El Cerdo @ Changkat Bukit Bintang, KL

El Cerdo has really good weekday set lunches which though not cheap, is really worth it as it comes with a salad and cold appetiser buffet. As evidenced by the abundance of piggy decor in the restaurant, you can be assured of a delicious porky affair. El Cerdo is also a good place to go if you want a romantic ambience as the lighting is so dim, even during lunchtime, that my pictures were all grainy and blur... =.=

   

     

Shooo cuteeee!!!

     

Set Lunch Menu

       

Sniff sniff grunt grunt

    

Salad and Cold Appetizer Buffet

   
If you wish to have only the salad and cold appetizer buffet, it's priced at RM 25.
   
It was really hard to get a decent picture of this due to the dim lighting but clockwise from  bottom left is toasted baguette with the most awesome garlic butter, honey ham salad, roasted pork with tuna sauce,  lomo, salsichon, pig's head jelly and jamon serrano with rock melon cubes.
   
It was my first time tasting jamon serrano and I must say it was quite salty and not at all what I expected >.< My favourites were salsichon, the super sweet rock melon cubes and yummy garlic butter bread.

     

Marinated Pork Shoulder Steak (RM 48)

 
The pork shoulder looked kind of small when it arrived but the 2 pieces given proved to be more than sufficient. Probably also because I already stuffed myself with the appetizer buffet =P
 
The pork shoulder steaks were well marinated and really flavourful. They were nicely grilled and the meat was still moist and tender. A blob of mustard sauce was given to enhance its flavour but it already tasted very good on its own.
 
There was a scattering of finely sliced yellow strips - I couldn't make out what it was but it tasted a little like onion strips... There was a bed of potato salad beneath the shoulder steaks and these tasted better with the mustard sauce.

     

Lovely presentation

      

Whatcha looking at?

   
If you celebrate a birthday at El Cerdo, they'll serve you chocolate cake with a cute mini pig painted with sakura petals. The birthday boy/girl gets to keep the pig but the chocolate cake is actually not free and was part of our order =.= The waiter didn't even tell us that the chocolate cake was actually another friend's order! >.< No brownie points there >. >
      

Mango Tiramisu

 
The mango tiramisu was so-so for me as I felt it was a bit too mushy for my liking. 

    

Spanish Flourless Chocolate Cake

   
The Spanish Flourless Chocolate Cake was really good - moist and chocolatey. The rectangular blob of whipped cream had a hint of lemon but I did not try the grainy stuff on the side - probably molasses or something similar - as the cake was good enough on its own.

     

Ain't I cute?

   
One grouse is that water is not free here...only hot water is. What sort of logic is that? And it was really hard to get the waiters' attention despite the restaurant not being even half full. Looks like they've got to un-dim their lighting...
    

    

PawPoints: 4 Paws
Pawket: Cheese
        
El Cerdo

43-45 Changkat Bukit Bintang
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 2145 0511

Rama V Fine Thai Cuisine @ Jalan U Thant, KL

When our friend told us about an ala-carte, fine dining Thai buffet with free flow beer and drinks, we could hardly wait to try it! Rama V's buffet is only available on weekends during lunch and I must say it is a pretty good deal for the amount of food we'll be able to try. It is located in KL where there is a cluster of embassies and housed in a refurbished bungalow. Parking is somewhat limited so best to car pool although it doesn't seem like there are many patrons on weekends.

     

Very fine indeed

      

Pity the rest of the house does not match the entrance

     

Inner garden

     

Place setting

      

Buffet Menu

   

Buffet Menu

   
To minimise wastage, there is a guideline for the number of dishes one can order which depends on the number of people in one's party. Once you have finished the ordered dishes, you are welcomed to order more so it is best to come with a group of 6-8 friends to be able to fully taste most of the dishes available in the ala-carte buffet.

      

Fruit punch

     

Array of drinks available

     

Yam Pla Duk Fu

   
This dish is a spicy catfish salad with dressing made from sliced mangoes. The catfish tastes quite dry as it is deep fried til crisp but provides a nice crunchy texture to the salad. The sliced mango dressing infused with fish sauce is quite spicy and gives a yummy flavour to the overall dish.

