Review: Checkers Restaurant

**Non-Halal**

This is a post strictly for Babitarians :p

I was told this Checkers Restaurant was owned by 2 partners, Mr Tan and Sam but Sam has since departed and opened his own porkilicious restaurant called Ad Hog which I will blog about it later on. We were at Checkers with Capt'n Hook's friends and they did the ordering. There were 5 of us that night, sharing all the food away.

Just in case you're not sure which is the restaurant when you reach here, it's this one...

Yeah no signboard and in a secluded spot but yet it can still drive the people here in droves. Since the place is rather small, reservation is must especially on weekends. The interior of this place is nothing at all romantic or suitable for fine dining as the tables and chairs are never in the mix and match theme *chuckle*. There were plastic chairs and tables, some foldable metal chairs thrown in.



Since we waited rather long for someone to arrive, Mr Tan brought us a plate of tomatoes to munch on. Whoa I think Mr Tan is in good mood today! It looked simple right of just sliced tomatoes with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and basil leaves, seasoned with some salt and freshly cracked black peppers but it really packed in a punch especially so when the sweet tomatoes are of the roma kind ;-) Thank you Mr Tan.



When the last of the friend arrived, our dishes start to appear on our table. The first was Grilled Expensive Mushroom (RM10). Hehe the name kinda quirky, actually quite a number of dishes have such names. A small plate of grilled fresh shiitake mushrooms on a bed of purple cabbage and lettuce was served.



Next to arrive was Stinking Rose with Toast (RM8.50)! Just in case you do not know, Stinking Rose is another name for garlic. A whole bulb of garlic with the top cut off a little is roasted in the oven with some olive oil and serve with toasted baguette. I usually does the same at home too when I roast chicken. Roasted garlic is not pungent and it turn sweet due to the caramalisation. We dug out the garlic from the skin and spread them on toast. This is purely for garlic lover and not for the faint hearted. Luckily Capt'n Hook is a fan of garlic, and petai too hahaha...

We have both soup available that night which is not in the menu. If not mistaken one is a lobster bisque or was it seafood?? And the other is a French onion soup. Loved the flavour of the bisque and the consistency too. The onion soup being lighter as it's a clear beef broth with loads of caramalised onions in it topped with grilled cheese.

We have a House Salad (RM15). I normally stay away from house salads from most places cos they usually just give you a plate of lettuce with tomatoes, cucumber, shredded carrots and perhaps some green capsicum with Thousand Island dressing *shudders*. However, the house salad here is my kinda salad! The mix is fantastic as the more expensive greens were used such as rocket (arugula), frisse, radicchio etc with finely shredded jicama (sengkuang) and carrots; cute pink radishes etc! What complimented well was the dressing that has a hint of cumin. We polished this all off!

A portion of Mexican Pork And Sausage was ordered from the black board. I can't remember the price now. On the plate has a small slab of pork marinaded in a Mexican rub and a short but thick pork sausage; some mashed potatoes and a large portion of salad. The salad in here were different from the house salad. It has papaya cubes and kidney beans. The pork was tasty but not like fantastic, it was ok. I like the salad a lot!



Next we have a Porky's Best (RM49) which is a southern style barbeque ribs served with salad, corn on the cob and mash potatoes. The ribs were fork tender with the meat detaching from the bone so easily. They were already good on their own, the dip of brown sauce and a tangy salsa are really not necessary. Again I do really have to highlight their salad. This one has fennel and chick peas! Nice!!!



We also have an extra side order of mash potatoes (RM8.50) that came with brown sauce. We liked the creamy mash as it still have lumps of potato bits. This was polished off too, on top of those served with the meat.



By now, I was already quite full but the boys asked for a Roasted Pork Knuckle upon Mr Tan's recommendation. The knuckle with a very crispy skin was served with 2 dollops of mash potatoes, a bit of greens, sauerkraut, the tangy dip and salsa. Thank goodness we were sharing and the boys managed to scrape this clean. The knuckle is tender and went well with the salsa and dip but it was already good to eat just as it is.



With our stomach packed to the brim but yet we can't resist ordering the desserts of Mississippi Mud Cake (RM15) and Porky's Wild Ice-Cream - Drowned (RM17, RM15 not drowned) of course!

The mud cake is served with vanilla ice-cream and quite forgettable, simply because I can make a better one that has whisky in it *cough cough*



Now the Porky's Wild Ice-Cream is really wild as it has a base of vanilla ice-cream topped with green strands of cendol, cincau (black jelly), canned longan and roasted almonds! Sounds really like a 1Malaysia dessert eh? :p Anyway, the drowned version has rum at the bottom of the ice-cream. This is the dessert not to be missed.



Overall the food is good here but a lot of people have complained about the arrogant and obnoxious Mr Tan *chuckle* and also the steep pricing. Well just in case for the info of those who doesn't shop for pork meat, the price of pork has increased rather many folds and it's still increasing as time goes by *sobs*. No corkage is charged here and we brought along 2 bottles of wine.

While I was googling for info on Checkers, I found a rather interesting read here... seems like Checkers had started off as a pizza place which explained the furnitures in here. Pizza is still available here upon request ;-)


Checkers Restaurant
19, Lorong Setiabistari 2,

Damansara Heights, 

50490 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603 2095 3304

Business Hours: 6.00pm - 10.00pm, close on Mondays
Coordinates: 3°8'37"N 101°39'26"E