Risotto

Risotto always seemed weird to me - like an Italian version of the familiar Asian fried rice but a lot wetter. After seeing the dish used as an appetizer in too many cooking shows, I just had to try it when I saw one of these boxes for sale at the grocer.

I really like mushrooms, so although the mix included 'wild porcini mushroom', I also got some Swiss white button mushrooms to add to it. After sautéing and simmering the mushrooms, I set about the business of making the actual risotto. As instructed, I sautéed the raw rice in a bit of olive oil for a short while, then added two cups of water. The water was boiling off too fast, so I had to add some more, but the end result looked OK after about 15 minutes of cooking.

I actually bought some wild rocket for garnish but for some reason, it wilted in the fridge :(.

Lunch was for two persons, so the portion was kinda small. I guess it was meant to be used as an appetizer. Still, it was tasty :)

There were several other flavours too... hmm.....

Tony Roma's

Once a year, I like to have a steak meal at Tony Roma's on my birthday. Since I was travelling so much during my birthday and after, I didn't get a chance to go to Tony's until this weekend. Better late than never, I say.



For drinks, my dining partner had a pina strawberry swirl which I guess is a pina colada with strawberry. I didn't really like the coconut aftertaste but the strawberry flavour masked much of the taste. As for me, I like to treat myself to something alcoholic on this occasion and I decided to try one of the 'drinkable desserts'. I chose the Strawberry Cheesecake Martini. This concoction consisted of vodka, Irish cream, fresh strawberries and ice cream. Surprisingly light with just a hint of vodka, it was lovely to sip. Definitely deserves two pictures:



My dining partner's main course was a grilled salmon with garlic scampi butter finish. Served with fresh vegetables and some sort of yellow rice, the fish was crisp and soft in the right places.



My main course was of course, a steak. This time I chose a New York Strip steak, made well done. I prefer my meat with as little fat as possible, but I chose this cut over the filet mignon because it was quite a bit larger and I was hungry :) The steak was a fine specimen of meatiness and didn't have too much fat. The texture was suitably tender and chewy and the flavour was excellent. I chose a shiitake mushroom topping to go with it and it complemented the meat perfectly. My steak craving was well satisfied.



We ordered another drink to make up for our poor choice in ordering the pina strawberry considering we don't like coconut in drinks :) The Old Fashioned Lemonade was very tart and had a sizable portion of a lemon in it. Quite nice as lemonades go.



The bill came up to about RM160 which was to be expected and was well worth it. Thanks Tony Roma's for a lovely meal! Until next time...

Gelare

Gelare just opened recently at The Curve and we decided to have a pre-movie snack. They serve gelato ice cream and pastries, coffee, and such. First I got my caffeine fix with a simple latte. A choice of cookie or biscotti comes with the coffee and I chose almond biscotti. The coffee was not bad if unremarkable and the biscotti was ok too.



We ordered a chicken and mushroom pie too. It was a bit too peppery but quite nice.



The 'main course' so to speak: chocolate chip waffle with cookies-and-cream ice cream. The waffle came with dollops of whipped cream and was liberally drizzled with chocolate sauce. The waffle was light and fresh and the ice cream had a very thick texture to it, one of the thickest I've ever had. Very tasty :)

Over 30 ringgit for a snack seems a bit heavy, but at least it was good.

Häagen Dazs

We decided to have some dessert at Häagen Dazs in 1-Utama. I've only had Häagen Dazs ice cream once before and thought it was overpriced and overrated. But hey... ice cream is always a good idea right? Right?

First overpriced ice cream: Caramel and biscuits flavour with roasted almond nibs, in a cone. This was really really sweet. Sorry about the out of focus pic; the lighting was bad and the ice cream was melting.



I had the Belgian chocolate ice cream on a brownie with roasted almond nibs. The ice cream was quite nice and the brownie too. Putting ice cream on a hot brownie may not have been a good idea though - it was soon a chocolatey mess.



The bill was about RM40 for two small scoops of ice cream and a brownie. I think I'll stick to other overpriced ice creams.

