We got invited to Favola restaurant at Le Meridien, KL Sentral recently for a cooking demonstration by Chef Fabrizio from the The Westin, Beijing Financial Street.

I really enjoyed his natural, simple way of cooking authentic Italian food with high quality produce and good technique. He really let the taste of the ingredients be at the forefront of the dish without over-seasoning.

It’s refreshing to see when most Italian food in KL is a horrible mash of cheap olive oil, canned tomato and over-cooked pasta.

We got to see him create a delicate tomato and eggplant millefeuille. The deep-fried aubergine really gave it an alluring texture alongside the tartness of the tomato.

A lobster and cherry tomato spaghetti, this is a really simple, elegant and tasty dish. Again using the small, fresh tomatoes allows the lobster to remain the star of the dish without getting coated in sauce.

And a seafood risotto, I learned something new here – the seafood was deep fried in semolina! It gives it a wonderful, grainy texture without being overpowering.

Favola serves some really good Italian food, I love their wood fire baked pizza – awesome!

You can check out Inspiring Italy at Le Meridien, Kuala Lumpur from the 4th until the 12th of June 2011.

Address:

Favola Italian Restaurant
Level 8, Le Meridien Hotel,
2, Jalan Stesen Sentral, Kuala Lumpur Sentral,
50470 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2263 7434

Website: http://www.discoverlemeridien.com/

Twitter: @LeMeridienKL

Location on Google Maps (It’s at KL Sentral).

Foursquare venue: Favola Italian Restaurant @ Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur

Others that wrote about it:

kimberlycun
cumidanciki
KYSpeaks
masak masak

The staff used to have a terrible reputation for service too, but glad to say they are have improved a lot too.

So we decided to give it a try, they have a few English treats too which tickled my fancy. And well it’s fast becoming one of our favourite places in The Curve to dine.

The interior is simple, nice and clean. Somewhat reminiscent of an English kitchen. The drinks are a little pricey and they’ve stopped serving normal water, only mineral water now. They do have a good range of beers though and their juices are nice.

But well, this is what we really go there for – the chicken liver pate! Just make sure you peel the layer of wax/fat off the top first, don’t try and eat it It’s served with plenty of bread and onion marmalade.

And our favourite of all – the Mussels, all the styles are great but this is “Apartment Style” which we love, slightly sweet, spicy and very garlicy. I have to say though we’ve been there about 5-6 times and the quality of the mussels has varied from SUPERB to just ‘ok’. It’s never been bad, but they have been slightly over-cooked.

This may seem like an odd combo, but it’s quite delicious – the duck and mango salad.

The desserts are pretty good, the Pavlova is a favourite of mine – but it’s very rich. Make sure you share it.

It’s definitely worth a go, especially if you like pate and mussels served with a mountain of fresh bread. I think it’s a great place to chat, eat and share some food amongst friends.

All in all we give it a We Ate This 7/10, if they could make the cooking of the mussels more consistent and the drinks cheaper (and give free water PLEASE) it could easily be an 8/10.

Address:

The Apartment
G72-74 and 152
Ground Floor and First Floor
Western Courtyard
The Curve
Mutiara Damansara
Petaling Jaya

Location on Wikimapia (It’s in the Curve).

Tel: 03–7727 8330

Website: http://www.atheapartment.com/

Others that wrote about it:

masak masak
limmeiyen
sooyin
jolcy
epicurious

Unsurprisingly our friend KY was also there, along with Eiling and I went along with Kimberly.

I think Chinoz on the Park (at KLCC) has recently revamped and renovated, I like the new look it’s very light and spacious.

The menu looked tempting and we got started with a sparkling wine, the Bin 555 Shiraz.

We got to meet a real chief winemaker too, Nigel Dolan! Quite an experience. Anyway with the Bin 555 Sparkling Chiraz came the Consomme – Wild Mushroom with Oxtail Ravioli. The Sparkling Shiraz was fab!

Honestly speaking the consomme made me think of marmite soup! The Ravioli was very nice though, it had a good texture and a nice solid meaty/salty taste.

After that came the Foie Gras Bon Bon with Caramelized Apple served with Show Reserve Cabernet Merlot.

An interesting meld of textures with the soft and the crunchy, but a bit of a waste of Foie Gras in my humble opinion, I found the wine a little dry for this course too.

After that came the main courses with an option of Salmon and Trout, with 4 of us we had two of each so we could sample. The Beef was Oven Roasted Beef Fillet with Caramelized Shallots, Roasting Jus.

