Review: Devi's Corner Banana Leaf Rice @ Bangsar Baru

**Pork Free**


I've been told numerous counts that I must go Devi's Corner to check out their banana leaf rice. Seems like Devi's Corner over at Bangsar Baru is THE place for banana leaf rice (BLR). We have been to Devi's Corner for the regular Indian meals but never upstairs for BLR. BLR is sort of like a rice set with various vegetables, condiments and curries served on a piece of banana leaf.

Capt'n Hook used to frequent Nirwana Maju which is a stone throw away for his fix of BLR if he's in that area. However things do go down hill sometimes. Their service is not up to mark these days with our favourite server had gone home. Noodles and rotis - not up to mark, even their dishes in the bain marie doesn't excite him anymore.

We decided to give Devi's Corner a try once and the rest is really history. If you're there during lunch hours, don't be surprised the tables are jammed pack here. Service is fast and attentive.



On this visit, we went simple. BLR (RM7 per set) and just plain old deep fried chicken (RM5 per piece) and fried ikan tenggiri (mackerel, RM7 per piece).  Yup, sounds like an expensive affair but seriously if you are used to shop for fresh ingredients these days be it at the wet market or supermarket, you'll understand how much food prices have increased! It's really insane.

For the BLR set, it's a vegetarian affair. I'm not familiar with the condiments' names but there's a potato curry dish, a super delish brinjal dish and my fave spinach dish; then there's the deep fried gourd, cucumber in yoghurt and 2 types of chutneys. For an additional RM1 you can opt for Indian rice (which is par boiled rice). One can asked for refills of rice and any of the condiments. The server will come with his curry cylinders so just lash on any curry or curries for the matter onto your rice. I liked dhal and fish curry! The curries are not hot to my taste bud but loved the spices. Reason that I opted for fish curry is because it's a tangy sort of curry due to addition of tomatoes. Nice.



The chicken is crispy on the outside whilst inside is still moist, perfectly fried indeed. Same goes to the fish which is marinade with turmeric powder.



Washed down with a thick and creamy Mango Lassi (RM6 per glass).



I'm not a rice person and do not like to stuff myself with too much of rice, so for me to enjoy a banana leaf rice, it's kind of a rare affair. I would asked for little rice that the server will give me a hard stare lol. For this time at Devi's Corner, nope I did not ask to add more rice but instead I had more rice than my usual portion as you can see in the pic above. I did ask for more condiments though even though I'm so stuffed... hehe the greed in me can't help but to ask for second helpings of brinjal and spinach. Oh so yum!


Devi's Corner
14 Jalan Telawi 4,
Bangsar Baru,
59100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603 2282 7591
Opens 24 hours (great huh???)
(Same row as Papparich & MooCow)

Barista Jam at F! By Buffalo Kitchens

If you're a big coffee fan, you might not want to miss this event oganised by F! By Buffalo Kitchens which is located above Chawan. There is coffee tasting and hands-on latte art training plus competition going on this Saturday, 19 March 2011 from 2.00pm to 6.00pm. It will be conducted by award winning Van Lin from GaBee.

I found a video of him demonstrating and explanation on his creation but it's in Mandarin though, watch him here...

F! By Buffalo Kitchens
69-1 Jalan Telawi 3
Bangsar Baru
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 220 11710

Review: Chawan @ Bangsar

Gosh, I must be the last to blog about this place but what the heck...

My first encounter with Chawan was when Chow Food Court opens at The Weld. It's actually a coffee corner with simple snacks offered. If patrons wish to sit at this section, patrons could bring in other food served at the food court provided they order their drinks from Chawan. What's unique here is Chawan is the old Malay spelling for cup, hence they serve all sorts of Malaysian coffee from all over Malaysia. I can't really comment on the coffee since I can't drink coffee and I don't remember Capt'n Hook order any either cos most times we drank tea.

Chawan then opened their full fledge shop in the middle of 2008 at the corner of Jalan Telawi 3 when the famous Devi's Corner relocated to another corner at Jalan Telawi 5. It's just across from Bangsar Village (Starbuck's/The Daily Grinds side).

The prices are of course on the high side as this is Bangsar we're talking about but the food portion is huge and the drinks, well they really give you your value as I can taste the strong ginger, honey and lemon in their tea!

