TGIF (Queensbay Mall)

I had dinner in one of the weekdays at TGIF in Queensbay Mall about a month ago. When I was there, TGIF had this promotional meal set, which is a 2 course meal (one appetizer and one entrees) for RM29.90.

The selection of appetizers and entrees available for this 2-course meal can be found here:
http://www.fridays.com.my/html/whatsnew-1.html

For appetizer, I picked 'Fried Mac & Cheese'. And for entrees, I picked 'Sizzling Chicken & Cheese'. Both orders also have cheese in it...yummy...I loves cheese so much!



Fried Mac & Cheese

When I had my first bite on the 'Fried Mac & Cheese', I was very disappointed to find macaroni in it. I hate macaroni! Aiyah..I didn't know 'Mac' means macaroni. Nvr mind...the macaronis are covered in cheese and fried crispy outside...but then when I had my 3rd piece, I felt so 'jelak' with it that I cannot continue eating it anymore.


This is my 'Sizzling Chicken & Cheese'. Tasted ok, but I'm not a big fan of chicken breast meat.


Hubby and sis did not order the RM29.90 2-course meal. They picked their choice from the main menu.


This is hubby's order, 'Jack Daniel's Chicken' which is around RM29.90. There are 2 pieces of chicken breast, served with sweet sauce in the small teacup. The sauce tasted weird. I don't quite like this order compared to my 'Sizzling Chicken & Cheese'.



Sis ordered grilled lamb which cost RM29.90 as well. This is the best order among the 3 that we've ordered. The lamb meat was so tender and juicy.



With the 2-course meal that I ordered, I can add on 2 choices of mini desserts for RM6. I couldn't resist the temptation and ordered the 'Strawberry Parfait' and 'Mocha Latte'. I like the 'Mocha Latte' as it has some bitter coffee taste in it.

I don't like the limited choice of orders available for the 2-course meal. The food overall tasted average.

Oh..gosh...I am very much toxicated with bad food in that week itself, a day before this late night meal (we had our food served at 9pm) in TGIF, I had 4 slices of Dominos pizza for lunch, and a day after this, I loaded myself with lots of free food during the EDN seminar in EQ hotel, and the subsequent day, I had Thai food in Cherry Blossom.

Harvest In Cafe

Looking for a nice and cosy air-conditioned ambient for lunch and dinner and yet not have to fork out too much money for a meal of western food? You can try Harvest In cafe. I went to this place once for dinner and found the food not bad and not too expensive considering it's nice ambient.

The facade

Outside of the cafe, view taken from inside the cafe.

Inside the cafe

I had mexican roasted chicken, RM14.90. It comes with mashed potatoes, some carrots,cauliflower and broccoli. The chicken tasted good and tender, and the skin is crispy.

Hubby had this set called Bombay chicken, RM13.90.


I love the food here, and its environment. However, I am quite disappointed with the serving portion. Look at the one little slice of carrot and 3 small cauliflowers/brocolli. It is as if those are so expensive. Hubby's bombay chicken meat is just one piece of the chicken thigh. Mine, the mexican chicken is slightly bigger in size. However, I was still hungry when leaving the cafe, and finished off half a can of mister potato at night for supper....keke.

This is the dinner menu. Only managed to take one photo because the waitress quickly came to me for order when she saw me taking photos of the menu. I guess they don't want the menu to be seen by their competitor outside.

This is the lunch menu. We realized that the menu for lunch and dinner quite different, and what is more different is the price. Yes, lunch is more cheaper than dinner.

Map to the cafe.

Definitely a better choice to go this place for lunch instead, coz the price at lunch is about the same as the outside hawker western food. Also the food here is without taxes and service charge.

Hawker Western Food

I found out of this hawker stall selling good western food during one of my frequent visits to the bridal shop before my wedding. Whenever we visited our bridal shop along Jalan Bagan Jermal, we never failed to stop by the food court opposite Phor Tay school for our favourite western food there for dinner. The food court is only opened at night, so we usually arranged our trip to the bridal shop in the evening so that we can have dinner there.

Why I loved this western food? Because it served spaghetti and fruit salad as the side dishes besides the mash potato. You don't get these side dishes for the same price that you pay at other western food hawker stall. And the usual salad served is usually made up of cabbages, but here they served pieces of apple.

Honey lamb - RM10. The lamb meat tasted good.

Morrocon chicken. There are many other varieties that we had tried like garlic chicken, honey chicken, black pepper chicken, all at RM7.60 each if I'm not mistaken, but sorry no photos coz the glutton me always forgot to take pics and only realized when the food already went into my stomach.

This is the western food stall.

Before we knew of this stall, whenever we thought of good and cheap western food to eat, we would thought of the famous western food stall near to the cemetery at Fettes Park. But now, this stall will be our prefered hawker western food. Served with spaghetti, this western food definitely is much more filling than the other hawker western food and worth the money paid.

