Review: Grand Imperial Kitchen @ Empire Shopping Gallery

**Non-Halal**


We were in Empire Shopping Gallery for an early dinner after running some errands near by. As usual, it's never easy to decide where and what to eat so we both browsed around and stumbled upon Grand Imperial Kitchen. Took a peek at the menu and saw some set meals available so decided to give it a try.

After going through the long list of items on the menu, we decided to go for set meal as it's the easiest plus they came with a choice of drink which we both picked grass jelly in syrup. Other than noodles, they have rice dishes as well as roast meats.

Capt'n Hook picked an Egg Noodles with Minced Meat Sauce that came with a bowl of meat ball soup. I gave it a try and find the egg noodles were extra bouncy. When I checked, no wonder the noodles were so good as they're air-flown in from Hong Kong!



Sze Chuan Style La Mian with a fried egg served on a separate plate was my choice of order. The soup is kinda spicy, sour and lightly thickened with crushed peanuts. Managed to scooped up loads of minced meat and some shiitake mushroom slices. I find this was just so-so after tasting Capt'n Hook's yummy noodles.



Our super value set costed us RM13.80 each, certainly value for money with the drinks  thrown in. Just wondering if their roast meats are anything better, perhaps we'll know the next time we drop by again.


Grand Imperial Kitchen
LG30 Lower Ground Floor
Empire Shopping Gallery
Jalan SS16/1
47500 Subang Jaya
Selangor

Review: Whisk Espresso Bar & Bake Shop

It was our first visit to Empire Shopping Gallery after a fab lunch in Klang lead by PureGlutton (will delve on that on a later post). Capt'n Hook decided to clock in to have an hour long massage which later on stretched to 2 hours! Well, if you have been to Empire Shopping, it's not a big mall and there's only so much of bookstore and Toys R Us to keep BoiBoi and myself occupied.

Once BoiBoi is satisfied playing with all the toys he could lay his hands on, we went down to LG level to check things out. We observed the tallest spiral slide in the country is taking shape which I understood it would have been opened by now. One slide will cost RM12!

I chanced upon Whisk Espresso Bar & Bake Shop (which has certainly been blogged to death by now) and decided to try the cakes out to see if it really lived up to all the hypes plus of course to kill some time. I'm very surprised to find the shop is rather narrow and have very few seats inside. It's small but cosy and I really loved the retro black and white floor tiles.





We picked a slice of Hummingbird Cake (RM11.90), a cup of hot jasmine tea for myself (RM5) and BoiBoi naturally zoomed in to a Hot Chocolate (RM9.50).



Essentially a Hummingbird Cake would have mashed bananas, crushed pineapples and chopped pecan in it. Since it's made using oil, it's a very moist cake frosted with cream cheese icing. The one we tasted at Whisk is moist and pretty good except that I find the frosting is meanly scant. I'm not big on frosting myself, hence you would have noticed the cupcakes or cakes I baked are usually void of frosting. I believe if one is to frost their cakes, there must be a 'just nice' proportion, not necessary thick. If you look at the pic, you could see the cake in between the patches of extremely thin layer of frosting.



There isn't any Red Velvet Cake that everyone raves about on that afternoon, perhaps another time then. Not big on macarons, I skipped that one.

 

Whisk Espresso Bar & Bake Shop

LG03A, Empire Shopping Gallery, 

Jalan SS16/1, 

47500 Subang Jaya

Selangor, Malaysia

Tel: +603 5022 2060

Review: Chuka Cafe

**Non-Halal**

Since I came in super early today, so I better quickly do this up!!!

Tucked away in a faraway land towards the old Subang Airport is this Japanese eatery located in a condominium block called Chuka Cafe. This place has been around for a long while but I never got round to check it out until my brother spent dinner sometime back. When we were there, the other 3 tables were occupied by some Japanese. Seems like this place is well patronised by the Japanese community in that area. As this dinner was eaten quite some months back, my memory of the items are pretty vague but let's just see if I can jog it out as I go on typing.

First up were the gyoza of minced meat and chives which we all liked. 2 plates of them disappeared quickly.

Next, we have this Buta Kakuni which is Japanese stewed pork in soya sauce. Pretty similar to Chinese style Tau Yew Bak but this is slightly on the sweeter side and ohhh the pork is sooooo tender. I stole a small bite of the fatty part and it does melt in my mouth! Best if have eaten with plain rice.

Our orders range from Genki Kara Ramen (spicy soup with seafood and vegetable); Tonkotsu Ramen (sliced pork and seaweed); pork rounds ramen (not sure of the name since I didn't order this, judging from the pic, looks like shoyu ramen); Gyu Niku Ramen (beef noodles which I had and I would say it's good. The thinly sliced beef literally melt in the mouth.); and Katsu Don.

Even though the ramens were tasty but there's a major concern with some of them complaining the ramen were too salty to their palate. I can't blame them since we're more used to bland food. We should have told the wait staff during ordering to tone down the salt. So, remember huh, if you're not used to salty food, do inform them in advance.

When you enter the condominium, you'll need to give your particulars in exchange for a visitor plate to be displayed on your dashboard. You can park right in front of the main entrance of the block where the cafe is located.


Chuka Cafe
Saujana Villa Condominium,
13 Lingkungan Golf Saujana
Subang, Selangor
Tel : (603) 7846 7664
lat 3.106446 long 101.581779
Opening Hours: Mon -Sun 12.00pm - 2.30pm & 6.00pm - 9.30pm

Technorati Tags: Japanese food