Roast chicken and glutinous rice stuffing

I spotted this recipe on pigs pigs corner and I instantly bookmarked it. I mean who can resist crispy, tender succulent chicken with beautifully sticky glutinous rice stuffing? And the best part of the rice is that it's filled with savoury flavourful lap cheong (chinese sausages); the Chinese cousin of bacon. Plus its an excuse for me to experiment on my newly installed oven; (well its not exactly brand new since it has been previously used by our tenant) but all in all its still a much better kitchen tool than my old convection turbo oven which doesn't seem to produce efficient results (the meat always comes out a tad dry and the browning is not even). This home-cooked recipe is actually do-able but the finished bird is sure to impress your family and friends. I followed the recipe quite precisely except changing and adding a few tweaks here and there and the bird turned out a sure winner and absolute delight to eat. The only slightly tedious part is that the chicken needs to be marinated overnight and the glutinous rice and mushrooms soaked overnight but the next day is quite easy peasy. Nevertheless, its worth putting in a bit of extra effort and you can be sure you are going to latch on and save this recipe for the special occasion when you invite some guests over for a dinner party.

Recipe for roasted chicken with glutinous rice stuffing: adapted from Pig's pig's corner, Rita's blog and noobcook

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
Salt (I used 1/2 tsp)
For marinade:
1 tbs grated ginger
1 tbs garlic - finely minced
2 tbs Lee Kum Kee char siew sauce
1 tbs honey
1 tbs dark soy sauce
1 tsp 5 spice powder
1 tsp white pepper powder
For rice:
2 rice cups glutinous rice
10 Chinese mushrooms - soak until softened and sliced
2 Chinese sausages (I used 1 black 1 normal)
1 tbs dried shrimps - rinsed and coarsely chopped
2 tbsp roasted peanuts
1/4 cup Shaoxing wine
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup water used for soaking mushrooms
Rice seasonings:
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs kecap manis
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbs dark soy sauce
1 tbs light soy sauce (I used 1 teaspoon)
1/2 tsp white pepper powder

Directions:
The day before:
Clean and trim chicken. Pat dry with paper towels.
Generously rub salt all over chicken and the inside of the cavity. Leave to stand for about 30 mins.
Mix together ingredients for marinade and rub marinade all over chicken and the inside of the cavity. Wrap with cling flim and refrigerate overnight.
Soak glutinous and Chinese mushrooms (in separate containers) in water and leave overnight.

The next day:

Before roasting, prepare glutinous rice stuffing.
Drain rice, leave aside for later use.
Slice the mushrooms, Chinese sausages and chop up some dried shrimps.
Heat up a non-stick pot, add Chinese sausages, fry until browned.
Discard some oil in the pot, leaving about 1 tbs of oil in the pot. Add dried shrimps. fry until fragrant.
Add mushrooms. Add rice. Pour in rice wine and seasonings and toss rice. Add chicken stock and water used for soaking mushrooms. Mix. Bring to boil then reduce heat to simmer. Cover and leave to cook for about 20 mins.
Stuff the cooked rice into the chicken's cavity. You will havea bout half of the stuffing left, so you can start eating now =) no need to resist!
Place on a roasting rack.
Roast at pre-heated oven (220°C for 30 mins).
Remove bird from oven, baste it and continue roasting at 200°C for another hour or until done for a 2kg chicken (I roasted mine for 30 minutes at 220°C and then 45-50 minutes at 200°C for my 1.7kg bird). Check by piercing the the thigh with a knife, juices should run clear. You may have to cover with foil half way through to prevent it from burning.

Loh hon chai/chai choy/Buddha's delight recipe

This recipe is a traditional mixed vegetarian dish that is typically devoured on the first day of CNY. I have grown up loving this dish since I was a child and it was a treasured dish to savour as I only got to eat it once a year in my grandmother's house during Chinese New Year. The typical vegetables in this dish are carrots, mushroom and chinese cabbage(one can also add choy sum or cauliflower) but the highlights are the other ingredients such as tau foo pok, dried lily bud, fatt choy (symbolising prosperity), beancurd sticks, gingko nuts, fried tau kan, black fungus and glass noodles. The final product is a mouthwatering slightly sweet and savoury dish that goes perfectly with a bowl of piping hot rice. The dish actually tastes even better the next day as flavours from the sauce seep into the vegetables and other assorted ingredients. The main essential ingredient to the sauce that distinguishes it is the red fermented beancurd. Added condiments include shiitake mushroom vegetarian oyster sauce, shao xing wine, sesame oil and sugar. I made quite a generous portion of this dish to save it for the next day and I must admit I was rather pleased that it turned out really well for my first attempt and received the thumbs up from both my parents.