What we liked here and kept ordering is their Nasi Lemak Ayam Goreng (coconut milk rice with fried chicken)! The ayam goreng berempah (deep fried chicken) is very very addictive. I think I'm not alone on this :p Our BoiBoi loved this too and is learning to take bits of the sambal with his rice and chicken. I can't recall the actual price but it's really pricey for nasi lemak, just that they serve the whole thigh piping hot, I think it's rather forgiving. The shop a stone throw away charges more expensive than this! How to beat biting into crispy skin marinade with aromatic ginger, turmeric etc whist the inside remained juicy?



There were other times we have Nasi Lemak Rendang Ayam or Beef. Again I have to emphasise the meat portion is huge. Many times I can't finish and they oblige by just packing up half the portion of the meat for me :p



This time round, I decided to give their noodles a go and spotted Lontong and opted it to serve with beef rendang, something I regretted cos the portion again is huge. Should have asked for plain lontong. Lontong is essentially nasi himpit (compressed rice) cut into cubes served with sayur lodeh (vegetables cooked in light coconut milk). Chawan's sayur lodeh has loads of ingredients in it like cabbage, tofu slices, deep fried beancurd skin, glass noodles etc. In my bowl, it has half piece of hard boiled egg and bergedil!



Many people complained of high prices and inconsistent standard in their coffee but yet Chawan still pack in the crowd. There must be a formula here that works eh?


Chawan
69-G Jalan Telawi 3
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603 2287 5507
Business hours:
8.00am - 1.00am (Mon-Thurs, Sun)
8.00am - 2.00am (Fri, Sat & Eve of Public Holidays)
GPS Coordinates: N3.130051 E101.671071

Review: Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant

**Halal**


Back in the days of the yore before Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant shifted to the current hip and happening One Bangsar, it was located next to Jolly Green. I used to frequent the then known as Bangsar Seafood Village Restaurant as there isn't that many Chinese restaurants that were halal. Unka Leong concurred with me and the other halal place to bring Muslim guests would be Kelana Seafood Centre which has since closed due to development to the location.

Yesterday, we have quite a large group of floggers gathered at the restaurant for a review of a new menu plus the revealing of Ramadhan Set Menus, more on this later. Thanks to Jade for the invitation and Fatboybakes for the arrangement.

We started off with Boneless Chicken With Fruit Sauce which is basically deep fried chicken pieces served on a bed of sauce with some mango slices in between to cut off some oil of the chicken. The chicken pieces were crunchy on the outside but warm and tender inside. Then we have a Red Snapper With Bean Sauce. In the menu, it stated steamed but when it came the fish is deep fried. The piece that I had tasted over cooked as it was a bit tough but I liked the sauce though, would be great if eaten with plain rice.



The Stir-fried Prawns With Special Curry is really special indeed. Not only it came serving in a bamboo steaming basket, the curry sauce was really tasty. From the creamy curry, I could derived fragrant lemongrass and thinly sliced kafir leaves in it. Everyone agreed that the sauce was great, especially if they serve with steamed mantaos.

Egg Omelette With Crabmeat is just pretty normal except how it was presented. There were some ooo-ahhs when it arrived wondering how the spring onions could stick outta the stack of omelette... I won't let out the secret, so you gotta order this to find out ;-)



Braised Beancurd Combination is a platter of gently deep fried smooth homemade tofu on a bed of lovely pumpkin sauce, topped with crunchy water chestnut and carrots plus deep fried pumpkin pieces. I really loved this dish but then I could be bias since I like pumpkin a lot. The sauce is subtle and slightly sweetish. The soft deep fried pumpkin pieces are my fave part of this dish. I think I could recreate this dish at home!

Surprisingly the dish that looked kinda plain really lived up the moment. The Stewed Cabbage With Dried Scallop and Mushroom came with a whole cabbage that has been braised till soften, quartered before being topped with stir-fried strips of chicken meat, mushrooms and black fungus. Funny I didn't tasted any scallops, perhaps the chef improvised and gave us something else instead which I'm mightly glad. The stir-fried bits were fragrant and were excellent with the plain cabbage.



Our table were served with Stir Fried Crabs with Salted Egg Yolk, whilst the next table got the Butter Crabs. I "seteng" (derived from setengah which means half in Malay :p) a piece with Jek, licked the salted egg yolks coating clean before devouring the fresh firm flesh. The next table was generous enough to move their remaining Butter Crabs over but I was too chowtutted for any. I tried the sauce though which I find too much curry leaves in it that overpowered the creamy buttery taste.



