Second Dimsum Visit@Imperial Pot, Publika Solaris Dutamas

http://foodventuras2.blogspot.com/2013/09/second-dimsum-visitimperial-pot-publika.html

Hee Lai Ton Restaurant@Shaw Parade, Jalan Imbi

Apparently, Hee Lai Ton's branch in Shaw Parade is famous for its value-for-money dimsums. I am a BIG dimsum fan and was eager to see what this place had to offer. Our lunch coincided with the CNY luncheon for Air FM (...?) Never heard of the existence of this radio station before. The DJs were the MCs for the event. I had my lunch served with some lame jokes, performances and never heard of chinese songs.

Okay, back to dimsum. Gigantic siew mais, alright. Taste was average, but steal deal RM 7 just for their size.

They are famous for their char siew yoke. We were late, so this was the final kopek that we could get. It was, quite fatty for me. Urks. Those who enjoy fatty charsiews would love 'em I suppose. Overall rating, 6.5/10.

Oversized har kaus. 2 prawns inside woey! Steal deal. I salute its value-for-money deal. The only downside was, the prawns for this batch of harkaus might have been soaked a bit too long in the bicarbonate water. Chewy, tangy alright, but the prawns lost their flavour.

The CSPs, a let down. I love CSP alot and am quite particular about how they taste. Good ones, I will not add any sauce. Bad ones, I always resort to adding chilli flakes / chilli sauce.

The fried carrot cake dish was the worst. The chefs were probably overworked due to the radio station luncheon group, because they spent too little time frying my carrot cake. They were quite hard, and I believe they were a bit undercooked. We found this, quite hard to finish up.

Verdict: The aunty lady waitresses were honestly, quite fierce and most of the time, they may come across as rude, but I guess they were just being loud to be heard and not rude, else their voices would drown in the midst of the noisy packed crowd of patrons. You will definitely get your pennies worth paying for your meal here (tummy definitely full) and the taste for some dishes are not bad.

Dim Sum treat for Dogma@Lai Po Heen, Mandarin Oriental KL

Demona: It's hard to sniff out a good restaurant in KL that make good dim sum. You can't put a rating meter for this, it's either cheap-ER (not cheap, don't get me wrong) but gives you an unsatisfactory feeling at the end of your dim sum session , or very expensive, with a vast difference in quality and taste, but you pay through the 'gold' in your nose.

Dogma's bench mark for a good dim sum had been set high since his dim sum days in the restaurants in Singapore. I must say, several places in Singapore do come out with fairly good dim sum, for prices that, before conversion, will only be possible in the kopitiam, non-airconditioned, lesser quality type of dim sum in KL.

I've blogged on this restaurant, I believe several times already. I've been raving for the longest time ever, to treat Dogma at Lai Po Heen.. for.. I don't know, for the fun of treating him with dim sum. Finally, over one lazy Sat afternoon, we took a long drive down to KL city.


Demona: Whether it is my treat, his treat or anyone else's treat... this is my MUST HAVE. Grrrrrr. A 'luong' of char siew "KAI" pao. Lai Po Heen's a halal place, thus no pork dishes are found here. Nevertheless, good job to the chefs who managed to make the chicken meat taste like like the real deal itself.


Demona: Dogma chose this smoked beef dim sum. The smell of the smoked beef slices indeed was powerful, and the tender juiciness of the beef slices brought both aspects into a slurpilicious, yummifying end to each bite! I decided to let him finish the whole bowl, seeing how his facial expression was explaining it all on the deliciousness of the dish.


Demona: This was one of my favourite dishes at Lai Po Heen, deep fried almond slices coated prawns. This dish turned out to be a major disappointment to me. Firstly, the prawns looked and tasted as if they were deep fried with oil that was not fresh, giving a darker brown finish and strong oily taste to it. Secondly, the size of the prawns did look relatively smaller from my previous encounters of these lil' goodies with my aunts back then.

Hard to find big prawns now? Economic downturn? Cost cutting measure? Hmmmm?


Demona: Even the portion of the fried carrot cake dish also seemed smaller this time. The dish was also overly oily, with the taste somewhat similar to the taste of the almond prawns.

Same old oil? Cost cutting measure again? Hmmm?