Recipe for loh hon cha/chai choy/Buddha's delight:

Ingredients:

about 7 - 9 cloves of garlic (about 1/2 bulb), chopped
2 walnut size shallot, chopped
about 3 - 4 small squares/ 1.5 large squares (40 - 50g) of red fermented beancurd 紅腐乳/ 南乳 (hong fu ru/ nam yee), mashed with 2 tbsp of the red pickling juice(I used 4)
2 tbsps MAGGI® Shitake Mushroom Vegetarian Oyster Flavoured Sauce
1 tbsp MAGGI® Light Soy Sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp shao xing wine
2 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp white pepper
about 1/4 cup of cooking oil (less if you preferred down to about 3 - 4 tbsp)
1 cup water/200 ml (I ended up using a lot as I had a lot of ingredients so I used 200ml mushroom soaking water and 200 ml chicken stock)

8 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked and halved
1 lb Nappa cabbage, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
6 - 8 pieces Fried tofu (tofu pok) - halved
3 long pieces dried bean curd (foo chook) - soaked and break into small pieces
75g black fungus - Wan yee - soaked
30g lily bulbs - soaked and tied into knots
16 precooked gingko nuts
40g presoaked glass noodles
10g presoaked fatt choy

Method:
1) Heat some oil and fry 1/3 of the minced to a golden hue, then throw in the hard part of the cabbage to be mixed with the garlic oil. Fry for a few seconds then follow by the leaves of the cabbage. Fry until the leaves collapse and the moisture is dispelled from the leaves, about 5 minutes. Scoop out and set aside.

2)Heat oil then add garlic and shallot and fry for about 2 minutes till fragrant. Then add mashed fermented beancurd and stir for few minutes till fragrant.

3) Add shitake mushroom and beancurd stick, carrots, gingko nuts, lily buds, tau foo pok and stirfry for 3 minutes.

4) Then return the cabbage and stir fry mixing well. Add some of the water, bring to the boil, add the seasonings, then reduce heat, cover with lid and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Adjust taste (may need to add more red beancurd if not enough flavour).

5) Then add in the glass noodles and fatt choi. You need quite a bit of liquid for the noodles to absorb while they cook. If not enough add more water/stock. Stir and cook for about 2 minutes till bubbly hot, do not cook too long or the noodles will be very soft. Simmer until sauce has thickened and add enough sesame oil and ground pepper to taste. (I thought my dish was slightly dry so next as I still had about 100ml reserved so next time I'll add in the remaining stock/liquid).


*Always add in the longest to cook items first then the rest, can add in stages.

Pan seared salmon on baby spinach with tarragon cream sauce

I found this recipe on Closetcooking and it was an adaption of a Bon Appetit recipe featured on epicurious.com, an exceedingly popular gourmet food website with millions of recipes accumulated from the finest chefs in the world. The recipe itself was tried by at least 130 people with the average rating of 4 out of 5 stars. The recipe looked relatively simple, quick and didn't require an extensive list of ingredients. I decided to give this recipe a shot as salmon is one of my favourite fish and in my opinion, the best way to cook it is to panfry it so that the skin crips up perfectly. Pairing it with a delicious creamy sauce on a bed of wiltered spinach makes this dish extremely inviting and brings it up to a whole new level of fine dining gourmet experience. After skimming through some of the comments, I decided to triple the sauce and double the amount of spinach as these were the only complaints for this recipe. The dish turned out uber fantastic and the salmon seared up so that it was nice and crispy on the outside and yet it melted in your mouth. I especially loved the tarragon creamy sauce. Tarragon has an anise like flavour when raw though it mellowed out nicely when it was cooked. I also added a bit of king oyster mushrooms and garlic as recommended from one of the users as I had some leftovers and the silky smooth mock abalone texture from the mushrooms and aromatic garlic actually added more flavour to the sauce! The recipe probably will taste even better if I had white wine but since it was not available, I used chicken stock instead to deglaze the pan. I think another vital step is not to throw away all of the juices and butter from the pan after you have seared the salmon and use some of this delicious caramelized juices when making the sauce and spinach. I'll probably make this again soon once I get hold of a fresh new salmon.

