Setia Walk is the new happening place in Puchong with rows of restaurants and bistros, successfully pulling the crowd on the day before 2013. Chilla Cup seems to be a cozy place to hang out for a nice dinner and count down afterwards and they do offer an affordable meal that was hard to resist. It was simple and was nothing near to luxury to end the year with, yet it was a wall away from the crowd. We decided to step in and took on their new year set at RM30 per pax. Waw, that was really way cheaper than anything I’ve come across when dining on the night of NY eve.We have our starters – the Pumpkin and coconut cream soup. It looks like pumpkin and smell like coconut, with the injected taste of curry? I think. And we were allowed to order any coffee or tea from the menu, which was great. For mains we had 2 choices – the grilled chicken with a drizzle of cream mushroom reduction (reduced sauce is how I’ll call it), served with roasted potatoes and green salad. The other one was a grilled salmon on a bed of Basil cream presto fettuccine with a sprinkle of toasted pine nut. Both was excellent! If it was in the menu, I would have visit Chilla Cup again for those but they don’t even sell salmon on the regular menu. Such a pity but it makes a better meal to remember afterwards.We call for our desserts after the main. There are 2 cakes to choose from according to the flash card – cheese or brownies, but we were told that cheese cakes was out. We took on the brownies that lasted quite some time in our stomach, keeping us full throughout midnight for the fireworks. Staff there was attentive and was serving us although Chilla was self service and they had a fullhouse on that night. I would conclude that the location of Chilla is a bit away from the rest of the restaurants but it was a deliciously good meal, beyond my expectation.

Craving for a bowl of slurpy noodle? And deliciously slimy too? Lammeeya is the place in town that serves a good bowl of ‘lam mee’, hot and well presented too. What I like about Lammeeya’s noodle is the ingredients they uses - fresh and generous. There sure to be some goodies left in the bowl after the noodle runs out. That would be an ideally affordable bowl of noodle that is satisfying to our stomach and to our wallet!Char Siew Chicken Lam Udon ( RM12.80) – udon with char siu slices, fresh lettuce, egg and topped with fried onions.Lam Yee Mee (RM10.80) – yee mee with prawns, chicken, cabbage, bean sprouts and fish cake.

If dining is an art appreciation experience, then it may well describe our first meal in Ishin Japanese Dining. It was a lunch on the first day of 2013 and we are keen to try something new. We decided to check out the mysterious signage that leads to this quietly stood Japanese restaurant along Old Klang Road. Not much seats were available without booking, much to our surprise that it was a fullhouse on weekends for customers that came for their set lunches. Not a surprise at all when we saw the real meal – portion was good and tasted good compared to other Japanese restaurants.

We were handed an iPad menu as soon as we’re seated . Menu was simple and pictures doesn’t match actual. So we’re recommended to try their Golden New Year set (RM128++) – a 6 course meal with dessert after flickering aimlessly on the Pad. Well, we soon discovered that it was a bad idea as no pictures were shown to us and the menu on the 6 courses was in Japanese without any description. The experience from there onwards was similar to expecting a gift on each course served – we don’t know what we’re gonna get!

To begin with, we was not told that the set was meant for 1 pax as ordinary new year set would for 2. Our waiting for the precious bit was not very ideal but we’re anxious to unfold each courses. And the portion was... not ‘sharing friendly’ . Anyway, the Golden set is only available for a limited period, so it should be given a try.1st Course – Tako Sachi, Toyou Sasafu, Iwai Matsuba (cold appetizer – grilled hotate, octopus leg and wrapped mochi)2nd Course – Steamed baby abalone in clear soup3rd Course – Premium sashimi4th Course – Kasube Sakamushi (kasube with wine and enoki)5th Course – Yuba warpped king crab leg with uni (fried tofu skin wrapped with king crab meat and sea urchin)6th Course – Fugu Zousui (claypot porridge with fugu fish and roe)

After the 5th, we still couldn’t feel our stomach. We decided to order an additional lunch set just to fill up and it came just right after the 6th and before we hit dessert. The Teppanyaki Set (RM22) was excellent. It came with rice, miso (yuba) soup, and fruit dessert – kiwi and watermelon. And what we got for 22 bucks – grilled salmon, giant prawn, chicken and cabbage bean sprout mix. Smelling good as it was all done with butter . Dessert – Cream Tsutsumi(wrapped mochi) with Sakura Jelly

Food was well presented but the only setbacks are the services provided. We don’t feel good being lack of information on what we’re getting. Otherwise, the staff was attentive and food is superb. We’ll definately go back again – for their set offering of course. Green tea is refillable at RM3 per cup.

Mi Na Rae is an unexpected discovery on a Saturday afternoon while browsing thru the rows of restaurants along Jalan Radin Bagus. Our usual place would be the Pontian mee shop but we’ll like to try something new that day, thus the banners showing some set lunches quickly triggered the curiosities in us. We though it might not be possible for weekend lunch as the offer is too good to be true. One floor up the staircase we went, and were greeted by a Korean lady behind the wooden door to assure us that they have the lunches!

The restaurant is cozy, very typical looking Korean BBQ restaurants – authentic I can say, with wooden partition and settings, metal BBQ pits and a hanging TV playing some K-pop performances from the latest bands. From the time we step in until we’re done with lunch, there weren’t any other customers. It was a shame that such a nice Korean eatery – probably as genuine as the popular one in Taman Desa was not discovered due to many competing restaurants on the ground floor.The interior of the restaurant.Our set lunches comes with tea and wakame soup. Not sure what type of tea was given but it has a slight coffee taste in it.JapChae DeobBab or the stir-fried glass noodles with vegetables (RM13.90). The glass noodles are springy and flavourable with minced chicken, carrots, black fungus and onion.O-Jingeo DeobBab (RM13.90) is the spicy stir-fried squid in kimchi. Not as spicy as the look of it, the sauce is rather sweet and suitable for those that do not prefer the hot stuff and the squid – simply chewy!And we have 6 side dishes to go with – steamed potatoes, sweet sauce tofu, long beans with silver fish, kimchi, vege pancake and kimchi fish cake. Both portions of the lunches are huge, filling and delicious, definitely worth more than what we’ve paying for. The bill comes with additional 5% tax.

I’ve first discovered Formosa within Sunway Pyramid’s Asian Avenue. Back then, it was one of our favourite hang out place for lunch with my colleagues base on the reasonable food prices and it’s basically tax free dining. Nothing can compete with the set lunches they offered during that time when Chatime or whatsoever bubble tea are non existed. Although the acclaimed Taiwan cuisine is solely runs by Bangla chef, the food is still as nice with minimum variety. This branch in SSTwo mall is a few more installation after Sg Wang and Kuchai Lama. It is a small shop in this quiet mall that catered around 5 tables only and with an open kitchen concept just like the Sunway branch. Hot Crispy Chicken Set (RM13.90) comes with bubble milk tea, salted fried chicken, braised egg with tofu skin roll, and rice with pickled vegetables. All the dishes were served hot, and still tax free!Dry Noodles with Minced Pork (RM7). This is somewhat like the Taiwanese ‘jia-jiang’ noodle – or braised tofu sauce noodle. But this combination is based on the braised sauce recipe for their braised pork rice. Noodles are springy and tasted good with lard from the minced pork, mixing it with taugeh, cucumber and carrots makes it a light bowl of noodle to munch on.