Malaysia Food Blog – Apple Foodees

Hokkaido Ichiba needs no introduction from me. But if you do not know already, Hokkaido Ichiba is a Japanese Restaurant which serves ala-carte Japanese Food in The Gardens, Mid Valley. If you are in Petaling Jaya, fret not, they also have a branch in 1-Utama. So let’s get to our food review now.

The star of the night has got to be Hokkaido Ichiba Salmon Sashimi. Priced at RM22, a plate of Salmon Sashimi comes with seven really thick slices of fresh, I mean, really fresh salmon flesh. This is by far, in my opinion, one of the best Japanese restaurants which serve the nicest slices of fresh salmon sashimi in Malaysia. It is amazing how these salmons are kept fresh even though we know very well, these salmons are imported products. I could only imagine how fresh salmon sashimi could taste in Japan. With that said, I am also fortunate to be able to taste this salmon sashimi here in Kuala Lumpur.

The Salmon Belly was very good too. It is slightly oilier compared to the Salmon Sashimi. It is also very fresh which I assume was from the same fish as the earlier one. It is slightly more expensive though. A plate of Salmon Belly comes with 5 thick slices for RM30.

My next favourite is Hokkaido Ichiba’s Dragon Roll. For only RM30, we are served with a whole fried tiger prawn jumbo ebi wrapped with layers of seaweed, rice and avocados topped with a generous amount of flying fish roes.

If you love unagi as I do, you must order Hokkaido Ichiba’s Teriyaki Unagi. For a small plate at RM28, you’ll get a plate of unagis, perfectly flavoured a generous amount of teriyaki sauce. It was so good that, I enjoyed every bite of it.

Winter Roll @ RM22 contains thick slices of tamago/eggs and shrimps wrapped with seaweed and rice topped with some mayonnaise and egg roe. Compared to Dragon Roll, this Winter Roll is a softer version of the former.

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I was studying in Cyberjaya a few years back and had several times come across Top Hat Restaurant but never once step foot on this restaurant (because it was just too expensive for a student). Today, I still feel the same. No student or at least many students can’t afford luxury food like Top Hat everyday. Now that I am no longer a student and is now working like every other adults working like crazy everyday, VK and I decided to treat ourselves at Top Hat. Since Cyberjaya is way too far away from Kepong, we decided to go to Top Hat’s main branch at Jalan Stonor, Kuala Lumpur.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted with many framed-up certificates awarded by Malaysian Tatler to Top Hat Restaurant for being Malaysia’s Best Restaurant for the year of 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 & 2007. That’s five consecutive years in a row. Not only that, there are many framed-up old newspapers and magazine reviews about Top Hat too. The combination of all these made me wonder why I didn’t come to try this place earlier.

Top Hat Restaurant serves classic Western dishes with a subtle touch of Asian flavours. One of their signature dishes is their vegetarian Signature Top Hats priced at RM10 for half a dozen. It looks just like the Pai Tees in the Chicken Rice Shop except here; the vegetables are placed in “hats” instead on a “bowl” or “basket”.

I wanted to order their Grilled Chicken with Lentil Rice, Spinach Salad with Yogurt Dressing, but chicken dishes were not available that day. So I ordered their Panfried Norwegian Salmon with Lime Leaf Sauce for RM65.00. The salmon was served with mashed potato & sweet potato and some saute baby french beans with lemony dressing. The salmon was very good but a little bit too dry. I love the mashed potato. It was soft and tasty.

VK ordered their Set Menu which comes with a bowl of Wild Mushroom Soup, a main course – Char Rib Eye, dessert – Signature Tiramisu Cake and Coffee/Tea for RM108.00. The Char Grill Rib Eye is served with saute vegetables and cepe mushroom sauce. The Rib Eye was good. It was very juicy and tender.

For desserts, VK ordered Top Hat’s Signature Tiramisu Cake. This is by far, one of the best tiramisu cakes we had. Strawberry jams were laid on the plate as spreads to make this cake taste even better. It was not too sweet. It was crunchy at the side. It was very fulfilling. I absolutely love this piece of cake. And we were very lucky that day as we took the last piece, so I guess this is a favourite for many Top Hats’ patrons.

