Monday, July 29, 2013

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Paddy's Coffeehouse New World Suites Bintulu


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Paddy's Coffeehouse is a restaurant serving both local but mostly western halal food located at the fifth floor of New World Suite Hotel. It is one of those restaurant that I seldom visit due to my past 4 experiences here that not only didn't impress me at all but left me wondering why I am spending to spoil my lovely evening here? From past experience the service is not really great and I could still remember calling during Valentine day to ask what course of meal they were serving to their reply "chicken, beef and vegetable"...*GASP*. The main deal breaker is the wait, I hate waiting for my food and I had experience of waiting almost an hour for my chicken cordon bleu which tick me off really bad despite there were only two tables in the whole restaurant.

So you might be wondering why I am back here?Well I guess it was fate as I was stuck in the building due to the downpour and the only place to dine other than having fried chicken and sushi was Paddy's Coffeehouse. Despite its name, Paddy is by no mean a kopitiam. Its quite an expensive restaurant to dine in by Bintulu's standard. They serve mostly western food but also some local food and they are quite famous in offering a variety of mocktail and cocktails.

Upon entering I was greeted by a smoke filled restaurant, I guess the exhaust fan in the kitchen was not working that night? I love the enviroment, it felt really cosy and you get to overview the rivefront park of Bintulu which is gorgeous in the afternoon. I would recommend sitting near the windows in main hall and avoid the big tables at the secluded side. The chair and table are so awkwardly placed it is only suitable for afternoon tea break where you are relaxing but eating is not practical as I find you need to reach your whole body forward to the table to eat.

I ordered the double cheese burger while my partner ordered the ulam fried rice. I was really suprised when the food came under 15 minutes as there was around 4 tables when we came in. The burger was juicy but cold when it came out however I wouldn't say it was bad. The bun was fresh made with chunky beef paddy slipped between processed cheese and a piece of egg.



The ulam fried rice came with prawn, tofu and shrimp paste. The shrimp paste was the highlight, albeit from that it just look as it is. Dull.



To finish it off, we had the silky smooth sweet creme caramel, I love how they decorated it. It wasn't too sweet that made you cringe thinking I am going to have diabetes tomorrow. Overall a great place if you are not in a rush.


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Shabukun Bintulu


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Shabukun is a Japanese restaurant located at ParkCity (same row with SunFlower) that serves a variety of Japanese food although I would not say it is the best due to most of the item on the menu are only available when you are in luck but they are the only Japanese shabu shabu restaurant in Bintulu.

I like the place mainly because of quiet and comfy setting with the whole wooden vibe going around and you get a table which is partly covered so you get a bit of peace and privacy plus some tables even have a DVD player with a selection of movies for you to keep the children on their seats.

Their main business is as you guess from their name, shabu-shabu. Their menu consists of items which you would normally see in any shabu restaurant and to be honest there is nothing to shout about. The night we arrived there was a set meal promotion for RM38 per head only for the month of July. The set meal consists of a bowl of shabu material, fried rice,baby octopus,fried pork,skewered chicken meat,skewered prawn,salad, fried vegetable and a pot of tea. On top of this they allowed you to top up three times for any of the dish. Pictures taken below are for two person portion.






Overall I would say it was alright however I find the material for shabu boring as it consists of chicken frank,mushroom,vegetable and squid which I could have found any of these things at a better place but if you want to have a nice quiet evening out with the missus I would say this is a good place but maybe you might want to wait for this promotion to end and order off the menu.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Xin Yu Yuan Bintulu


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Xin Yu Yuan is a Chinese restaurant located at ParkCity. It has a small air conditioned room although most people would prefer sitting outside in the open air. They serve a variety of local Chinese dishes which you should ask for a menu as from past experiences the person taking order does not know anything unless it's a Chinese guy taking your order.

To be honest, there are a lot of great places for Chinese dishes in Bintulu and this place might be off my radar most of the time as I would not call it bad but just nothing memorable or anything to write home about. However this place does have two particular stalls setup just outside it's door that might interest people. One is selling western food and another which I always came for is the grilled fish.

They have a big cooler with a selection of fish but I find that most of the time they are only left with Tilapia. However I was lucky that the time I wrote this they had "black and white".

Grilled on a hot metal plate which is season or covered with sambal and served with their spicy sauce and also comes with lemons for that mixture of spicy sourly taste . Made me drool just thinking of it. However I find that they also skimp on the sambal, should have covered the whole fish with more of it as that is the main taste of the fish.



Grilled Fish - RM25



New Seoul Korean Restaurant Bintulu


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New Seoul Korean Restaurant is no stranger in Bintulu, it was open back in the 90's when Bintulu had an influx of Korean worker for the MLNG oil and gas project. However they close down and moved over to Miri which I heard was pretty successful there.

As of Late Bintulu is swarm with Korean again due to the ever blooming Samalaju projects and the recent success with the Kidurong Korean House Restaurant proves that even local demographic loves Korean food, New Seoul Korean Restaurant is back again but is it any good?

Located at the old Teapot restaurant or the area of 900Inn, they serve raw meats of pork,chicken and beef for barbeque which they have this hot plate on each table and also Korean food *duh. To be honest I was pretty shocked with the interior design (if there is any) of the restaurant considering this kind of price point, imagine tables in an empty room with no proper roof where you see all the wiring's and pipes. Sorta like dining in a warehouse if you dig that kind of enviroment. Due to the grilling within a closed restaurant the whole place is filled with smoke with no proper ventilation which I did not enjoy at all.

Service was at best described as everyone looked very busy but not really. There is a large selection of foods to choose from the menu and I like how all the food is accompanied with a picture because one of the things I found dining in foreign cuisine is the lack of any information of the food which makes ordering really difficult. We ordered garlic fried rice, kimchi fried rice, kimchi soup or they call Kam Ja if I am not mistaken on the menu, Kimchi pancake and seafood rice cake. I did not bother with the grilling because personally I don't like grilling that much.

Food took pretty long to come out however the person in charge was kind enough to asked "is every order out already?" twice but the rice cake never came out until we were about to leave. Pardon as I didn't take any pictures as I wasn't in a good mood with all the waiting in a smoke filled room.

The garlic fried rice taste great with bits of garlic in it and has this buttery aroma smell, you can basically just eat it off by itself. The Kimchi fried rice came with a fried egg on top and taste just like kimchi as the name suggested. I am not familiar with Korean food but I had kim chi soup before and it was pretty spicy but the kim chi soup we had was boiled with pork and potatoes which taste like bland potato soup. Kimchi pancake is what you would expect egg fried pieces of pancake with Kimchi saurce which I personally like. The seafood rice cake came out when we decided to leave so we asked them to pack it up. It was basically korean rice cake as they call it made of glutoneous rice cook with kimchi, prawn and fish fillet. Portion of all these food mentioned are for two to three person.

Overall personally might come back again but not in the near future due to poor service and the smoke filled room, I waited almost fifteen minutes just for the bill which end up having to personally go to the counter to see that the lady hasn't even started to do my bill yet. There is a variety of food catering for the Korean but price wise I would say it is not for the usual folks as average each dish cost RM30 and way up.

Garlic Fried Rice -RM10
Kimchi Fried Rice - RM10
Kimchi Soup -  RM35
Seafood Rice Cake - RM35
Kimchi pancake - RM35
Orange Juice - RM8
Softdrink -RM3