Al-Amar @ Pavilion KL

Pavilion KL is not only know for its glam, fashion and expensive cars.. (most ideal place to apply for a jockey position) but it is also the home to many exclusive known or unknown local and international delights. On the highest floor of this mall exists some of the rarest and most exclusive restaurants one could find. Most of the names you've never even heard of, but are incredibly famous if you look up online. This particular post is about the consecutive winner of Malaysia's best restaurant and multi-award winning Lebanese restaurant, Al-Amar.

Located quite strategically at the centre of the most top floor of Pavilion. With a lot of room to roam around infront of the restaurant, it is pretty hard to miss. Operational hours: 10am to 2am daily.

The classy inside seatings. The restaurant is well themed with red coloured Lebanese decorations (from lights to furnitures) You can tell that most items are imported overseas. There are many types of seatings, so survey around before you choose your table ;)

The outside seatings. Would definitely opt to sit outside if we came at night.. for the view and the breeze of KL town. It is also facing down towards the main outdoor compound of Pavilion. If there are any concerts going on down below, this would be a good place to take a peek and avoid all the dangerous human traffic below. OR if you simply want to enjoy the Shisha service provided by the house.

The head chef (in black) is the one who actually made this restaurant famous. He frequently participates himself in MIGF (Malaysian International Gourmet Festival) and won quite a number of awards such as 'Best signature dish' for Hommos, Mixed grill and Fattoush. KL Timeout has also awarded Al-Amar as 2009 and 2010's Best middle eastern restaurant in Malaysia. Not only that, it is also one of Malaysia's Best restaurants of 2009. Simply head to the wall and check out how many individual awards and restaurant awards they have won (pretty sure they have a few trophies hidden too =P)

Hommos. RM16. Mashed chick peas with sesame seed paste and dash of lemon juice, topped with olive oil. One of the restaurant's award winning signature dish! It completely deserves the title as this one stands above the rest compared to all the hommos we've tasted elsewhere before. For those who are not familiar with this dish, it might taste a little weird at first but easier said, it tastes a little bit like cheese. Good thick texture and goes very well with the bread. A+ for presentation and a must try dish!

Pita bread. Complimentary. This is the bread you eat together with the Hommos. Very soft and plain, yet after a few bites mixed with the Hommos, you will beg for more..

Chicken chawarma sandwich. RM18. They have been called many names chawarma/shawarma but to us Malaysian, it is simply known as kebab (which to them 'kebab' is skewered meat :P) The kebab is quite dry but there are pickels and an unidentifiable object which tasted like french fries to add to the flavour. The bread itself is fluffy and easy to chew.

 If you are a heavily sedated (no pun intended) lebanese kebab fans such as us, you would know how to eat them in the best way possible.. with GARLIC CREAM SAUCE!!!!! The kebab gets 10x better with this little beauty right here. FYI garlic sauce is a very common condiment to go with any dish in a lebanese cuisine. (Like chilli sauce to Malaysians) You could even eat it with your rice! This is the one thing we always ask for at every middle eastern restaurant we go to =)

Fish kebbeh. RM18. Fried fish bowls stuffed with glazed onions and pine seeds served on a bed of tajin. Nothing says 'exotic food' like a bunch of weird ingredients cooked together to form a meal. The shell was salty and the onion filling was sour. Eaten together with the gravy, it makes for a pretty balanced and okay appetizer. It was worth the try, but not for a repeat order.

Lamb kabbseh. RM44. Steamed marinated lamb with basmati rice cooked with tomato and spices accompanied with  their specially made sauce. This here was a dish worth to eat! It had A LOT of thick and big lamb chunks that were amazingly soft and delicious! The rice was good enough to eat all by itself and sometimes we got a surprise sweet flavour from its raisins. A delightful dish indeed and our personal favourite from the shop!

Chicken kebbeh. RM38.  Kabbseh or khabsa or kabbsa generally means a meal served with rice. This one is good as well for those who can't eat lamb. A succulent quarter chicken that is well marinated and goes fantastic with the rice. But IMHO it simply cannot top the taste of the lamb ;)

Standard mixed grill. RM58. One lahem mechwe skewer (beef cubes), one chic taouk skewer (chicken breasts cubes) and two kafta skewers (hollowed lamb meat). This shop is well known for another type of mixed grill, which we were not able to afford during that visit. It is twice (or more) the price of this standard mixed grill. This meal is good for those who enjoy a little creativity in preparing their own meal. You can basically eat it any way you want! Roll together with the bread and mixed with fresh onions and tomatoes inside and finish it off with a dip of garlic sauce or just eat them one by one. 