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While looking through my Facebook wall the other day, I realize that Klasik Satay had just moved from Restaurant O’din to their very own shop, Klasik Satay Station in Taman Kepong Indah. As we didn’t have any plans we decided to go to Klasik Satay Station that very evening. If you do not know Kepong very well, just take the road towards FRIM from Kepong. The roads around FRIM are filled with Klasik Satay’s banner, so we didn’t have any trouble arriving at their new restaurant.

Klasik Satay’s satay didn’t change much. It remains among the better satays around Kepong. However, if I were to compare between the mutton satay, beef satay and chicken satay, the mutton satay is the better satay among the other two. The mutton satay is priced at RM1.20 per stick, beef satay at RM1 per stick and chicken satay at RM0.70 per stick.

Unlike their previous stall, here Klasik Satay’s menu here is more extensive. Nasi Lemak, Jawa Mee and Laksa Mee are some of the new items they have on their menu satays alone are not enough to make a complete dinner. Their nasi lemak’s version is the spicy type and is priced at RM1.00 per packet.

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Any steamboat “makan” session will not be good if the ingredients are not fresh. What differentiate from one steamboat restaurant to another is it’s ingredients. For a long time, I have been to many steamboat restaurants around Kepong and so far the best for me is Happy City Steamboat Restaurant. Today, I have found another close competitor to Happy City, that is Hao Jie Steamboat Restaurant, which is located further down the street from the former.

Without wasting much time, I’ll just dive into the best part of our seafood ingredient first. Hao Jie Steamboat Restaurant serves really Fresh Crabs (with crab roe). Hao Jie’s crab roe are much cheaper compared to Ho Ho Steamboat at Segambut. Look at the beautiful bright orange coloured roes.

White Pomphret Fish was also fresh that day and we decided to order one. Our fish was priced at RM18, a 100gram for RM6. Even though the fish was very fresh, I didn’t enjoyed it as much as the crabs. I guess, steamboat is not the correct way to enjoy this fish. It should instead be steamed lightly with soya sauce and ginger.

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Do you love Nyonya food? Recently, we went to a Nyonya food restaurant, Fat Spoon. Currently, they are running a promotion. Just present a voucher from SixCents’s website, and all you need to do is to play a game with the owners and stand a chance in winning a nice bottle of fresh orange juice.

We had Fat Spoon’s Ulam Fried Rice priced at RM11.90. It was nicely seasoned and fried to perfection. The fried chicken was juicy and finger-licking good. I enjoyed it very much. A plate of Ulam Fried Rice coupled with a nice, freshly squeezed orange juice is the perfect everyday lunch for me.

The Claypot Sampan Beef Noodles was a bit too salty in my opinion. But I am sure many of you would enjoy this beef noodles as it was really tasty.

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This is my second time dining at HoHo Steamboat Restaurant. Previously, we had tried HoHo’s steamboat in Menjalara, Kepong. So this time, we decided to venture further and went to their other Segambut branch. Just like their Kepong branch, they serve the same thing. You can’t go very far in terms of ingredient for a steamboat place like this. Prawns, slices of fish meat, tauhu, some processed meatballs and cabbage are some of the usual ingredients. The Segambut branch serves also fresh crab with roe. This is quite unique as we don’t see this available at any other steamboat restaurants.

If you have never tried the crab with roe before, I strongly suggest you to get it. Thanks to the crab, it made our soup tastes absolutely fantastic. Our soup was so good that we actually finished our soup. This is something that we rarely do considering the fact that most of the time our soup turn salty at the very end of our steamboat meal.

I am glad to know that there are two great steamboat restaurants just around the corner of my place, Happy City Steamboat Restaurant and HoHO Steamboat Restaurant. If I were to compare between the both of them, I will still go for Happy City Steamboat, mainly because of it’s fresh steamboat ingredients.

For your information, HoHo Steamboat Restaurant Segambut is housed together with Ipoh Road Yong Tau Foo. Although both restaurants are in the same premise, both restaurant operation hours are different. In the afternoon, Ipoh Road Yong Tau Foo is open, while at night, HoHo Steamboat Restaurant will take over. So don’t get confused.

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