Recipe for pan-seared salmon on baby spinach with tarrago cream sauce adapted from Closetcooking and epcurious.com

Ingredients

2 7-ounce skinless salmon fillets (I used 570g of 2 salmon steaks)
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter

3 large shallots, sliced (I used 10 shallots)
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon (I used 4 1/2 tablespoons of fresh tarragon)
3 ounces baby spinach leaves
I added 6 cloves garlic

1/3 cup dry white wine (I substituted with 1 cup chicken stock)
1/4 cup whipping cream (3/4 cup cream)

Method:

Sprinkle salmon with salt and pepper. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add salmon; sauté until just opaque in center, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer to plate.
Melt 1/2 tablespoon butter in same skillet. Add half of shallots and half of tarragon and half of the garlic; sauté 30 seconds. Increase heat to high; add half of spinach and toss 30 seconds. Add remaining spinach; toss until wilted. Divide between plates.
Melt remaining 1/2 tablespoon butter in same skillet over medium-high heat. Add remaining shallots, tarragon and garlic; sauté 30 seconds. Add wine/stock to deglaze the pan then add cream and boil until sauce is thick enough to coat spoon, about 3 minutes. (I found that after 6 minutes the sauce had not reduced much so I had to thicken it slightly with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons water) Season with salt and pepper. (I didn't add salt at all). Place the salmon on the spinach and pour the sauce over. Bon appetit!!!

Claypot chicken rice with lap cheong

This for the Chinese is traditional comfort food. There are many variations but the classic consists of diced chicken pieces marinated in a sticky savoury dark sauce, Chinese sausages (lap cheong) and dried salty fish that goes perfectly with the charred rice. Everything is simmered in the claypot over a charcoal stove giving this dish a distinctive flavour. In Hong Kong, its called the '4 flavoured rice' although people normally devour this delicious piping hot dish during the Autumn and Winter (so shouldn't it called the 2 season rice?) when the temperature drops. The salted fish actually enchances the taste of the claypot rice but I left it out as my dad thinks its too salty. I added Shiitake mushrooms to it as well as I felt that that the dish was lacking in vegetables. You can also add bok choy to it but I thought that it may dilute the other delicious flavours and soften the rice making it undesirably soggy as normally a lot of water and juices are released when vegetables are steamed. I garnished it with spring onions and golden fried crispy garlic to make the dish appear more appealing. The recipe actually calls for 4 tablespoons of garlic oil and a drizzle of 1 tablespoon of dark soya sauce before serving but I omitted that as the dish was sufficent in salt and there was already some oil coating the rice from the lap cheong. (Who wants to eat rice swimming in oily greasy lard, anyway?) The rice turned out to be light and fluffy (not too hard or too soft) and the chicken pieces and mushrooms tender and tasty from the marination (I marinated it for 2 hours) and it was complimented by the slightly fatty juicy chinese sausages. This is an easy recipe that is definitely for keeps.

Claypot chicken rice recipe adapted from lily's wai sek hong kitchen and My Kitchen Snippet's website

Ingredients:

2 cups rice, washed and drained
3 cups chicken stock (I used 1 1/4 Knorr chicken bouillon cubes dissolved in 3 cups of water)
4 chicken thighs cut into pieces (bone in chicken pieces can also be used)
5 Chinese mushrooms, soaked, cut into half (I used 8)
1 Chinese sausage, sliced (I used 4)
1 ½ cm thick salted fish, sliced thinly, fried till crispy (I omitted this)
1 tbsp black soya sauce (omitted)
4 tbsp garlic oil (omitted oil but kept the garlic)

