Purple Cane Tea Restaurant @ The Gardens

WB did not even know such a restaurant existed until her coworkers suggested to celebrate one of their birthday at this place (15th Oct).

So, blindly following the crowd, WB sat down at the restaurant, and they all ordered the following. Keeping in mind that all the dishes were enhanced with tea leaves, WB tried extra hard to test each of them if there was indeed traces of tea molecules….

Individual tea pot of Lotus Root Tea Soup – pour the soup out into the small tea cup, and drink it like you do Chinese tea

Found a chicken wing inside, with a small piece of lotus root. True to its claim, the soup does have a hint of tea aroma. Nicely done, love this 🙂 ❤

Lotus Root mixed Vege – Yum yum ❤ lotus root, tastes good, though why were Youtiao necessary in this dish? There was also no trace of tea scent in this dish.

Curry mixed Vege – mild curry taste, not spicy, and again no tea scent…

Little Drumsticks in Marmite sauce – Mild taste, again youtiao was present here, even with yam as fillings. This portion was too small for 5 persons… should have at least 2 for a person! No tea scent found yet 😦

Scrambled eggs with prawns (sorry for the grainy photo) – very normal dish, even WB can cook better, again no tea scent here!

Tofu topped with minced meat – Nice texture and stronger taste, minced meat was just nice, but no tea scent as well…

Either WB’s taste bud was malfunctioning, or there was just no tea added to the dishes as claimed (or maybe there was but it was just too mild). The best dish of the meal belonged to no other than the Lotus Root Tea Soup. The other dishes were just average but the bill was quite reasonable. For that reason, and also for healthy food option, WB planned to come back here again with BB, just to taste the soup again 🙂

Nana’s Green Tea @ The Gardens

BB’s old LG mobile phone was dying rapidly the previous month, so BB ordered a new MI3 from China. After an excruciating long wait (a whole month), the new phone was finally delivered.

To celebrate the new phone arrival, the Bears headed to the always full-house Nana’s Green Tea (30th Sept).

Always packed, wonder why…..

The Bears ordered two main dishes, each for themselves, and a cup of drink.

Teriyaki Chicken Rice with miso soup (if not wrong) – Taste was normal, nothing really special.

Chicken Karaage Curry Udon – udon was soft, not chewy, the taste of curry was normal, but less sweet than other Japanese curry, spiciness was near zero..

The only drink that the Bears ordered,

Red bean + milk blend (forgot its name) – quite good actually as it is less sweet than expected, much better than the main dishes but quite pricey…. This drink can be found in the Bears’ hometown, much thicker and traditional, and at a fraction of the price.

WB also was treated to a drink by a coworker a few weeks after her first visit. This time WB tried the following,

Red Bean soup with Macha Ice Cream and Shiratama – Sweet red bean soup + bitter macha = good combination, but the ice cream melted a bit too fast.

Macha Ice Cream and Shiratama on Macha Frappe – quite bitter as the whole cup was macha, but it was quite refreshing though.

After two visits, WB could not vouch for the food served, as they are quite normal tasting. However, the desserts and drinks are quite special, they are worth a try 🙂

Din Tai Fung @ The Gardens

WB had only tried Din Tai Fung once in Singapore, it was a long time ago, when they didn’t even have an outlet yet in Malaysia.

Recently, WB was dragged twice to the one in The Gardens mall by her coworkers for lunch and dinner.

So for the first time WB ordered this,

Prawn Fried Rice – contains a lot of fresh prawns, big portion and very aromatic. But the taste was quite bland for WB, as she favours heavier taste. WB ended up adding chili sauce, vinegar and also soy sauce.

For the second time, WB thought of ordering noodles, just for experiment sake to see what it taste like.

Wan Tan Ramen – Wan Tan were meaty filled with pork and prawns, they were great. However, the noodles and the soup, has nothing to offer. Soup was bland, noodles was cooked too soft, regrets… Same as last time, WB added a lot of chilli sauce to compensate for the lack of taste 😦

As side dishes, WB’s coworkers ordered these….

Xiao Long Bao – These tasted great, they should be, considering that they are the shop signature dish.

