FOOD: Buffet @ Kampachi Japanese Restaurant

Japanese buffet has been a hit recently with outlets like Shogun and Tenji popping up and serving great japanese cuisine in KL. Though we haven't try those yet, we heard rave reviews from friends, even my dad-in-law has been to  Tenji !! These buffets are not cheap though, they can cost a whopping RM 100 per meal, but of course, you get to have all the sashimi you wanted.

Kampachi

Not losing out to KL, Penang has its own Japanese Buffet too, that also cost you a fortune, and also lets you have all the sashimi's you wanted. My company had a teambuilding there...(yeah, my company's teambuilding most of the time is having buffet, coz people are too lazy to sweat or think)...recently, and, what else?? it's snapping time !!

sashimi, oysters and idako

Sashimi !!! I'm still day dreaming of the sashimi i had at Sydney Fish Market, and i hope to try something equivalent here. First round, raw and fresh sashimi that are cut to just nice bite size. The tenderness of the salmon lingers inside the mouth makes you wanna eat more. Of course, it has to go with the ginger pickle and wasabi.

ongoing refill oysters

The oysters are one of the must have here...why? paying a dearly price of buffet without having these oysters will be a big joke. Splashing lemon juice over the oysters and then gulping these succulent flesh down the throat is heavenly.

teppanyaki

Another favourite choice is teppanyaki which consists of grill seafood and poultry. Lobsters are the most anticipated one until some of us are willing to wait  until a batch of well-grilled lobsters are done. Situated at the same corner are a great variety of tempura which ranges from prawns, squids and vege.

grilled lobster, mussel, beef, vege and crispy tempura

Japanese cuisine is not complete without the stomach-filling sushi and temaki. I didn't try all but a few which i fancy a lot each time i patronize sakae or sushi king.

sushi corner

salad bar and sashimi corner as well

inari and spider maki

The good thing here is that the rice-based sushi are not overly filled with rice, not like other japanese restaurant. You get to taste the fillings and the toppings more this way. Now, this is what i call sushi. Some restaurant will just stuff the sushi with so much rice, that i feel like eating rice ball rather than sushi.

raw sushi

takoyaki, endamame, soft-shell crab temaki and all my favourite sushi

The handroll is only made upon request and i immediately grab 1 spider temaki. Wrapped with crispy seaweed, the fillings are super crunchy fried soft-shell crab with a little bit of rice and some cucumber shreds.

Another dish which i fancy a lot is sukiyaki. The hot soup with thinly sliced tender  beef is indeed a perfect match. Each sip will give you warmth and hearth. The soup contain other ingredients such as leek, tofu and chinese cabbage. Well, you can add an egg too if you want. but for me, it's a no no, cos it's gonna be too filling. The key to having a smart buffet is, never eat one thing too much.

                                    

hot pot with sukiyaki soupbase

The beef will be cooked upon patronizer's request. The chef will shimmer the beef into the hot soup until they are well-cooked. To me, i prefer to shimmer it myself. For those who don't like beef, you can have chicken sukiyaki.

my beef sukiyaki...so warm

There is a corner where you can show off your culinary skills... :P haha..it's the cold/hot soba making. After shimmering the noodles in boiling water, pour in the ready made soup base. Finally, garnish it with shredded egg omelette, japanese fish cake, wakame and spring onions. I tried the cold soba which turns out not bad in taste.

D.I.Y cold or hot soba and udon corner

(drum rolls)...ta da..my creation of cold soba

After savoring almost all the appetizers and main course, it's time for dessert !! Desserts served in buffet are always nice to look at but not quite impressing in taste. It could be that we are too full to feed our mouth anymore of these sweet treats. Frankly, besides the fruits, red bean soup and ice-cream, i didn't like much of their desserts. May be my judgement was overweighed by my full stomach :P

desserts corner

some of the desserts we took

mini cakes

Cracking jokes and teasing around the tatami room is a fun-filled experience especially with my beloved colleagues. What's so memorable was crapping on the Kerachut hiking journey in the morning and getting to know each other more. I will definitely pay another visit to this restaurant as i like the cosy tatami environment with good Japanese food surrounding me.

Kampachi Japanese Restaurant is located at Equatorial Hotel , Bayan Lepas, Penang


Address: 1 Jalan Bukit Jambul, Bayan Lepas, 11900 Penang, Malaysia
Business Hours: From Monday to Sunday- from Noon to 11 pm. Buffet only available on weekends.
Directions: From exit of Penang Bridge, make your way to Queensbay Mall. Take the left ramp to Bayan Lepas and you will reach a roundabout. Take the 2nd exit and you will see Kompleks Bukit Jambul on your right. Go straight till you reach the 2nd traffic light ( not counting pedestrian crossing). Turn right and go all the way up the hill to Equatorial Hotel

Price: 3/10
Ambience: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Food: 8/10
Cleanliness: 9/10
Entertainment: 3/10

FOOD: Sun Seng Fatt "Wat Tan Hor" ...a.k.a. Slippery Egg Hor Fun

Phew...it's been a long break. Too lazy to write. Can't find the urge to write, though have a lot to write. Somehow, the rain gives me the urge to write something tonight.

This time, i'm bringing you out of Penang. Where to ? This time I'm gonna show you something really really special, and this only happens in Ipoh...

Kafe Sun Seng Fatt

Yeah, crappy old shop. In Ipoh Town. Wonder what's so special ? Before i venture to the food part, let me tell you what's so special of this shop. And its something that you need to have before you go.

One word.

Patience.

Yes. Patience.

You really need to have big patience attitude and excellent anger management. Plus with high EQ. Or you are gonna start cursing and giving "The Look" at the cook. Well, this SSF does cook up great food, but he takes like forever to cook up a dish.

cook of the year

The cook is early fourties man, with his father presumably next to him, frying the noodles and walking around. You might gonna start asking... have to wait how long ?

Well, the shop starts cooking around 9pm, so, if you reach around 8++ and wait, you might get your dish at 9pm. But if you reach like 930 or 10pm, be prepared to watch 2 episodes of House or Desperate Housewives, which is what we did. Don't even think of coming in at 11pm , thought the later it gets, the lesser the customer are. Wrong. It's the same.

Ok, i might be exaggerating a little bit. But that was what we experienced every time we have supper there. It might not be on other nights. But you can be sure that your turn is just around the corner when they pass you the bowls and chopsticks. Don't get it wrong, what i mean by just around the corner is 5-10minutes more... :P

Father and son

Most anticipated bowl and chopstick

Well, enough crap. Let's move on to food !!

They serve very limited dishes, but they are absolutely popular with their 2 dishes. First up, the "slippery egg Hor Fun", or we call it the "Wat Tan Hor".

Wat tan hor

"Wat Tan Hor" is basically a thick soupy 'hor fun' cooked with egg and some vegetable. It's very tasty as its not too watery, yet not too starchy like eating glue.

Two thumbs up...Yummy

Added with some prawns to give some chewing feel to it. What's special of their "wat tan hor" is that the taste was somewhat quite perfect and tasty. The soup base was similar to shark fin soup, and that's what we call it as the "shark fin Wat Tan Hor".

Prawn !!

Their 2nd best dish would be the fried noodles and beehoons. Also take ages to fry, but does worth the wait. Can't explain much here. It's just fried noodles. But , taste better than the Ong Cheng Huat's fried noodles. It's really that good.

Delicious fried noodle

Well, it does need some waiting, but its well worth the wait. If you are around Ipoh, and want to crave some soupy noodles for late dinner or supper, do head down there.

My last advice. Watch out for your drinks. No, its not the flies. While you wait, you sip a little and a little and then you are halfway down the road and you realise that you are out of water. So be prudent in your drinks before anything arrives on your table.



Sun Seng Fatt Restaurant is located at
Address: Opposite Wisma Peak Hua, Leong Sin Nam Street, Ipoh Perak
Business Hours: 9pm to late night
Directions: From Jalan Hospital, go straight until Bulatan Sultan Iskandar. After that, take the 1st exit onto Jalan Raja Musa Aziz. Head straight until you saw Jalan Leong Sin Nam on your left. Turn left into this street. Then, go straight and you can see Kedai Makanan Sun Seng Fatt on your right.

Price: 8/10
Ambience: 2/10
Service: 3/10 (service is good, but takes too long to serve)
Food: 10/10
Cleanliness: 5/10
Entertainment: 2/10

Visit http://picasaweb.google.com/thexnix/SunSengFatt# for more photos

FOOD: The Sire ...my desire

The Sire. we call it 'Desire" ..the guy on the phone call it The Sire...
well, anyway, its our first food blog. we hope this gonna be good. :)

Well, its my wife's birthday last weekend. Gonna be a tough time again finding fine dining restaurant as we often patron on special events. Not like in KL. Well, after asking around, we decided to go to The Sire.