Demona: The view of the restaurant from where we are. Dogma praised the decoration and ambience of Lai Po Heen, giving him a relaxed spacious feel, with gigantic glass windows allowing the evening sun to shine right through into the restaurant. It was also windy that day, and we could see the leaves of the palm trees, gracefully swirving according to the movement of the wind.
Demona: Total damage: RM 50.60. Our tea was fairly expensive, RM 5 each. But the other dim sum prices were actually fairly similar to the other restaurants around eg: Oriental Pavillion, Marco Polo, Overseas etc. Thus, do not be worried over the fact that the restaurant is inside a 6 star hotel, but the prices are comparable to the others around. Looking at the amount of food that we ate, we could have gluttoned much more with a SGD 50 dim sum meal.

Anyway, this is one fact which we have to face. Currency difference. If the RMs were as strong as SGDs, I believe the food and dining experience in KL will definitely see a major shift in quality, style, ambience, creativity and innovation.

Hong Kee Tim Sum @Damansara Jaya

Demona and I pop by this dimsum place for breakfast on a lazy sunday morning. Hong Kee TIm Sum is located at Damansara Jaya and supposed to be a very popular dim sum place..
Judging by the hordes of people patronising it that morning. It is definitely popular..

Upon reaching the shop, we were distracted by a few groups of young boys who starred at any pretty girls that walked into the shop (demona included).. Somehow a simple dim sum session turned into a eyeball-harassment encounter with testorones filled young bulls.

Bulls aside, the CSP was quite normal. Nothing to shout about with sweetish charsiew laced filling in a soft, damp dough. Average at best.
Oily Loh Mai Kai. The loh mai kai is extremely oily and resulted in me having severe acid reflux for the next couple of days. Price of Loh Mai Kai = RM2.80 Price of Medication: = RM 28

Bamboo shoots fritters. So so . Oily and oily.
Yam Cake: Oily Oily. Yucks.


The quality of the food pale in comparison with the testorone filled bulls on parade....
No more next time for this dim sum outlet!

Dimsum brunch@Kamboat, Shawhouse

Demona: "Notti" Dogma was planning to go for a long wine tasting session despite the fact that we are back into square one long distance relationship = time is little = time is crucial = time is precious = still want to run off to drink wine?????. In order to pacify me, he had to buy me... CHAR SIEW PAOS! For this CSP sucker face queen, myself.

We decided to have dimsum nearby my place, at Shawhouse's Kamboat.

Demona: Jeng jeng jeng jeng! It sure was easy to please a girl who loves to glutton herself out! Sadly, the CSPs were oversteamed, causing the pao to be damp and soggy. The meat ingredients were so so.. overall, the paos were disappointing.


Demona: The har kaus were the biggest turn off in dim sum brunch session. The prawns had some wierd funky chemical-like taste in them (maybe oversoaked in the bicarbonates). After one bite, I could not take the second bite no more. Dogma finished the rest of them. He was quite alright with the taste of the har kaus.... ehehehe.. Dogma constantly becomes my foodie dustbin. :P


Demona: The XO fried carrot cake was only so so. Honestly, I couldn't even taste the XO at all. Maybe I took the wrong square piece :/ They were also very oily. Arteries clogging up!


Demona: The egg tarts weren't too bad. It probably was the winner for the day. The pastry layer was quite flaky, sweet, crunchy. The egg layer was also smooth, soft, with a hint of sweetness. The tarts were very small although they looked fairly big from the photo.

Verdict: Our last experience here was actually good. Totally opposite from what we were getting this time around. Our conclusion was: last trip, we came late and the lunch crowd had already left. This trip, we came on a brunch, on a Sunday. The restaurant was packed to the brim. Maybe the two-armed chefs were trying to do an eight armed octopus job... the quality may have been comprimised.

We probably will aim Marina's Kamboat branch if we want to give Kamboat another try again. 30% promotion discount! And our visits there had not disappoint us too!

126 DimSum @ Geylang, 126 Sim Avenue

Demona's tummy has been growling for MEAT MEAT MEAT on a Wednesday night after Church service.... We have not been having much dimsum lately as Sunday morning has now been dedicated to the Lord. Sensing her hunger for meaty prey like a cold blooded viper, I quickly drove down to Geylang Rd for a quick meaty fix at 126 Dim Sum @ 126 Sims Avenue.CSP@3.20SGD: The CSP is normal. Sweetish charsiew paste with equal porportion of fats and lean meat. The bun is a tad thick..Not fantastic. At the same time, the fillings were used in many of their dimsum as well.. Boring.Fried CheeChongFun@3.50SGD: Fried cheechongfun filled with the exact fillings of CSP. Crispy but a tad too oily. A sinful grease bomb but nothing to shout about it.Xiao Long Bao@3.00sgd: I'm not too sure if this qualifies as XLB. Shaped more like a frozen dumpling found in NTUC and lacking of much elasticity. No juice/soup within the XLB. The skin were not soft and rather too thick. Looks not appealing as well. Not good.Pork Ribs With Bean Paste@2.50SGD: This was at least average and not expensive. Greasy pork ribs with black beans and tons of oil.... Good after a beer binge!