Vegetables Gyoza – Filled to the brim with various vegetables, they were truly not bad 🙂

Pumpkins fried in Salted Egg Yolk – These were excellent, the pumpkins remain juicy, the egg yolks covering were crispy, yum yum 😀

To be fair and honest, the Xiao Long Bao were really better than the ones from Dragon-i (see here). However, taste wise, Din Tai Fung is more suited to people who has a mild taste bud, for WB, this is just not extreme enough 🙂

Sushi Tei @ The Gardens

To celebrate the (belated) 10th anniversary of the start of the journey of the two fat bears, the bears decided to try out the often-passed-by-but-never-tried Japanese restaurant, Sushi Tei.

As always, a que is always forming at the entrance.
The bears waited for 5 minutes and were already shown to their seats, nice 🙂

So as tradition, BB ordered a plate of Japanese curry chicken rice…

Curry Rice
BB said he have tried better ones before, this was not the best one. WB however, believed this is actually quite nice. Reason being it has a much heavier curry spice flavour, and evidently less sweet, as Japanese curry tends to be more sweet than spicy. The potatoes and carrots were cooked just right, but the chicken… feels like it is not marinated beforehand at all.

Ebi Don
Looks really nice right? Until you sink your chopsticks on the tempura prawns. The prawns was not piping hot out from the fryer, the flour covering it was already soft and separating from the prawn itself. That apart, the taste of the rice with its gravy was nice. But the bears will not recommend this dish to anyone, utter disappointment.

Next, cheeky WB grabbed a nice plate of sushi off the conveyor belt, name has been forgotten but it is actually crab leg topped with cod fish roes wrapped in beancurd, this tasted amazing…! ❤

No visit to a sushi place is complete without a plate of fresh salmon sashimi!

These 5 pieces of salmon are fresh, fat and juicy. Worth it!!! 😀

Besides the curry, the two bears also ordered some nice plates of sushi off the menu.

Penthouse Salmon rolls
These are actually rolls of rice with avocado as the core, topped with smoked salmon, topped with omelet, topped with burned cheese. They hold up really well when handled with chopsticks (sushi master has got good skills), tasted very nice and satisfying, the only regret WB has is that (in her opinion) the cheese should be burned more so that it melts and covers the top of the sushi.

Phoenix rolls
The core of the rolls are fried shrimp, topped with unagi, then topped with a slice of fresh avocado. Not bad, but not sure if this is a nice combination though. WB loved the avocado, and the unagi, but was not so sure about the fried shrimp. Somehow, it feels like it should have more sauces added to it, to make it more succulent.

The bill came up to RM80+. The fat bears were so full that they could barely walk, after downing so much Japanese rice. But this is a good place apart from the disastrous Ebi Don, and no wonder there is a long que every time the bears passed by 🙂

 

SOULed Out @ Bangsar South Nexus

Souled Out (another outlet) was recently opened in the new Nexus mall in Bangsar South. As it was just in the neighbourhood of WB’s office, WB and her colleagues were there for two team lunches (in May and in September), and another dinner with BB.

The atmosphere is really open so it can get a bit warm during lunch time. But at dinnertime the ambiance is just right 🙂 One thing that WB didn’t like was that they don’t seem to have a division between smoking and non-smoking areas.

So WB and BB tried the following during their visit.

Cod Fish pasta (forgotten its name) – Fish was fresh and juicy, tasted great, but the portion was quite small.

Prawn (Caesar) Salad (forgotten name as well) – Nice dressing, just right, fresh big prawns, missed this!

Prawn Aglia Olio Pasta – Yummy, the spice used was just right with lots of prawns, portion was still quite small.

Fried Chicken Noodles – Nothing to shout about, normal Wat Tan Hor taste 😦

Salmon Carborana pasta – spaghetti in creamy cheesy sauce, which was exceptionally good, salmon cooked just right which adds to much satisfaction, this was incredibly wonderful 🙂

Deep Fried Chicken Wings – Tasted good, but fried a bit too dry, would be good to have it more juicy.

Signature Passion Fruit Blend – well not sure why it’s signature, it tasted quite normal to be honest.

Jasmine hot tea – a very aromatic drink to wash down the cream/oil of the meal

Besides food, there were a lot of beautiful girls promoting/selling alcoholic beverages, so in addition to food for the tummy, guys could also have some supplement for the eyes 😀

So overall, it is a good place to dine, to meet up with friends, hang out and chill, stick to the signature dishes (especially the pasta), and you won’t get disappointed 🙂