Eating Outside Of Subang Jaya

If you have not tried the nasi kukus in Bukit Damansara, YOU NEED TO. Located near CIMB bank and behind a police station, Farni’s serves one of the best nasi kukus on a budget. Choose from fragrant ayam goreng berempah, flavourful fish curry or even their daging masak hitam to go with your fluffy steamed rice.

Lines are long so be there early and enjoy your next lunch! 😊

Coming from a family where my mom is from Sitiawan and also growing up there, Foo Chow food plays an important role in my upbringing. This makes me all the more critical of my all time favourite dish- red win chicken soup mee sua. It’s a food we traditionally eat at my wai po’s every Chinese New Year’s or when it’s my birthday.

When visiting S11, lookout for a stall that says 福州麵 and proceed to order its Ang Jiu Mee Sua. There are many ways to ruin this dish: too much red wine, too much water, not fragrant enough, too little ginger, not enough garlic and the list goes on. This stall is actually one of the better ones, though some might argue it requires more ginger and meat. But at RM 9, there isn’t much room for complaints.

God bless me now I can tell my mom I didn’t waste RM 9 on something I can eat at home.

Fancy a weekend dinner here? Make sure you’re either early before everyone else, or you come after everyone has left. Grub by Ahong & Friends has attracted a lot of attention recently, and rightfully so.

The place, located among the houses of Seksyen 17, Petaling Jaya is nothing fancy. A simple, open space kitchen with 2 floors and minimal interior design. Everything is self-service : from cutlery to water to payment. Don’t expect first class service here. Wooden tables, plastic IKEA chairs, grey walls, and a cashier counter that does’t look like a cashier counter, the place has stripped everything so that it can cut costs to save you money, and they’re not afraid to make it known.

Food wise, Grub (honestly, that name is far too long) serves food that is well done for its price. For RM 39, I got a nicely done rare flank steak (300 g). The Bf and brother got a rib eye each (RM 59, 300 g), nicely medium rare and the momsies got a nicely done medium rare new york strip (RM 39, 300g). All the meats were nicely seasoned and came with jambu ulam (salad) and a little what I’m guessing to be starfruit purée . The purée is there for a reason, as 300g of meat can make even steak fans feel “jelak”. The purée nicely cuts through that and gives a nice dose of acidity to the palate.

The fries however, are not the best. Some were rock hard I swear at that moment, I heard my tooth crack (ok fine, almost crack). The lemon tart (RM 11), is what it is.

All in all, if you’re looking for steak and only steak, this is the place to be. If you’re looking for the ambience of a fine dining bling bling eatery, you better take your money (a lot of it) somewhere else.

From the team behind Huckleberry Food & Fare comes Birch. Breakfast by morning, lunch by noon, and drinks by night; this place does not let down in terms of ambience. Ample lighting, hipster walls, a little green, a little brown, yellow lights, natural lights. This place has it all.

But let's go to the food shall we? The cakes here are made by their sister cafe, Huckleberry. So I guess you can't go wrong there. The Macadamia Cheesecake was good. It hit the right spots with the salted caramel and also cheesecake that doesn't taste like packet cream cheese. The cake was dense, yet you don't get sick of it because of the salted caramel and macadamia nuts. All in all, it was a well balanced piece of cake. RM 15/16

If you're looking for the ultimate chocolate indulgence, get their Blackout cake. But be fast, cause it sells out quickly. For RM 15.90 (let's just say RM 16) the cake is just chocolate, on chocolate, on chocolate. Moist chocolate cake, creamy chocolate filling and oreo crumbles. They sure know how to pamper a girl.

You get 10% off your total bill from now until 31st August 2017 by the way.

Ok fine. Not a thousand miles. But it did cost me 2 tolls and 22 minutes if driving, 5 minutes of traffic congestion and unfamiliar roads. But was it worth it? 😏 The pork neck is nicely flavoured, delicious even on its own. Juicy and tender, the fat and meat just work together in unison to keep each other moist. But wait. What's this? Dipping sauce? Yes. Go for it. Drown your pork slice in it. And people might not know this, but I actually like the neck meat more than the pork belly. Yes. Working at the butchers has thought me a lot. All in all, this relatively new place seems promising. BBQ Pork Neck with Seafood Sauce is priced at RM 26.90 and eat it with Thai Fragrant Rice (RM 3 for 2 pax) for a quick bite. Or go Thai communal style and order more and share.

