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.

I’m a conservative fella when it comes to desserts. Fancy ones such as Snowflakes or Tong Pak Fu took us by storm with their popularity but something amiss is the warm feeling a dessert brings. It might be the memories of home cooked dessert that was stuck in my mind. Sweet Chat seems to have what it takes to revive the good old feeling of having warm desserts, especially in a rainy day! One of my favourite desserts of all time - the Sweet Potato Soup (RM5) is something I would crave once in awhile. The gingery taste of the soup works wonder when I’m having a bloated tummy. It’s hot and warms the stomach instantly. They use orange and red potatoes, another remedy for any windy stomachs.Mix Tong Yuen in Soymilk (RM5) comes in 2 flavours for its fillings - peanut and black sesame. This is a light version of traditional ginger soup base tong yuen, and it is still as chewy as we all know it. It wasn’t as superb as the Penang’s Tang Yuen stall, but definately worth a try. Other than that, they do have many variety of cold and warm desserts to chose from. The bill arrived with additional 10+6% taxes.

Now you can find Taiwanese home cook cuisine in Xi-Men-Ting, named after the popular shopping district in Taipei. The restaurant looks like the regular ‘char chan teng’, but a bit unmaintained. Doesn’t make me convinced if there weren’t so many reviews, and to my surprise the food here is not disappointing at all.Have you ever tasted chicken that was deep-fried into such crispness and tender inside-out? The Chicken Drum Steak (RM7.90),which was actually a marinated, fried drumstick is a MUST! Although it is a bit oily to some people liking, but this lovely leg is as finger licking good as the KFC’s. You don’t feel the flour sticking all over the skin, but just a thin layer leaves it light enough to enjoy your munch. It comes with a big bowl of noodle to balanced it out, topped with lettuce and minced pork.I’ve ordered the Ginger Duck Rice set (RM11.90) which comes with a glass of Honey Green Tea and jelly dessert. The food tasted very home cooked. The duck was tender, and it comes with a bowl of soup with 2 pork meatballs in it. Before we could finish up with the drinks and dessert, a colony of ants were invading our table. We just left the remaining as the rest was just too plain to remember.