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.

What makes a good bowl of ramen? The hype took on Malaysia with their first restaurant located at Tokyo Street, Pavillion KL. Hokkaido Ramen Santouka is originated from Hokkaido with chains all over Japan. Having tasted the originals, this restaurant is packed with people during its peak.

Santouka offers ramen in 3 different soup type – shio, miso and shoyu, which is all pork broth base. The prices too differ from their offering (of noodle and the amount of cha-shu) that comes in 3 sizes - RM 22.50 (small), RM 25 (regular) and RM 29 (large).For our fast lunch, I’ve ordered the Shio Ramen in small size. The soup was indeed excellent and deserves a shout. It was light and creamy white, strong tasting and not too oily. The S portion is just nice for my petite stomach as well. Cha-shu is just too precious but it was well portioned with the noodle. One that differ Santouka from other ramen was the bamboo shoot which blends in well with the taste of the blunt noodle. The spicy miso version, Kara-Miso Ramen.

We’re overly delighted when this coupon offer came online one day. An afternoon tea set for 2 pax priced at RM30 was worth every penny at Delicious, Marc Residence. It would cost us RM59.90 for the same stuff in any normal day. The tower of desserts is served in a triple tiered tray, with the choices of tea or coffee. The goodies we have on our tray consisted of 3 pieces of scones with jam and cream, finger sandwiches, duck confit filo pastry, strawberries with chocolate dip, hand-rolled chocolate truffles, rosemary and cheese cookies, topped with a piece of cake. We can choose any one slice of cake from the display, and we have chosen the strawberry shortcake from the look of it. The cheese is moist and thick, not really what we’re looking forward to after empting the rest of the tray.My favourite would be the sandwiches! It comes stuffed with egg, tuna and smoked salmon made out of ingredients with a cooling effect. We could tell it is fresh indeed!

Overall, the tea set was a bliss to have and it could be shared out to 3 pax in fact for the portion their offering.

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.