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 :).

A day with Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur

After weeks of hard work at office decided to have a weekend off in Mandarin Oriental. I checked into the hotel sometime around 2.30pm and headed straight to Lounge In The Park for the afternoon tea session.

I ordered the tea set which comes with assortment of sandwiches, scones, durian mochi, cakes and pudding, I liked the scones the best which goes very well with the various types of jam provided.

After tea, we checked into the Twin Towers View room facing the Petronas Twin Tower. It was a comfy and spacious room that comes with the basic necessities normally found in a 5 stars hotel but I especially liked the working table which allow me to do some computing work comfortably.

Check out the view from our room. Wow....

I also found this complimentary drink on the table. It was a apple and vanilla flavoured soda. Not bad... I give this hotel extra points for this.

In the evening, we headed to Mandarin Grill for dinner. It is a fine dining restaurant. Wifey and I ordered half dozen oysters and and a bowl of clam chowder as starters. They also served a complimentary plate of cheese with two types of dip sauce.

What else can I say? The oysters were really fresh and the clam chowder was delicious and goes very well with the complimentary bread. The cheese was not too much of our liking.

For the mains, we ordered a plate of lobster and sirloin steak each to share. The service staff was helpful enough to arrange it to be separated on individual plates. In fact they also did it with the clam chowder which was great so that Wifey and I were able to enjoy our dinner comfortably :).

Right after we asked for the bill, we were given a box of chocolate that went quite well with the white wine that we ordered.  Overall, I find the food quality to be quite good but I think the customer service is the one that they really excel in. The staff were friendly and do try to strike conversations with us at times. On the downside, the restaurant menu was quite limited and I would prefer a wider selection of choices.

Concluding this blog entry with the picture of Petronas Twin Tower at night which was taken right outside from my room. :)

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.

Hokkaido Travel Blog Day 2 (Noboribetsu and Kani Goten / かに御殿) Restaurant Review)

Finally... our first meal in Hokkaido. After driving for about an hour we reached our very first destination in Hokkaido to have our lunch. It was already about 2pm and my tummy was growling for some authentic Hokkaido cuisine :). We had our lunch at a restaurant called Kani Goten which literary means Crab Palace in English located along the Muroran Highway. I chose this place for lunch since its location is pretty strategic as it is located en route to my hotel in Hokkaido. We will be staying at Dai-ichi Takimotokan Hotel for the night which is just 20 minutes away. It is not easy to miss this place as there is a big crab sign board right outside the restaurant and a giant bear statue on the roof of the restaurant. To be exact, this place is not only a restaurant but also a small seafood market where a variety of seafood produce are sold. 

Kani Goten Family Restaurant

Bear Statue on the roof of the restaurant

To get here, exit Hokkaido Expressway at Exit 8 (Shiraoi) and head towards Noboribetsu. After a short 15-20 minutes drive, you should find the restaurant on your left. Despite the restaurant known for crabs, we did not order any as I felt that I would have much of it over the next few days. With the intention of going simple and nice, we ordered a Donburi (a bowl of rice with mixed seafood ie tuna, shrimp, salmon roe and sea urchin) and Stuffed Squid with Black Ink Sauce.  

Donburi

As a person who don't prefer to eat raw seafood, I still find the Donburi to be really delicious. Funny... The rice was sweet and had a nice flavour to it. If I am not wrong, vinegar is added when the rice is cooked. The seafood was fresh and there was no fishy or foul smell at all. Really nice. 

Stuffed Squid With Black Ink 

Source: kanigoten.co.jp

Can't say the same for the  squid stuffed with rice though. It tasted too bland for my liking. After lunch, Wifey and I walked around the area selling seafood located next to the restaurant. You can find all sorts of seafood here including different types of crabs, scallop, sea urchin, oyster and etc kept mostly alive in aquariums. I guess it caters more to local Japanese tourist who can make purchase here and get the seafood delivered to their homes anywhere in Japan.

After lunch we continued our journey to Noboribetsu. If you are driving to Noboribetsu from Chitose, I would suggest you take this route ie via Muroran Highway instead of all the way using the Hokkaido expressway. Firstly, there are a few seafood restaurants along the way that you can try and secondly you get to catch the view of Hokkaido Coastline. Not that it is really a magnificent sight but I guess it is more interesting especially if you are a foreign tourist.  

First Japanese Car Parking Experience

After about 20 minutes driving, we finally reached our hotel for the night, Daiichi Takimotokan Hotel. We were directed by a hotel staff to go to the basement level for parking. As soon as we there, another based at the parking directed me to park a an empty lot right in front of the entrance. I thought to myself how lucky can I be right? Wrong!!!

As I was preparing to alight from the car, it started to turn 90 degrees to the left and soon I found myself facing this. 

Yikes... I was totally not prepared for this. The staff manning the parking asked me to retract my rear mirrors and I didn't really know which button to press since I just got the car. So I decided to go trial and error and luckily I managed to find the right button. Once the car was parked inside the space provided, Wifey and I quickly grabbed all our belongings and ensure nothing is left behind. Once outside the car, I tried to lock my car with the remote but somehow the car lock did not work. ??? After several tries, I decided to give up and just leave the car as it is since it was going to be in a cage anyway and..  of course we were in Japan, one of the countries in the world with low crime rate :). The morale of the story is to get to know your rented car well enough including some of the controls or otherwise you may end up like me. I later found out that the reason why I wasn't able to lock my car with the remote was because my car engine was not switched off. Luckily, the car system knows how to auto shut down after the car was left idle for a while.

Daiichi Takimotokan Hotel, Noboribetsu

A great hotel although I find it to be a bit touristy. Will write more on a separate page. :)

A walk in the evening

After checking into the hotel, we decided to take a short walk outside the hotel before our much anticipated buffet dinner. The good thing about Daiichi hotel is that it is nearby to the main tourist attraction area like Hell Valley, Sengen Geyser and the main shopping street. 

Main shopping street (a bit quiet since it is late evening already)

Some of the statues you find along the road...

The smog in front is actually hot steam from Sengen Geyser

Sengen Geyser (Note that it sprouts every 3 hours only)

Watch the video of our Hokkaido Trip: