Dinner at Blackbyrd KL, Platinum Park

"I want to have dinner at a place with a view. Can you find one?"

During this CMCO period, it was not easy to find a place to dine with a view of KLCC as it would either be closed or fully booked due to the social distancing rule. This limits the number of seats in a restaurant.

I called Blackbyrd KL and I requested for a table on Saturday. But, they were fully booked. Fortunately, the person in charge was kind enough to inform me that there will be a table available on the following day. Blackbyrd also shared their menu via whatsapp with me.

So, if you want to dine-in anywhere in this covid situation, it is best to call beforehand.

Parking at Platinum Park was easy, but I never figured out where the lift was (lack of signages, I think). I did find the lift eventually with the help of the jockey when I wanted to pay parking and go to the basement again.

Upon entering the lobby of the building, there will be a temperature check, scanning of QR code for details and they were pretty strict about wearing a mask. We went up to Level 50.

I was glad my request to be seated at a table with a view was given. The view was amazing! I never get tired of the view of this concrete jungle.

The view from Blackbyrd KL

I kind of knew what I wanted to order as I did some research on what was good. So, I ordered the Crispy Nori Crunch, Chicken Satay, Seafood Linguine Aglo Olio and Mie Goreng Sambal Metah.

Crispy Nori Crunch - tempura nori seaweed, spicy salmon, salmon roe, parmesan. I particularly enjoy this dish. It was crispy and a bit spicy which gave it a good kick. It was also something different and new to try.

Chicken Satay - Minced chicken and peanut sauce. It does not taste like the chunky Kajang satay. But, this satay tasted pretty good with the seasoning not being overwhelming.

Mie Goreng Sambal Metah - Seabass fillet, sambal metah, noodle and fish cracker. This dish looked similar to the mamak mee goreng but it does not taste like it. Its less oily and the spice is different. I ordered this as the reviews recommended this. The dish was alright especially with the seabass in it.

Seafood Linguine Aglio Olio- prawn, mussel, squid and white wine. I think this comes highly recommended for someone craving seafood and pasta. The portion was just right and there was no fishy seafood taste to it which made it an enjoyable meal.

I read that the portions were small. But I think it was a good size. Two plates of noodles were too much actually for the two of us.

Blackbyrd has a nice bar too.

It was all good and price wise, it was not too bad. The service was good too.

D Empire Restaurant at Pavillion KL

I stumbled upon D Empire in Pavillion while I was looking for food to eat. I did not feel like having any Japanese or Chinese food - I did not want Asian food.

D Empire was located on Level 6 of Pavillion. They serve European cuisine. Lunch set comes with a main couurse, soup of the day and drink.

I tried their lamb shank, pesto pasta and tiramisu.

The lamb shank was pretty good.

I still prefer Eatalia and Porto Romano's pesto pasta.

The tiramisu here was ok. It went well with their generous 2 scoops of ice cream.

Will I make another visit to D Empire? Yes.

Mr Fish @Starling Mall

If you have not tried the fish fillet noodle or fish head noodles from Mr Fish in Starling Mall, you HAVE TO!

The fish head was crispy and the fish fillet was boneless. The milky noodle soup with prawns as add on made everything sweeter😀

Mr Fish is located at the Basement near Jaya Grocer.

Din Tai Fung, Suria KLCC

I have not been exploring the malls in KL much. I wanted to go to Pavillion KL today but the carpark was full I could not even enter. So, I diverted to KLCC instead where there was ample of parking. An option would then be to walk to Pavillion. But, once inside KLCC, there were so many shops I needed to 'catch up' with that I decided to go to Pavillion on another day.

By the time it was dinner, I had no plans of what or where to eat. I was on my way up to the highest floor of the mall when I stumbled upon Din Tai Fung. I know the queue was always long at Pavillion. So, it was a no brainer to quickly try to get a table for three. As luck would have it, we were seated easily and few minutes later, throngs of people entered the restaurant to dine too.

