10 New Dishes @ Din Tai Fung,The Gardens

Thanks to Ken of FoodPOI for this invitation. A few weeks ago, I was invited to try out Din Tai Fung's 10 new dishes. I had been a big fan of their Xiao Long Bau and I visited them a few times before this. My maiden visit to this famous Taiwanese restaurant happened in Singapore, in fact I did blog about it earlier this year. Read more about it HERE.



Din Tai Fung is known internationally for its xiaolongbao. Din Tai Fung was ranked as one of the world's top 10 restaurants in 1993 by The New York Times. -Wikipedia

With such recognitions, expect the highest quality of food and ingredients. Lim, the owner, told us that they took some time to select the best quality and matching local ingredients to preserve Din Tai Fung's original taste. In fact, she told us that they tried over 20 different types of vinegar and they couldn't find a matching one. They had to mix and match to get the right taste! Later on, I bumped to her at FHM, sourcing for better ingredients.



The special appertizer was a great start, light and crunchy with slight taste of sweetness.



Japanese cucumber took me by surprise. Not because, its air flown from Japan. But its slight hotness, due to the presence of chili oil. I was like, the cucumber is spicy!



Spicy jelly fish was lovely with hints of sweet and sour taste.



Stewed beancurd with honey sauce was nice. The taste was sweet and it was very addictive.



Taiwan century egg really changed my perspective about century eggs. I'm never been a fan of century egg due to its distinctive taste and flavour. Smartly, they let us try 2 different types of century eggs. The local and the Taiwanese century egg. The taste of the Taiwanese century egg was so much different than the local ones. I must admit, I fell in love with this.



Spicy shrimp pork wanton was next. Wanton with a handsome of fillings with pork and shrimp went well with the spicy sauce. This is good for spicy lovers especially Xin of www.sloppychic.com



Fish dumpling was nicely done with a shape similar to fish. However, I still prefer meat fillings than the fish fillings. Just a personal preference.



Cong You La Mian was good. The taste was heavily flavoured by "cong you" (onion oil) and it blended well with la mian.



Glass noodle soup with beancurd was somehow not my cup of tea. Reason being was I loved dry noodles, just my personal preferences. The rest loved this, except me.



Dry mustard green la mian was another surprise factor to me. I would expect sour taste like I tried somewhere else before. Well, I was wrong.

The taste was much lighter than I expected and personally, I loved it. This was the more preferred la mian of the two I tried.



Lastly, the desserts came! Firstly was the red bean dumpling. Generous with red bean fillings, this best eaten while it's hot!



The mini sesame buns were the last food we tried. Like the red bean dumplings, the fillings generously came with huge amount of black sesame. This was good!



Thank you, the gorgeous Ms. Lim for the invitation. We had a pleasant lunch and it was lovely to chat with the rest of the food bloggers.

In general the food was good. Food served were in high quality. Place was usually packed during lunch time and dinner time. Please booked the table to avoid disappoinment!

The new menu:


Address:
Lot LG-207, Lower Ground Floor
The Gardens, Mid Valley City
Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 603-22832292

Taiwanese Food @ Fong Lye, The Gardens

This was my second visit to this place. Fong Lye is located a level below GSC Signature Cinema @ The Gardens. The place is usually packed during dinner hours. Its quite popular with its Taiwanese cuisine. Many good feedback and reviews about this place.

ME, Rachel, Steph and Khai were there for dinner. We were lucky as we got a table for dinner.



We ordered the Taiwanese glutinous rice sausage. Many might mistaken this as 2 sausages. The bottom part is the glutinous rice. The taiwanese sausage was good, the glutinous rice is slightly dry. This is priced at RM 9.30.



Next, was the Taiwanese chicken chop noodle (RM 17.80). Chicken chop was very good, crispy and tender. The soup noodle was good as well.



Pork intestines set was next (RM 17.80). Personally I'm not a big fan of intestines and such. However, this does taste good with the strong flavoured sauce.



I'm not sure why they named this variety supreme diced chicken (RM 19.80), its more to a claypot chicken to me. Chicken was tender and the sauce was thick and rich in flavour.



Sliced beef set (RM 19.80) was the last dish of the night. Beef were lightly stir fried and comes with the rice and soup. This was decent.

In general, the food was good and the service was good as well. As I mentioned before, place is usually packed during dinner hours. However, the price was a bit pricey though. The bill came to around RM 130 for 4 pax and we only had a meal each.

The bill:


Address:
Lot T208, 3rd Floor The Gardens,
Mid Valley City Lingkaran Syed Putra,
59200, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2282 8699

Wantan Noodles @ Canton-I The Gardens (Feb 09)

* NON - HALAL

The last visit I went to Canton-I was pretty good. Since Jason wanted to try it out so bad, we went for it at The Gardens.

We quickly got ourselves a nice seat. The waitresses there were attentive. Like the One Utama outlet, the designs were similar. It took a while to figure out what to eat since we tried some of the stuffs last time around.

I ordered Char Siew and Siew Yuk wantan noodle. One thing in particular I want to highlight is the wantan noodle. Even though at first when I saw in the menu, plain noodles cost RM 4 was ridiculous, I was wrong. The noodle was fantastic. Its hard to put on words for this. The char siew well is okay. Siew Yuk was particularly good. Well of course I paid RM 13.80 for it, exclusive tax.

Rachel ordered a Cantonese Style with Spicy Shredded Meat Wanton Noodles. Well, surprisingly it was horrible! There wasn't much spicyness in the meat and it was sweet. We didn't like it. Some might loved the sweetness. It was RM 12.80, excl. tax.

Jasmine tea. The flower inside was lovely as it "grew" at time passed by. Of course, the tea was good.

Then, we ordered Stewed Rice Vermicelli (Mee Hun) with Sheredded Duck and Vege. This was good. Partially because of the shredded roast duck. I loved this dish. RM 14, excl. tax.

Jason ordered a Fried Rice for RM20, excl. tax. We were like, wasn't this Egg Fried Rice? We were so wrong. The rice was fried with egg white. Then with prawns and scallops. Yes, lots of scallops. This was good.

Lastly, we ordered a Deep Fried Durian Pancake for RM 8, excl. tax. Well, it was just durian deep fried with battered flour? Nothing really amazing for this.

We definitely loved our foods this time around except the Cantonese Style with Spicy Shredded Meat Wanton Noodles. Service was good as usual. Per pax was around RM 20 plus. Yeah, there was a 10% discount for CIMB Credit Card Members.

Address:
LG 202-203A,
Lower Ground Floor,
The Gardens

Porridge @ I Love Yoo, The Gardens

This place is actually "hidden" in between The Gardens and Mid Valley @ Lower Ground. It is located at one of the corners of the pathway.

I admit no secret that this has been my usual place. Reason being their good price and the crunchy "you tiao"...



There are 2 types of porridge served here, dried scallops and oyster peanut porridge.



The price plus "you tiao" set? RM 3.90! On top of lovely porridge, they served nice soya bean and "tau fu far". Don't expect lots of stuffs in your porridge for the price you pay. So for a lovely meal plus a drink will cost me less than RM 10.

Address:
LG, The Gardens,
Mid Valley