Chilli@ Abit overly sweet without much spicy kick in it. Chilli price has gone up or is this Singapore palate preference for sweet chili?
Total Bill@12.60SGD for 4 dishes

Verdict: This stall is hugely popular with late night crowds, especially those post clubbing/drinking customers. And there is no reason for anybody to come here unless you are drunk and intoxicated. Food here is below average, ultra greasy, coarse and not value for money. So, come here if you need some grease bomb and enjoy rowdy noisy crowd. Else, Geylang offers much better quality and value food besides 126 Dim Sum.

Oriental Pavillion@Jaya33, Section 14, PJ.

Demona: My cousin sister took us out for a dim sum brunch treat at the Oriental Pavillion, in Jaya33. This sister branch had just recently opened here. She has a VIP card, therefore she is entitled for a 20% discount. Since my cousin was the one footing the bill, my aunts took the opportunity to order A LOT of dim sums with big smiles on their faces.



Demona: Yummy wummy char siew pao to start the day! The sauce was thick and juicy, which coated the fairly chunky char siew meat inside very well. Although I found the sauce being a little too sweet and the skin being a little too thick for my taste buds, overall, this tasted very much nicer compared to many places which I had eaten.



Demona: My brother and my 2 aunts each ate a "Loh Mai Kai". I do not favour this dish, but according to my brother, it was too oily. I guessed he was right, considering how shiny it looked on the picture. However, the portion was pretty big for one though.



Demona: The regular MUST HAVEs in dim sum meals, the Siew Mai. I enjoyed the Siew Mai very much because the prawn and pork meat inside were very chunky, crunchy and juicy! You could actually bite the crunchy roes while eating it. One of the better Siew Mais which I had eaten so far.



Demona: This was the black bean steamed pork ribs. I did not get a chance to try it because I was busy taking picts of other dim sum dishes. SIGH. Must had been delicious because it was quickly finished by them.



Demona: Another MUST HAVEs for dim sum meals. Har Kaus. The style of making this dish was similar to the ones I ate in Ming Room. They added spring onions bits with the prawn meat. However, they failed to accomplish this dish as good as Ming Room. The medal still goes to Ming Room!



Demona: These were the pan fried dumplings. I must say, they tasted pretty good. The skin was not thick and the ingredients were very flavourful. They gave too little ginger slices though.



Demona: My aunt ordered the porridge. There were mushroom slice, pork meat chunks and some spring onions in it. I believed that it must have tasted quite nice because she quickly ate a quarter of it before I could snap a pict. You could see that the porridge in the bowl was less already.



Demona: This was the mango prawn rolls. The mango flavour was incorporated into the mayonaise sauce instead of the mango bits inside the prawn rolls. This dish was very oily, I did not favour it. The mayonaise sauce was interestingly delicious though!



Demona: This is another prawn roll wrapped with beancurd skin and deep fried. The prawn meat was chunky and juicy and the taste of the beancurd skin was strong. It was also very oily, but tasty! It blended really well with the vinegar. I would have enjoyed it whole heartedly if they had eased on the oil.



Demona: My aunts ordered way too many prawn dishes. No idea why. This is another prawn dish, with prawn meat wrapped in a wantan skin and deep fried. I did not like this, AT ALL. The smell and taste of the oil overpowered the food, and it made me felt uneasy after eating it.



Demona: This is the pan fried carrot cake. Too oily, AGAIN. I did not like it.
I was telling my aunt that the fried dishes were mainly very oily, and this is one aspect which they could improve on.



Demona: This is a half bitten piece of a "Wu Kok". Too buttery, and oily. Half a piece was more than enough for me.

Verdict: The meal bill for the 6 of us, came up to about RM 148, after discount. I think, dim sum is becoming a more expensive meal from time to time. An average dim sum basket cost around RM 6 to RM 7. This place does not offer a big variety of dim sum choices but the steamed dishes were fairly good I must say. If they can lay off the extra added oil on the fried dishes, this place will definitely gain more brownie points from me. I can bring Dogma over for a brunch treat next time around.