El Toro Butchery & Grill Restaurant @ Subang Avenue

Yet another new butcher shop had made it's way to Subang. No I am not talking about the market's butcher shop but an actual steak house of course. This new place is called el Toro or The Bull in Spanish (Yup, I google that up) is located at Subang Avenue next to Taipei Taipei Restaurant. Saw this place as it's next to my usual hang out place after gym. So decided to give this place a try since I wanted to beef up yesterday night. OK, that was corny. Parking is free of course at the basement or you can park outside and risk being summon by the local authorities. Your choice. They have in door and out door sitting so you can choose to chill out outside while enjoying your meal. I think you can even order beer from next door since I saw a customer ordered it during my visit. 

I'd decided to sat outside to enjoy the view of traffic building up while waiting for my friend. Once seated the waitress placed this three bottle of sauce on the table. Yeah, they have BBQ sauce and mustard. Went through their menu and realized that their specialty would be their Australian (HALAL) beefs and also Burgers. 

Decided to ordered a bottle of ice lemon tea while waiting for my friend. Well, I have to say this is my first time having ice lemon tea from a bottle. The bottle was really nice and cute. 

After browsing the menu, I had decided to try one of their recommended burger from the menu. Since my friend had decided on lamb, so I ordered their beef. The meal came around less than 10mins which is reasonable fast. As you can see, the set is quite simple with fries on the side. It's freshly fried so it's still crispy. Salt are added by ourselves, so you can decide your level of saltiness. The patty is not that massive but do pack a good one inside. It's really pack but still spills some juices inside although I do prefer it to be more juicier. But I can live with this. They blend their own patty if I am not mistaken so this is really good. Beef bacon is a bit salty but I am alright with it. This is really a good patty although not the best I had but still above average. 

Finally my friend's lamb burger arrived. The patty was really juicy even from the picture above. According to my friend, it was really good and filling too. My friend didn't even managed to finished the bread off as it was too much. I didn't have a try out of the lamb but from my friend's feedback and expression, I know it was good. For the price we are paying I am really satisfy with the quality and quantity of food that we are being served. 

I was surprised when I saw the bill as it was RM40 for all of the above inclusive of tax. Then I'd realized that they had a special 20% discount for all dine-in. Not sure when the promo gonna end but I am definitely going back again for lunch with my lunch buddy since she's such a sucker for juicy patty like me. They also served side dishes like potato salad, soups, fries and beef rolls to name a few. Other than beef they do served pan fried salmon in Teriyaki sauce. Their specialty would be steaks, ribs and lambs of course. You can choose from Wagyu rib-eyes or sirloin which goes from RM50-RM55/100g. They also served black angus rib-eyes and sirloin for RM25/100g. I also realized that they served grainfed & grassfed rib-eyes and tenderloin and even Premium ones too. Wow~ That is a lot of selection. As mentioned earlier, their beef flew in from Australia from what I know. So do drop by and give it a try and let me know how it goes. 

Rating: 

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 4.0 out of 5.0

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Location: 

El Toro Butchery & Grill

SG-07, Subang Avenue, 

Persiaran Kemajuan SS16, 

47500 Subang Jaya

Tel: 03-5611 7713

Hometown Hot Soup Restaurant @ Sg. Chua

It was Friday and my colleagues over at the factory asked me over to try this place out over at Sungai Chua, Kajang. It's quite recommended since it's not that well known to much people. But heck when I got there, there's plenty of big cars already parked and dining inside. My colleague told me that we need to be there as early as possible to get a table. After seeing the scene, well I believe her.

While you descend down the stairs you can see a row of claypots cooking. A view I saw before during my visit to one of the claypot chicken rice over at PJ. But that is another story. The place doesn't really spell hygienic but heck, all this is what makes it so unique and so local. This is what Malaysia good food comes from. Well as long as I don't see any big rats running around is alright with me. 

After walking down some stairs, we arrived at the restaurant which is below the main road. It's only 12 o'clock and the place was already half full. My colleague told me that the place will be pack around 12.30 onward. She is not kidding, as we were waiting for our food, groups and groups of customers walked down the stairs. They do have a room or two inside the converted house for bigger groups. I am not sure if it's air condition or not but I doubt it is. Or else most of the people would have quickly went in. 

First on the table would be my favorite green, Yau Mak with Garlic. Since I am not very familiar with the food over there I had given my colleague the freedom to order. But she is not too familiar too as most of the time the food was ordered by my another colleague. So we asked for recommendation from the waiter and he gave us a few favorites from the restaurant. 

The highlight of the place would be their hot and spicy soup. The soup comes in a conventional claypot with chicken, pork and some internal intestines. The soup isn't that much spicy as I had expected from my previous experience else where. The soup still spicy to some but maybe my taste bud requires something stronger. Nevertheless, the soup was good and it's been a while since my last spicy soup. At least I won't felt to thirsty after the meal. The pork given are layered lean and fat ones which I really love. Chicken are in small parts and there are a lot of sliced garlic in it too. My lady friend wallop all the garlic since she had a lot of air in her tummy that day. Another advantage of having a spicy hot soup I may add. 

