Akasaka Ramen, Tokyo Japan

I am reporting this live from Tokyo, Japan. It has been more than 10 years since I was here. First thing I did once I dumped my luggage at the hotel was to look for ramen. Japanese ramen is my favorite. Coming to Japan and not having ramen is a sin and those that do not will burn in hell while getting choked with ramen.
Happened to walk past this place called Akasaka Ramen which looked really inviting. Small eatery with the usual vending machine where you buy a ticket for the ramen that you want. Simply pass the ticket to the waitress waiting and in a couple of minutes, food is served. Systematic and beats the hassle of trying to communicate to her.

This Shoyu Ramen is superb. Soya based soup, thick and full of flavor. I love the fact that the soup is all based from pork stock. Fresh, noodles just right, good serving. Only thing was the egg which was just a very normal hard boiled egg. Yummy!

Now this is the cream of the place. Pork Ramen. Whitish, thick pork soup with tender pork slices. The soup itself is a meal. It is so fulfilling, I was screaming with joy when I had my first mouthful of it. Sweetness of a soup perfectly done. Not salty but just so full of flavor that you can literally feel the pig running around in your mouth. LOL. The pork slices were sensational. It melts in your mouth. I mean it. It is done with perfection, soft, tender, juicy, you name it. Absolutely heaven.


This is one place I will come back before I return to KL. Price is reasonable. Shoyu ramen for 750 yen and the pork ramen for only 680 yen. Free iced water plus eat all you can bean sprouts (appetizer) which are marinated with sesame oil and sprinkled with chilli powder. Great little place with the usually polite Japanese service.


Points - 4 Thumbs Up!

Say NO! To Pets in restaurants

I do love dogs. I used to own dogs till they all got kidnapped which explains why I do not have a dog anymore due to the heartache that the whole family had to endure when they got stolen. (Curse those damn dog thieves, one day the dogs will just maul these fuckers back. I am sure. Laws of Karma.)
The one thing that I cannot stand is people bringing their dogs to restaurants. Come on!! It's a place where humans go to and eat. Keep your dog at home. Do not bring it sitting on a chair and pretending to be human.
Malaysians have no consideration at all. Bringing a hairy Shih Tsu into a restaurant is one of them. I do not want doggie hair in my soup! Worst thing is that these arses treat their dogs like humans. Dogs must know their place. (How to train your dog - Rule No.1) - Never have your dog at the dinner table and feed it too! No wonder they have dumb dogs that will never respond to them unless there is food.
I was just at this Bak Kut Teh restaurant down Old Klang Road where this really Chinese Ah Beng family strutted in with their father (middle aged loan shark in a singlet) and their damn ribbon tied hairy Shih Tsu. Best part is the girl (maybe boy as I could not tell) put the pork in her mouth, then started feeding the dog with the pieces of meat in her mouth. Hand in the mouth, pull out a piece then stick it to the dog and it goes over and over again. Damn!! Talk about hygiene! 


All I am saying is that restaurants of all kinds should just ban pets from their places. You can have your dog outside but not inside where people eat. Dogs should know their place and it's definitely not on the dinner table.


Am I wrong?

Bumbu Bali, Bandar Puteri Puchong, Selangor

Out in the jungles of dodgy Puchong is Bumbu Bali, a Balinese themed restaurant that serves Balinese food plus a mixture of some western dishes too. i.e. Fish and Chips. Anyway, it first opened here years ago and business has been good, looks like the "bengs" here do enjoy something else other than economy rice and pan mee. (Bumbu Bali has since also opened up in Solaris Dutamas)
I've always liked this place. Decor is typically Balinese with teak furniture and nice seats. Comfy! Ambience is cosy and warm which makes it stand out in this "Chinese" suburb.  FYI, they sell merchandise too. Bali stuff - wood carvings, statues and eery looking stuff.
Let's get back to food here. Today, I just had to try their Siap Bumbu. Fried Balinese style chicken, rice and salad. RM30. The price seems steep but the serving makes up for it. It is pretty huge.

Nice presentation, food served on a banana leaf and in this wooden tray. (I wonder if the Balinese actually eat like this.) 

Check out the big piece of fried chicken. Perfectly done, juicy and pretty crispy on the outside. Served with the chilli belacan, YUMMY!

Crackers served together but this one..sigh! not much taste. No prawn taste or any other taste except for flour!

Now this little serving of "salad" is good. Very refreshing, crunchy and the taste. It is the simple dishes like this that makes a difference in everyday food. Appetizing and yes the vegetables are fresh.

