Old but still sustaining while legacy and secret recipe are being passed on from one generation to another is always good in some way in gaining admiration and respect from others. The franchise opened their latest branch at the Mid Valley Megamall while featuring their first ever café in shopping mall to invite shoppers to dine in their two story café serving this delicious traditional meal which is love by almost all Malaysians. Expect a decent meal, nothing too fabulous but sufficient to satisfy the chicken rice crave.The shop is nicely washed in bright colours to portray a modern and clean ambiance while the lighting and potted plants create a calming mood for dinners to fully savour their meals. On the signature Ipoh Chicken Rice that many have come to love, expect new dishes such as Hokkien Mee (a first for the restaurant, available only at Mid Valley Megamall), a few selection of vegetarian dishes, specialties like braised tofu with pumpkin, various meat dishes and plenty more. This definitely is a great place to dine after a long day of shopping

Spending years collecting priceless collectibles from all over the world, a young man with lasting persistency to one day share his precious with fans and others who love and adore the work of late Japanese artist Fujiko Fujio begins his journey to fulfill both the love for Japanese anime ambassador, Doraemon and food, in particular the Taiwan food. I cannot be more exciting when Open Rice decided to host a review session at the D’ Dream café. A name that is pretty cliché for a café but nonetheless holds significant meaning to the owner himself. With his ever burning passion, Nicholas insisted on delivering the best and the finest possibly served to his customers as a token of gratitude in return for their support and love for his dishes. Believing in meeting his own expectations and being part of a place where he can share and exhibits his precious collections.Crafting the most significant dish ever to characterized the representative dishes of Taiwan cuisine, the menu is charming as itself to ease customers when it comes to picking their food. Before I get loose and out of control and side tracked myself to the collectibles in the café display itself, let’s focus on the spotlight here, their dishes.

Like I’ve mentioned, typical Taiwan signature dishes as the outcome from the love of those dishes by Nicholas himself. Typical ones except the Oyster Mee suah which I thought would definitely be on the menu. Alas, no mee suah whatsoever and the closest you get to that is their Ramen. The Deep Fried Pork Ramen here sells at an affordable price of RM 7.50 and is superbly suitable for solo dinners.And don’t forget the Braised Beef Ramen (RM 9) whereby the soup was lovely and especially amazing on raining days. The café take pride in MSG free preparation and Nicholas manages everything right from scratch. The texture of the ramen wasn’t something we can shout about or highly recommend especially if you have tasted authentic ones in Taiwan itself. Subjected to personal preferences still, some prefer softer texture while others like it al dente. It was nothing close to my liking and it seriously reminds me of spaghetti.If you are typical type where rice is a must, then the Braised Pork Rice is a must. The braised pork bedding on the white rice was nicely cooked and had the texture that I really fancy. A well balanced of lean and fat as well as not over minced making it crucially blending so well with the texture of white rice. It was smooth like you almost can’t taste the chunks of fats but instead it was mildly prevailing in forms of moist. Not to mention it came with really cute processed fish cake with my favourite cartoon print on it. I thought the angry bird fish cake I had in Celup was impressive, until this one.If that haven’t got enough meat in your diet, there is the Three Cups Phoenix Rice which sells at RM 7.50. It was an impressive price but underwhelming when it comes to the taste of this dish. On first taste, chicken pongteh instantly came to mind and subsequent bites went numb from the overpowering brine when eating the chicken without white rice. But when having it with rice, it was close to amazing if you didn’t mind the lack of plants in your meal.Taiwan is popular for their street snack and while you are here and focusing a hundred percent on their food, then I highly recommend their bites. I do think that they score fairer than the main dishes. Starting with the Golden French Fries, which is definitely worth the price to pay for RM 5 would serve a good sharing portion which is irresistibly addictive. And did I mention food was served really slowly, hence making these bites essential if not admiring on the range of collections. Served hot and topped with generous sour plum powder which is honestly redundant if you asked me. The deep fried sweet potato strips were perfect on their own. Lightly coated with flour and deep fried for that promising finish of crunchiness on the outside and velvet smooth and soft texture of young sweet potato on the inside.While the sweet potato tantalizes the taste bud, the Golden QQ Ball did not meet up to expectations albeit the effort of the beautiful colour. It was a pleasant vision but disappointing palate. QQ in general speaks as chewy or bouncy but it was neither and slightly tough on the outside.Other interesting bites includes the savoury choices of Pop Corn Chicken and Stewed Bean Curd each selling at RM 6 and RM 5 respectively. Both absolutely ambrosial and perfect for sharing, and great as bud teasing appetisers. The chicken bites were lovely and crunchy with tasty spice powder and basil you can never have enough of this.The stewed bean curd appeared ordinary and somewhat bland in presentation but was obviously deceiving at a glance. Upon the first bite, feel the moist and sweetness oozing from inside the bean curd pieces while the gravy nicely compliments the mild flavour of soy bean of bean curd.Lastly the Herbal Jelly Milk with very refreshing grass jelly nicely swimming inside cold milk or their Fruit Tea which is one of the nice ones I’ve tried around this area. The fruit tea is something worth recommending since generous amount of ingredients and efforts were put into it. Once again, the pricing was reasonable at RM 4.90 and RM 6.50(hot)/RM 6.90(cold) respectively for a standard tall glass which could serve 2-3 people.This café is a must visit for all Doraemon fan. It is absolutely worth paying a visit where you get to admire and really appreciate many collectible pieces of which some are very limited editions collected from all over the world .Nicholas himself is a fan and have been collecting since he was 9 years old. I have not in my entire life meet anyone else as indulging as he is and I truly respect him for his passion and love to the robot cat. Since this place is managed by 2 staffs only, expect delay in between dishes which is why reservation is highly recommended so they can prepare prior to arrival whilst ensuring the best of quality in their food.

