I would like to share one of my Makan 'Mis-adventure' which started on a fateful Wednesday afternoon. My hubby and I were travelling along the Jalan Sungei Besi, our tummy were rumbling and we were hungry as a wolf. It was the dead hour to look for food and my hubby suggested we try out the popular bamboo noodles shop along the highway.

Many good reviews have been written about this place, so I decided to check them out that day. As I was rushing to be back home and there is another kiddo at home waiting to feed, I took a takeaway or tapau for lunch. I decided to try out the 2 different version with a soup and dry noodles but both with char siew & wantans.

Chunky pieces of delish char siew compared to the Paper thin pieces char siew that shrunk in size over the years.
Above is a combo pic comparing the size of the char siew served in 2010 to the current year ~ 2014. Picture on the left is the succulent char siew was taken from a food blog dated sometime in May 2010, whereas the picture on the right are the ones I packed or tapau back home to eat that afternoon.

I was totally disappointed by the char siew serving as you can see my bowl of noodles consists of a measly serving of only 4 miserable-looking pieces of tasteless and ridiciously super thin char siew. My wantan were missing too in this case.
As for the wantans, I tasted them on my 1st pack of the dry version (konlo) and it was so lousy. The noodles though springy but it was so dry that it lacks in flavour. Those tiny morsel of wantans were so soft and small that I can't even taste the meat. They must have added lots of flour instead of the minced pork that causes it to be so soft.
The art to serving a very good bowl of noodles must have 4 important criteria; the texture of noodles, the soup to be follow by the char siew and lastly the wantan. This place has failed on 2 very important points ~ succulent char siew together with meaty, savoury wantan. Seriously this place is so overrated till I believe that any wantan mee stalls in your neighbourhood can serve a better dish anytime.

Sad to say this but they have acquired a super skill to thinly slice the char siew to paper thin size to maximise profit. What's more disheartening was that they have increased the prices from RM5.50 in 2010 to the current RM7.30 for a large bowl of soup/dry noodles.

Well, the only good I can say about this disastrous food review is that the texture of noodles were commendable. The soup was worth mentioning too, it tasted good just like any decent soup should taste like.

I was also being short changed here as they left out the wantan on my 2nd pack of noodles. When I made a call to complaint, the arrogant boss still have to cheek to say that I gave them a wrong order and insisting that I wanted my noodle without wantan. Instead of apologizing for the mistake his staff made, he was quick to blame his customers.
One of my favourite noodles has always been the wantan noodles and I have never eaten or order any wantan noodles in my life without the wantan. Char siew and wantan goes hand in hand for any serving of wantan noodles.