Food was really good. Not the oily or full with ajinomoto cooking. We ordered
Xiu liong pao
Siew Mai
Beef noodle soup
Pea sprout with garlic
Beef fried rice
Mayonaise prawn
Thousand layer cake

Good stuff!

Breakfast at home

I have forgotten how easy cooking at home can be. Over the past four years, I hardly had time to cook a proper meal in my kitchen. I was too busy working! Cooking at home involves shopping for the ingredients and washing up. I also tend to throw untouched food from my refrigerator as it would be sitting there for weeks. So, I hardly grocery shop and most of the time ate out. Food panda, Uber Eat, Honest Bee and EAT delivery services were heaven sent 😀

Finally, I get this long holiday in December and I figured using the kitchen to cook would be a good start. It has been fantastic so far. No more nestum with milk for breakfast in December😆 As for the washing up, I make sure to schedule my maid to come after I have done the heaviest cooking🙃

Chinese Sticky Honey Pork Ribs

I never knew how to make my meat sticky. I never tried, till today.
Holidays give me time to make homecooked food and do decent grocery shopping.

I bought pork ribs with the intention of just making ABC soup. But, I did not want the same old boiled pork ribs for the entire pack I bought. So, I searched online to make ribs with honey and this Chinese Sticky Ribs came up.

This recipe was fab as I only needed 3 cups of water, 3 tablespoon of honey, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon oil. It took less than 30 minutes to cook on the stove. So that was a bonus too!

I was very happy with how my meal turned out to be. This recipe is definitely a keeper 😀

Super Saigon, Hartamas

I enjoyed the food at Super Saigon in Hartamas. It is originated from Melbourne.

Spring rolls - Nice filling but I preferred the ones wrapped with rice paper like the ones in Vietnam Kitchen in Publika.

Pho with beef and beef balls - Thumbs up for this pho. The best pho I have tasted in KL.

Bahn Mi with lemongrass chicken - This was my first try at eating banh mi. I loved that the bread was crispy and it went so well with the vege and lemongrass chicken inside.

Drinks - so-so

Eatalia, Hartamas

December holidays are here! No better time to update my blog adn enjoy good food around me😀

Eatalia is an Italian restaurant I stumbled upon one day. It was always packed with people and the diners sitting outside were usually expats. I take it expats know what good Italian food was!

Food ordered:
Calamari

Bruschetta
Margarita

Spinach Ravioli

Tenderloin

Tiramisu

I loved their spinach ravioli, tenderloin and tiramisu. I went back again another time for lunch where I had thier pesto pasta and mushroom soup. Good stuff!

Melbourne

Winter

Loving it!

Mii 2 Noodle @Publika

Stumbled upon Mii 2 Noodle shop at Publika today. I was suppose to try Go Noodle but mistakenly entered Mii 2. I only realised I was not in Go Noodle after looking at the menu which had limited choices and the server telling me they have only been opened for 1 month.

Anyway, it was a good mistake becaise their homemade noodles were really good. I was told that their specialty was their homemade loh mee.


Not being a fan of loh mee, I settled for their homemade mee, which was like pan mee. It would be nice to have fishballs or meatballs to complement the dish. I settled for fried dumplings in the end.

Breakfast at Blvd House, Naza Tower

Blvd House started serving breakfast starting from 9am. I enjoyed the food the first time I had dinner there so I decided to have a go at their breakfast.

I called to make reservations. I spoke to a staff and I told her the breakfast menu was not online. She gladly read out the menu to.me over the phone. It was a lot so I interrupted her to ask if they served pancakes. She said yes.

I was there at 10am and when I was seated I looked through the menu for pancakes. I did not see any. I saw crepes but that was not the pancakes I wanted. I asked the waiter and he said no, they do not serve pancakes.

I was in the mood for fluffy pancakes!

Anyway, I ordered the Egg Hemmingway. There was a choice of smoked salmon or lobster. I chose lobster.