Bumbu Bali is a pretty nice place to have dinner or lunch if you have the budget to spend RM30 for lunch. Although the servings pretty big but I reckon the price is still pretty steep for normal Balinese fare that does not include very expensive ingredients. 

Will I come come back? Yeah, maybe once every 6 months, LOL! Oh before I forget, the barley lime here is a must try. Extremely good especially on a hot day. Not too sweet and no overkill by too much of the slimy barley. Thumbs up!

Points - 2.5 - Nice place, pretty good food but the price...expensive.

Decanter, Damansara Heights, Kuala Lumpur

Decanter in Damansara Heights used to be a cool hangout for me as it was hidden between houses in this so called "rich" area of Kuala Lumpur. It was always a good place to have a good lunch, coffee maybe a couple of beers and not likely to be disturbed or bump into anyone you know. I like that.
Decanter is not a wine place, mind you. It is styled more like an old English pub. Don't know where the name decanter came from. It is a cosy old fashioned kinda pub/restaurant which serves pretty ok food, which mainly has a mixture of local and western fare.
On this particular day, I was in the mood for some ox tail. Ordered the Oxtail soup and also the Oxtail stew. (Yeah yeah I know. Over dose of ox??) Also got the Chicken Chop.

One thing about Ox tail soup is that you can't really get good ones anymore. Not many places have this anymore. (Don't know why?) Or just that the chef's do not know how to do this? Well, the oxtail soup here is not too bad. Not as thick as I want it to be but taste wise, it's passable. Not enough ox tail in it though making it a little too watery for my liking but nevertheless the taste was there.

Next came the Oxtail stew. Damn! This thing was hot....took a long time to cool down in order to consume it without burning my tongue. This stew just had too much pepper in it. The pepper totally overkilled the stew, over powering any other taste available. (I am sure this will be good in a cold winter night) It was not disappointing though, before the pepper numbed my tongue. It was not very salty, just nice and the stew being a stew was thick. Dip the bread into it and it was awesome, before the pepper started working. After a few scoops, it all went downhill as I was struggling with the pepper.

The chicken chop came and it looked good. Very "Ketchuppy" and good serving with vegetables. Taste wise, normal chicken chop with ketchup and HP sauce. I reckon I can do better with my own recipe on this. The thing with chicken chop, the recipe works with both chicken and pork. Good thing was the serving was pretty big and you won't go home hungry.


Decanter is still the old place hidden in the hills of Damansara Heights. (I refuse to call it Bukit Damansara. Why change those damn names when it already sounded pretty cool, beats me!!) The decor in this place is old, maybe it's time to do some minor renovations and change those ugly table cloth.
Service is still pretty acceptable. One thing is that it is good place to have lunch or happy hour away from the noise and traffic of Mont Kiara and Hartamas.


Points - 2 

Jin Man Fishball Noodles, Taman Taynton View, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur

I never knew there was a place in Cheras called Taman Taynton View, sounds very "white" for a very "beng" suburb. Anyway, this place is right opposite the highway from Leisure Mall and there's only like one row of shops there. Hidden here is the famous fish ball noodles of Jin Man.
Got here at 2pm and it was still pretty full. Business is good for the fish people. First thing I noticed is that this place is pretty clean. The floors are not the usual oily and slippery ones, neither were they sticky from years of grease. Good point! Thumbs up for cleanliness.
Old dude came over and we ordered. One bowl of kueh teow mee dry noodles and another one just mee with soup plus a bowl of fish maw and their famous fish cake. (one thing about Chinese shops like these is that service is always pretty fast.)

Good serving of kueh teow and mee combination. They're not too wet nor too dry. Pretty nicely done. Good.

Fish Balls! Yummy! Soups a bit too light but damn the fish balls were pretty damn good. Bouncy, fresh and not artificial like the ones you get at those bloody food courts. Good!

Fish Mall. Very normal stuff as I reckon that the soup's just a tad too light.

Check out the freshly cut chilli! Fresh chilli and soy sauce goes well with those balls.

I was surprised. This coffee shop's kopi-o ice is pretty damn good. Tastes just like the ones you get at the old Hainanese coffee shops. Good!

Well, the fish cake never came. They forgot about it and we had to tell them that it did not come, only did she deduct it out of our bill. (If we had not noticed it then we would have paid for it. Careless, overlooked or honesty? hmm..I'll just give them a benefit of a doubt on this.


