Nov Makan Session@TamKah

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Hengst 2004 Vendanges Tardives:
A solid grandcru from Alsace region in which the grapes are hand sorted (hengst) and late-harvested (vendages tardives) to bring out the structure, complexity of the wine. I have previously tried their sparkling and it was pretty value for money but this GrandCru was out of this world. I have to say i like this wine very much.

Eye: Deep honeyed golden hue, alcohol leg
Nose: Intense complex nose of rose petal, floral back with structured honey screaming at you when you nose it. candied. WHAO!
Body: Whao, good mids, structure, and body that coated your teeth. Very good acidity and great length. Good integration of acid and fruits. Excellent! slight secondary lift on the back palate of honey. This could easily keep for 10 years while it shed its honey and reveal the secondary floral characters.
Ratings: 4/5

Verdict: One of the very best Gewurtraminer I had ever tasted. Complex stuff with a beautiful candied honey nose/body that comes in a elegant/harmonious package. For someone who do no enjoy sweet wines, this wine SINGS!

Meerlust Rubicon 1998/2001:
A Bordeaux Blend from South Africa with distinctively new world style of big fruit.

Eye: Deep purplish red for the 01 while the 98 exhibit some pale brown at the rim
Nose: 01 was too big, currant,berries nose while the 98 was more integrated. Some leather and cassis but it was not pleasurable and harmonious for both.
Body: I just took a sip of 01 and it was excessively fruity and heavy. For the 98, it was in better integration between acid and body but I did not enjoy both the wines too much. Simply lacking in a whao factor and elegance.
Ratings: <3/5 style="font-weight: bold;">
Verdict: I guess my palate has evolved and i am looking for elegance, integration and character in my wines (besides a great QPR ratio). Do not expect to find them in these 2 wines. However, Meerlust aim is not to replicate an old world wine but rather, to create big fruity food wines to go with heavy dishes (as told by my SA friends). Probably I could have enjoyed these more with a macho bloody steak.

Food picture from the Makansession: Overall the food were very well done especially the sharkfin soup and pencai. Do give this restaurant a try!

Superior Sharks Fin: Unusual sharksfin soup which are thick and heavy.. I like it!
Pencai: Stuffed with Roast Pork, Mushroom, Prawns, Cabbage, sea Cucumbers and what not, I totally dig the roast pork pieces and the cabbage, which was placed underneath the pot, was soft ,extremely flavorful and heavenly. Imagine the cabbage after hours being spent soaking up the essence and juices of all the ingredients. SLURPPPYS. It's A+!

Little Penang Cafe@Curve

Demona: We had dinner at Little Penang Cafe in The Curve, in conjunction with my colleague (YY)'s birthday.



Demona: My colleague, ordered the-20 minutes-waiting-time-required fried kuey teow, but surprisingly his food arrived within 10 minutes. Apparently, the cafe's fried kuey teow is one of its must-order food here.

You could see 3, relatively big prawns and some crab meat on top of the kuey teow. I tried a little bit to taste, and he was kind enough to give me 1 of the prawns. The texture of the kuey teow was quite smooth, similar to the kuey teow that you eat in Ipoh. However, it was a little too oily for my liking. If I were to finish it by myself, my tummy would've definitely felt uneasy from the excess oil. This cost RM 9.00.



Demona: The birthday girl ordered the ruby chestnut dessert. The bowl came looking really pretty alright (I love anything red!) I had a spoonful of it. It was quite sweet, however it was lacking coconut milk. The ice shavings were also not fine enough, so I had to munch a little bit to melt down the ice rather than it just melting in your mouth. This cost RM 4.50.

Another worthy try of the ruby chestnut dessert, is in Sri Melaka! Very fine ice shavings with the right amount of coconut milk!



Demona: My other colleague ordered the cendol, for this after kuey-teow dessert. (Absolutely, artery clogging). I tried this at the branch in KLCC once. It was quite good actually. They did not stinge on the ingredients. You would have more than enough of the starch noodles with green food colouring, red beans, coconut milk and gula melaka. YUMMY! This cost RM 4.50.

For those who have smaller tummy spaces, it is best to share it with someone else after a main course meal to avoid feeling over stuffed later on.



