut milk certainly helped this dessert’s case. FYI, N hates anything milky or dairy affiliated. But since coconut is not dairy, we repeat NOT DAIRY, N liked his dessert just fine.

Overall, we would recommend anyone within the vicinity of this place to come here for the lunch menu. We each forked out RM 13.40 for our lunch and hey, that is not too bad. Just don’t order their pies. La Bonito once ordered one and it took them like a million light years to serve her with it because they said it was made from scratch. Maybe because they gave us the impression that it was going to be worth the wait or something, but the collective disappointment on behalf of La Bonito when the pie arrived spoke volumes. We thought they looked eerily similar to the ones you see in Secret Recipe- franchise- like shops.

2 things we have learned from this review:

1. We tend to post less pictures when we are hungry, most probably because we only remembered  our task half way through wolfing down our meal

2. Coconut milk is not dairy

Okay, until the next review,

Honest Foodies Review Team

Marufuku Udon at Jaya One, Petaling Jaya

We decided to go here based on the recommendation of a fellow food reviewer, with the promise of good affordable home made udon noodles. The atmosphere was not bad, though a bit crowded during lunch hour. We managed to get a table inside the restaurant fairly quickly and thankfully the indoor seating was air conditioned. They do serve other food besides udon but the name of the shop does end with Udon after all so we decided to try their udon selection. 

First off, we gave the atmosphere a 5/10 with the down side of being very crowded, which most definitely was not their fault. But if we said everything was okay then this would be a very short post right?

 The waiter managed to give our menus immediately upon sitting down, which was a plus point. After pondering a while, we managed to order our food though with some difficulty in getting the waiter’s attention. The service was okay, not super fast like McDonald’s fast but 7/10 okay.

N had the Soboro with iced lime green tea. The Soboro was described in the menu as minced chicken with tare sauce and onsen egg. Tare, our fellow food enthusiasts, is basically a general Japanese dipping or basting sauce that you can use during grilling as well as with sushi, nabemono and gyoza. At least that is what Wikipedia said. And it was quite cheap too, at RM 9 and  another RM 1 for the green tea. N rated his food as 8-9/10…he declared his love for the onsen egg repeatedly. Being a connoisseur of poached eggs, his declaration of the soft silky egg white with a perfectly firm egg yolk must have meant a lot to egg lovers of the world, though none to the rest of us. R, who joined us in this edition of food escapade had the same food as N. As usual, he ate his food in the usual thoughtful manner which can be confused with a poker face. Either way, we assume that his love for the onsen egg is comparatively less than Neoh’s for he rated his dish as 6-7/10.

J and S both had Tempura Seafood Udon with iced green tea because hey, what is life without some fried food? Boring. So, just to make it clear. J absolutely loved it . Like 9.5/10 love. Why not 10, you ask? You can if you want to, nobody cares actually. The udon soup was topped with crispy fried tempura prawn, squid, tofu and, shiitake mushroom and to put the proverbial icing on the cake…a soft squishy egg is placed in the middle of this scrumptious bowl. Priced at RM 12 with another RM 1 for the green tea, this is an absolute deal that you should not miss. The contents looked deceptively small but the tempura thingies can make you feel full. If they do not then the soup most probably will.

Having eaten our fast lunch, we left the restaurant in high spirits. Only then R told us in that “oh by the way” nonchalant tone that though the food is pork free, they do put sake in their soup bases. He did not have the heart to tell us earlier since we had almost finished our food by the time he arrived. Thanks, we guess. Hmmm, that is one sinister restaurant.

Here’s hoping for a future teetotalism review,

Honest Foodies Review Team