Lamb cutlets. RM49. Marinated in 7 spices and olive oil sauce. Not the optimal quantity of food we would like to be spending that much amount of money on. But as far as fine dining dishes are priced, this tasted magnificent due to its marinade. Tasted similar to the marinade found at Seremban 2 Seafood Steamboat and BBQ's lamb if you ask me.

Half grilled chicken. RM27. A wholesome plate for big eaters. It was a normal dish.

Achtalieh. RM15. A cream cheese pudding bathed in traditional sugar syrup and decorated with chopped pistachio nuts, almonds and pine nuts. IMHO, this dessert tasted rather plain.

Baklawa. RM12. These are traditional Lebanese sweets. A top recommendation from the restaurant's staff. Clearly much better than the one above as it had more taste (sweet) and a crispy outside texture. A joy to eat =)

Dishing it out: If the environment does not give you enough reason to visit this restaurant, maybe dining to the food prepared by a highly qualified gourmet chef would! This is Middle Eastern / Lebanese cuisine fine dining at its best! Prepare to be amazed by the level of culinary artistry on some of his gourmet dishes ;)
If you'd like to skip all the exclusivity and just grab 1 or 2 items from their menu, you can do so by visiting their Al-Amar Express which is located across the street from Pavilion at Farenheit 88.

P/S: If it is your first time visiting this restaurant, we can imagine it would be pretty hard to go through the menu. It took us a while too, eventhough we've been to many non-exclusive yet still expensive middle eastern restaurants =P hopefully this post will help you to get a glimpse of what is good to order.



Coming back for more value: MAYBE for their signature mixed grill and other gourmet dishes.
Crowd: YES
Cleanliness: CLEAN
Service: VERY GOOD efficient staff (mostly foreign), fast service, food served in a flash! (till we had trouble catching up to take pictures of each)
Category: HALAL/PORK-FREE

GPS Coordinates: N3.148237,E101.713413


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If you'd like to know the COMPLETE ADDRESS of the restaurant, please click on the "Location" tab below. (After Facebook comments and right before Blogger comments, its in between!)

Tel: 03 2166 1011

 ..and that's our "DISH" of the day!!!!!

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Mak Jah Mee Udang @ Wangsa Maju

Mee Udang is another type of delicacy that can be found famous in certain states of Malaysia. Having tasted one of the best and famous ones in Penang, we craved to have more of this dish.  For us, the key to a good bowl of mee udang is the freshness and the size of the prawn used and most importantly the taste of the soup. 

The famous Mee Udang Mak Jah from Kuala Sepetang Perak has recently opened their first branch in Wangsa Maju, Kuala Lumpur. Longing for a bowl of Mee Udang goodness, we paid the restaurant a visit!

Entrance of the shop, with a unique signage of two giant prawns. Operational hours: 11.30am to 10pm. (But if there are many customers, they would wait till the last one leaves)  

The seating inside the shop. All the wall décor are in black and white pictures of their shop in Kampung Menteri, Kuala Sepetang Perak. There are plenty of tables in place to cater to the mass crowd. It was pretty pack during the time of our visit and each table was close to one another.

The outside (covered) seatings. Customers of the shop are mostly from the Malay demographic.

Mee Udang Special Mak Jah. RM 12. With 6 medium size prawns. There is a big different in term of taste of the gravy for mee udang Mak Jah than the one tasted in Penang. (Though it had a little bit too much celery in it) This version of mee udang is a little bit spicy with a tinge of sweetness (Mrs Foodpacker, being a fan of spicy food, simply favored this one better) However, the size of the prawns are only medium here. Mr Foodpacker slurped to the last drop despite the overwhelming heat!

This is how the prawns look like after being skilfully peeled off by Mr Foodpacker ;) His face was literally dripping with sweat after he was done with this one!