Overall, the food is pretty good. Not very expensive, typical coffee shop prices ranging from RM4 - RM 6.50. Sad that I did not get to try their famous fish cake. I will be back.


Points - 2.5 (0.5 deducted for not getting my fish cake LOL)

Lorong Seratus Tahun, Scott's Gardens, Old Klang Road, Kuala Lumpur

Scott's Gardens on Old Klang Road looks like the odd place out in this crappy and dodgy part of town. Brand new shopping mall smacked in the middle of Old Klang Road that has nothing interesting other than Ah Beng watching. So I guess OKR is also changing finally after years of being in the slums. Scott's Gardens is home to Tesco and quite a few F&B outlets namely the crappy Overtime, Tom Dick & Harry's, another crappy one called Mongkok, a bakery called Bloom but will gloom soon and finally this one grandly named kopitiam called Lorong Seratus Tahun (One Hundred Years Lane).


I've been told by some aunties that the food at this place is not bad and that you should try the 22.90 Char Kueh Teow. Huh! Are you &^%#$# MAD? Anyway headed down with the folks, boss and maid in tow, we decided to try our luck.


The place seems packed. Good sign. (maybe not) Our orders were the curry noodles, nasi lemak, chee cheong fun in prawn paste, rojak, mango "crepes" (cannot remember what it's called) and another curry chicken nyonya rice.


Firstly, I apologize for the low quality photos as I was ill prepared for this. Photos taken using my crappy old dying iphone.

The only thing that tasted OK is the chee cheong fun in prawn paste. A little too light on the prawn paste for my liking but it was actually not too bad. 

Now this is the ARMAGEDDON of the "historical" Lorong Seratus Tahun. Just when it landed on my table, it just did not seem right. Picked up a spoon and scooped the soup. Bloody hell! It was so diluted, it looked like colored plain water. No need to try to know that THIS IS SHIT! STRIKE OUT! YOU'RE OUT!

The Penang Rojak was not too bad though after the horror we had with the curry noodles.  But I can get this from any pasar malam for half the price and be happier.

Nasi Lemak? Just like any other nasi lemak you get from the Kopi Tiams sprouting all over town. Nothing special and nothing interesting.

Nyonya rice? Check out the rice. Looks like a ball of over cooked rice. Sambal was not good, chicken was nothing special (Don't even want to remember what it tasted like!) and the lobak...it should be called Lo Chicken. Lobak without the bak (pork) is not LoBak! Don't try to bullshit us!

Mango crepes! Bad combination, Never order this nonsense again!

We came to the conclusion that water was added into the curry soup. It was just too diluted, too damn watery to be called curry and no sane minded cook can churn out crap like that. We reckoned that maybe the business was too good that day, they ran low on their curry so they decided just to top it up with water and maybe they'll get away with it. NONSENSE! You're a fucking restaurant, you serve food, you serve Penang food...have a little pride please! At least taste your food. If it cannot pass your own bloody tongue, don't serve it to us! (Mum said maybe it was the foreign workers but I said no. The blame is on the bosses of the place that do not train and monitor their own businesses.)


Anyway, this is one place I will not go back. They said maybe you should try our famous RM22.90 Char Kueh Teow! RM22.90 and get a couple of big prawns? No bloody way! If I wanted big prawns, I'll just go to a seafood restaurant and get fresher seafood right?


Another one bites the dust!

Super Kitchen Chilli Pan Mee 辣椒板面, SS2 Chow Yang, Petaling Jaya

The famous Chilli Pan Mee 辣椒板面 from Batu Road has been in the SS2 area of Chow Yang for a number of years now and if you're looking to satisfy your craving of this Malaysian specialty, you do not have to brave the traffic jams of town anymore. 


Pan Mee (noodles) must be one of the only few local Malaysian dishes that Singaporeans cannot steal and call it theirs. LOL!! (had to take a shot at our neighbors..) Anyway for the past few years, the craze is not the traditional Pan Mee in soup but this particular one. Special on its own and add a little of their dry chilli, it makes it very interesting...which to means SPICY! 

Check out the perfectly poached egg. Lovely!

Add a little dry chilli, mixed them all up together and it becomes a sensational new dish called Chilli Pan Mee. Awesome albeit spicy as hell.

The new outlets are clean and well organized with proper chairs and tables. The servings a bit too small so most guys have to consume at least 2 bowls. I guess, this is a pretty good joint to add a little spice (so to speak) to your life once in a while and torture the arse later.


Points - 2.5