Buka puasa bersama-sama at San Francisco Steakhouse

Hei guys, hah, this is my first time to post an entry here. LOF, Lot’s of food, Lot’s of friends.
Well.. I was known as official first FOODKAGE since 2006 in APIIT TP3F0508 intake ~_~, hm.. this is just a joke so readers, please ignore this.huahahaha

I’m here to write an article as I just got a chance to attend my company’s event at September 27, 2007. IPower Bhd. Buka Puasa Bersama-sama 2007 at San Francisco Steakhouse Restaurant.

One week before the event all of us were asked to vote for the restaurant and we got the selection of San Francisco Steakhouse and buffet at Hotel Sri Petaling. So…. The answer is obvious. (who will vote for the second option ~_~ since our boss is the one who pay the bill hahaha)

Today, we finished working at 5:00pm as the schedule of the event and we straight heading to Mid Valley. I bet, many of us already no mood to work after lunch. And everybody should be shutting down applications in computers at 4:30, haha. Of course, I’m one of them.

You know, I’ve been trying to figure out what food will be available at the restaurant few hundred times in my mind and finally I got some variety of food selection for the buffet just after my lunch through a colleague… my reaction after I read the message in skype…. WHERE IS MY OYSTER =.=












We actually reached Mid Valley City quite early as the dinner will start at 7:00pm. Once we reached the restaurant, I actually have a browse there and start taking pictures for the purpose of taking down nice memories for this event and mainly… for this article ~_~ (see, that’s how much I care for this entries)

Frankly speaking, this restaurant is smaller if you compare it to Jogoya or Shangrilla Hotel buffet. Even to Saisaki Sushi at Wisma UOA, near KLCC. And the variety of food is considered lesser. But there’s still Japanese food like sushi, sashimi, tempura available and also some Malay food and of course lamb and beef.


Firstly I start my dinner with sashimi, my favorite, haha



Many people around me might think I’m a person who cares more on quantity in term of food after they see my body but that isn’t really true. I’ll eat more in my daily life, to fill up my stomach but when comes to this kind of restaurant, try focus more on the quality of their food. Do enjoy the food and taste every single taste that your food contains slowly, haha. That’s why my plate has just some raw salmon fish with wasabi.





Look!! The layers of fat on the fish are so beautiful. They’re juicy and fresh.

My strategy for this kind of buffet, is always take them slowly, plate by plate, and then taste them clean and neatly. But I won’t go for rice base item like fried rice, spaghetti or ketupat. They just waste my food quota in my stomach haha.

For tempura, I’d say for a person who hates vegetable a lot like me, I won’t go for the tempura haha. That’s just simple because the restaurant only serve 2 kind of tempura, sweat potato and another greenish thing which I can only make sure that’s just one kind of vegetable ~_~. So, I straight rate their tempura 2 out of 10 by not eating them. Their tempura selection is too little.

But the lamb shoulder and beef is nice. Especially beef. It’s 70% cooked and it was just warm and cover with either brown source or black pepper source (depend on what source you choose) which is slightly warmer than the meat. It’s so delicious, just after putting one slice of the beef into your mouth.. yummy!!









You know @@, what makes a man happy, a great meal taken by a beautiful lady… wow, what a wonderful scene, enjoy the food and enjoy the scene ~_~
Ok… perhaps I should focus more on the food ~_~ haha. Let’s continue =.=


Desserts,

Actually they didn’t serve any nice desserts but just some cream tarts, cakes, and puddings which are common to other buffet style restaurant. Even their ice cream is just very normal ice cream in vanilla or chocolate flavor. You know, I MISS MY MOCHI IN JOGOYA @@

Finally, dinner is ended. Not much comments for this restaurant but I’m glad to have my meal here. And I really enjoy my sashimi and beef. Hope to come here again although I know their food is expensive.








People start leaving after dinner. But I’ll make sure all these memories are shared within the company, haha
Goodbye mates












Lot’s of food, lot’s of fun, lot’s of friends

^FoOdKaGe^

Seri Kembangan, Yong Tau Foo!

