Save Me San Francisco!

Jade sent my dad RM300 worth of Tai Thong vouchers for his birthday and he needed to use them up before they expired. How best to blow that kind of cash on one meal? For dad, it was to invite his greediguts along for lunch, with Kit in tow.

Because the Tai Thong vouchers cover all of TT Resources’ restaurants, we had a good selection. Chinese, Italian, Thai, Western. And quite a few of them were at Tropicana City Mall, so off we went to San Francisco Steakhouse.

Oysters in the half shell.

Deep-fried mushrooms.

Nachos.

I’d dined at an SFS before with uber Creative Director Pat Seow. I enjoyed that experience and was hoping to replicate it. However, though the Tropicana City Mall outlet was the successor of the branch I dined at, right across the road, it was designed by someone who clearly did not care to see what he was eating. It was so dark there that a bat would have dined in comfort at noon.

Still, the oysters in half shells were fresh and briny. RM34.90 for a half dozen weren’t too bad for the size we got. A decent enough start, as were the baked onion soup (RM11.90) and dad’s oxtail soup (RM12.90). The nachos were also passable, but really, it’s quite hard to louse up nachos, since nearly everything comes from a pack!

The dingy interior lighting made the tuna look worse than it was.

Lamb ribs.

Double slab beef ribs combo.

The entrees were quite disappointing however. My medium rare tuna ahi was stringy and obviously had been residing in deep freeze, and had lost texture when defrosted. There was a dingy grayness about it which was quite off-putting. Mum enjoyed the puy lentil accompaniment though, but for RM48.90, I could buy a whole sack of split green beans!


The family shared a Combo of beef ribs (RM65.90) which dad deemed very tender and tasty, but which Kit said were overly soft and mushy. The slab of black pepper lamb (RM28.90) was so fatty that it was congealing before they could be eaten and though tender enough, the cloying fat was a little off-putting.

Pear and ginger pud.

Key lime lie.

Varlhona chocolate cake.

Dessert was good, with a surprisingly well-done pear and ginger pudding (RM12.90). The key lime pie (RM12.90) was a bit stodgy and felt as if it had been in the dessert chiller for a little too long.


The wait for the Varlhona Hot Chocolate cake (RM17.90) was worth it, as the moist little sponge gave way to a molten, oozing center of black gold which went really well with the accompanying ice cream.

Verdict? The peripheries were all good, but the main event fell short. Would I come again? Yes, if someone were buying. And even then I’d order something less likely to disappoint, like pasta.

San Francisco Steakhouse 
Tropicana City Mall
Tel: +603 7728 8070

Oh Soo Good!

Humble but yummy!

Basic hor fun with spring onions.

A study in amazing tenderness.

Soo Kee Hor Fun Restaurant opened on September 25 1982. It is still going strong, and no wonder. The food is completely no-frills, with all the emphasis going on serving some awesome flat rice noodles (hor fun) in a rich, flavourful broth. Supplementary items are some amazingly tender steamed chicken, wantans and crunchy bean sprouts.

The hor fun is such a pick me up. One cannot, after having a faceful of the steaming soup, feel that life is too bad. The noodles are smooth, yet not overly slick (which is sheer giveaway to the use of a lot of improver). The broth is clear, only broken by fresh spring onions. It is so hearty and so satisfying, and so lacking in MSG that one need not even order a drink.

Wantan can be ordered as a meal. 

Bean sprouts round up a great meal.

The wantan is packed with shrimp meat and the skin is silken and smooth, making each little dumpling a mouthful of delight. The chicken boggles the mind with its tenderness and the golden yellow of its skin. Topped with oyster sauce, it is chicken at its finest.


Soo Kee Hor Fun Restaurant
Jalan SS21/17
Section 17 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

Empty Nest

Onion chicken.

I said the soup was nothing to look at!

It’s a real shame that no one and I mean NO ONE eats at Eagle’s Nest at KGNS anymore. When we walked in with my parents and Erin, it was 7pm and the whole place was deserted. The restaurant manager was waiter, server, cashier and tea pourer. Quite a shame, as the food is still quite good.

Mixed veggies.

The Szechuan soup is one of my favourite dishes, being thick, steaming hot and spicy with dried red chilli. It’s nothing to look at, but on a cool night, it’s a lovely heartening start to a meal.

The combination of green beans, brinjal and petai go down well too and though it is basic, it is another good dish to enjoy with hot steamed rice.

It just looks like a pizza. It's egg foo yuck. I mean, foo yong.