Err my dishes are not in order actually, the crabs were the last before dessert. Before the crabs we have this Fried Rice with Prawns. There were so much prawns in there! The unique part of this dish is there were buttery egg floss that usually come with the dry style of butter prawns surrounding the rice. These were topped with deep fried stuffed crab claws. We ended the dinner with Chilled Mango Puree with Sago.

From 20th August till 21st September 2009, for every Ramadhan Set Menu ordered, you'll get a voucher to redeem 1kg of crabs on your next visit and here are the sets available:

RM 498+: Appetizer, Shark’s Fin Soup, Chicken with Ginger, Spicy Fried Fish, Lychee Prawns, Signature Beancurd, ‘Kampung’ fried rice, Custard Buns, Dessert

RM 598+: Appetizer, Sharks Fin Soup, Chicken with Plum Sauce, Pomfret with
Bean Sauce, Prawns with Sweet Corn Sauce, Steamed “Sang Gan”, Tom Yam Noodles, Banana with “Gula Melaka”, Dessert

RM 698+: Appetizer, Double boiled soup, Roast chicken, Red snapper, Otak Otak Fried Prawns, Braised Sea Cucumber, Oyster Fried Rice, Chinese Pastries, Dessert

RM 898+: Homemade appetizers, Sharks Fin Soup with Pumpkin, Boneless Duck, Curried Garoupa, Braised Seafood, Mango Prawns, Garlic Fried Rice, Banana & ‘Gula Melaka’, Dessert

My photos won't do any justice to how good looking the dishes were, so do check out the Queen of DSLR's pics :p

Many thanks to FatBoyBakes, Nigel, Paranoid Android and Jek for the boozes; Jade and the management, chef and staff of Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant for having us.


Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant
One Bangsar
63, Jalan Ara
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: (603) 2282 2555
Opening hours:
Lunch: 12:00pm - 2:30pm
Dinner: 6:00pm - 10:30pm


Technorati Tags: malaysian food

Review: Breakie at La Bodega Deli

Back when I was young, Sunday is always a treat for us as Dad will bring us out for breakie. Breakfast at Yut Kee would have been a great treat as other times kopitiam that serves good chu cheung fun, char koay teow, pork ball noodles or wantan meen would make us jump too.

However kids these days are far more privileged just like my boiboi. His daddy takes him to Old Town Kopitiam whenever he fancies some french toasts or at times a place that serves big breakfast when the maid mummy is not cooking up any yummy breakie.



This time we went to La Bodega Deli for some BIG breakfast. We were a little late for breakie but it's all right since big breakfast is served all day here. Daddy and mummy both have a portion of BIG breakfast with juice and coffee/tea thrown in for RM27++ each (RM22++ without the drinks). Boiboi wasn't interested to share with mummy after he saw the words waffles + ice-cream (RM18++) in the menu. I can't blame him... who could resist warm waffles topped with cold ice-cream???



Our big breakfast came with beef bacon, breakfast sausages, fried mushrooms, half a grilled tomato, baked beans, a slice of toast and eggs done in our choice, scrambled for me and bullseye for Capt'n Hook. Can't fault them as everything was done just as they should especially my scrambled eggs. When my plate reaches the table, my boiboi couldn't resist asking to share some of mine *roll eyes*. I think he ate virtually 3/4 of my eggs, half of my toast and all the sausages plus my juice.





When the waffles came, my boiboi only took a bit of the waffles but ate almost all of the ice-cream. So ended up the mummy and daddy doing the Alam Flora bit as usual. The waffles were crisp on the outside but fluffy on the inside... tastes just as good plain or like us with some honey drizzled all over since boiboi ate up all the ice-cream which came in a single scoop only to go with 4 slices of waffles.



This is the kinda deli we would love to kick off our shoes on a lazy Sunday morning with excellent and attentive service from the wait staff. If only they're nearer home... sighhhh.

La Bodega Deli charges 10% for service charge and 5% goverment tax.


La Bodega Deli
18 Jalan Telawi 2
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 603 2287 9468
Opening hours: 8am - 10pm (Mon - Sun)


Technorati Tags: breakfast