It was cooked just nicely – pink in the middle and tender. The gravy (jus) had a strong rich flavour without being over-powering. The wine served with the Beef was the Show Reserve Shiraz – I really enjoyed this wine.

The Salmon was to DIE for, absolutely melts in your mouth. It was Confit of Salmon Trout with Poached Oyster accompanied by Dill & Cucumber Veloute – served with Show Reserve Chardonnay.

Dessert was served after that, nothing much to shout about – green tea and white chocolate mousse.

Group shot!

From left to right: Eiling, Me, KY, Nigel Dolan, Kimberly and Chris (who blogs at the cork brothers).

With the quality and amount of wine + some nice food it’s quite a bargain at RM100nett per person.

To get on the list you can call Yik Peng at 016 313 1873 or e-mail to:

RSVP – rsvp@millennium.net.my
Lenny – lenny@millennium.net.my
Yik Peng – yikpeng@millennium.net.my

Address:
Chinoz on the Park
Esplanade (G47)
Suria KLCC
50450 Jalan Ampang
KL

Location on Wikimapia (It’s in KLCC at the garden).

Tel: 03-2166 8277

It’s something like a buffet, but it’s not eat-all-you-can style, you get a ‘passport’ which you stamp as you take food and then pay for at the end (PLEASE don’t lose the passport as it’ll cost you RM200!).

Yes we do eat at The Curve a lot, but we haven’t even covered a quarter of the eateries there, there’s just so many!

When you find a table you can ‘chop’ it with the sign board as you’ll be wondering around finding food, it’s a good idea.

There’s plenty to choose from with section for potatoes, mushrooms, fruit, pasta, salad, meat, pizza, desserts and much more!

It does have a very market feel with lots of fresh/raw ingredients around and plenty of things to take pictures of.

Plenty for the meat lovers amongst you too.

We started out with the fresh mushroom soup, it was pretty good and plenty of croutons!

And the Caesar salad, it still can’t beat Italiannies though.

We followed that with the Lamb Shank, which was ok – served with potatoe wedges which were nice.

And the stone baked pizza, which was good – heavy and the toppings and lovely chewy cheese.

We tried a couple of desserts, both of which looked much better than they tasted.

All in all it was ok and quite expensive, I think for the price you can find similar types of food (but much nicer) even in The Curve itself and definitely outside.

They are always packed though, so they must be doing something right..Perhaps we just missed out on the good dishes. They have a kind of buffet deal on Tuesdays too, well they used to, I’m not sure if they still do.

All in all we give it a We Ate This 5/10.

Address:

G87, Ground Floor
The Curve, Mutiara Damansara,
47800 Petaling Jaya

Location on Wikimapia (It’s in Curve!).

Offical website: http://www.marche-malaysia.com/

Tel: 03 7728 9200

Others that wrote about it:
KL People KL Food
zestful
KampungboyCitygal
Meiyen
Ahmok

Some of you may know La Gourmet House from when it was in Ikano Power Center at the LG floor, it moved over to The Curve and now it’s in the prime position on the street on the ground floor. They have also updated their menu along with the move and are bringing some new items.

It’s a Mediterranean style restaurant serving a variety of western influence food.

It’s pretty easy to find, the interior is nice and cosy – quite authentically European.

We started off with the Sicilian seafood bisque with stuffed fish, which was very nice! Not too rich, nice and smooth and a very well balanced taste (sometimes bisque can be too creamy, or too watery).

We also tried out the Andalucian style tiny meatballs in almond sauce with salmon pikelettes along with a stuffed aubergine with rockets, cherry tomatoes and walnuts topped with berries and lemon dressing.

The Salmon Pikelette was good, the meatball was cold though and I don’t really fancy aubergine cooked that way as it tends to be a bit soggy/oily.

If you are there on Friday or Saturday you’ll be sung to by Gani from Freedom whilst you wait for your main to arrive.

After that came the specialty Paella Luzonia with mixed seafood, vegetables and salted fish. The texture was good and there was plenty of seafood (clams, crabs, prawns etc). It wasn’t quite hot enough however.

Along with the Paella came the Shepherd’s Buglidicce, I had no idea what it was to be honest…but it turns out to be some kind of toasted cheese biscuit/pancake and it was very nice.

If you’re lucky the chef might come out and sing you a song!

They have some nice German beer too (Weihenstephan), we finished off with a brownie, which was ok and a coffee which was good.

The price is pretty average, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive. We’d give it a worth trying We Ate This 5/10 – it’d make 6 if the portions were a little larger and their hot food was hot.