Demona: Another colleague of mine ordered the Mee Siam, a dish of thin rice and egg based noodles, in spicy, sweet and sour soup. It was served with salted soy beans, dried bean curd, boiled egg, tamarind and garnished with spring onions and fried shallots. I tried a spoonful of the soup. It was really good! As explained on the menu, I could taste and distinguish all three flavours combined. This cost RM 9.00.




Demona: I ordered the chicken nasi lemak. Unfortunately, they only serve the drumsticks. I guessed that it was probably because these were all pre-made and packed nicely prior to serving and only re-heated upon an order.

The gravy for the chicken was lovely! Spicy and sweet! However, I would much prefer it to be more on the rendang side. Nevertheless, sweet bliss!

The rice was also quite good as well. You could taste the coconut milk locked into the rice and they do not stick together. However, the serving lacked enough fried anchovies and groundnuts. I finished them before I reached half of my meal. This cost RM 9.00.



Demona: The close up shot of the chicken. YUMMYYYYYYYY.



Demona: I wiped the gravy clean with a lot of food left on my plate. My colleague was kind enough get more gravy for me! And yes, I wiped the bowl of gravy clean too.



Demona: Being a chilli gobbler, no sambal is enough for me without a second go! Wiped it clean as well. I knew that my tummy was going to have a happy burning sensation later on.

Verdict: The meal cost us RM 43.00. The profit margin for the cafe was definitely high. Dishes like these are very, much cheaper, and very much tastier if you eat them at hawker stalls. However, we couldn't complain much as we had clean, proper tables to dine in, cooling air conditioning and people serving us. Little Penang Cafe will not be a regular visit eatery to me.

Kee Kee Bentong Chicken Rice@Yat Yeh Hing, Kelana Jaya

Demona often craze about this chicken rice stall near Kelana Jaya for it's juicy, healthy, generous servings of chicken. I was told that all the chicken were raised by the chicken stall owner himself so that he could have a bigger chicken with the right amount of fats and bite. Let's see how different is KEE KEE Bentong Chicken rice!

Green fruit + Sour Plum: MAX sourness and bitter taste from the green fruit. I like it! it provided a cooling refreshment amidst the sweltering heat in KL. MUST TRY!

Chilli + Ginger: The first step of a successful chicken rice stall was determined by it's chilli. Kee Kee's chilli comes with real chillis blended with fresh ginger shred that given it a tangy bite. MMMM, this sure looks promising!

Another pot shot of the ginger shreds...you could smell the love in the air!

Chicken feet + preserved vege soup: FOC soup for your consumption at the stall. I have to queue for more than 10 mins for the soup and everyone was having a second/third servings of the soup. the soup was tasty and filled with hearty aroma of fresh chicken. The preserved vege provided a salty dimension to the soup.
Rice: Quintessential of a good chicken rice. Kee Kee's was a Lean chicken rice without being overly oily. Nice. The downside was that , like most hawker stall in malaysia, the quality of rice was substandard. you could see the rice was not well formed and there is a lack of natural fragrant.. sigh.. It is too expensive to have good grade rice in Malaysia.Beansprout in soya-sauce: The slight let down of the rice was quickly salvaged by the fresh beansprout. It was not too far off from the famous ipoh beansprout. Fat, juicy and crunchy. The bean sprout saved the day!
Mixed chicken platters: We have ordered a mix platter of roasted chicken and steamed chicken to go along with the rice. As Demona has correctly pointed out, the chicken was significantly big, thick, juicy while lean at the same time. There was not an inch of extra fats beneath the skin. This is really chicken meat at its best. I really appreciate the generous servings of the chicken as well. Well done KEE KEE!

Verdict: The total cost was RM21. It was well worth paying a visit to KEEKEE chicken rice stall. The rice was a let down compared to Singapore's chicken rice but this is a common problem faced in most hawker stalls in Malaysia. All in all, the chicken meat was really outstanding and is really one of the best chicken rice meat i'd eaten for sometime! Do pay a visit to KEEKEE and you will be captivate by the succulent home raised chicken!

