Hideki Bangsar

Apa-lar. I thought she suggested Hajime, which I blogged about earlier this year - so I said I am not going to pay money for food there, coz its just not worth it.

Okok- my fault, Hideki is it? Ok lar, I had quite good memories there and she wanted her sesame ramen and her Maki (this time she ordered the Hideki Maki). I ordered the RM50 a set Sashimi and Udon set. Yea yea yea, boring sets but I just like to have all the food they serve in the set.

But I must say this time, my set wasn't that good. The sashimi didn't taste that fresh and the Udon noodles was plain and bland. But her sasame ramen was superb, I thought. I swore that if I come here again, I would ONLY order the sasame ramen, full stop.

Price 4/5, Taste 2.5/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Service 4/5 (we were the only customers on a wet Thrusday night)

Vietnam Passion - Chulan Sq

Now we have tried this place before and it didn't really impress us the last time. However, traffic was awful in town as for some reason or other, they closed Bkt Bintang Road. So we ended up at this place again. I must say, what a stroke of luck. Food was great, service fantastic (very polite ever smiling waiters and waitresses) and not bad atmosphere (except for there was something wrong with the air conditioning so there was a smell of chlorine in the front area). Anyway, to the food, we shared a mango salad (quite refreshing and yummy), prawn and pork omletter (very very yummy, their specialty - I have no idea what is the Vietnamese name for this dish), a mix platter of grilled meats (squid, chic & beef - I requested for no prawn otherwise they wld have served it too) and pho (acc to the boy, it was very good). They were very accommodating as I requested a change with one of the dishes. Also something that caught my eye which looked yummilicious - beef stew with bread. We were so stuffed! Very good food, great service, shame abt the problem with the aircon.

Price 3/5, Taste 4/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Service 4.5/5 (I am stingy/have very high stds so we shall see which restaurant deserves a 5!)

Porto Romano - Tmn Tun

Also another branch of a place we have tried before (the original is on the ground floor Crown Princess hotel - in a corner area facing Jln Tun Razak). We sort of knew what to expect in terms of the food quality so coming here was just testing out to see if this branch's quality measures up to the original. We seem to do this a lot! (i.e. go to branches of the original places - sometimes w disastrous results - see entry on La Risata, Medan Damansara). Anyway, for appetisers, we shared grilled veg (doused in olive oil and balsamic vinegar), had mushroom soup as well as seafood soup. I had beef bacon sphag carbonaro, my friend had seafood pasta, he had salmon fettucini, all pretty standard good quality fare. Nothing near the standards of La Risata Ampang mind you but not bad. Apparently a little pricey for Tmn Tun standards. The place had a couple of tables occupied but I don't if it will survive in the long run. As for dessert, we gelato and panna cotta to round out the meal.

Price 3/5, Taste 3.5/5, Atmosphere 4/5 (his rating, I wld have rated it a 3), Service 3.5/5

Santai - Taman Tun

We always come here for good decently priced Malay food. It's always packed full of locals from around the Taman. Good place to chill out, catch up with friends and the best part is, it's walking distance to a great dvd place. Since it's so hard to find dvd shops in this town, thank goodness for the Tmn Tun shop where I can get my monthly fix. This time round, we had tom yam soup, fried fish (with chilli sauce I think - basically very spicy, every bite I ate, I had to drink water), kangkong belacan, telur dadar etc. Very standard dishes, well cooked so it was just what we expected.

Price 2/5, Taste 4/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Service 2/5 (Service is normally quite good but this time round our waiter wasn't the brightest bulb)

El Cerdo

A very popular restaurant located on Changkat Bukit Bintang. It proudly calls itself a place for nose to tail eating. Used to be located at a much smaller venue on Changkat Tong Shin. It recently moved to this larger location a few months back. Atmosphere was rather noisy, demographics seem to more towards the 30-55 year old crowd (in our assessment, lots of aunties and uncles), tons of pictures of piggys everywhere. Anyway, was the food any good? Yea it was, I had a small roast pork knuckle and he had ribs. Good but pricey yeah. It was very much in the Deutsche Hauus type of pricing. I suppose since pork is not readily available here, it gives them an excuse to jack up the prices. I think the next time we go back, we should try the roast piglet, it looks quite interesting. They throw plates on the floor after using it to cut up the piggy! Don't know if I can stand the sight of a dead piggy staring at me while I eat but these are the sacrifices one must make to try good food!

Price 4/5, Taste 4/5, Atmosphere 3/5 (would have been higher had it not been for the big table of uncles and aunties making so much noise), Service 3.5/5