     

Meang Kam

   
The typical Thai appetizer, Meang Kam is served beautifully on a square plate with defined slots for each condiment. The condiments include lime cubes, deep fried dried shrimps, ginger cubes, bird's eye chillies, cubed raw onions,  toasted groundnuts and some little sticks of I-dunno-what...probably herbs (or coconut shavings if Wiki is correct). The sauce is thick and I prefer to put more of it on the chaplu aka kadok leaf as otherwise the leafy bundle tastes quite bland. My favourite condiments are raw onions, dried shrimps and lime cubes =)

     

Build your own salad

       

Tom Yam Kung

   
The Tom Yam Kung is murky and spicy with lots of seafood and parsley shavings. One of the best I've had and definitely much better than Khuntai's with just the right sour notes (on a side note, I have no idea why there are so many hits for Khuntai when the dishes are SOOOO sour!!!).

     

Poe Tak

   
I'm not sure if Poe Tak is commonly available in other Thai restaurants but this is the first time I've seen this dish. I was initially quite hesitant to order it as clear soup, to me, just means bland or tastes something like chicken soup. Never have I been so wrong and I must say that Poe Tak is now my favourite and even tops Tom Yam Kung!! =D
   
This clear seafood soup is spicy and infused with Thai herbs. As with the Tom Yam Kung, it consists of lots of seafood and parsley which is my favourite herb. Its spiciness was bearable but the more I drank, the spicier it became! >.< In the end I had to halt my drinking and take a few mouthfuls of other dishes before resuming another spoon of soup. But it was extremely addictive with its light clear bittersweet taste (somehow it tasted like extremely concentrated ginseng chicken soup to me but JS disagreed) and sharp zing. 

     

The culprit

   
The culprit turned out to be a whole family of black peppercorns hiding in the soup with its accomplice - dried chillies.

     

Kai Pad Ka Pao

   
This is a quintessential Thai dish of minced chicken stir fried with lots of fresh basil leaves and chillies. Fragrant and heartwarming, this is the perfect dish to go with rice.

     

Gaeng Ped Pol Linchee

   
Ooo this is yummy...thick red curry with a hint of sweetness by the plump lychees. The roasted duck surprisingly went very well with the curry combination but the brinjal I felt was too hard and did not absorb the curry flavours. There were also these giant pea pods which looked very cute, dotting the dish.

     

Pla Dang Sam Rod

   
This fried red snapper was my favourite of the lot. The fish had a lovely light batter and its meat was still moist and firm despite being bathed in hot oil. The 3 taste chilli sauce was spicy and complemented the fish very well.

   

Kai Hor Bai Toey

   
The Pandan Chicken was really flavourful and well marinated and did not need the help of the accompanying chilli sauce to boost its taste. The chef also managed to retain the juiciness of the chicken despite being deep-fried until its skin was crispy. We were really stuffed by then but I still forced myself to finish the chicken as it was that good.
      

Dessert time!

   
Two in the party were ecstatic that it was finally time for dessert and let me assure you, it wasn't the girls...
       

Chendol, Taro and Sticky Rice in Coconut Milk

   
The cendol expert said this Chendol was so-so only. It was creamier than the local version as evidenced in the picture and JS didn't like the addition of yam in it.

     

Water Chestnut Dumplings with Jack Fruit in Coconut Milk

   
No comment on this as I did not try it but looks good!
     

Longan

   
Tasted like it was straight from the can haha but still good! The chunk of ice helped reduce its sweetness.
     

Mixed Fruits

   
Fresh fruits with a surprise strawberry - what else is there to say? =P
   
Guess how many of us were there for this meal? Only four and we were stuffed beyond words but what a great meal! Although it was a buffet, every dish was prepared with care and tasted better than your average Thai meal. For a price of RM 65, I have to say this is a very good deal as you can sample lots of dishes without breaking your piggy bank (considering the amount you'd have to pay if you ate this much ala-carte).
 
They've got sister restaurants at Setia City Mall and Paradigm Mall which I hope are cheaper versions and we've already got plans to head to one of them =)

   

 
PawPoints: 5 Paws
Pawket: Cheese
      

Rama V Fine Thai Cuisine
5 Jalan U Thant
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 2143 2663
Daily: 12pm - 3pm, 6.30pm - 11pm

Gonbei San @ Starhill Gallery, KL

Ah...Gonbei San - the top guy of the fine dining buffet pyramid. Curious about its offerings and how much more fine dining it can get buffet-style, we headed over to Starhill Gallery one day. The whole mall exudes elegance and a sort of untouchable / unreachable sense to it (much like the elite Tan Sris and Puan Sris) and the same applies to Gonbei San.

   

The view from across

 

Main entrance

   
The main entrance itself feels surreal like you're entering an entirely different world. The drum is beaten once to signal your arrival and you have to walk through a series of criss-crossing bamboo poles shaped somewhat like a teepee to reach the inner chambers of the restaurant...
   