Just wanted a really good nasi lemak? Or a not-that-spicy-but-still-spicy nasi lemak? Well MACE's whole leg chicken (RM 22.00) provides just that.

While not sporting the typical "lemak rice" as I call it or santan rice, the rice that comes with the dish reminds me very much of yong chow fried rice 😂.

The chicken itself is nicely seasoned and marinated, full of flavour and brings flavour even with the rice.

The star of this dish is however, the sambal. A little spicy, a little sweet, a little salty. Depending on your spicy tolerance level, this is actually not spicy at all for those who can take on the heat and I believe this is actually pretty good for those who can't take the hear but want a little ommph in their dishes.

Papdam gives the whole dish a nice blend of textures - crunchy, tender, soft- all in a plate. Needless to say, this was probably one of the few dishes I really enjoyed and I believe is quite up there.

But I probably would have preferred the thyme rice to go with this - personally of course.

We've kinda established by now that Mace seems to be a hit-and-miss sort of place so far with their menu still being in the midst of being improved. And while some things are almost there and some need much improvement, some just confuses me like my university lecturer when he teaches financial accounting.

Mace's Seared Fish with Chilli Padi and Garlic Cream Sauce goes for RM 21 with no service charge and is GST inclusive.

The dish is seared dory fish with pieces of potato wedges underneath, a corn salad by the side with carrot sticks and chilli padi garlic cream sauce.

First, let's talk aesthetics. The dory piled on top of potago wedges with a corn salad and carrot sticks, a genie lamp. What is going on here? I would stick to a side of greens, just a side of greens and if you really want your carbs in there, how about some herb panfried potatoes by the side or rice. And perhaps sear it with some herbs or sprinkle some minced herbs over, garish it with a parsley or something! Because the dory looks absolutely dead.

Now let's talk taste. The dory fish is full of flavour. Good job on the seasoning there. But the sauce on the other hand, tastes like a watered down version of Nando's garlic sauce. Dipping the fish into the sauce and then putting it into your mouth seems to contribute nothing but make your dory more wet than it already is.

But I have been told this is in the works! So who knows? May the 2nd try go well.

Mace by Coffe Chemistry in Damansara Uptown aims to serve fusion asian food, bring the west and east together on a plate. While some dishes need improvement (read: pasta post) as they are only a month old at the time of writing, some dishes are pretty spot on and need less tweaks.

Mace serves Buttermilk Chicken (RM 17.00) with a twist: their rice has thyme in it. A generally western-used herb, thyme does go well with meats in general and the rice does not clash with the flavour of the sauce, but rather gives your palate a bursy of thyme-ly freshness past the friend chicken chop and the creamy buttermilk sauce.

The buttermilk sauce is thick, rich, and creamy. Not a bad thing since it's preferred to ones that have the consistency of soup and taste bland like Spritzer bottled water (Sponsor me Spritzer). However despite it's consistency, the sauce does lack in intensity in terms of flavour. Eaten with the chicken, the flavour of the chicken covers the taste of the sauce and paired with the rice- sayonara sauce-kun! Which makes me wonder if the star if the dish is the rice, or the buttermilk sauce?

Unlike typical buttermilk chicken, the buttermilk chicken by Mace is more of a chicken chop that is cut. Much like a tonkatsu and laid on top of a terrifying piece of green veggie leaf that looks like a sad attempt at garnishing. If I recall correctly, this form of garnishing is often used in either chinese restaurants or those cheap hawker stalls. For a product positioned as it is, I'd say you either change it into something else (a salad, grilled baby carrots, boiled veggies or somthing) or drop it. Add some red chilli to the sauce to make the dish look more vibrant and that itself is garnishing.

Out of all the dishes I tried that day, this is probably one of my favourites. Can be better, but one of those that seems pretty much there

Mace by Coffee Chemistry has just opened a month ago at the time of writing. If you aren't sure where they are they're 2 stops away from the Baskin Robins in Damansara Uptown. They seem to known in the coffee scene since some cafe hoppers seem to know about them. Oh not me. I don't drink coffee. Coffee to me is death (quite literally).