Nasi Goreng Udang Special. RM 12. With 7 medium size prawns. The fried rice consists of fried anchovies and celery served with a puddle of mee udang soup (right at the back in the picture). The fried rice taste just fine. The let down of this dish was that, the prawns were tasteless, and we suspected that they had precook the prawns and then mixed it with the fried rice after. This could have been a nice dish if only they cook the prawns together with the rice, so that the sweet taste of the prawn can be embedded into the rice, which is what was missing in this one.

All the prawns we dug out from down under the land of fried rice XD

Udang Goreng Kunyit. RM 13. With 7 medium size prawns. This was the highlight of our visit. The prawns were well marinated with turmeric and salt, then fried with celery. Try taking of the shell and mixing it with the ingredients in the bowl for a tasty explosion of flavours! Rather salty if consume on its own, it is best to be eaten with plain rice to soften down the taste of the salt and turmeric.

Telur Dadar. RM 1.50. You might need this additional dish to go with your plain rice and Udang Goreng Kunyit. Simply fluffy.

Dishing it out: For a fan of mee udang around KL/Klang valley area, you should definitely give this one a try. You don't have to go all the way North to find a good plate of Mee Udang anymore! (Thought the taste differs in a way that it tastes more spicy down South, but a little sweet up North. Different states in Malaysia prefer different taste perhaps) Also we love the fact that they set a fixed price for their prawn dishes instead of using the price per gram pricing like the ones in Penang. This way one does not have to worry about how much a bowl of mee udang might cost them when the bill hits! =P

Coming back for more value: ABSOLUTELY YES for the mee udang and udang goreng kunyit.
Crowd: YES
Cleanliness: MODERATE (chairs and table are slightly dirty and not well wiped)
Service: GOOD
Category: HALAL/PORK-FREE

GPS Coordinates: N03.197008, E101.740576


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If you'd like to know the COMPLETE ADDRESS of the restaurant, please click on the "Location" tab below. (After Facebook comments and right before Blogger comments, its in between!)

Tel: 012 2931 101

..and that's our "DISH" of the day!!!!!

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Eden (Oriental - Dim Sum) @ KLIA

[Additional info: They charge RM6 for ground nuts given at the start of meal and RM5 for cold tower given after the meal.]

I can't remember when was the first time I saw this shop. There was once a branch in Subang Parade which has now closed down and the only remainder is the one from Penang (at Hutton Lane & Batu Ferringhi) which serves a completely different cuisine (Western) But for frequent air travelers, I'm sure they are quite familiar with this restaurant if they ever stop by KLIA. Being one of the best (and exclusive, just look at its price!!!) restaurants on the departure deck to get good quality food, this restaurant has stood its ground since the early years when KLIA was newly built!

Eden has gone through a little renovation recently to better accommodate customer with a newly built lounge. Cozy indeed. Operational hours: 6:30am to 11pm daily.

The not really "outside" seating where most customers prefer to dine. Eden is well known for their selection of Dim Sum. Rather than going through the menu, they would put a few Dim Sum samples on your table for you to choose from. The Dim Sum vary from fried and steamed variety.

Fried rice with crispy fine dried scallops. Small RM28. [Medium RM42.] Large RM56. The name is like a beautiful melody which sings to our ears. The taste? You can bet it's as nice as it sound!

Stir fried kailan with garlic. [Small RM30.] Medium RM45. Large RM60. Who knew a simple kailan dish can cost up to RM60? haha If you can look pass the price this is actually a pretty good dish, thanks to the surprisingly mashed, tender and creamy garlic which looks and taste as soft as potato! We were truly amazed by how soft the garlic were and they are just a pleasure to taste in your mouth!

Stir fried sliced tenderloin with crispy almonds. Small RM58. [Medium RM87.] Large RM116. One of the most expensive dish in the restaurant, and for a good reason too. For one, it a tenderloin cut and the other.. those are freaking almonds man!!! haha not your regular nut but it combines well with the beef and in time, you'll find yourself looking for any remaining almond to eat with its succulent beef. Truly one of a kind dish.

Baked fresh ruby prawns with creamy butter sauce. Small RM55. [Medium RM85.] Large RM110. This dish, despite the price, is just an okay dish. Everyone knows once you've tasted any butter dish from Gold Chilli, there will be none that is better XD The prawns are medium in size, and we requested them to peel of its skin for ease of eating. The butter sauce was small in quantity and it tasted quite light with not much taste. On a side note, we've also tried the "crispy" butter prawn (dry version) and it was 10x better than this.

