House of Bento, Food Court 4th Floor KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

I really do not know what to say about this place. It is called the House of Bento. Big name and big expectations! Ordered the most commonly ordered bento set which is the teriyaki bento box. It did come pretty fast, within 5 minutes, the box was ready. Price wise, cheap. RM13.90
For this posting, I will have to break it down using the photos taken as I am speechless about establishments like that.

With a name like House of Bento, you would expect their Bento to have a little class.

This bento is arranged in way that made me feel like I was in a factory canteen or some labor camp. Rice was not even served right. Rice in bento's are typically nice and compact within their "hole" and almost square all the time. Look closely and then you can also count the seaweed on top. 11 to be exact and yes I counted them! 

The only consolation for them is that the photos make their food look nice but..

Next comes the teriyaki chicken. My photo makes it look good but taste...it tasted nothing like teriyaki chicken. As a matter of fact, it tasted weird. It had this weird taste of soy sauce, sugar and tinge of expired bottled teriyaki sauce (bought from Jusco's sale?). It was terrible. Not only the chicken is dry, it was utterly nonsense!!!!!!! &*^%$#!

Then came the salad and mashed potato. Shredded lettuce in thousand island sauce? Mashed potato that tasted like the pre-pack ones you get at the supermarket? &^&^#@!!

Check out this pathetic looking piece of tofu. It is not even square. There is a missing bit of tofu. Two drops of sauce is all you get. This is meant to be cold tofu and it has to be served cold. (I understand that it's a food court and you can put this tiny piece on ice but have a little pride please!) In fact the tofu piece was so damn small, I forgot where it went when it got into my mouth!

Now last but not least, the miso soup. Can someone tell me what is wrong with the photo above? Are spring onions very expensive these days? As I always said, soup must be served hot. Not steaming hot but hot. Not warm, room temperature...it must be hot. Urgh!!!!


Verdict


STRIKE OUT!

Taman Desa Food Court, Kuala Lumpur

Hawker food these days in Malaysia are surely going to the dumps. Tell me one food court that is good in Kuala Lumpur and if I agree, I'll give you a RM100. 90% of the stalls in town are all manned by foreigners, mainly Burmese. (Now that Burma is called Myamar, I really don't know what to call them.) I reckon that in 10 years when Myamar is free, all of them will go back and if we want to have Malaysian hawker food, we'll have to fly there.
The Taman Desa food court is no exception. It is the only food court in the place and I reckon that the only reason why they still have business is that there is ample parking. Nothing is fabulous or even worth wasting bandwidth on. The chicken rice stall is ok only because his price is reasonable and the portions are adequate. The Thai food stall used to be good until the cooks were displaced. The prawn dumpling is not bad but the attitude of the old man there..something to dispute next time. 

Servings pretty good and for RM5.50, it's a good deal.

The classic story of the place is the char kueh teow stall. A couple of years back, the owner put up a huge notice saying that if it's not good, we will refund you. He was pretty good then, no complaints. He had a great Indonesian helper too. Everything went downfall, when the helper left and in came his PRC girl friend. After a few months, the poor old Casanova was dumped and he could not fry his kueh teow anymore. After numerous refunds, he just could not hack it anymore. (By the way, I heard this from some aunty there.)


Anyway, it's the only place in Taman Desa that you can find more variety albeit the quality.
As I said, which food court in KL is good after all.


Another one bites the dust!

Swatow Lane Food court, Penang

I was utterly impressed when I got here. I remember that the chendol stall was at the corner coffee shop but it has since moved into the food court opposite the shop. Now located in this sparkling new food court, it reminds me a bit of the ones you find in Singapore. Clean, organized and good parking.
First stop was to order the chendol and ice kacang. There was quite a queue but service was pretty quick and efficient. Presentation of the traditional Malaysian dessert is never a good sight but the taste is always the killer.

Check out the kidney beans. Big arse ones. They were not too stingy on the gula melaka and the chendol was absolutely mouth watering especially in our weather. 

The ice kacang is nothing to shout about. The shaven ice is bit too coarse. I do not like canned corn in my ice kacang.


Next stop was to order curry noodles. The stall is located just in front of the chendol stall. Check out the photo below. The presentation - thumbs up! It makes the customer feel good when the cook go through the pains of arranging their food in a nicer way. Aesthetically, this was really good.

As I said earlier, the bowl of curry noodles came and boy! I was impressed. Bonus points for effort to make the dish look good.

Immediately I took a whiff of the curry noodles. Nothing much...again I smelled it again....nothing much still. This is not a good sign for curry noodles. The aroma of the curry spices were not there. First sip of the curry and again this confirmed that the spices were not there and it was not as tantalizing as I expected it to be. Although the prawns were good, everything else to the bowl of noodles was mediocre. The cockels (Si Ham) were so small, one blink and you'll miss it. Yet again, I have been deceived by the good looks.

The food court of Swatow Lane is indeed a nice place if you want variety and cleanliness. I like the way the whole place is organized and the way the tables are arranged. Not too cramp unlike the food courts in KL where they will try to fit 20 tables in a 5'x5' area.

Chendol = 2 Points
Ice Kacang = 1 Point
Curry Noodles = 1 Point