The restaurant is a branch from the popular Malacca outlet, fame for its Italian cooking, pizzas in particular. Just like the Malacca restaurant, this KL branch seemed pretty cosy as well.

Can’t remember the exact name of the food we ordered… some drinks, a pocket pizza, a full size pizza, a pasta and some dessert. The food was nice; not great, but nice… worth a visit. The bill was RM92 for 3 person, acceptable.

Finding the restaurant was a pain though… especially when it was dark and raining at night.

Address: 28-30, Jalan Pudu Lama, 50200 KL (location map). Tel: 03-20312830.

Some Dim sum at Pan Ki

One of the major reasons why I like this restaurant is because it’s relatively easier to find a seat even in Sunday morning. Their dim sum is pretty old school, nothing fancy but with decent taste and varieties… and when it comes to dim sum, old school is a good word.

I like their har gao, siu mai, and also their chicken feet. Their pork based dim sum are normally better than fish based dim sum, somehow.

Reasonably priced, quite cheap by KL standard.

Eastern Delight is famous for its porridge based steamboat. This Sri Petaling branch should be their first outlet; they also have branches at Kota Damansara and Sunway if not mistaken. Chose to dine here because my aunt had never tried porridge steamboat prior to this visit.

Porridge steamboat at Eastern Delight

The porridge steamboat is quite common in Guangzhou, China, but has only become popular in Kuala Lumpur in recent years. It’s still not commonly found in other cities like Ipoh or Penang.

Porridge steamboat is actually nothing much different than normal steamboat besides using porridge as the cooking base instead of variety of soups. The beauty of porridge based steamboat is that it would not obscure the original taste of the ingredients like most of the soup based steamboat.

Clay pot is commonly used for porridge steamboat because the porridge would easily stick to the bottom if metal steamboat pot is used.

Eastern Delight serves some pretty simple ingredients, and 9 out of 10 customers would probably agree that their food is overpriced… but their business seemed to be doing well regardless. In fact the restaurant was so pack that night that we had to sit at open space instead of enjoying the air-con inside the shop (hence the poor lighting for the above photo).

At the end of the dinner everyone went home with a happy stomach. Set aside the price, it’s not a bad meal… or else I wouldn’t have dined at the restaurant for numerous occasions.

Address: No 26, Jalan 14/149L, Sri Petaling, 57000 KL. Phone: 03-9059 3545. The restaurant is located at a shop somewhere between Sri Petaling and Happy Garden, a bit difficult to find if you are not familiar with this area.

Beef noodle with beef, tripe and meat balls

Their beef and tripe were tender, meat balls just so so… the great thing about their noodle was actually the soup, which was thick and strongly flavoured with Chinese herbs and spices… I couldn’t stop myself finishing every drop in the bowl.

The beef noodle stall is located in Lai Foong Restaurant, located at the intersection of Jalan Tan Cheng Lock and Jalan Tun HS Lee.

Frankly… the food quality has improved a lot. The fresh oysters and steamed fishes are still as good as it used to be, but the other food like tempura, dim sum, dessert (cakes) and various cooked food are much better than last time.

I happily devoured 2 plates of tempura (not the ideal food to have in Japanese buffet, but I simply love tempura too much) this time, whereas I could barely finished half a plate last time because it was too oily and somehow stinky.

Overall a good lunch this round… I still think it’s slightly overpriced, but at least I could recommend my friends to try it out after this 2nd dining experience.

Jogoya is at the Relish floor of Starhill Gallery; reservation number is 03-21421268; opening hours from 11.30am to 1am (Mon-Fri) and 11am to 1am on weekends and public holidays.

The standard set for 6 adults; and the boiling steamboat

We ordered the standard set for 6 and some side dishes; would have ordered more but their menu choices were quite limited.

The food turned out to be just ok. Their seafood was not as fresh as anticipated despite branding themselves for Ketam seafood, and their fish balls weren’t the best that I’ve tasted.

They did offer something special with their fried taro cube and bean curd, but special doesn’t necessary mean tasty.

The bill was around RM110 – reasonable. To be fair their steamboat is not really bad, but I know better places for steamboat… it was my first visit to Ho Ho, probably the last as well.

I am quite impressed by their website though (with location maps and reservation number); there are not many restaurants in Malaysia that have proper websites like theirs.

Fresh oysters with Tabasco and lime

The buffet restaurant was more fusion towards Oriental cuisine rather than pure Japanese food.

Their fresh oysters were great, but overall the food quality was just ok… the sashimi was decent, steamed fishes were good, tempura sucks, other cooked food (dim sum, prawns, crabs, meat etc.) were ok, dessert sucks (except for the ice-cream… you can’t go wrong with Haagen-Dazs).

I don’t like the restaurant’s layout and lighting as well… it was confusing, and the dimness gave me a bad mood. On the bright note they offered a service where you can leave a ‘tag’ to order some freshly cooked food which they would send to your table, thus saving us some waiting time at the counter.

To be fair it was not a bad dining experience; just not as good as expected. The variety of food was fine, but the quality was just ok. I felt that the buffet is overpriced (RM88 each) for the quality they offered… cut it by a quarter and I just might visit again.

Jogoya is located at the Relish floor of Starhill Gallery; reservation number is 03-21421268; opening hours from 11.30am to 1am (Mon-Fri) and 11am to 1am on weekends and public holidays.

[Update] Dined at Jogoya for the 2nd time in January 2008, with better experience.