Dishing it out: Undoubtedly the only thing that turns off the beautifully named dishes in this restaurant is its highly overrated price. But one could not expect less for the level of service and environment provided. Don't forget the fact that most shops tend to sell their products at a slightly more expensive price in airports (Airport price as they call it). This one is not excluded. Though we did not post pictures of Dim Sum in this post, let me assure you that they serve one of the best we've tasted. A few highly notable ones that we could remember are Chee Cheong Fun, Shark Fin and Shrimp Dim Sum and there were a lot more which we can't seem to recall their name.

Coming back for more value: YES when we have the $$$$$
Crowd: NO
Cleanliness: CLEAN
Service: GOOD
Category: HALAL/PORK-FREE

GPS Coordinates: 2.754605,101.705114


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If you'd like to know the COMPLETE ADDRESS of the restaurant, please click on the "Location" tab below. (After Facebook comments and right before Blogger comments, its in between!)

Tel: 03 8787 3812

..and that's our "DISH" of the day!!!!!

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Bubur Berlauk Kampung Baru / KB Tomyam & Seafood @ Kampung Baru

Nobody wants to get in the mess of Kg Baru. The roads are small, there are many one way streets, simply too many cars and the parking is OMG unbelievably hard to find! But one can do so much to avoid all the tasty treats this infamous location has to offer. From all the tomyam restaurants available in Kg Baru, this particular one is known for their Bubur Berlauk aka Porridge with condiments. (if you tried to search for one, you'll know how hard it is to find for a shop which sells this item)

Note: Price is mention as an overall from the visit

The easiest place you could find a parking is a RM5 pay park located nearby at the same side of the road as this shop. Find for the "Parking RM5" sign. Operational hours: 12pm - 1am

The easiest way to identify the shop is to find a blue signboard above and array of "lauk" that is facing the street. The staffs were very humble and friendly when we asked if we could take pictures of the shop. Can I say Southern hospitality? ;)

Click picture to enlarge. Choose choose choose! Anything is up for grabs! Some required to be cooked and fried in the kitchen while others are just cut and served the way they are. Cooking only takes a little while around 5 minutes or so.

Bubur. Unlike bubur from other shops (Suraya Seafood etc) this one has texture and not too watery. It is a little thick and tastes good. Safe to say you won't feel like eating rice with water.

Kailan ikan masin with oyster mushroom. My favourite lauk to go with bubur! Think it looks good? Wait till  you taste it. The mushroom definitely gives a good touch to the dish.

A mixture of 2 types of sotong kering, daging salai and ikan masin. The sotong kering was not that good and we were unable to finish it. The rest tasted great.

Mixture of ikan bilis cili api, lobak manis, daging manis and paru berlada. Love the daging manis the most! IMHO the best lauk to go with the bubur! Sweet tender awesomness. The lobak was nice too.

All the condiments in one bowl. Time to feast!

Dishing it out: So far the best restaurant to find bubur berlauk. Everything blends well as a dish and it was simply tasty. The total damage for all the items above (2 bubur) plus 1 juice and 1 ice lemon tea = RM19.50 I think it a small sum to pay for what you are going to eat. This is Malay cooking to the roots, "kampung" style =)

Coming back for more value: YES
Crowd: NO
Cleanliness: MODERATE
Service: VERY GOOD
Category: HALAL/PORK-FREE

GPS Coordinates: N3.16220,E101.70392


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If you'd like to know the COMPLETE ADDRESS of the restaurant, please click on the "Location" tab below. (After Facebook comments and right before Blogger comments, its in between!)

..and that's our "DISH" of the day!!!!!

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Suraya Seafood @ Kampung Baru

Another shop which offers nasi bubur berlauk in Kg Baru is Suraya Seafood. It is located only a few steps away from Bubur Berlauk Kg Baru. This shop is well known for many of their offerings such as nasi dagang, pulut mangga and kerang bakar to name a few. Note that this particular post only covers their bubur berlauk, thus it might not speak much volume of the real quality of the shop =)

Note: Price is mention as an overall from the visit



The place is occupied more by customers consisting mostly of families and students. Seems like a pretty famous local spot! Operational hours: 7.30pm-12.30am for Tomyam. 1am-8am for Nasi campur.



The array of condiments to go with your bubur. Grab what you like and give them to the girl behind the counter and they will prepare them for you.