The Sire

The Sire is located in Georgetown, Penang just right opposite the Esplanade along King's Street. Not hard to find, as long as you know where are those Penang government offices and the new Penang High Court. The restaurant even has that classic British feel that really draws you in, even you are just driving pass by.

The Sire Exterior

The Sire serves fine western cuisine, serving some succulent lamb steak, to scrumptious seafood that you can easily find in other fine western dining. The menu however has quite limited choices, but you can easily make choices from the little boxes that they draw around on their list.

While the menu is nowhere different from other fine dinings, the restaurant does has a unique environment to it. Its painted in white with some greenery everywhere. Wished they had a fountain right on those wall plants.
They call themselves a museum restaurant, and indeed, its a 4 storey high museum at the back of the restaurant.

Lanterns
















Seatings for 8

On the front, its a spacious restaurant, with ample seats even without bookings. They had some antiques placed around the shop front such as a giant make-up table and some old furniture and cabinets.

Restaurant Front
















Green green everywhere
















Rack of glasses

The back is where they house their museum. Its not the typical museum where you see artifacts or dinosaurs, but here, you get to see the legendary Yeap Chor Ee's history. The museum depicts the late Yeap Chor Ee on how he came from China and worked his way to become a millionaire. However, they dont allow customer to take pictures, thus, do pay a visit to The Sire to know more on Yeap Chor Ee.

Museum at the back
















Notice the 2 different furniture generations

First up, they serve us garlic butter breads. Nicely baked but nothing special from typical garlic bread. No need order, they give you complimentary. Not sure on other days though.

Garlic bread

Well, here comes the real deal. Starters !! We scout through their menu and ordered their Baked Mushroom. There were 1...2...3 mushrooms all together. Yeah, quite a start, eh. Although its normal for a fine dining restaurant, i cant understand why cant the chef put a few more mushroom on the dish ?

Baked Mushroom, 8/10

Although its small in amount, it doesn't disappoint us at all. The mushroom is topped with some soury and salty sauce that is balsamic-liked with some alfalfa that makes you licking your lips after you dunked one in. The portobello mushroom is really juicy and delicious. Yummy...

Portobello Mushroom, juicy !!

After the appetizing mushrooms, the main dishes arrive. First up, the Stewed Lamb Shank. In case you don't know, shank is the lower part of the leg, and comes with bones. The lamb shank is topped with a nice blend of tomatoes with mashed potatoes on the side. However, it does come short of our expectation. Although the lamb meat is tender, but it tasted quite milky (sou), not to our liking. If you like milky taste, then you might give it a try.

Stewed lamb shank, 6/10

Next up, the magnificient Sliced Sizzling Tenderloin. Seriously, this is damn good. The chef grilled it to near perfection and somemore sliced it to bite size. No need for the tiring cutting of the steak. And the portion is big ! A must order !!

Sliced Sizzling Tenderloin, 10/10

Added with some black pepper on top and it tasted even better. The tenderloin tasted salty, and served with some cut potatoes. We even preferred this cut potatoes to the mashed one on the lamb shank.

Very long pepper grinder

Finally, here comes our dessert. We chose the Apple Creme Brulee. Simply said, its just a stuffed apple with some cream on top, served with their in-house Movenpick icecream. Tasted so-so. Give it a try though if you haven't do so.

Apple Creme Brulee, 5/10

Well, in the end, we went back with a satisfied tummy. Though some of the dishes comes up short of our expectations, we think its a great restaurant for 2 or even a small gathering with friends and family. Ambience and service is top notch, and a great place to take some nice photos. Definitely worth going a 2nd time.

Romantic candlelight

The Sire Museum Restaurant is located at
Address: 4 King Street, 10200 Penang.
Directions: From Jelutong Expressway, go towards Jetty and to the end, follow the left curve to a roundabout with the buah pinang statue. Go straight, and you will see The Sire on your left on the 2nd row of shophouses, just opposite Esplanade. Its a one way, so, take the left turn on the next junction.
Contact: 04-264 5088

Price: 6/10
Ambience: 10/10
Service: 10/10
Food: 7/10
Cleanliness: 9/10
Entertainment: 7/10

Visit http://picasaweb.google.com/thexnix/TheSire# for more photos