Marinade:

2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1 tsp of ginger juice (grated a knob of ginger and squeeze)
1 tbsp sesame oil
½ tsp pepper
1 tsp sugar
½ tbsp corn flour


Garnishing:

Spring onion chopped

Method:

1. Mix chicken, mushrooms with marinade and ginger, season for 30 minutes.

2. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok and stir-fry marinated chicken meat for 1 minutes. (I actually stir-fried it for about 5 minutes or more to ensure it was cooked). Add mushroom slices, sliced chinese sausage and stir fry for another 2 minutes or so. Dish out and put aside. (You can actually skip this step and just steam the chicken with the rice but I read a few of the comments and realised that many found that the chicken was still undercooked and had to microwave it at the end separately before dumping it in together with the rice).

3.Put rice and chicken stock into a clay pot, cover and bring to boil lower fire and cook with low heat till holes are formed on top. (About 15 minutes) (Stir once in awhile so that rice won't stick to the bottom of the claypot)


4. Spread marinated chickens and mushrooms, Chinese sausages on top, cover and cook with low heat till rice is dry and chicken pieces are cooked (another 15 minutes). Remove from fire.

5. Sprinkle salted fish on top, cover and leave to stand for 10 minutes till rice is dry and fluffy.

6. Before serving, sprinkle spring onionss and garlic, mix in to combine toppings and rice.

Nyonya pineapple prawn curry recipe

Yesterday, I made a srcrumptious dish of pineapple prawn curry. I followed a recipe from a Nyonya cooking book and added a few extra ingredients and the curry turned out to be bursting with a rich fragrant aroma from the spices. This was the first time I made my own curry paste as I was previously unaware of all the spices used such as galangal, candlenuts, turmeric, coriander seeds, fresh and dried chilies. The taste wasn't all that spicy but the creamy coconut milk blended well with all the heavenly spices, fiery red chillies, sweet pineapple chunks and delicate springy prawns. The simmering time is approximately 20-30 minutes as it is vital not to overcook the prawns as they will turn out rubbery! I used fresh coconut milk which my dad bought from the market which really added to the flavoursome exotic curry broth unlike the can coconut milk. Next time, I'll probably add an extra tin of pineapples to balance out the numerous prawns swimming deliciously in this authentic Nyonya curry dish. Perfect with a steaming bowl of rice or vermicelli/beehoon.

Nyonya pineapple prawn curry recipe: Adpated from Penang Nyonya Cooking by Cecilia Tan

Ingredients:

300g medium sized prawns (I used 400g)
1/2 coconut grated squeezed for milk (I used 2 packets thick coconut milk and 1 packet approximately 200ml diluted with 2 cups water)
3 tbsp coriander seeds (ketumbar) pounded
2 stalk lemongrass, white part only
5 shallots
3 cloves garlic
3.5cm fresh young turmeric (kunyit)
2 cm slice galangal
2 candlenuts (buah keras)
5 dried chillies
4 fresh red chillies
3/4 tsp shrimp paste (belacan)
1 small pineapple/1 can of pineapple chunks
8 tbsp cooking oil
salt 1/2 tsp (I also added half a Knorr chicken buillon cube)
sugar 1/4 tsp

Method:
1) Deshell and devein the prawns but keep the tail.
2) Grind coriander into paste and set aside. Blend all other ingredients: chillies, candlenuts. garlic, shallots, turmeric, lemongrass.
3) Heat pot, pour in oil. Add blended ingredients and stir fry 1 minute before adding the coriander and belacan.
4) Add 1/2 of the diluted coconut milk bit by bit to prevent burning. (I then transferred to a claypot)
5) When mixture starts to bubble, add prawns and stif fry 1 minute. Add in rest of diluted coconut milk. Add pineapple and salt and sugar to taste.
6) Boil till pineapple is soft. Add concentrated coconut milk an continue cooking for a few minutes.
7) Lower heat, cover pot and simmer for 20-30 minutes before serving.

