Lai Po Heen, Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur Review

Wifey and I decided to spent a weekend at Mandarin Oriental. After we checked out at noon on Sunday, we decided to have our lunch at Lai Po Heen Restaurant as I suddenly had cravings for some good Tim Sum. Once you enter the restaurant, you will notice the open kitchen concept where you can basically see the entire kitchen through a glass partition.

Wifey and I were seated near the window where you will have a nice view of KLCC park and overlooking the sight of the city centre.  

The first dish we had was the sea cucumber congee. Honestly, I never thought that sea cucumber goes well as porridge and was sceptical at first. It turns out to be pretty good with a nice flavour and I especially liked the "chewy" sea cucumber cubes in the porridge.   

For tim sum, we ordered lobster flower roll, prawn tim sum and bean curd roll all tasted good and fresh. 

We also ordered a plate of steam rice roll but we happily munched it down and was too late to realize that we have yet to take a picture of it. To finish it off, I ordered durian crepes and mango sago ice cream for dessert.

The durian crepes is the restaurant specialty. It was good with real durian meat inside but honestly I have tasted better ones at other places.

This meal for two was about RM200 including tax and service charge. It is a bit pricy but well compensated with the excellent customer service, nice view and food quality. The fact that this restaurant was full on a Sunday afternoon (with people queuing outside) means many concurs with my opinion :).

Buffet At Coffee Terrace Restaurant, Genting Highland

Early Morning View At Genting 

Genting is no stranger to local and foreign tourist alike, most popular for its outdoor theme park and casino. Coming soon in 2016 is the opening of Fox Studios as well as a Premium Shopping Outlet. I frequent to Genting quite often but not really for the above mentioned purpose. To me, it is just a quick getaway place away from home where I spent most of my time at Coffee Bean Iocated at Resorts Hotel to work or to do some research. Located 6000 ft above sea level, I would like to think of if as a place that gives me fresh inspiration while I work. Which better place to work than above the clouds right?

If you fancy buffet and don't like idea of paying a high price for it then a good place to go is Coffee Terrace Restaurant located in Genting Grand Hotel. Buffet lunch is priced at only RM42/pax including tax which is really of great value. Buffet dinner is pricier at circa RM80/pax but if you have the Genting Rewards membership you will get to enjoy a 20% discount. Again great value!

Interior design is pretty nice being able to deliver a comfortable and cosy feel to it. The buffet restaurant is quite big and comes with a nice buffet spread but don't put your expectations too high though... With the price that I paid, I felt it is quite all right to exclude some of the pricier items like fresh oysters and some other seafood items. The buffet spread consist of several sections serving local, chinese, international/western, and japanese cuisines (dinner only). There is also a dessert bar and coffeee / tea section. 

To me the tastiest food is definitely the Hainanese Chicken Rice along with the various sauces that goes well with it. The Chicken was cooked quite well which is just nice ie not too dry and remained succulent. The bean sprout is long and fat just like the ones popularly found in Ipoh. I usually have 2 servings of the Hainanese chicken rice and by the time I finished I have limited room left for other types of food.  

  

2nd must try item is the cendol which is made to order by a staff. The taste? Let's just say its almost perfect like the authentic ones you get from hawker stalls. Must try to find out. So what is the difference between buffet lunch and buffet dinner? For buffet dinner, you will find one additional japanese sushi section and at the chinese food section you can place orders for your favorite fresh vegetables and ingredients and the cook will stir fry it for you.

Overall, I consider the food quality to be good as compared to the price I paid. Go for the local food as I find it a notch better than the western and japanese food.

Dai-Ichi Takimotokan Onsen Resort (Noboribetsu, Hokkaido) Review

To me this is a touristy mid budget hotel to both locals and foreigners although I noticed that the presence of foreign tourist is higher in this resort as compared to others. It is the first onsen (hot spring) Resort in Noboribetsu hence the name Dai-Ichi which means number one in Japanese. Being the first established resort here also means that this is a very old resort which retains the traditional Ryokan design. We paid about 36,288 yen for a night which includes a buffet dinner and traditional Japanese breakfast.

The room is fairly spacious with pretty simple design. It is separated into two sections. Upon entering the room, we found ourselves at the dining area which is covered by tatami mats. The second section is the resting area equipped with a sofa set for 4 persons. Complimentary Japanese traditional jelly is placed on the dining table in place of welcome fruit basket usually provided by Western hotels. You can usually buy those jelly at supermarkets and are usually quite pricey. Yup of course it is delicious. So delicious that I ate it almost immediately and I forgot to take picture of it :).

  

Our room at Dai-Ichi Takimotokan

At the sofa area, we found two equipment for neck and shoulder massage respectively which reminded us that we are in Japan, a country famous for quirky inventions. 

By now you should have noticed that there is no bed in the room. That is because housekeeping will only bring out our futon bed after we left the room for the buffet dinner.

