Half and half from Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg

Apparently, one can request for half biryani and half pulao at Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg. While the mutton I got today was tender, it was also one that was lean and stringy. The dal helped but I'll see if I can request for less lean cut the next time.

Damascus, Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur

Pretty strong queue at Damascus (130 Jalnn Bukit Bintang, Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur, tel : +6011-3717 2122) and it was almost 10pm. These guys close at 4.30am so I guess it was still early in the night for them.

Place was pretty, clean, air conditioned and with an orderly system of queue managment

We had ayran.

Their Adani tea was nice. Noticeable infusion of spice with milk and sugar. Not so different from masala chai. If we ever come back, we're gonna be getting them by the pot.

That's creamy mix shawarma. The sliced beef and chicken were buried under all the yoghurt-y sauce. Both meats were pretty well spiced but I couldn't tell accurately how they tasted on their own because of all the sauce.

The rice that came with it was savoury and flavourful, belying it's pale appearances. A delicious stock went into cooking it.

Ordered lamb and eggs because is sounded good. Meat was minced and without much lamb flavour so it was a little disappointing..  

Lamb kibbeh was delicious with a crisp shell and piping hot minced meat.

Dessert was something called kunafa pistachio roll - a roll of sorts made with kataifi, the spun pastry that's used to make kunefe. Sweet, flat, pastry was not exactly crispy and not much pistachio flavour despite all the crush nuts. Wouldn't get it again.

A beyti kebab from Sultan Kebab

I couldn't identify much of what this was from the menu at Sultan Kebab but ordered it anyway because there was a lamb option. I had thought it to be pastry but it turned out to be lamb kofte wrapped in bread with cheese; toasted, sliced and then slathered with yoghurt and tomato sauce. Tasted much like how it looked. Kofte wasn't very fatty so not so much of the lamb flavour coming through. But now I know.

More Miznon

Back at Miznon. Tried the abu kebab pita which was stuffed with beef and lamb meatballs. Meatball's generously salted and I tasted pepper. Texture was coarse and the flavour's nice but I couldn't tell the beef and lamb in it. 

This red prawn pita's relatively new I think. Tasty spicing with a bit of smokiness on those firm meaty bugs. I like this better than the abu.

Chicken pulao from Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg

Finally got my hands on the pulao from Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg. This one's chicken - came with two tender drumsticks. In spite of appearances, the drumsticks were moist and easily removed from the bone. The difference between their biryani and the pulao was that the latter did not pack heat from the spices in the rice. It was still deliciously savoury which I inhaled in short order. 

Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg, Maxwell Food Centre

The eponymous Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg (#01-69 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street) is relatively new at Maxwell Food Centre. The chef's from Pakistan from what I read and their take on the popular spiced rice dish is apparently Pakistani styled - which has some differences from the spices that are used in comparison to the local Indian rendition. Don't know the details though. We've eaten there twice and hadn't any luck with their pulao. This was their mutton briyani which we've had on both occasions.

I wasn't able to discern the subtleties of the differences in spices. I could tell that there's more heat than what I'm used to for biryani. Bottom line was that it was delicious with great flavouring and had sufficient salt to bring forth all those spices infused into the rice. Bone in mutton was scratch off the fork tender and the dal on the side which was made with 4 types of lentils packed a nice bit of heat. Loving those. Also strangely reeled in by that chilled raita they have on the side even though I tasted coriander. 

Burning Melanzana, Moussaka and what intimate plate at Miznon

Back at Mizon.

The complimentary pita with chilli and tahini is always welcomed. Great to load up with if not for the fact that we were already ordering more pitas. 

Got a couple of eggplant pitas today.

• Burning Melanzana - eggplant with a slab of toasty fried mozzarella. I couldn't taste much of the eggplant. It was mostly the mozzarella and yeah, I liked it.
• Moussaka - beef ragout, eggplant, tahini, chilli and pickles. Also not getting the eggplant but the rest of it was delicious. Loved how the meatiness from the ragout came through. Wouldn't have known there was eggplant in it if not for the menu.

Ironic how we had gotten eggplant pitas and it was the other stuffings that shone because......eggplant. 😅

Their Intimate Plate was not memorable. I've seen it on the menu for a while now and it was basically the short rib that intrigued. In retrospect, the slightly stringy short rib was right at the bottom of the list on the plate. Not the fatty flavourful beefy short rib I imagined. Will not be getting this again.

Revisiting Two Guys

So we're back at the stall with just one guy. I wanted to try their lamb burger not knowing that the burger doesn't come with a lamb patty.

Looks like stir fried lamb with onions and black pepper. There's also cheese. Meat's not exactly tender and pretty lean. In a blind taste test, I would suspect it might be lamb and wouldn't be definitive on that suspicion. That's how it was. 

Buns were soft and pretty light but failed structurally because lifting the sandwich up with hands will simply result in the bottom bun flopping from the weight of the meat and everything starts spilling.