For frequent visitors to Seri Kembangan, there would be some common flavours of cuisine that are literally available in every corner. Some of these include (but not limited to) pan mee, and yong tau foo. To the uninitiated, yong tau foo is generally an assortment of fried soya products and vegetables with stuffings of fish paste. However, I can't say that is a complete/correct description of what it really is... I'm just basing it on the various places that I have enjoyed this particular style of cuisine.

There are several yong tau foo spots around the concentrated old town of Seri Kembangan. The particular one I visited just recently is close to the tom yam spot previously covered. I'll update this post with an address when (and if) I acquire it, but for those familiar with SK, they should know of a bah kut teh shop within the vicinity of area 6 and area 3. That's as much as I'll describe before I confuse myself :P If that made sense, suffice to say you're not far from the intended destination.

It can get pretty hot during lunch, and coupled with the difficulty to find decent parking spots, it is tempting to shy away from SK. This particular spot (like many others in SK) is a house-turned-shop outlet. Much to my surprise was the decent amount of ceiling fans that keep the shop itself comfortably cool amidst the scorching heat. The crowd was respectably large, but we did manage to get a spot upon arrival.

We ordered the standard stuff. There isn't really much in terms of variety to expect from a yong tau foo shop. What I did notice is that most shops have at least one additional specialty.

Theirs is this; paper-wrapped chicken. My colleagues were kind enough to teach me the Mandarin name for those who're interested. Do correct me if my pinyin is wrong: zhǐ bāo jī.

Unwrapping this reveals none other than... chicken :P For one, I enjoyed this particular dish because it was my first time. It is kinda hard to provide more comparative details due to that. I did have a second helping :) The meat was only slightly tough; however the flavour was evenly tasteable through-and-through.

There was also a vegetable side-dish available. Seems like the standard affair available in most Chinese food spots. I won't pretend to know the name of this vegetable, nor the dish name... forgive my ignorance. Suffice to say, the vegetable was rather fresh and juicy. It definitely meets my minimum criteria for edible greens: freshness.

All in all, for a serving to feed 5, the total bill came up to RM64. Though I somewhat enjoyed this meal, I would deem it on the pricey side for a simple menu. I've visited other ytf spots with larger varieties at lower prices. One in particular is in Bandar Bukit Puchong; a spot I'd like to cover on a future visit. I would still rate that higher than SK's, but this is not bad by any means. If you happen to pass through SK over lunch, it is worth checking out.

Happy Mooncake Festival (Mid Autumn Festival also lah)

Just want to wish all my fellow LOF-ers a happy mooncake festival. Hope you guys are enjoying some really good mooncakes right now. If you are not, dont ask from me because i finished all already. If you have any leftovers mooncakes, dont be shy to send some over this way (only lotus seeds and red bean paste types accepted, just in case you guys start sending some really weird ones over).

The origins of the mooncake festival is actually still a mystery. Briefly i will mention the 2 stories I have heard of concerning its origins.

Story 1 has it that there was once an immortal woman who in her many ventures to earth from heaven fell in love with a mortal man. For this reason, she stayed on earth for a long time and never went back to heaven which was against the laws of the heavens. And for her defiance, the jade emperor imprisoned her in the moon for eternity where she will only be allowed to meet her lover once a year. So the festival is to celebrate her one day of release from her prison lo.

Story 2 has it that the mooncake was a vessel used by the rebels to pass secret messages from one to the other. With this tactic, they were able to overthrow the government of that time. So the festival was to commemorate the success of the rebels.

There are of course hundreds more variations of the origins of the festival. When I was young, I always remember it for the day I get to play with lanterns which actually turned to playing with fire as I grew older. I remembered at one time burning the front part of my hair playing with the candles at a friends place. But now, I remember it for the time I get to eat delicious mooncakes.

P/S: The mooncake festival falls on a different day every year because it uses the Chinese Lunar Calendar. It will fall on September 14th next year.

LOF member forever,
ZICKZACK

Top 5 Reasons Why I Love Japan

5. Toyota Camry 2007 Model

4. Takoyaki

3. Seriously Kawaii Girls In A Kimono

2. Japanese Manga & Anime

1. JAPANESE FOOD!!!


Haha anyone who knows me would know how much I love Japanese food. Especially fresh sashimi. So last week, a few business partners and I were in KL for a business meeting and after the meeting, we were feeling hungry. The place we were at had loads of great restaurants lined up one after another but having just gone to one of the restaurants called Elcerdo (will be on another post in the future) we wanted something different.