Been to this restaurant a while back, at a time where prices were reasonable, real value for money & on top of that, taste wise was still good especially the fried chicken and lala meehoon. A weekend trip to Paya Indah Wetlands, Dengkil, Selangor brought my family & I back to check out this seafood restaurant after a long hiatus. I called this the 'Ripped Off Dish - Coleslaw'. You see, we were served with some 'coleslaw' instead of the usual ground nuts when we sat on the table. Well, curiosity kills the cat as we decided to try it out this mysterious looking starter as I would called it. Taste wise is nothing to shout about, sourish cold dish with thin strips or chiffonade carrots & cabbages soaking wet bathing with mayonnaise. Mind you, we were ridiculously charges RM8.00 for this lousy plate of 'cold dish of cabbages/carrots'. Dining here had given me a bitter or bad after taste experience as the dish doesn't worth that much. BTW, they named it 'Organic Salad', so this gave them a 'Licence to Kill' ... to charge & drop a bomb price to unsuspecting patrons like me. Got fleeced big time @ Yong Tat, no thanks to the unscrupulous restaurateur! Next, we ordered the Deep Fried Village Chicken. Luckily, they maintained their standard & this chicken dish still tasted good, the meat was tender, rather flavourful even though I found it a tad too dry. One of the specialty dish, Meehoon Fried Lala was a real disappointment. This is our family favourite & we never failed to order it every time we patronised this place. Used to taste wonderfully delicious with lard & generous amount of tiny lala but this time, everyone agreed that it just wasn't up to the mark & tasted quite bland. No more wok hei, lacking in flavour & taste. Well, something is missing here as it didn't taste as nice as it should be. The old chef must have gone missing & the current one just didn't make the mark at all! A visit to a seafood restaurant surely can't do without the crabs, so we have the usual favourite ... that is the Sweet & Sour Crabs. Price wise is quite reasonable as it cost RM 44.00@kg. Still cheaper if we compare to KL/PJ pricing. But sad to say again, the crab sauce was just okay. Neither sweet, sour or spicy, it tasted quite bland, but with a strong dose of onions instead of garlic. I guessed the chef overdosed this crab dish of mine with onions. On the bright side, the crabs were fresh, therefore the meat was succulent & juicy. Total bill came to RM 95.20 for a meal of crabs, fried meehoon, chicken, a plate of rice, chinese tea plus the RM8.00 for 'Organic Salad' for 4 pax. Well, I guess this is the last I'm coming back to place as the standard has dropped tremendously. I also noticed that the business had been bad for them as I remembered the last time it was so congested that we have to wait at least 5-10 mins for a table on a weekend dining.

This time around ... we arrived at 5.30pm to an empty restaurant (we were the 1st customer) & stayed till 8pm to 1/2 filled restaurant. On the contrary to this, service was excellent as the staff force were very free this time around. They even asked if we wanted to have fruits after our meal

This is my latest update of my makan trip to one of my favourite banana leaf rice restaurant in town. Although the food served here is still tasty, real authentic Chettinah dishes, I was taken by surprise with the price increase on my recent visit. Now, the basic vegetarian meal set costs RM 5.00 with an increase of 50 cents. You guys must be thinking that it's still okay as compared to many others places. The worst has yet to come. They got greedy as I think business getting too good for them, they started to charge for extra toppings or add ons of any vegetables dishes. The same goes for rice too! Good gracious me!

You see, the RM 5.00 set now ONLY comes with 1 extra topping of rice & 2 toppings of any vegetables. Subsequent 'tambah nasi or sayur' comes with a charge of RM 1.00 onwards. Be careful with the papadoms too, I was charged additional RM 1 for asking for more papadoms! Besides that, the tairu or yoghurt are not longer part of the set as they are charging RM 1.50 per bowl.

Well, as far as I know (from this terrible experience) the only thing that have no extra charge are the curry fish, curry chicken or dhall gravies. I'm still quite mad with the whole new pricing. Boycotting Sri Paandi for the time being and I'm on a serious look out and hunt for another 'tasty & cheap' Chettinad restaurant to satisfy my cravings for Indian food.

Lilly Hong
Editor of
Follow Me To Eat La - http://followmetoeatla.blogspot.com

This is a very crispy dim sum I had at Imperial Pot. The nutritious avocado was delicately wrapped with rice vermicelli which was specially imported from Germany. This roll was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The filling was a tad too sweet for my taste. Besides that, it was too mushy ie soft and pulpy. Nothing to shout about as it tasted like kaya for me!

The 'not-so-nice' Lau Sar Pau was a total failure. The Chinese sayings of 'Look nice but not nice to eat' ... "Hor tai ng hor sek" applies here. It failed miserably both in the texture of the skin and the egg custard filling within. The charcoal skin was too thick without the soft or fluffy texture every bun should have. There was no sight of any sweet custard oozing out when you take the first bite. Instead, the paste leaves you with a powdery taste of custard in your mouth too!

I have tasted better ones and really yummy & awesome 'Lau Sar Pau' @my favourite Tin Sum Restaurant at the OUG morning market.

Check out my review here : http://my.openrice.com/klangvalley/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?commentid=35772