Al Funghi Mushroom Olio Pasta (RM 16.00). Well Funghi is mushroom in Italian so it'll be like Mushroom Mushroom Oil Pasta.... Could just rename it to Pasta Aglio e Olio con Funghi or.... Mushroom Aglio Olio....

Disclaimer: Food was reheated so I won't comment on the texture of the pasta since the pasta probably cooked itself to death while everyone was snapping pictures. And I'm sure the reheating dealt the final blow.

The pasta itself didn't stand out. The mushrooms, the sauce, the pasta all tasted bland. There were seaweed strips on top, and button mushrooms, shiitake or chinese mushrooms and eryngii msuhrooms from what I could see. To me, the mushrooms didn't really blend well together (Probably would substitute the shiitake or eryngii with oyster mushrooms) and lacked taste when eaten together with pasta. Most people tend to forget that the pasta will tone down the taste of the sauce so it's good to go a little heavy on the sauce. And I'm still asking myself if it was just me or did the person who made it not season the pasta water enough.

Red and brown seems to be the overall theme for the dishes and as you can see, the entire dish is red, brown and yellow. Now we all know food is about scent, taste, texture and presentation. So in terms of presentation, this dish doesn't really seem to be the most appealing. A little green would be appreciated. Probably a handful of parsley or basil, chopped. Ditch the seaweed. There's too much going on in there and the few stalks of seaweed make it look like it was added because there wasn't enough garnish. The main thing is the mushroom, so you want to keep it simple. Here's a garnishing idea: grated cheese and parsley or crest.

Oh and large chunks of garlic alert. I would either slice it thinly, but wide, or just mince it all or maybe even crush it.

Well I guess there is Mushroom for improvement on this one. But that's just me

Ps: prices are gst inclusive and guess what? Drum roll please... no service charge!! What you see is what you pay for! All restaurants should do this...super cereal...

Oh and one more thing. Remove your bayleaf before serving. Some things are not meant to be on the plate.

Cendol. Have you lined up in Penang for the famous cendol? Well you don't need to line up for this one! Hidden from plain sight, Nyonya Delight is located by the roadside and sells kickass Nyonya Laksa. But wait! What's that? You don't want to travel again fir dessert? Fret not! This place has cendol as well for RM 2.50! Simple and basic cendol, RM 2.50 sounds like a pretty high price to pay. But the size of this cendol, in my opinion justifies the price. The cendol isn't overly sweet and sports a rich, gula melaka fragrance. The cendol itself is also fresh and the santan just gives it that creamy, coconutty fragrance that reminds you of coconut ice cream. Hot day? Look no further.

Located in Klebang, Melaka, Nyonya Delight is hard to spot. By the roadside with a signboard that may or may not be shielded by trees, the place is small with only few tables available. But let us look past that. Let us just take a moment, a short moment from our daily busy lives to admire this RM 4.50 Nyonya Laksa. Ignoring the fact that you can't get decent chicken rice in Kuala Lunpur at this price, the Nyonya Laksa comes with huge blood cockles (siham) and the sambal is delish. If I could I would buy a bottle back because it'll go well with anything. The acar (pronounced "aceh") is good too and just something about this place with its humble look, nice amount of light and unexpectedly kickass food just makes you wonder back to the days years ago when food was commonly best enjoyed by the roadside, with a bunch of friends.

Banana leaf rice brings you to a few big names. Nirwana in Bangsar and Sri Devi... in Bangsar. Sri Ganapathi Mess is more of a hidden secret amongst the locals. The shop is safely tucked away in one of the small roads of PJ, hidden from those unfamiliar with the territory and going inside is even more intimidating. Rarely do you see people of any other race there and it's safe to say you better go with someone who knows the place. But once you do get in and get seated, be prepared for a world of suprise.

The curry at Sri Ganapathi Mess is definitely preferable compared to Nirwana which I find a little powdery. The crab curry is life changing and the rasem there is also made with crab which gives it a lot of flavour. Papadam is free (Nirwana charges RM 1 for extra) but the deep fried bitter gourd isn't as nice as Nirwana's. However still a nice place to go to all in all. It might seem a little intimidating at first. But the food is definitely worth the experience.