Dragon-i

I've always thought Dragon-i was one of the better Chinese restaurants around. For lunch in between movies last Saturday, we went to the outlet at The Curve. We've come here quite a lot so we usually order the same dishes. First up was some stir-fried long beans with minced pork. I'm not usually much into pork, but it's quite good when minced and fried.



Next up was sweet and sour chicken. Deep-fried chunks of chicken with sweet and sour sauce served with capsicum and pineapples, this rendition of a common Chinese dish is one of the best I've had. The chicken was still crisp and and all the ingredients melded together nicely.



We decided to try something new and ordered fried tofu with assorted mushrooms. Served as described, it was unfortunately only adequate. Oh well... live and learn.

Dessert at The Apartment

We had a little time before the movie last Saturday, so we decided to have some dessert at The Apartment, a strange restaurant at The Curve built around the concept of being an actual apartment complete with living room, bedroom, study, and even bathroom. The picture above is the bedroom section, where we sat. The food here is nothing to shout about, but they have some interesting desserts.

We tried a meringue a week back, so this time we had our second meringue-based dessert, the Eton Mess. Now, I know nothing of Eton, but it seems they have good desserts! The dish consists of meringue with fresh strawberries, drizzled with strawberry sauce. It looks messy, but it was very nice.



Our other dessert was a Baked Chocolate Pudding. It took 15 minutes to prepare the dish as it was baked fresh and served in the baking cup. The pudding was rich and moist and went well with the vanilla ice cream included. Definitely worth the wait.



I also had a Mocha Latte just because.
It was good too!

The bill came to about RM40 which I guess makes up for the cheaper lunch we had.

Lunch at Kitchen Creatures

At Centrepoint in Bandar Utama, there's a little inexpensive restaurant called Kitchen Creatures. The food is varied, mostly Italian type dishes with a bit of local fusion. The prices are very affordable, which is apparently their thing as they promise "no frills dining".

For lunch on Saturday, before watching The Sorcerer's Apprentice, we had for starters, the Baked Stuffed mushrooms. The mushrooms were stuffed with crabstick and shiitake flavoured cream cheese, then presumably baked. They were quite nice and it's a shame there were only five of them :)

There was also some standard-issue garlic bread. Ho-hum...



Main courses included a beef stew which was quite nice. Not that much beef in it but what was there was tender, the gravy was tasty, and the price was right. The bread was nice for dipping too.



The pizza was a mushroom, ham, and onion pizza. It had the ingredients described on a fairly thin crust. It was about the size of a 'regular' pizza at a fast food place. Not bad... not great, but not bad.



There was a weird drink too: Limey George. It was Sprite, Ribena, and a slice of lemon. Not a bad combination. All in all, it was a fairly good meal, and at RM43 for two, very affordable.

Nerds!

While at Bangsar Village, I picked up a few boxes of Nerds candy from Wonka. I heard about these from an American friend some time ago and was delighted to find them here. They're little pebble-shaped candies of various flavours and colours. The outer shell is crunchy and the inside is juicy and soft. They come in many flavours and they're great :)

Brunch at Marché

Marché is an interesting Swiss restaurant found at The Curve. Its mascot is a green cow and it features a 'market' where you can order food at various stalls and they will prepare it for you on the spot. Last Saturday, we arrived early for the two movies of the day (Frozen and Knight and Day) so we decided to have brunch here as most places weren't really open yet.

After receiving our 'passports' (you get them stamped for each order), we went right to it. For starters we had sautéed mushrooms. These Swiss button mushrooms were really... mushroomy. If you like mushrooms, you'll like this.



Adding to the mushroom fest was a mixed mushroom ragout. This was various types of mushroom in a creamy mushroom sauce (tasted a lot like a very thick mushroom cream soup). It was quite nice but not as flavourful as the sautéed mushrooms.




For a main course, I had grilled chicken breasts with mushroom sauce accompanied by a gourmet mushroom chicken sausage. The chicken was well seasoned and grilled nicely if a bit on the dry side. The sauce went well with it. The sausage was very tasty and had strong flavour. Both very good indeed.



Our second main course was a grilled whole chicken thigh with mushroom sauce and homemade mashed potato. The chicken was not bad, and not great. I've had better...