Devi's Corner@TTDI

Demona: We had a relaxing brunch at Devi's Corner in TTDI on a cloudy, chilly Saturday. As usual, I am bias towards ordering egg thosai. I couldn't help it. I just love eating egg thosai.

The egg thosai over here was pretty crunchy and spicy. Truly enjoyable when I ate it with thick, creamy dhall and chicken curry. Its size was also quite large. Dogma had to eat some to help me finish it.



Demona: Dogma ordered a roti kosong and nasi lemak initially. The roti kosong came first. Within minutes, Dogma's plate was clean. I could tell he was having a pretty good time eating his roti.

The waiter was a little blur (probably still new), only nodding his head whenever we reminded him again and again on our nasi lemak order. The nasi lemak never came. Apparently, it was sold out, according to this waiter. I personally believed that they were still in the process of cooking the rice actually.



Demona: Since the nasi lemak order was cancelled, one roti kosong surely was not enough for tummy growling Dogma! He ordered another roti telur bawang. The size of the roti was quite big as well. However, no size was big enough to scare Dogma's tummy off!

He savoured every bit of it. Seeing him eating happily, I managed to steal a piece of roti from him. I thought it tasted quite nice as well, as they had a healthy portion of eggs and onions inside. The only problem was that I wished that they would have fried the onions first before adding them in, rather than them being raw. Somehow, the flavour of the onions weren't as strong as I had expected.



Demona: I ordered a piece of fried chicken. I chose the breast meat (my favourite, because it's lean and you pay the same price for the part with the most meat). Dogma does not like breast meat in general, as it is too dry for his liking. Thus, I ended up eating most of the chicken. It was not too bad as I always enjoyed any food which is spicy. The marination process must had been quite thorough to lock the spiciness in.



Verdict: The whole meal cost me RM 10. The best part about having a weekend brunch, is that you wake up a little later, wear casual clothing, enjoy a good meal (no rushing through munches), sipping coffee, reading the newspapers, and to do all of these with someone who enjoys them as much as you do too.

Alexis@Great Eastern Mall, Ampang

Demona: We wanted to finish up the wine at Moussandra, but with the restaurant's poor service, we completely lost all mood to continue on sipping our Les Ribieres there. We left Moussandra at 9 pm.

The night was still young. Therefore, I decided to bring Dogma over to Alexis for some live music.



Demona: We were still relatively full from the earlier dinner, thus we settled for a slice of tiramisu and a cup of hot, long, white coffee. This was a pict of the tiramisu. It came along with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The tiramisu was topped with a layer of coarsely chopped almond nuts, coated with chunky, caramelised, sugar bits. The layers in between were made up of chocolate mousse, vanilla mousse as well as coffee flavoured sponge cake. There was a strong taste of kahlua on its bottom layer.

Although the cake was not authentic, it was very well improvised. The fusion between the crunchiness and creamy smoothness blending in my mouth was totally amazing. Heavenly!

The scoop of vanilla ice cream tasted lovely as well. Its texture was very smooth, and it was not overly sweet. I was so, so tempted to order some ice cream after that. TOO... MUCH...OF HEAVEN.



Demona: This was another pict of the tiramisu. You could see the layers inside the cake. I'm drooling as I speak now. Looking back at the pict again, made me salivated.
This cost RM 12.00.



Demona: This wast the pict of the long, white coffee. Alexis had an interesting way of serving their sugar. The brown and white sugar came in small cubes. The coffee was good. I liked the strong aroma exerted by the coffee. Dogma mentioned that Illy coffee is yummy! This cost RM 9.00.



Demona: After severeal spoonfuls of sugar high therapy, Michael Veerapan came up on stage, went to his piano and started playing soulful jazz tunes, accompanied by his fellow bassist and drummer friends.

This romantic moment had beaten Moussandra by ten folds. I should have brought Dogma over here for dinner instead.

After a few jazz tunes, an excellent lady singer came on stage and serenaded the crowd with her powerful, soulful voice. Dogma went on and on, complimenting her voice as well as the drummer's excellent drumming skills.

We left Alexis, with happy thoughts, happy feelings, happy smiles.



Demona: Another beautiful sight of KLCC at night.