Soy sauce chicken recipe

Since it's Chinese New Year, I decided to cook a rather authentic dish called Soy sauce chicken. Its basically a whole glossy chicken simmered in a delicious salty sweet broth brimming with the essence of spices, herbs and Chinese wine. The chicken is silky smooth, tender and juicy and goes fantastically well with a ginger scallion dip. Apparently, this dish is even famous overseas and is being sold in many Chinese BBQ restaurants including Sydney.

I was lucky to find a Chinese recipe from a chef working in Shang Palace in Shangri La Hotel. The chef claims that this traditional recipe has been passed down over a few generations since the 1960's with many key ingredients that make this soy sauce extremely flavourful. Since the recipe called for a whole chicken, I was a bit skeptical at first as the sauce ingredients were not much and I was hesistant that I did not have a pot large enough to contain the entire chicken. So I used chicken leg quarters which is another good alternative and I was quite pleased I made the right choice as the sauce was just adequate enough to fully submerge the chicken legs. I simmered it under low heat for about 30 minutes and by then I could already see the chicken was slightly falling off the bone so I switched it off immediately and allowed it to sit in the wonderful sauce to soak in the flavours. (Note: for 1 whole chicken you probably will have to turn it more often, basting the cavity with sauce occasionally and cooking time will be longer).It's pretty easy to make but the only trouble I faced was carving the chicken. I confess I have horrible knife skills (I didn't go to culinary school) so I couldn't produce perfect chops. Nevertheless, the chicken turned out pretty well, better than I expected and I reserved about a cup full of the remaining sauce.

Soy Sauce Chicken Recipe (豉油鸡)adaopted from Rasa Malaysia
Ingredients:

1 whole chicken or 3-4 chicken leg quarters (about 3 - 3 1/2bs)
2-inch ginger (skin peeled and lightly pounded)
4 cloves garlic (lightly pounded)
2 stalks scallions (cut into 2-inch lengths)
3 star anise
1 cinnamon stick (about 2-inch length)
1 dried tangarine peel soaked first to soften
1 dried honey dates (optional)
1 cup soy sauce (I used 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup dark soy sauce (I used a few tablespoons less than 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup Chinese rose wine (preferred) or Shaoxing wine (I used Shaoxing wine)
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
3 dashes white pepper powder
4 oz. rock sugar
4 cups water

Ginger and Scallion Dip

1/2 cup ginger (skin peeled, pounded, and finely chopped)
1/2 cup scallion (cut into thin rounds)
1 clove garlic
1/2 heap teaspoon chicken bouillon powder
1/2 heap teaspoon salt
1 cup oil
1 tbsp white vinegar

Method:

To prepare the ginger and scallion dip, place the ginger, scallions, salt, vinegar and chicken bouillon powder into a small bowl. Heat up 1 cup of oil in a wok and add the garlic clove. Once it turns black and oil starts to smoke, pour the oil into the small bowl and blend well. Beware of sizzling reaction! Set aside.

Add all ingredients (except the chicken) into a deep pot and bring it to boil on high heat for 15 minutes. Add the chicken quarters into the pot and boil over high heat for about 10 minutes. Lower the heat to simmer on low fire for about 30 minutes. Once in a while, move the chicken around so the skin won't burn. Halfway through, turn the chicken over to get even browning. Use a skewer to pierce the thickest part of the thigh. If the juice that runs out is reddish, give it another 3 min or so, switch off fire and let it steep in the sauce and heat for a couple of min. Turn off heat and let the chicken steeped in the soy sauce mixture for a few hours to soak in the flavor. Dish out the chicken quarters, rub with a bit of sesame oil before chopping into pieces and serve immediately with the ginger scallion dipping sauce. (Soy sauce chicken is usually served cold or at room temperature.) A plate of white rice, some greens or sliced cuke will go well with this.

Cook’s Notes:

Some dark soy sauce is darker than others. If you have a very dark soy sauce, you should probably use less.
Dongbo Rou (东波肉) in a Shanghai restaurants uses dried honey dates (蜜枣) to make their soy sauce mixture. Dried honey dates impart delicate and natural sweet taste to soups and stews and widely used in Cantonese cuisine. It’s optional if you don’t have them.
Save the soy sauce mix. It’s great for soy sauce eggs. Add a few hard-boiled eggs into the soy sauce mix and steep them overnight and you have some great tasting Chinese soy sauce eggs (滷蛋). You can also use the soy sauce mixture to make soy sauce tofu (滷水豆腐); deep fry the tofu and soak it with the soy sauce before serving.