The first rule of any restaurant kitchen is make sure what is supposed to be hot is really hot and what is supposed to be cold is really cold. The rest is less important.

I do want to go back and try their dried duck pasta which is supposed to be quite famous.

Address:

Lot G-52, Ground Floor, The Curve
Jalan PJU 7/3
Mutiara Damansara
47800 Petaling Jaya

Location on Wikimapia. (It’s in The Curve!)

Tel: 03-7725 4279

Others that wrote about it:

Bernsy
Meiyen

*THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED*

I was very disappointed due to the fact it was touted to be serving the excellent Pork Ribs that everyone in Singapore gets to enjoy.

When the finally opened in KL it was disclosed they had in fact decided to go non-pork..Anyway seen as though we were in Pavilion and there wasn’t much else we fancied I thought we should try out Tony Roma’s.

It’s a fairly standard setting for a western style restaurant, plenty of wood, quite comfortable, has booths like Chili’s and TGIF.

Wherever we eat we will surely have hot/buffalo wings to compare the standard, we love both Chili’s and those at TGIF even though they are slightly different. The wings here didn’t disappoint, even though they are served on such a huge plate (which makes the portion look smaller) the blue cheese sauce was really strong and tasty.

They are a little pricey though (RM17.90), as much as a ‘party’ portion at TGIF or a full pound at Chili’s.

The thing everyone has been raving about is the Onion Loaf, which once had in Singapore was thoroughly disappointing. We opted for the half loaf, and it was absolutely yummy!

I’ll definitely be going to Cineleisure to check this out and see if it’s as good, it’s pretty reasonably as well at RM12.90 for the half loaf. Very crunchy, tasty onion, not too much batter and goes perfectly with the sauce.

Next up we had one pasta dish, the Shrimp Pasta…which was HUGE! A little too large really, it was like the Italiannies portions labeled ‘To Share’.

It wasn’t just a lot of pasta too, there were a LOT of shrimps for a dish of this price (RM29.90).

And of course I went there try the ribs, I went for a half-rack as the whole rack was a bit too heavy on the pocket..there are 4 sauces to choose from, you can have the ribs basted in them if you request it when you order – or you can just use them as plain dipping sauces.

In basic terms there is Tony Roma’s original, a smoky one, a spicy one and a sweet one. I had the ribs with the original sauce. The portion looked a little small for the price (RM48.90) but the ribs were excellent quality. I have to say I’m not sure if I’d pay so much again.

The side dishes were superb though, I went for a jacket potato and ranch style beans. Really nice!

Overall I’d say Tony Roma’s is a little pricey but the food was very good. We’d give it a satisfying We Ate This 7/10 – it’d make 8 if it were a little more reasonably priced.

Address:

Lot 1.15, Level 1,
Pavilion,
Kuala Lumpur

Location on Wikimapia (It’s in Pavilion!).

Tel: 03 2143 3378

Others that wrote about it:

Bernsy
Vkeong

Cavells is a reasonably new restaurant and has been open around a year in Hartamas, rather than focusing on one kind of food it tries to give a good range of European fare with solid Spanish and Italian dishes on the menu.

We visited to test out their new range of Tapas, it’s one of the few places offering authentic Spanish Tapas rather than the common fusion stuff found in many places. Of course we also wanted to try some of the hyped Sparkling Shiraz from Henry Martin (award winning wine!).

The restaurant has a very nice relaxed atmosphere, the boss Aaron Carvalho has good taste in music too preferring to pump out some 80′s classics to set the mood.

There are currently 10 Tapas dishes with the chef planning to expand soon depending on the reception of these…ones to try are the meatballs (with 7 spices) a little crispy and juicy at the same time – the Spanish name is Albondigas Con Salsa.

The Ropa Vieja is a blend of Jewish and Arabian food, seasoned beef…yummy! Also try the Chochifrito which is a similar dish with lamb.

The Mussels are delicious too, known as Mejilloues on the menu.

The Chili is a special personal recipe from Aaron, rather nice but I’d prefer it a little more spicy.

We tried the mushroom soup as recommended and it was very good!

We’ll definitely be heading back to try out their main courses!

Address:

Cavells Restaurant and Bar
18 Jalan 27/70A
Desa Sri Hartamas

Location on Wikimapia.

Tel: 03-23000841

Business Hours: Daily, 12pm to 2am, Happy Hours, 6pm to 9pm.