Melur and thyme serves fusion and is already nicely portrait with the fusion name of both melur and thyme. A local and western fusion. So is their dishes with a great array of choices to pick from. The seating and the interior of this place is very comfortable and suitable for casual short break of tea or coffee with very lovely views and sights, depending on where you are seated. You can always pick your seat when there is not much crowd but chances would be low during peak lunch hours. The restaurant caters to the office crowd around this area and the choices of menu is interesting for both communal and solo lunch. The sang har mee was really fantastic and I thought the portion is slightly huge because there were lots of ingredients in it. The generous ingredients are not really a bad thing but having a lot of ingredients alone is not enough affirm the taste of this noodle. The broth and the thick gravy to the noodle make this a very comforting dish to order. The aglio Olio also serves with very fresh ingredient, something I really like seeing in fusion restaurants. Most that I have been failed to have a good quality control over the ingredients used when they have to have so many ingredients to meet the demand of the varieties offered in the restaurant. Another dish they should be bragging is the Duck satay and it was lovely to fuse duck meat with the spices for satay.

Whenever I’m sick or feeling like I am losing my appetite, I always have craving for porridge. I guess porridge became a staple food for those without any appetite to eat. Decent ones are difficult to locate, but recently I found one I thought was pretty decent and palatable. It was served as individual claypots and the porridge texture was thick and not too diluted, just the way that I like it.I ordered the Teng Chai porridge, and I requested to add on salted egg, and you tiao. They have got other stuff like the red bean bun, glutinous rice bun, and the ma jiao. But I didn’t order those because I didn’t felt like I could finish my food.The ingredients in the porridge were really generously served. Lots of century egg as well as crab stick. I thought it was genius to have raw crab stick slightly stirred into the porridge instead of cooking it in the porridge. That’s why the texture of crabstick somehow remained chewy. I love the salted egg in the porridge. Most places won’t have such generous amount of salted egg.If porridge alone is too bland, do try the fried fu chuk. Amazingly appetizing due to the crispy outer layer. Fish paste wrapped in it was a little brine when eaten alone, but it complimented the porridge well.Lastly, I finish the meal with a cup of Cham ( a mixture of tea and coffee). Smooth milk tea with a slight touch of coffee makes a perfect Cham. Since I am not so much of a coffee person, I like it a lot because this is a slightly softer and smoother version of coffee.The Teng Chai porridge cost Rm 6.50, with Rm 1 extra for additional salted egg. You tiao is Rm 1.40, and fried fu chuk cost me Rm 5.50. So the total price I paid for the meal was almost Rm 18 including service tax. I thought it was okay, and I definitely will come back to them the next time I feel like eating porridge.

Vegetarian food is some fascinating recipe and what more are fascinating would be the vegetarian ingredients. These processed flours were so well done sometimes one couldn’t tell if it is real meat or not. In Shiang Hai vegetarian restaurant, the chef recommended dish is the sushi rolls. There is a wide variation of sushi and I picked Mango sushi and the Lettuce sushi. The texture of the ingredients rolled inside was very similar to actual sushi. One actually tasted like real ham. The mango sushi…..*inhales….* was breathtaking. Better than most fusion sushi.