This is another local favorite from the restaurant. It's actually something like salted fish with pork in claypot. Wow, that actually rhymes. For me this is the highlight of my lunch as I like the pork which is salty and slightly spicy because of the dried chilies. There's plenty of minced garlic and small anchovies mixed together with the pork which gives us a really strong scent. Totally like this dish. Not the best I had but it's something good that I had in a while. 

I can't believed that we finished all the dishes that afternoon. Maybe we are too hungry or the food was just delicious. We did saw other dishes like fried chicken and another claypot dish but not sure what is that. Maybe I will go again with my other colleague to try it all. How much does it all cost? Well I am not sure since my lady friend decided to treat me that afternoon. Didn't asked but I guess should be less than RM50 I guess. Definitely going back again for a second with my family maybe. 

Rating: 

Food: 4.0 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0

Address: No. 268, 

Jalan 11, Sg. Chua,

Kajang, Selangor.

Ki Ki Taiwan Cuisine by Fong Lye @ KLCC

I was searching around town the other day looking for a place for lunch. Since babe was over at KLCC, hence I looked around and decided to try this new place up. Well it's not actually NEW but it's new for me. It's called Ki Ki Taiwan Cuisine and as you can see, it's a restaurant having the same concept/management under Fong Lye. So what is the different? Well for one, it's a HALAL place so no pork for you pork lovers. The place is located on the forth floor next to Umaiya Japanese Restaurant.  

The place was packed when we arrived during lunch hour. Waited for a couple of minutes before there were seats for us. They would give you the menu outside and you can start making orders so that when you have your table ready, the food will not be far too long away. The place isn't as spacious as Fong Lye over at MV but still acceptable. The seats are quite close to each other similar to MV branch. Had a few visits over at MV branch which you can refer from [HERE], [HERE] and [HERE]

Went straight away for the menu as I am darn hungry from the time looking for a car park over at KLCC. The food choices are similar to Fong Lye Restaurant. But they took out the non-HALAL food such as the Taiwan Glutinous Rice Sausages but the most distinctive difference would be the rice they served. You see later on what I mean. 

As usual, we started off with a pot of hot Chrysanthemum + Oolong tea to cleanse our taste bud for the food we are about to eat. It's refillable obviously so no worries. The cup is small and looked really cute. 

The appetizer, I had ordered their Fried Tempura. This is my first time ordering this dish and heck it was a correct choice. The fried tempura seemed to be one of the best I had in a long time. Well it looked like our local keropok leko actually. But the taste is definitely different between these two. The texture is soft and chewy but the spices that they sprinkle on it seemed really tasteful. A bit salty but I can live with that. 

Babe was contemplating between ordering her favorite 3 Variety Supreme Diced Rice (San Pei Chi) and this bowl of fresh Clams with Mea Sua. Well, as you can see, the Mee Sua won at the end. Babe really like the one she had over at Taiwan during our trip over last year. It was a rice based that she had previously and she can't wait to try this noodle version out. The soup was quite nice something like our local fish head noodle. Amount of clams are acceptable but not generous enough. Overall, if you like mee sua, you will most probably like this dish. Not for me definitely. Cause this is not filling and you pay more than the usual for it. 

Similar to Fong Lye, all their main course comes with side dishes. There are three side dishes for you.I always like the spicy long bean that they prepared. It's a simple dish but heck, it's the simple ones that is the most hard to prepared right? 

This is the spicy chicken chop set which I had ordered. Actually I had tried this dish before over at Fong Lye but I am really hungry that day so I wanted something really filling and filling is what I had. The set come with the similar side dishes and a bowl of soup of the day. 

Remembered what I said earlier bout the rice? Can you see the difference now? Yup the rice is not topped with their (Taiwan) famous stewed minced pork. OH! I am so sad seeing my rice just topped with marinated chicken sliced. But it's a HALAL place, so we can't have that can't we? But why can't they do stewed chicken instead? haha! As usual the portion isn't that large which means that I finished the rice before even finishing half my main dish. 

My main dish would be this plate of spicy chicken chop. It's actually not that spicy (sigh!) and there's some gravy at the bottom too. So it's not that dry actually. But the portion is similar to Fong Lye which is super generous. The chicken is freshly fried so you can still feel the crispiness of it. Not the best I had but if you are hungry as I am, this is the best dish to order. You can't go wrong with fried chicken. 

As if you are not full and can still fill your stomach, then try finishing this hot bowl of chicken soup with bitter gourd. Damn I like bitter gourd but the bitter gourd in this bowl was tasteless. What is the point eating bitter gourd when there's no bitter gourd taste right? But the soup was quite nice and chicken breast was plentiful too. Damn, I can't even finished the chicken off that day. A bit too full from the appetizer and main course. 

Overall, we had a pleasant lunch over at Ki Ki and it's a good place to chat but not during lunch hour. Try going over after 2pm when it's passed rush hours. The staffs are very friendly and efficient too. They always walked over and asked if we need anything or refills and clear our table once our food are done.  Make sure you come early if you wanna get a table and not in a rush since you might need to wait for it too. It's quite hard to find a decent Taiwan place in town and this is considered quite alright for us. Maybe you can try and let me know what you think of it. Enjoy~! 

Rating: 

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0

Service: 3.8 out of 5.0

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0