Vis-à-Vis, 12 Chun Tin Road

Vis-à-Vis is a cosy French restaurant located along Bukit Timah Road near Beauty World. It's situated on Chun Tin Road, a little street which happens perpendicularly just before the Al Ameen. This French restaurant is run by some locals who evidently seem to have some idea of what they're doing. They also practice changing of the menu every 3 months in response to the fact that their customers like changes.

This dinner was arranged by Lynn so there was really little I needed to do except sit down and wait to be served. The service here is polite, with warmth from the very obliging lady boss. That was in comparison to the rest of the staff whom are more curt and less chatty.

We began with the presented menu and a basket of fresh warm baguette. The bread here is freshly baked in small batches. It was so nice that we asked for another two servings while I used them to wipe the sauce off my plate and then stuff them into my mouth. Apart from baguette, they also had a walnut and raisin loaf which were just short of awesome. Soft, dense and very warm.

Following the bread, came the appetizers. We went with half a dozen escargots baked with parsley and garlic butter sauce and the homemade duck liver pate stuffed with goose liver and roasted pine nuts complemented with some tangy tasting Cumberland sauce.

escargots

Duck Liver Pate stuffed with Goose Liver.

The escargots were served scalding hot. Didn't come with the shell containers which I was kinda expecting. And then, there was the "delicate" portions of the pate and liver. To the credit of whomever made it, it was delicious. The smooth texture of the goose liver contrasted with the course texture of the pate. This stuff would be fantastic with bread. I have no idea what is Cumberland sauce, but it is tangy as described.

Between the bread and the appetizers, it actually took a little time before we were served our mains. Usually it was short work, but I guess it was a little different tonight. We got ourselves the roasted confit of duck glazed with plum sauce crusted with mixed peppercorn & spices complemented by an Orange Marnier sauce paired with pan fried foie gras on a well....seared peach. And an Australian beef meltique steak.

roasted confit of duck.

meltique steak?

The duck confit came with fragrant roasted skin and fat that melted in your mouth. Meat was tasty but a little dry. The plum sauce wasn't special. The fragrance of plum didn't quite come through although it did have that citrus flavour. On the overall, it was pretty enjoyable

The steak was apparently pre-ordered on request. This place did a good job out of medium doneness if you can make out of it in the photo. I was initially dismayed by the small portions. But it was a succulent cut of meat. The restaurant also provided a freshly made mushroom cream sauce on request which was filled generously with wild mushrooms. It looked like a pretty normal looking mushroom cream sauce, but the taste was robust and mushroom-y. This sauce was also one of the reasons why we made our way into the third basket of their fresh bread.

Dessert followed suit. The what described as a decadent chocolate and vanilla ice cream terrine lightly drizzled with chocolate ganache sprinkled with roasted nuts turned out to be just a rather ordinary looking chocolate and vanilla ice cream. No particular fragrance from the roasted nuts neither. The other dessert which was baked Alaska fared much better. I wonder how many places does Baked Alaska since the only other one I've had was from Shashlik.

Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream Terrine

Alaskan flames

This baked Alaska was a little different from the one served at Shashlik. There was strawberry ice cream at the middle. I also noticed a sprig of mint wilting under the flames. The surrounding meringue remained light and fluffy tinged with a slight burnt taste from the flaming Grand Marnier.

On the overall, the eating at Vis-à-Vis was pleasant. Not to mention also the fact that this dinner was considerately arranged by my most beautiful companion. The damage for this 3 course for 2 is about $145. Which was all things considered, very fair price to pay. The bill came with their home made truffles and roasted coconut coated white chocolate which I thought was pretty good. They're also for sale at the restaurant at 80 cents a piece.

Mayim, West Mall

Mayim is a Chinese restaurant serving northern and southern Chinese cuisine located at the 2nd floor of West Mall. There's dim sum in the afternoons between 12 to 2 pm if IIRC. According to their website, the name of this restaurant is also the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet which means water. Heard it's opened by a chef from Hong Kong. Can't say I can join the dots there. The following was lunch for 2 for today.

Jellyfish with spice flavoured peanut sauce

Steam jumbo prawn dumpling or "har kow"

fried Buna Shimeji mushroom with shredded pork and garlic

crispy beancurd skin roll with prawn

pan fried turnip cake with chinese sausage (lup cheong)

Steamed vermincelli roll with barbeque pork

Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant, Mid Valley, Kuala Lumpur

If you haven't guessed, this was another one of those Hong Kong cafe styled place which served pretty much the same kind of food as the others. With a Korean twist. They also did bibimbab. No clue who the bleeding Beelzebub is Kim Gary. And no prizes for guessing. The place was packed to the brim and I was told that the had business flourished into a franchise. I thought it was probably worth checking out since it wasn't not available back home.

