Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Instant Noodles + Abalone + Wine = Best Home Cooked Supper

Had some friends come back from overseas recently. They bought me some very good wine/champagne. Below is a picture of the stuff they bought for me. From left to right, Vintage Dom Perignon, Barons de Rothschild Lafite and vintage Moet & Chandon.



Decided to open one of the bottles and treat them to a luxurious supper of instant noodles! :D Below is a picture of the packet of instant noodles. It is my current favourite, Shin Ramyun.



The thing that will make this supper luxurious is pictured below. It is abalone!!



Just need to put the instant noodles in a bowl with water, add sliced abalone and nuke in the microwave!!



Open a bottle of Barons de Rothschild Lafite and you have the best supper anywhere!! :D



The wine complemented the spicy instant noodles very well. Apparently the salesperson at the airport my friend bought it from told him that it is good with Asian food. I must say that I agree!!

Makan Kings ratings - 7.5 out of 10 (wine)

Cheers,
-BKT King-

Friday, March 24, 2006

Jogoya - Starhill Gallery

Been reading quite a few food blogs with reviews of Jogoya lately. This is my version. Jogoya is a famous japanese buffet chain from Taiwan. Unlike the likes of Saisaki in UOA2, Jogoya is meant to be more high class. There is your usual buffet style counters where you go and take what you want to eat but there is also a cooked food counter where you place your table clip(no picture but its basically a metal clip with your table number on it) in a bowl in front of a sample of the dish you want, the chef will cook it and send it to your table.

There are also member only dishes at each of the buffet counter. Membership cost RM1020 and it for life. Each time you dine using the membership, you are given member only coupons(depending on how many people dine, its one coupon per person). You can use these coupons to order members only dishes. The procedure is the same just that you have to clip the coupon with the table clip. Below are some interior shots of Jogoya.









To start we had sashim. They had several types of fish including the obligatory salmon and tuna. There was also scallop sashimi, sushi and fresh oysters. Pre rolled sushi and made-to-order hand rolls were also available. Sorry about not having pictures. We forgot to take many pictures and there are many reviews on Jogoya anyway.

Below is a shot of the buffet counter. Notice the bed of ice and the raw food on the ice. Also notice there are bowls with a tag saying what the dish is. You place your table clip in the bowl and after the chef has cooked the dish it will be sent over to your table.



Below is a picture of one of the buffet counter. Jogoya is huge and it it quite impossible to eat everything they have to offer in one sitting.



Below is one of the member dish. It is a plate of deep fried soft shell crab. We were expecting maybe one soft shell crab when we ordered this dish. When it arrived we were all shocked. They gave us a plate with 3 sizeable soft shell crabs. It was nice and crispy but tasted slightly bland to me.



The dish below is pan fried scallops. This is not a member only dish and everyone can order it. This dish although it doesnt look like much is spectacular. The sweetness of the scallops really shines in this dish and the chef did a good job of not cooking the hell out of the scallops.



The fish below is the grilled white prompret. This dish was also quite good. The sauce that the dish came with is a salty slightly spicy sauce and complemented the fish quite well.



Below is the favourite dish of our table. It is the paper steamboat. You can see the condiments that you can add to the steamboat. Prawns, giant crab legs and chinese cabbage.



The pictures below are the paper steamboat filled with giant crab legs and chinese cabbage. We choose the chicken stock. If you go to Jogoya, you should get this dish first as it takes quite a while for the soup to start boiling.





The giant crab legs are simply divine!! And the soup left after eating the giant crab legs is just heaven. It taste sweet and slightly creamy. Definately the best dish of the night.



If you have space left after all that good food, there is also a wide selection of cakes, biscuits, ice-cream and fruits for desert. Below are pictures of the dessert counter.







As we were all very full after the hefty meal, we decided to try just two cakes. The one below is a members only cake(we had one member coupon left over and didnt want to eat any more seafood). It is a strawberry cake and it was delicous. The cake was light and the strawberry frosting was creamy and not overly sweet with nice taste of strawberry(not those artificial taste you get from really cheap strawberry cakes).



Below is the other cake we tried. Cant remember what this cake is called but it was also quite good.



Overall I think Jogoya is a nice place to go for Japanese buffet. The amount of seafood that is available should justify the price. Also, during this visit there I noticed that all the seafood were really fresh. I really enjoyed the sashimi and tempura(sorry, no photos of the tempura). Do be warned thought, you might get an overdose of seafood when you eat there just like I did.

Makan King's ratings = 8.5 out of 10

Cheers,
-BKT King-

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Mini Post on Irodori.

Irodori is a quaint japanese restaurant in Grand Hyatt Taipei, they offer buffets and ala carte dinners, but they are famous for their buffet dinners. Each per costs roughly about rm120, which i think is reasonable because the quality of the food is excellent. Didn't really take alot of pics just abit of here and there - we were too cold and too hungry at that moment. This is me and tofu delivery king's table. Ofcourse the sahimi part of the table is his. Would like to say thank you to him as he paid the bill *shy*, *evil grin*. ngek ngek ngek.



Why?
-helpful attendants
- free flow haagen daz ice cream, they got green tea served with japanese red bean paste - oooh my fav ! had to mention desserts first cause i love desserts. :P
- japanese candies which are quite expensive as i bought some before.
- the best chocolate mud pie and peach meringue.
- Instant skewered beef balls, meat, fresh fish.
- Fresh udon and soba either with soup or fried or cold.
- They also got suyiyaki for beef lovers.
- Offers a few fusion dishes at the main buffet belt.
- Offers fresh seafood paper steamboat.
- Fresh clam seafood miso
- Quality of food = 9/10.
- Sushis are execellent so are the sashimis.
- All sorts of variety of japanese food but to me it's the quality of the food that counts, they taste really good individually it's like having a ala carte bufet in a japanese restaurant.
- Proper Japanese Bowls and Plates unlike those jap buffets that serve you with white plates. Japanese restaurant hello ~~~ serve with jap plates.
- Restaurant is always at capacity had to wait for 20 mins before getting a seat.

-Posted by Ketchup Queen-