We had some sides too! First there's the mushroom soup. Sadly, it was quite disappointing. One of the poorer mushroom soups I've had in my lifelong sampling of mushroom-related foods. It was oddly creamy and oily like there was butter in it or something. Oh well...



We finally tried the rosti after having stared at it the last few times we came here. Strips of fried potato made  into a flat bread-like thing. Not bad, but a little plain. Perhaps we'll try other varieties next time.



Our drinks were ice blended hazelnut (lovely) and some sort of pineapple juice concoction (meh).



Last and certainly not least: dessert crepe! Made with hazelnut chocolate sauce on the inside, then wrapped around fresh strawberries. Vanilla ice cream and chocolate sprinkles complete the dish. It was excellent. Highly recommended.



On the whole, it was a pretty good meal. A word of advice when dining here: try not to order everything at once, however strong the temptation may be. It gets cold...

Lunch at Italiannies

I love Italian food :)

There's no shortage of Italian restaurants here and one of them is Italiannies. Affiliated with TGI Friday's, this restaurant has a nice selection of traditional and modern Italian cuisine at fairly affordable prices.








Before watching Toy Story 3 and The A-Team today, we had lunch at Italiannies at The Curve. I've had these dishes before and I had them again today! As an appetizer, we have Stuffed Mushrooms. These were medium-sized button mushrooms (probably Swiss brown mushrooms) stuffed with chicken sausage, herbs, and cheeses, then baked and topped with a tomato-based sauce. The dish is served with a rich cream cheese sauce. Probably not very healthy, but it is really really good. The stuffing had a rich salty flavour and the sauces went nicely with the mushrooms.



The second appetizer was a bowl Marsala Mushroom Soup. It's a fairly light soup with strong mushroom taste and not really much taste of the Marsala (a wine apparently). Nice soup and not too filling so it's a good appetizer or side dish (available in a smaller cup).



On to the main courses!
The first main course was Grilled Chicken Milanese. It consisted of grilled chicken breasts topped with diced tomatoes and served with a cream sauce and stewed spinach. All the ingredients went very well together and the chicken was tender and tasty.



The second main course was Classic Carbonara pasta. I order this almost every time I go to this place. The dish is a simple pasta of fetuccine with carbonara sauce with bacon bits for added bite. This pasta looks innocent enough but it's very rich and filling (be wary of ordering the large portion). It's also very pleasant to the palate :)



As usual, I had the ice lemon tea with free refills (which the staff refilled with vigour). My dining partner had a Strawberry Fruit Shake. Although it wasn't really a shake (finely crushed ice with what I believe is some sort of strawberry syrup), it was pretty good.

Around RM100 for two persons. On par with other similar joints I should think.

And that's my food posting for this week.
Happy eating!

First Food Post: Tony Roma's

You wouldn't know it by looking at me, but I love food. One of my vices in life is the consumption of what most of my friends would consider rather expensive food. So this shall be the first of many food-related posts.

I discovered Tony Roma's through a friend about a year back. It's a nice place and the food is good without being too expensive.

We got to the restaurant late for lunch today due to a traffic mishap (see my Twitter stream), so this was a combination lunch/dinner meal for me. It's a good thing as I was more than satiated by the end. We started with a favourite appetizer of mine - the Onion Loaf.

We decided to order another appetizer as we were planning to share a main course. The fried mushrooms sounded nice (you can never go wrong with fried mushrooms) and I thought it would complement the onion loaf nicely. When it arrived, it turns out that the portion is HUGE. There were no less than 20 mushrooms there! I was only expecting around six or so. They were really good and a nice value for the asking price of RM16.90.

The main course arrived soon and it looked good. They called it Chicken Alfredo Florentine. It was linguini pasta in an alfredo sauce served with baby spinach and grilled chicken breasts. The chicken was nicely prepared and not too dry and the sauce was pleasantly light for an alfredo sauce. Sorry for the slightly unfocused picture... phone cameras aren't all that good.

It took some time, but we finished it all :)

Special mention goes to my dining partner's drink (I just had the refillable ice lemon tea... I was really thirsty). She was driving, so she got a Virgin Strawberry Daiquiri. I didn't try it, but she said it was only fair, not exceptional. It sure did look nice though.

And that concludes my first food post. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it (and eating the food of course).