Cream soup and borsch. Well, it's not the real borsch. I would be surprised if they did have the genuine stuff. Tasted just like spicy tomato and vegetable soup. The cream soup is probably cream of corn.

Pork chop and steak baked rice with cheese. There's only rice and some cream sauce beneath the cheese and meat. Nothing special about them.

A closer look at the steak baked rice with cheese. The steak was just a piece of beef, not a real steak.

Yoghurt that came with the sets. I was a little surprised at what was offered. Anlene....hahaha. It's strawberry flavored.

Egg in boiled milk. I kinda like this stuff. Basically a raw egg that's thrown into boiled milk.

Silom, Plaza Damansara, Kuala Lumpur

I haven't figured out whether Bukit Damansara is part of KL or not. Apparently, some people don't consider it so. It kinda reminded me of Science Park. It is also suppose to be one of the prime areas to be living in. That meant expensive housing for the more well to do. So I was told.

Silom is a cafe/restaurant that serves fusion Thai and Peranakan food. That's a pineapple fried rice. One could wonder how is that pineapple fried rice since it didn't quite look the part. Stir fried with the rice were diced chicken, squid, a couple of shrimps, sliced sausages, corn, green peas and raisins. Garnished with strips of what I assume to be radish, cucumber and carrots. I'm not sure what those brown strips of stuff were. This fried rice beat the one at Hans by more than a neck. Seafood, meat, pineapple and real vegetables. Probably a far healthier option too. And it tasted pretty good.

Gandhi Vegetarian Stall, Bricksfield, Kuala Lumpur

I was thinking to myself, with a name like that, it's bound to attract some attention. In truth, I would never have found this place if not for my a friend whom was in turn introduced to this stall by his colleague. Bricksfield as I've heard is Kuala Lumpur's equivalent of Little India. And Gandhi's isn't exactly located where the pedestrian is the thickest, so this is one of those hole in the walls which requires some familiarity to locate. But it's also just about 10 minutes walk from KL Sentral station.

I was told that this place was well known for their delicious vegetarian food. The original owner is retired and the eatery is currently managed by his son who is also a competent cook in his own right.

Since it was a first visit, I left the ordering to the friend has been here on enough occasions for the boss to aloha him. So dinner was the ikan bakar, chilli chicken and apple laila. The former two dishes don't contain meat of course.

We were served with rice and curry which was refillable on request. Ended up eating a lot of rice because the curry was good stuff. Before I even knew it, I had eaten more than usual. I kid you not. It might not have been the best curry in the world, but it's pretty DFG.

The ikan bakar was a mock barbecued fish. Having had vegetarian "meats" before from Chinese places, I've got to admit that this by far takes the cake of being the one that tastes the most like real fish meat. It has a had crusty and spicy exterior akin to the charred sections of barbecued stingray and it's really good.

This chilli chicken is made of bean curd skin (tao ki, for those that know it by that). It is arranged to look like chicken wings and for the moment when it was served, I had actually forgotten that this wasn't real chicken, thinking about how inconvenient it might be to have bones in my food. Heh, it looked pretty convincing as chicken wings with the fried skin soaked in gravy very much like braised chicken. Also spicy and great tasting. The gravy tasteed like kung pao chicken.

We ordered the apple laila having no idea what it was except that it probably has apples. The name sounded interesting. The dish was actually lightly stewed apples in a starchy gravy with lemons and chilli. Lightly stewed because it still maintained a crunchiness. It was very appetizing and I've never had anything like it anywhere else.

The damage for dinner was just 30 ringgit for the food, lime tea and plum juice. For what it's worth, that was definitely good and inexpensive. One of the gems in a run down looking district worth taking the trouble to locate. Gave me that "I forgot this all doesn't contain meat" experience like Original Sin did.

Madam Kwan's, Mid Valley, Kuala Lumpur

Madam Kwan's an upmarket restaurant that does Asian/Peranakan food. I was told the first time I was brought there (the outlet at KLCC) that they were famous for their nasi lemak and nasi bojari. Since then, which was about 6 years back, I've visited them once each time I'm in KL for the tasty Nasi Bojari.

The dish was a simple plate of nasi kuning (a yellow and similar to coconut rice), assam prawns, shredded beef rendang (quite tender), a fried chicken thigh and half a boiled egg. Nothing too exotic. But rather expensive for Asian food in an Asian country ($19.90 ringgit which is about 10SGD). But it was good enough to make me come back almost every time I can make the trip.