For Seafood Lovers

I loved seafood so much! Crabs, urinating prawns ("lai liu ha" in cantonese or "hair ko" in hokkien), fried squid, kepah, etc...those are my favourites. Two and a half months back, we had seafood dinner at "Hao You" in Teluk Kumbar to celebrate my hubby's birthday. Business there was good, it was crowded with ppl when we arrived, just like usual. And as usual, my visit here will not be complete without crab dish. I don't have pictures of the food to show here as my sis had already deleted the photos from her camera phone because they were left there for too long. I used her phone to take photos as I left my phone at home. Anyway, this post is to update seafood lovers (might be only applicable to those who are price-conscious) of the price of the crabs....hmmm, although this is not so up-to-date. Food prices overall has increased over the years. So, being the price-conscious consumer, I enquired for the price per kg for crabs before I confirm my order. I was told then that they have 2 types of crab; small crab and big crab. Small crab cost RM40 per kg and big crab cost RM50 per kg. So expensive...i remembered a year back when I ordered crab here, it only cost RM30 per kg, and we were served with big crabs.

Here is another seafood dinner we had in Tambun on the eve of my wedding day.

Crabs sold here is cheaper than in Penang island, but not any cheaper. RM30 per kg for crabs. The crabs served were big in size. Seafood in Tambun no doubt is fresh, but the prices there is not so cheap anymore. The 'urinating' prawns we ordered tasted so good, the flesh is so succulent, but it costs RM8 per piece. I have forgotten what fish that we ordered, and it cost us around RM40 for the fish. There is this restaurant's signature vegetable dish recommended by the waitress, that we ordered, and we felt like kena cheated because it cost us RM24 for a plate of fried broccoli wrapped in yam. Definitely not worth the price to pay because vegetables sold in market or supermarket is so cheap. Yam may be more expensive, but I still don't think this dish is worth RM24. I forgot the name of this restaurant in Tambun, but just beware the next time if the waitress recommend you any special vegetable dish when you dine in Tambun area.

Dimsum buffet at Cititel Penang

I had dimsum buffet in Cititel ZhongHua restaurant about 2 and 1/2 months back. I had been there usually to have their ala-carte dim sum dishes, but on this visit, I saw them having buffet at only RM16.80 per person for the first time, and quickly I decided to give it a try since my usual visit here was never disappointing as food here was always good.

The dim sum available for this buffet is limited in variety compared to their menu for ala-carte order; they have the typical 'siew mai', 'har kow'(prawn dumpling), 'loh mai kai' (glutinous rice with chicken), 'char siew pao' (steamed bbq pork bun), 'pai kut' (pork ribs), chicken leg, fish balls and etc.

Besides dimsum, they also served some other dishes like roasted duck meat, 'char siew' (roasted pork), grilled chicken wings, fish head, deep fried prawns in flour, 'char koay kak' (fried radish), 'bei tan' porridge, some fried vegetables, and etc.

The typical pastries that were usually available in dim sum restaurant.

Some deserts; salad, fruits, red bean soup, jellies, sandwiches, and self-service ice kacang.

Chicken wings, 'har kow', 'siew mai' and steamed pork ribs. The chicken wings were quite cold and hard. 'Siew mai' and 'har kow' were the best among all the other dimsums available in this buffet.

Some 'char koay kak' (fried radish cake), 'char siew', fish head in black bean sauce and fried prawns on my plate. Nothing special, but the little fried prawns in flour tasted good and crispy and the prawns were succulent.

'Char siew pau'... I tried to resist not taking this as the 3 paus could easily fill up our stomach. But hubby couldn't resist when I told him the 'char siew pau' here is very nice. I tried one eventually, but then it doesn't taste as good as the usual char siew pao that I ordered here from the ala carte menu. Cheat one....the 'char siew' filling was so little! I bet they made different char siew pao for the buffet, with reduced 'char siew' filling.

There was one thing that we didn't dare to try because of the large serving. It was the 'loh mai kai' (glutinous rice). The serving was so huge here in the buffet, I remembered it wasn't so big portion in the ala carte order. This is again their trick!

Meat wrapped with seaweed.

Chicken feet, carrot cake and don't know what the crispy thing next to it called. One of the must order item when you visit here for ala carte dishes is the fried carrot cake! However, I was very disappointed when i tried the carrot cake in the buffet. There was supposed to be someone there attending to the buffet and help fried the carrot cake, but no one was there. I couldn't wait any longer and took the unfried carrot cake.

Baked 'char siew pau' and 'wu kok' (char siew filling wrapped in yam). 'Wu kok' is my favourite, I always ordered 'wu kok' whenever I had dim sum here or elsewhere. However, it doesn't taste as good as the 'wu kok' that I had here before. It was not warm and crispy enough.