Decent tasting lamb mandi. The amount of meat on the shank would have fed 2 persons comfortably. Meat was tender but a little crumbly. Had nice fatty parts. The proprietor ladled some of the braising sauce on the rice during preparation so I'm guessing that the lamb flavour came from that sauce instead of the rice? Did not taste bad though.

Two Guys, Seah Im Food Centre

Came across Two Guys (#01-22 Seah Im Food Centre, 2 Seah Im Road) but there was only one guy there.😏 Looked like another one of numerous kebab stalls around. The proprietor recommended their hawawshi so I picked the one with lamb and added cheese. From what I gathered, it's an Egyptian flatbread stuffed with meat and onions. Looked much like a quesadilla. Not bad tasting but I should omit the mayo the next time. Their menu on Foodpanda appears to have a larger variety than what's displayed at the stall though.

Bosphorus Turkish Kebap, Golden Mile Food Centre

Came across this kebab stall (#B1-28 Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road) in our previous visits and we came back to try it. They're located at the zone where the Muslim food stalls are. Decided to hell with the healthier option and got a plate of kebab with chips and cheese. Potatoes appear to be freshly fried.

The cheese didn't melt. Don't know what kind of mozzarella it was but it only softened after being exposed to the hot potato and warm chicken. Speaking of which, the chicken was mostly pre-sliced off the vertical spit so some were a little dry. They weren't bad tasting but it's worth nothing that they also weren't even as aromatic/flavourful as Stuff'd. No cumin here.

Sultan Kebab, Maxwell Food Centre

Not that Sultan Kebab. That's ancient history. This was a relatively new stall at Maxwell Food Centre (#01-86 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street).

This was a plate of mixed beef and chicken on pesto penne. Pretty generous portions of meat over the buttery pasta. Not bad tasting but they also weren't very different from most of the other kebab stalls since all of them pretty much sold the same things.

Bismillah Biryani, Shenton Way

I hadn't any idea where exactly this branch of Bismillah (76 Shenton Way, #01-03) was located so I got led on around about by Google Maps which seemed not to work very well in the vicinity (for whatever reasons). Located it eventually. Place looked quiet during the weekend. It had the same dead vibes I got from their flagship at Dunlop Street.  

As preamble, I have a love hate relationship with Bismillah. I like the biryani. Not so much the entity. The people working there behave like they have 3/4 of their souls sucked out. Half the time, they never have what I want to order. I've settled for accepting that their online menu is a facade and that more than half of them do not exist anymore. We ended up with the chicken dum biryani today because....well, they didn't have something else I wanted. Again.

Tasted not bad. Breast portions of the meat was pretty dry. I enjoyed it but it's also not exactly the kind of food I would travel out of the way for because it's not that great and I'm honestly tired of them responding with 'it's not available'. So I take it that they have only just a regular mutton or chicken biryani mostly.

Wanted to get a portion of their chicken liver masala and guess what? They don't have it. That was almost kinda how we ended up with their mutton chapli kebab. It's s spiced mutton patty, pretty dense and meaty. Delicious in a spicy and savoury manner. That being said, it also felt like it came out of a microwave.

Sultan Turkish Restaurant, Bussorah Street

While it may be that this vicinity is regarded as touristy, it is also the only enclave we have for Turkish/Middle Eastern food. That being said, most of the restaurants are clones of one another offering minor variations of the same dishes.

We ended up in the heart of it (30 Bussorah Street) because I came across something I wanted to try. While the usual modus operandi traversing this street is to put on a glass eye, weave and evade the touts that hawk "the best Turkish food in town", I today...acquiesced with the server at Sultan Turkish Restaurant. 

Started with a sweet chilled ayran to beat the evening humidity. Albeit not so successfully because humidity > chilled ayran. I liked the ayran though. If anyone was wondering, it's a yoghurt beverage very much like lassi.

A tabbouleh for my feeble efforts at including some fibre and greens into the meal which I was quite sure would otherwise include little to no fibre and greens. This one's a bit sour.

I've only gotten acquainted with mandi in recent years. I've either been not aware of their availability or the dish has only picked up steam locally in current times. They're an Arabic spiced rice dish often with meat - not dissimilar to briyani.

This one was with lamb shank. The rice was delicious. The first thing that came to mind was the ouzi we previously had at Kazbar. Pretty sure they tasted similar. Lamb was fall off the bone tender. Liked the soup on the side which had a pretty distinct flavour from the rendered fat of lamb. 

What was poorly done were the grilled chilli/tomato. They were raw under the skin. They weren't so much grilled as they were burnt.

I did mention liking the ayran. Here's another mug of gratification.

The dish I came for was their ciger sis/ciğer şiş - a kebab of lamb livers and beef fat. The latter interspersed between cubes lamb liver. Hell yeah this was delicious with the flatbread! 👍🏼 

Kunefe was also awesome. Crispy on the outside with the savoury cheese on the inside under the blanket of sweet creaminess. This one came with goat's milk ice cream.