After 15 minutes of deciding on what to eat, all signs pointed to dinner at the famous Jalan Alor ( lofmsia will do a feature of this place in the future as well ) when suddenly one of my partners went "come, lets go and eat japanese buffet in Wisma Antarabangsa." As everyone was a Japanese food lover, all of us agreed on the spot.

The place we all went to in Wisma Antarabangsa was called Shin-Nichi restaurant. Now I have been to quite a number of Japanese buffets in the past (Oishi, Saisaki and also Shogun) so I knew what to expect, but when I reached there I was very surprised to see the spread of food available. There were many different types of raw fishes, with some of them I have not heard of before. There was many varieties of food available there from Teppanyaki to Sukiyakis and all other yakis you can think of lah... what I liked the most about the place was the fact that it was well lit, and surprisingly on a Thursday night, the place wasn't packed to the brim.

We got seated, each took a plate and then started our "rounds" and started to pack our plates. So here goes, hope you don't have an empty stomach when you are reading this post =)

Round 1















Round 2
















Round 3





















WOW... Actually after uploading the pictures only then did I realize the amount of food I ate. Scary man... I had another plate of Teppanyaki which unfortunately I didn't take a picture of, but I highly recommend it. As for the food that was shown in the pic above, only one word is needed. DELICIOUS. I highly recommend the food at this place and honestly, I place it above all the other Japanese buffet dinners that I have been to. This place has almost everything you would want in a Japanese restaurant e.g. sushi, soft shell crab, tempura, anything that I can think of, they have it. All in all I give it my thumbs up, and at the price of around RM 50 per person, I think its worth every cent. Especially after you saw the amount of raw fish that I ate over there. The best part of all of this? Most of the food I ate was fat and cholesterol free, hehe talk about eating healthy.

Ok my friends, hope you guys liked my first post. This is Acronixx signing out... Obsius your post should be up next ok? We will be waiting...

LOF Member - Acronixx

Tom Yum-my!!!

Man, I love really hot and really spicy stuffs. Above all, I love Tom Yum which I think is the best product of Thailand (funny considering i never been to Thailand).

Anyway, "Obsius" has been telling me about this really good Tom Yum place in Serdang for the past 6 months or more. The catch was that this place only serve tom yum on tuesdays and thursdays for lunch (they sell other noodle soup stuffs daily). About 2 days ago, after 6 months of waiting on a day when the stars were all aligned, I finally got to meet up with Obsius to have this "Soup of Destiny" in Serdang.

I cant really tell you the exact location of this place because i am not good with Serdang so I hope Obsius will help me out here. Anyway, my advice is to be there as early as possible for lunch (before 1pm will be ideal). The place is actually a corner lot house and it is pack everyday. When Obsius and I arrived there a little after 1pm, there were no more place to sit. Luckily for us, Obsius's colleagues were already eating there so we "Tab Toi" (join in the table in Canto). So these are the pictures of the food we had there.

The top most picture is the Seafood Tomyum Noodle and the other one is the Fish Paste Tomyum Noodle. The soup is pretty good because it was spicy and sour enough. I have been to some place where the Tomyum is not even sour. I would have to give the spicyness a 6/10(differs from one person to another). On a sidenote, a couple is the one preparing the food but the one prepared by the guy is more power according to Obsius. I dont think you can request who prepares your food though. So I hope you guys will go and try it out when someone actually post where this place is exactly at.... hahaha!!!

So, this ends my first post as a LOF member. Yes, this is a group blog. Its a blog by a bunch of friends who hopes to achieve the same dream of having lots of food, lots of fun and lots of friends. We hope this will be a life enriching experience for ourselves and all our readers.

P/s: I would like to thank SW for finally starting this blog after much procrastination on our part. You were the final piece of the jigsaw and probably the most important one to get LOF off the ground.


LOF member forever,
ZICKZACK