Overall, I don't quite like the buffet dimsum compared to the ala carte dimsum available here. The same food served in the buffet and from ala carte order was somewhat different in taste. The dimsum buffet is more suitable for someone who prefer quantity over quality, as 1 plate of the ala carte dimsum already cost you around RM3.50 and having 5 plates of the dimsum cost you more than the price you pay for the buffet.

The total bill included RM2 for some titbits that they placed on our table, RM1.50 per person for the chinese tea that we ordered and RM0.60 for one piece of the cold towel. Service charge of 5% and govt tax of 5% was also included.

Dinner at Kampachi, Equatorial

I spent the last few vouchers of mine just before it expired, in Kampachi, but this time around, we had the ala-carte dishes instead of the weekend buffet lunch. We ordered 2 dishes; chicken and grilled salmon bento set and sashimi plate.

Chicken and grilled salmon bento set -RM64

Close shot of the chicken and grilled salmon on rice top. Yummy....chicken and salmon tasted good, the rice too tasted exceptionally delicious. Wonder how they cooked the white rice, it has the fragrant japanese smell/taste in it...hehe. But the rice portion is way too little.

Our sashimi plate, 12 pieces of fresh raw fish meat (3 pieces for each type of meat) and that cost us RM88 a plate!

Close shot of the expensive sashimi to make you drool...keke. The fish meat were fresh and succulent.

Spending around RM174 (inclusive of taxes and service charge) for a small sized bento set and 12 pieces of sashimi is definitely not worth the price to pay....super duper expensive. Food serving portion is too small for the price we paid. We only filled half of our stomach after finishing the food. Kampachi buffet is a better deal here than ordering the ala-carte dishes. However, I also don't find the Kampachi buffet worth to go as it lacks variety.

Four Seasons Tea Restaurant (Sunway Tunas)

I had dinner at Four Seasons Tea Restaurant in Sunway Tunas end of last year. I used to like the food there but then after my last trip there, I found the food no longer as good as before. Furthermore, I think they have increased their food price over the time.

Steamed "ang sai" fish teochew style. RM34.

Scallops. RM8.50.

Pork ribs. RM12.70. This dish does not taste good. It certainly cannot compare to the superb pork ribs that I had in Sea Palace restaurant at LipSin. See here for my food review on Sea Palace restaurant.

Fried "loh sun". RM8.30. The "loh sun" served to us were old because some were really hard when bitten. Taste wise is average.


Overall, food tasted average and below expectation. I don't think I will go there again in future.

My short makan makan trip in Ipoh

I followed bf to Ipoh on one of his business trips there. He wanted to bring me to Tai Thong since I have never eaten there before. We left for Ipoh after work around 6sth and reach there close to 9pm. Tai Thong restaurant is located at the lobby of the hotel we were staying. To my disappointment, there was a wedding dinner reception there that the place was not open for others. Really unexpected as that day was Wednesday, a weekday, not weekend. Bf then brought me to another restaurant for dinner. My disappointment on that night immediately went off after trying the food there. It was so good...yummy.

This is the restaurant where we went to. I'm sure those staying in Ipoh will know this place. I was told by bf that this restaurant is quite famous in Ipoh for its good food. There are 2 of this restaurant in Ipoh. One is located in Ipoh city and another located slightly out of town. We went to the one located out of town to avoid the jam in the city. If I'm not mistaken, it is located at Jln Pasir Puteh.

Pork ribs cooked in thick yam sauce. I like this dish a lot. I've never seen or eaten this dish in Penang or anywhere else. We initially ordered the dishes without white rice. But then after tasted this dish, we ordered a bowl of rice each as we cannot resist not having white rice to eat together with the delicious yam sauce. RM10 for this dish.

Fried fresh water prawns. I can see these prawns swimming in the aquariums in the restaurant. I have also never seen or eaten this type of prawns before. I later found out from someone's blog that this is Mun Cheong's signature prawn dish and is a must order dish if you visit this restaurant. Yummy....but this plate cost us RM22.

Steam cod fish. It is unbelievable that this plate with 3 pieces of cod fish only cost RM24.

Our last dish, fried Hakka noodles. RM8. We ordered this because initially we thought of not eating white rice together with the dishes.

2 of us finished everything on the plate. We left the restaurant with full stomach.

The next day, before we headed back to Penang, we had curry mee in Ipoh for lunch, barely 2 hours after having heavy buffet breakfast in the hotel.

This is the place where we had our curry mee. I have no idea where this place is.

The curry mee that bf ordered for me. The stuffed green chilli is a side-order that bf ordered.

Some other side orders that he ordered. Two large bowls of curry mee with these side-orders only cost total RM5. So cheap....but taste wise is average.

I will definitely come back to Ipoh for more food!!!