Okay, this bubur is different from the one tasted in Kg Baru in terms that this one is water based. (nasi berair) I personally prefer the one at Kg Baru better as it had more flavour and texture. Though I understand that most shops serve their bubur this way, i just couldn't escape the feeling that I am eating rice with plain water =P

Kailan ikan masin! Must go dish with bubur.

Daging manis. IMO didn't taste as good nor as tender as the one from Kg Baru.

Ikan bilis cili padi and Paru sambal.

Dishing it out: Total damage was around RM12 with drinks. As compared to Kg Baru, this shops has its equal pros n cons. Some condiments tasted better in Suraya while same tasted better in Kg Baru. But when it comes down to the most important ingredient of a nasi bubur - the bubur IMHO Kg Baru gets the win. Looking at how this restaurant is always full and its pretty hard to get a seat at times, i am sure there are other delicacies this shop has to offer in their seafood cooking. We have yet to try them and we saw a few good candidates such as their udang tepung to try out! Maybe on or next visit ;)

Coming back for more value: YES for their Tomyam dishes
Crowd: YES
Cleanliness: BELOW AVERAGE
Service: GOOD
Category: HALAL/PORK-FREE


GPS Coordinates: N3.16217,E101.70495


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If you'd like to know the COMPLETE ADDRESS of the restaurant, please click on the "Location" tab below. (After Facebook comments and right before Blogger comments, its in between!)

..and that's our "DISH" of the day!!!!!

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Mali's Corner@ Danau Kota

Credit to Kucai Kuaci for the introduction.

After hearing so much about this place through the tv and friends, (also because we are Char Kuey Teow and Nasi Lemak lovers) we decided to give this one a try. Mali's Corner at Danau Kota, Setapak. Located in one of the happening area of Kuala Lumpur, this shop never seems to stop welcoming their customers even till late in the morning. Mali's corner also benefit from its strategic locations of being just across the street of the mid-night bazaar in this area (Uptown Danau Kota).

Always full. Operational hours: 6pm- till late

Ridiculous and inconvenient self service system. You order food at 1 counter and drinks at the other. They have a total of 3 counters. Talk about a messed up system, or maybe they are just too lazy to care about the long queue. Some people are even blocking the queue as they have to wait for their order. This also creates confusion as to which is the waiting line and which is the ordering line. *stress*

Char kuey teow special (extra prawns). RM7. Large RM5.50. Small RM4.50. Having tasted the tasty and authentic Penang CKT from Ismal Char Kuey Teow , we set our expectation a little lower for Mali's Corner. However, the taste did not fail us at all! Infact it exceeds our expectations of finding the same quality as Ismal's CKT. This CKT is perhaps the best we have tried and to some extent it is better than Ismal's due to it slightly subtle taste of cockles. The gravy is very addictive, a balanced taste of sweet and spicy.

A more focused view with flash. 8 prawns spotted in CKT special. Large only has 3 prawns. The only let down was they were not generous on the quantity of the kuey teow. You would expect more for the price you pay.

Nasi lemak ayam. RM 5.50. Nasi lemak telur RM3. Biasa RM2. We have so far tasted two of the best nasi lemak from Nasi Lemak Ampangan and Darussalam SS15. Expecting this to be the same, however was frankly a let down. The chicken is overcooked, the sambal tasted like chilli sauce mixture, very sweet i might add and the rice portion is so small (I do not think this shop is known for their generousity)

Dishing it out: If you are going to make it worth your trouble, paying for the parking (if you park in its taipan-like compound) and the utterly inconvenient and confusing queuing system.. be sure to order a lot of their CKT. It is a must try and simply one of the tastiest in KL. Do not waste your time on the nasi lemak. As we were also upset to have to queue again to order the drinks, we ended 'outsourcing' our drinks from Ani Sup Utara (another shop nearby).

Coming back for more value: YES definitely for the CKT
Crowd: YES
Cleanliness: CLEAN
Service: QUITE BAD
Category: HALAL/PORK-FREE 

GPS Coordinates: N3.20714,E101.71897


View Mali's Corner in a larger map

If you'd like to know the COMPLETE ADDRESS of the restaurant, please click on the "Location" tab below. (After Facebook comments and right before Blogger comments, its in between!)

 ..and that's our "DISH" of the day!!!!!

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