The futon bed is just as comfortable as the normal conventional bed. I slept soundly throughout the night, 

Dining Experience

Buffet dinner was at one of the resort's restaurant which looked somewhat like a canteen (understand that it had been renovated recently). Frankly, I went there with quite a low expectation and I even left my camera in the room as I figured out that probably there wouldn't be much things of interest. And....I was proven wrong. The food was actually quite delicious but the thing that is worthy to note here is the all you can eat crab legs (Red King Crab). It is super fresh, sweet and would have cost us a bomb if we had this in Malaysia. Anyway, I doubt that we can get crabs in Malaysia that is as fresh as what we had.

Source: Tripadvisor

Source: Tripadvisor

Breakfast was at another restaurant where we are required to first make a reservation for a time slot. We were given option of either Japanese or Western breakfast and of course we chose the former to enhance our experience in Japan. The dining area are set up in cubicles for additional privacy. 

Rice served with grilled salmon, japanese omelette, condiments comprising of various types of pickles and a bowl of soup made from soybean. 

The bowl of soup tasted like soybean milk except that there is no preservatives and sugar added.  

Onsen (Hot Spring) Experience

After spending much time reading about the dos and don’ts when going to a Japanese onsen, Wifey and I finally were going to our first onsen experience at Dai-ichi Takimotokan. The first thing one need to know and overcome before heading to the onsen is that the only thing you are allowed to wear is your “birthday suit”. As a first timer, we decided to go later at night around 11pm so that there will be lesser a crowd and therefore allowing us a slow start to blend in lol.. This particular one that we went opens 24 hours so there was no rush. Sorry no pictures since no camera is allowed inside the onsen. 

Picture from resort's website.

There are also procedures to follow (click on link for recommended site for a quick reference) if you do not want embarrass yourself in front of the locals. Fortunately most onsens adopt similar procedures so once you get a hang of it, you can go for a Onsen escapade in Hokkaido without any further issues. One thing to note is that sometimes the resorts in Hokkaido alternate / swap the onsen between male and female to allow both genders to enjoy the different scenic views in the resort. So make sure you check the signage at the entrance carefully before entering. Imagine, if you are a man and you just walked into a changing room full of naked ladies...oh my....total disaster. 

Anyway, Dai-Ichi Takimotokan's onsen offers 7 types of different pools which consist of different properties and minerals which carry different health benefits from healing your skin to improving 

your blood circulation and blood pressure. One of the pool is located outdoor. For a "gaijin" (meaning foreigner in Japanese) like myself who probably won't be able to do this over a long term to extract that kind of benefits, I just tried out the pools randomly and relax. After soaking myself in the pools, I especially like the refreshing feeling of taking a cold shower at the area just nearby the pool. The complimentary premium shampoo and shower gel with fantastic aroma enhance that experience as well. 

Shower area looking something like this. You are supposed to take your shower seated at the stool provided. For a little privacy... try to find hidden corners :) 

To sum it up...

Good and comfortable resort with fantastic location just nearby hell valley and near shopping street. Good value for money.
Food is fantastic. Triple stars for the buffet crab.

Click on LINK to Hokkaido Travel Blog (Overview)

Watch my entire Hokkaido Trip below:

High Tea at Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur - Lounge On The Park

July 2015

Last weekend decided to watch Jurassic World with Wifey at KLCC. Since we had some time to kill, we decided to have high tea at Mandarin Oriental Hotel which is just nearby. The dining place is actually called Lounge In The Park. I guess it's much more a cosier place as compared to the cafes in KLCC or Avenue K. Furthermore, the pianist playing to some relaxing tunes makes this place a much classier one as well.

The table has been properly set up for the high tea. I decided to take the set for one person only and share it with Wifey after I realised that the table was pretty small and may be difficult to fit two tea sets. It turned to be a good idea as I am able to try out other items in the menu as well. As in the menu below, the high tea is available 2.30pm to 6 pm. During dinner time, the lounge area will be combined with Mosaic Restaurant for the buffet. I will suggest to place reservation earlier to avoid disappointment or to get a bigger table or a table with a better view. The price is Rm91 and inclusive of service tax and GST. 

The Hi Tea was pretty satisfactory although not considered extraordinary. I think it tasted better than the one served in YTL's Camerons Highland Resort (CHR) where I had my last high tea. One criteria that is most important is the freshness of the bread or pastry served. Otherwise it would have tasted hard or dry. One thing for sure Mandarin Oriental is definitely more generous when it comes the types of spreads for the scones. In fact, they provided portions for two person although we ordered the set for one person only. Thumbs up for the quality service which exceeded my expectations. Once we are done with the high tea set, we decided to order a pizza to fill our tummy since we will be skipping dinner to watch the movie. We ordered the Salmon Pizza (circa Rm60) which was fantastic. The base was soft and crispy  and the smoked salmon and mayo topping brings out a wonderful flavour. Great!! 

The overall ambiance of the lounge area is quite good as well. There is a resident pianist playing and the lighting used adds up to the relaxing feel.

Ratings

Pricing a bit on the high side but if you are looking for a classy and decent place for high tea, this is a good option available.