Tenji Japanese Buffet Review

First of all, what happened to these items?

Unagi missing in action

Mouthwatering specialty; Singapore Chili Crab: not in sight

NO JUICY LAMB ROLL!!!

clams in Chinese superior stock; didn't see this

Vietnamese style prawns also missing

And I thought these were SUPPOSED to be BIGGER:

From top to bottom: cod and white pomfret steamed, scallop, abalone supposed to come fresh in a shell like a jewel, a WIDE variety of Haagan Daz ice cream, oyster

Our cod turned out so miniature in comparison to this plus they gave us the part with loads of fork-like bones. As for the pomfret, we were given a black pomfret; a poor choice of a fish for steaming.

Fresh succulent scallops that is suppose to pop in your mouth; mine wasn't that fresh

Gigantic strips of abalone!!! What happened to ours?!?

A wide selection of Haagan Daz flavours...instead of our 2 pathetic flavours

The oysters weren't all that huge, smaller than my palm's size.

Since it was CNY eve, my family and I decided to head down to Solaris Mont Kiara to try the Tenji Japanese buffet. Since I was a first-timer, I had quite high expectations of the place since both my parents raved that they served a wide variety of food that was definitely up to standards in terms of taste, quality and freshness. I was quite eager to try their specialities: grilled unagi, steamed cod, steamed white pomfret, deep fried soft shell crab, roast lamb roll, clams in superior stock, scallops, oysters, abalone, Singapore Chilli crab and sashimi. On the previous night, I did a bit of research and read that most of the food blogs praised the succulent, tender grilled eel, the extremely large sized oysters that you can wonderfully slurp on, the melt-in-the-mouth cod fish with the flavourful seasoned sauce and the juicy roast lamb roll seared to perfection that must be immediately seized upon arrival as once it's finished will be replaced by a not so glamorous seafood pizza. We booked our table for the supper session and got there around 9:10pm. We waited for about 15 minutes before finally being ushered to a cosy corner table indoors.

On first sight of the place, I was quite impressed that they did the atmosphere quite extravagantly with slightly dim patio lights admist a pebbled walkway lined with a few attractive potted plants that led to the main entrance. The indoor setup equally matched the outdoor arena and was bursting with a hazy purplish glaze that was rather welcoming. The food presentation was quite appetising on sight and the food were delicately placed on poreclain plates and some on wooden boats such as the sushi section carefully laid upon a rack of ice to seal its freshness. It was basically divided into a few main sections; Japanese, Chinese, Western, outdoor BBQ and grill, desserts and drinks. There was ample space to walk around which allowed the diner to roam freely while scouring for food. The crowd was small and totally unlike the bustling queue with hoards of people swarming over every single food section proclaimed from other food blogs. After being shown our seats, I went for a walk around to peek at the dishes eagerly hoping to discover the 'famous' and 'recommended' dishes I heard about from my parents and cited by many food bloggers.

To my utter dismay I COULDN'T find a SINGLE MORSEL OF UNAGI, SINGAPORE CHILLI CRAB and GRILLED LAMB ROLL. On questioning the staff they replied that they didn't have these food items even for the dinner crowd. I was quite fustrated that the restaurant decided to cut down on their expenses but what infuriated me the most was that the lack of UNAGI. I mean, the only place you can actually find unagi is in a Japanese restaurant so a Japanese restaurant without unagi is just like Mcdonalds without burger and fries. I cannot believe they actually decided to skip out on a MAIN AND ESSENTIAL dish that is although pricey, defines the exquisite taste of Japanese cuisine. My hopes for this place was rapidly dissipating.