Verdict: Soggy English Muffin because of the onions on top and Bernaise sauce poached egg. Lobster was salty. Poached egg was perfect.

Salty and soggy food are a no-no for me. So I guess I ordered the wrong choice of food. 

The other dish was called Salom Croissant - Smoked Salmon, scarmble egg with croissant. Can't go wrong with that.

I also ordered hot chocolate. I had a difficult time choosing the hot chocolate from the menu as they had a variety.

The waiter recommended Blond chocolate. Super super duper sweet. I do not know if thats normally how its served but it was like asking the mamak guy to tambah manis banyak to the teh tarik.

Its a crazy new different experience at this place.

Blvd House, Naza Tower

I still crave for the steak at Blvd House eventhough I was there 3 weeks ago. It was that delicious!

I ordered the tenderloin steak and it was cooked to perfection. The tiny pot of mushroom sauce was a good combo.

I also ordered the mussels and clams in pesto sauce. This dish was a bit unique as the sauce changes on a daily basis.

For dessert, I had their green tea something with ice cream.

All so good and it was happy hour - Buy 2 free 1. So, margaritas it was :)

Boil the bacon

Bought bacon strips and the thought of frying it wasn't appealing because it would have made the whole house smell of oil and bacon.

So I decided to do something that we usually do for steamboat, BOIL THE BACON!

I loved it. No strong smell. Not extra oily. Best of all, not salty.

The only downside is if you like it crispy. I liked the chewy boiled one.

Pho Vietz, Sri Petaling

I am on a roll with blogging now. I actually stopped because Blogger app was always giving me problems and error. So I finally decided to just use chrome

Last week I went to Pho Vietz in Sri Petaling. I was told its better than Sao Nam in Changkat Bukit Bintang.

I would say Pho Vietz portion was very big amd enough meat to make me happy. My go to vietnamese restaurant for now. It was always hard to find good Vietnamese restaurant in KL which was comparable to the ones I had in USA and Canada. Taste and portion was a problem in KL. But Pho Vietz is highly recommended as I was satisfied.

As always, there has to be round 2 to try more food from the menu.

Fahrenheit 600, Publika

When I arrived in Publika today, I googled the top restaurants to try in Publika. The one restaurant which had high recommendation was Fahrenheit 600. It is located on the same row as Okonomi Jap Restaurant.

As we were stuffed from Okonomi, I suggested coffee at Fahrenheit because reviews were good. The famous food in Fahrenheit 600 was pizza. Unfortunately, my stomach had no room for pizza this round. 

I ordered the hot chocolate as it was recommended by a blogger review. Unfortunately, I didnt think it was that amazing. I have tasted better elsewhere.

Mum liked the cappucino. She said it was very good.

Dad had the latte.

Will be back for pizza!

Okonomi, Publika

Publika has been around for years and I never had the chance to really explore the place because it was always park and straight into the supermarket to buy groceries and back to the carpark and head home.

Today, was an eye opening gastronomic experience because along the rows of shops outside the mall, I found many good restaurants worth trying.

As it was mum's birthday today, I made a quick decision between the row of shops to try Okonomi Jap Restaurant. What caught my interest was the fact that we could customise our sushi roll. I made reservations and of course started reading blog reviews on Okonomi tuo confirm it was worth going to. 

Reviews were convincing. 

I ordered Firecracker roll, Seafood roll, Prawn Avacado salad and molten lava matcha.

Everything was good and amazingly deleicious. Portion was generously big and I hope the size stays the same forever.

Okonomi is hands down my preferred sushi place now. 

The prawn and avacado salad was really good. I am not a big fan of salads, but this was delicious

Seafood roll consists of salmon, soft shell crab, tempura flakes and other things which blended really well tast wise.

The firecracker roll was a recommendation from other blog reviews I read. It was really spicy but good. 

The molten lava matcha was pretty amazing. It takes 10mins to make and it was served warm. I loved it because it was not too sweet and it had cute bamboo looking green tea chocolate on the side. The texture of the lava cake was very good