*As this was a food tasting it’s hard to give a rating*

When I felt like treating myself, or felt like something hearty and healthy I often headed to Marmalade. Or even if I just wanted something like a salad. Saying that though their large salads aren’t exactly light! It used to be located near the Kiosk, it moved last year I think inside Plaza Mon’t Kiara. It’s in Block E (Sunrise) where the Argentinian Steakhouse used to be. Same row as Subway and Khana Peena.

They also have another branch at Bangsar Village 2 now. The new interior at Plaza MK is nice, more spacious than the old place – very white and fresh with a nice high ceiling. They have a decent range of drinks and some of their juices are nice but I find them rather over-priced…definitely stick to iced water!

The tomatoe soup (RM8) is ok, it’s very rich though. I much prefer their salads and thoroughly recommend the Sounds of Havana salad! We had soup this day as it was cold, needed a belly warmer! The soup of the day varies (obviously).

This is definitely my favourite thing at Marmalade along with the Havana salad, the chicken pie (RM16)! It comes with creamy white sauce, lovely soft pastry, chunky mash and succulent lumps of chicken in the pie…delicious. Definitely better than the beef pie which is a little dry.

Tell me that’s not juicy! I think I’m drooling now..

Another favourite is the Moroccan Lamb Shank (RM22)! Another fantastic hearty dish served with ample broccoli and a good side of spinach rice, a really unique flavour and cooked to perfection.

Another thing I love about Marmalade is their vast array of deserts, I often try something different there. The carrot cake is good, lemon meringue is good…the mini cupcakes were ok, but then I’m not a big cupcake fan (RM2.40 for 2).

My favourite desert is the huge, juicy apple crumble (RM9.50) served with hot custard. I just have to have it when I visit Marmalade, I haven’t found a crumble as good as this anywhere else in town, is there one?

All in all we’ve never been disappointed when visiting Marmalade, some of their dishes aren’t that great and I’m sad they removed the ham and cheese frittata as the salmon and avocado option is a little rich – but the things that are good are really good and we keep going back over and over! We give it a We Ate This 8/10!

Address:

Block E-01-02 & E-01-03,
Plaza Mon’t Kiara,
No 2 Jalan Kiara,
Mon’t Kiara,
50480
Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-6201 1743

Others that wrote about it:

masak masak
chocoholic memoirs
zique
psychedelic life
babe in the city

This branch we visited was in The Curve, near the footbridge from Ikano and very near to Waroeng Penyet. The places are usually quite simple, this one is a cafe style but most are just stalls with high stools and a small counter to eat.

Their tagline is food for friendship.

They used to have some wicked real lemonade too..but no more, now I stick to the Ice Lemon Tea.

They have two sizes of hotdog, regular and great.

And a few flavours, about 6 I think. This is my favourite, Chicago Beef (regular size).

Another good one is the New York Chicken (great size), the chicken can sometimes be more juicy than the beef.

The prices are pretty reasonable and service is generally fast, great for a snack or a light lunch. We recommend 1901 and give it a We Ate This 8/10.

Any other good hot dog places around?

Official Website: http://www.1901.com/

Others that wrote about it:

live to eat
vkeong
my sweet diary

Fasta Pasta is a chain that came over from Australia shortly after Ikano opened a few years ago. It was pretty popular when it first opened, the price are a little high for most people and it has declined in popularity.

It’s located near Ace Hardware on the ground floor of Ikano opposite Starbucks.

They give you free bread to start, with proper Lurpak butter!

It’s nice with a sprinkle of chili flakes and parmesan cheese.

The decor is pretty simple, wood and tiles – clean lines.

The pasta comes in two sizes – Asian and Aussie – Asian for those with smaller appetites and the Aussie portion is good for sharing, the pasta ranges from about RM18-RM27. I do like their ravioli!

The prawn sambal risotto is rather nice too but quite expensive for a small portion (RM28) It is very rich though, good texture and flavour..heavy and filling!

Anywhere else that has good risotto? Another favourite is the Rotelle Fantasia with ham and mushrooms (RM21 for Aussie size). Very nice combination, used to be creamier..not so great now.

I find their drinks over-priced so I just tend to stick to ice water. I’ve noticed the service has gotten a lot worse too, it used to be much better. I guess we will go back, but it’s not so much of an exciting prospect as when they first opened.

All in all they deserve a We Ate This 5/10.

Address:

Fasta Pasta
G1, Ground Floor
Ikano Power Centre
Mutiara Damansara

Location on Wikimapia.

Official Website: http://www.fastapasta.com.my/

Tel: 03-7727 5876

Others that wrote about it:

masak masak
elaneman
Mei Yen

*THIS RESTAURANT APPEARS TO HAVE CLOSED DOWN AS OF APRIL 2008*