Anyway I told myself, leave out those items and sample the rest of the other dishes; who knows they may turn out extremely delicious. And I was not proven wrong over many of the recommended dishes especially the steamed cod, pomfret, crispy deep-fried soft shell crab and abalone. My parents on the other hand stated that the steamed cod was not as scrumptious as compared to their last visit and came up with a hypothesis that most of the foods were leftovers from the dinner session which probably explained their lower degree of 'freshness' and 'quality'. However, the highlight of the evening for me was cheese baked escargot. Now, I have never tried, once in my life, escargot, but one bite of the sticky cheesy mollusc that popped out of it's shell oh-so-ever-easily with a dab of your chopsticks sent me literally to heaven. Mum, on the other hand said the cheese was a bit hard and solidified probably due to air-conditioning and not replacing with fresh ones. I thought it was rather good and probably whacked one plate of the slimy molluscs (who knew that creepy crawly snails that produced gelatinous amounts of yucky slime could actually send your tastebuds to cloud 9). The guy at the Western section gave me a little smile each time I took a spoonful of the escargot.

The rest of the other Japanese food like the abalone was plump and juicy to the bite (in comparison to the not-so-fresh scallops), the oysters wobbly in its goodness and taste, the tempura prawn and soft shell crab tasty and deep-fried to a crispy crunch and the salmon sashimi tender and fresh. I didn't bother wasting my time popping a clip for the teriyaki chicken as I read it only faired average. Moving on to the grilled section, the lamb was rather flavourful in terms of seasoning but it was a bit tough and after a few bites you kind of feel you are chewing on rubber. The same goes for the roast duck. The chicken wings sauce was slightly tangy, sweet with a hint of saltiness and would deserve a lavish amount of praise but unfortunately the piece I took was a bit undercooked as there were still bloody red juices evident in some parts of the flesh. (Still cannot compare to Wong Ah Wah grilled chicken wings). The Chinese section fared so-so only with the cod fish being one of the better prized dishes. The pomfret they cooked was a black pomfret which is not ideal for steaming (according to dad) and the piece they served was miniscule in size which greatly differed from one that I read about. The chinese yee mee (or was it longevity noodles?) was surprisingly above average compared to the local coffee-shops in the sense that the sauce deliciously clung to the noodles and not drowned or smothered it and the noodles were still springy despsite being laden for a few hours with sauce. The worst dish in my opinion was probably the sweet and sour chicken (bleh, and I thought my home-cooked sweet and sour chicken was actually a level above theirs considering that it's not that great in the first place). The chicken pieces were solid rock hard, the sauce was bland and the dish basically resembled tasteless chicken with tomato ketchup hastily smeared on top. There weren't even the tradtional onions, pineapple pieces or green capscicums to compliment it. The Western section served pan-fried salmon belly which was not bad but the roast lamb and beef were utterly horrendous. It was just too tough to chew on; my teeth were literally breaking into it. (It just a giant slab of meat that couldn't be torn apart even with the aid of a fork and knife). I took a bit of the fettucini in cream sauce to try and I found it to be merely average. It didn't have any bacon or any sort of meat in it nor mushrooms which is typical of fettucini carbonara and I suspected that the chef was very stingy with the cream sauce. I didn't bother about the dessert section as I am not fond of desserts but I could clearly see that dad enjoyed the Baskin Robbins ice-cream which so happened to be conveniently located next door to our table.

Overall, I would give this place a 6.5/10. There were some good and not so good items but this could be attributed because we went for the supper session which meant that we were having the left-overs from the earlier diners. The standards would probably be higher if you go for the afternoon/dinner session. And also the fact that they didn't serve unagi, chili crab and grilled lamb roll which are supposedly their top dishes. I cannot stress how insanely ricdiculous and illogical it is for a popular Japanese buffet restaurant to fore-go on unagi. Would i go there again? Probably only if they start serving back their unagi, grilled lamb roll and Singapore chili crabs (all I got was singapore chili clams which were puny). After all, the customers deserve their money's worth. Oh and did I mention they only had two Haagan Daz ice-cream flavours? Clearly another cut down on their prized selection. Luckily for me I'm not all that much of an ice-cream lover.

Rating:
Taste: 6.5/10
Atmosphere: 7/10
Service: 6/10

Fave of the day: YUMMYLICOUS CHHESY BAKED ESCARGOT!!!



Note: All pictures officially taken from Tenji Japanese Buffet food review from several Malaysian food blogs