Interior

   
Once inside though, we found the seating arrangements here a little odd...most of the tables are 2-seaters and the seats are placed at a right angle. When we attempted to shift the chair so that we can be seated facing each other, the slightly snobbish manager hurried forward and told us sternly that we were not allowed to change the seating arrangements. Thankfully, a more experienced waitress came over and offered us another table.
   

Ceramics!

     

Mango Juice

   
An assortment of juices is available for the little kids (in you)...
   

Sashimi

   
Sashimi! The whole point of going to a fine-dining Japanese restaurant is for their super fresh and juicy and bouncy sashimi! Here they have salmon, tuna and butterfish. Needless to say, the sashimi at Gonbei San totally lives up to expectations - chilled, juicy and bouncy - and we took many many servings...
   

Maki and more Sashimi!

   
I couldn't resist sneaking a few makis - here I've taken futomaki, soft shell crab maki and ebi maki =) The futomaki wasn't too well-prepared - I much prefer Sushi Zanmai's one. The ebi maki was average but the soft shell crab maki was really good. One point to note was the uneven and "un-clean" cut of the makis...you can see jagged bits of rice sticking out.
   

Pickled cold salad

   
The pickled seaweed on the left was typical but the one on the right which I couldn't figure out its contents, was kind of odd. It was crunchy and tasteless >.<
   

Seafood salad and carbs

   

• I also couldn't resist sneaking a bowl of cold soba which was quite average. 
• The seafood salad in Thousand Island sauce was fresh and yummy. 
• The black blob on the plate is stewed hijiki, a type of sea vegetable, which was not too bad but Tenjin's version tastes much better and is more flavourful.
• I love potato salads and this was no exception =D

   

Chawanmushi

 
The Chawanmushi has mushrooms, seaweed, bits of chicken bits and a squid ball and was slightly firm with a nice smooth texture.
   

Teppanyaki

   
Clockwise from top left are the prawns, beef, mussels, chicken, squid and fish teppanyaki. No prizes for guessing but I enjoyed the prawn teppanyaki the most as they were shelled (except for the tail bit) and you can just pop them into your mouth consecutively. The mussels were really good and juicy too. Actually, all of them were equally good and not the least dry.
   

Agemono

   
From the left in a clockwise order, we've got tori karaage aka fried chicken, sakana katsu aka fish cutlets, tori katsu aka chicken cutlet, lamb teriyaki and butter fish fillet. They were deep-fried to perfection and very yummy.
   

Fried Rice

   
As usual, I had to satisfy my carby self so had this bowl of fried rice which was really good, perfectly separated rice grains and adequate wok hei.
   

Onsen Tamago

   
The onsen tamago was slurpilicious.
   

Tempura

   
The tempura came with the usual dipping sauce.
 

Close-up of Tempura

 
We tried the prawn, sweet potato and ladies finger tempura and they were all good - light and not oily.
   

Traditional Japanese Dessert

   
These were my choice of desserts - mochi rolled in sugary peanut crumbs, chrysanthemum jelly with wolfberry and mini dorayakis filled with a choice of sweet red bean paste or smooth peanut butter.
 
I felt the mochi was slightly too sweet for me and after the heavy meal, I was really too lazy to chew on the gooey mochi. The mini dorayakis were addictive but there was no way of distinguishing which had peanut butter sandwiched in between and which had red bean paste.
 
My favourite was the chrysanthemum jelly...it was totally refreshing with sweet wolfberries embedded in each slice. A real palate cleanser, I easily had 4 or 5 of those irresistible squares O.O
 

Western Dessert

   
There were many types of Western desserts available which included an assortment of cakes but as were totally stuffed, we only had a fruit tart and some chocolate dipped marshmallow and strawberry. These were typical Western desserts and not very outstanding.
   

Black Sesame Ice-Cream

   
There were many ice-cream flavours available but we only took the black sesame and green tea ice-cream.

   

Green Tea Ice-Cream

   
Both the black sesame and green tea ice-cream were velvety smooth and creamy with a strong black sesame and green tea taste respectively.
   
Overall, the sashimi here is really good and fresh and most of the food tasted quite good but at this price, I'd rather go for quality over quantity. Plus there are other buffet restaurants serving the same or even better quality food at a much cheaper price.
   
By the way, if you are a fan of novelty washrooms, do visit Gonbei San's as they've got a modified shishiodoshi for a tap!
    

    

PawPoints: 4 Paws
Pawket: Salami
      
Gonbei San

T2 Relish Floor
Starhill Gallery
Tel: 03 2782 3801
Daily: 12pm - 3pm, 6pm - 11pm