I’ve never understood why Egg Foo Yong was so popular on Western Chinese takeaways. It seems every time anyone in a movie orders Chinese, this dish makes an appearance. I decided to order it to see if there was any redeeming gastronomic value in it, but really, I can’t say I like chicken meat and assorted vegetables and onions in an omelette!

Clay pot egg noodles.

The egg noodles in clay pot was a much better choice, with crisp veggies and really rich broth coating the slowly softening crunchy noodles. They went great with the onion chicken.

The meal was quite enjoyable on the whole but it was a little creepy eating in that deserted, large, cold space. Some places we go to and line up for a long time just for a table by a drain, because the food is so good, but others, despite decent food and ambiance lose out when the ambiance has the air of a deserted mansion.

Not So Special K

I remember my dear grandaunt Evelyn Shaw insisting she had to bring me to Killiney Road in Singapore for food. I don’t remember what we ate there, but I find, with my dear Auntie Eve, most of our moments together are more about the company and sharing, as opposed to the food.

It would seem Killiney Kopitiam in SS2 Mall is bound to share the same fate. The food is passable but overall not really memorable. The Killiney All Time Classic Set offered toast with kaya, eggs and a choice of coffee or tea.

The toast used whole meal bread which really is a strike against the tradition of traditional Hailam white thick loaf. The outlet purportedly uses only kampong chicken eggs but when I ordered the manager told me they had run out. The supply came later and he offered to replace the eggs but I wasn’t too fussed. As they were, they were done well, and I especially liked the fact that they were not too hot to crack without burning one’s fingers.

Singapore Laksa.

Kit had the Mee Jawa which he deemed passably. However, the gravy was not quite thick enough. The Singapore Laksa had the prerequisite fish cakes, deep fried taupok and a hardboiled egg. This version used laksa noodles as opposed to the traditional rice floor noodle. For RM7.50 I guess it was decent enough and certainly filling.

However there just seemed to be a little too much generic feeling about the food. The drilling works which were carried out did not help either, ditto the fact they did not accept credit cards. Still, I guess there are worse places to dine.
Killiney Kopitiam
SS2 Mall
Lot G49-50
40 Jalan SS2/72
46000 Petaling Jaya

Moo And Chew

It may be easier buying a calf and fattening it up. Unless I want to pay Prime (steakhouse insiders should get this!) prices, it’s difficult to buy good steak. As a rule of thumb, anything marked local or Indian beef is to be avoided. Both are tough (the latter is often buffalo), and are only suited for long, slow cooking. The last time we had a tough, stringy, ancient piece of bovine, I popped it into the crockpot for close to 20 hours to soften and Kit made delectable rendang.

The best thing about this dish was the knife which our good friend Jade bought!

But if it’s steak you’re after, even the previously laudable RM brand of local beef supposedly from second generation Australian meat stock falls short.

My dad bought us a piece of so called fillet. Kit got Sharon Lee over for steak. The dish was well prepared, and allowed us to use the lovely steak knives Jade bought Kit for his birthday. I wish, however, that we did not have to wield those knives as forcefully as we did.

Our South African lifesaver!

Yes, another tough steak. Not as bad as it being suited for shoe leather, but definitely not succulent and tender. The saving grace was the amazing bottle of red which we had with it. A Christmas gift from my favourite Malaysian hotel General Manager, Hoon Tai Chee from Hotel Armada, this South African Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz Cinsaut from Leopard’s Leap had amazing depth and character. It was totally refreshing for a blend and really perked up the beef. Wonder what it would do with a good fillet mignon?

Chocolate Attack

Chocolate, meet chocolate!

Two dark, two fair. I'd say this was a balanced diet!

I’ve been craving chocolate for some reason. I’ve never been a chocolate-ice cream type of gal, but when I walked into Iscream at Tropicana City Mall, I went for a cocoa-centric selection. One thing I’ve found out is when you want to gauge the quality of ingredients of a dessert dish, ask for something chocolate. A velvety mouth feel means they use imported chocolate, an oily, unpleasant, coat-the-mouth with a gunky sensation means they use palm oil based chocolate.

Options at Iscream

And since I spent my first part of the visit spitting out the tiny chocolate chips onto a napkin, you can guess what kind of chocolate Iscream uses!

The other side of the freezer

At the end of the day, it's all abut looks!

Still, it was not all bad. The non-chocolate flavours (actually, even the chocolate flavours with no chips) were pleasant and they definitely are a taste above the palm oil-milk solids ice confection which passes off as ice cream in Malaysian FMCG freezers these days!

IScream

G-11,Ground Floor

Tropicana City Mall

No. 3, Jalan SS 20/27, 47400 Petaling Jaya. Selangor