Restoran Xian Cantonese Cuisine, Cheras, KL

To celebrate the New Year, our family had dinner together at Xian Cantonese Cuisine. It's been a while since we dined at this restaurant. Since our last visit, they have changed restaurant names from My Cantonese Preference to Xian Cantonese Cuisine ... however, still the same owners and same chef. Their new name is synonymous with their approach to freshness in their food.

The food standard and service here is still good. We definitely had a great family dinner here.

Our first dinner of 2017!

First to arrive, still sizzling in the claypot, was the braised pork belly with salted fish aka ham yu fah lam (RM18). We loved that the thin slices of pork belly wasn't too fatty, was tender and very flavorful. Not too spicy either, which meant the kids could enjoy this too.

My favorite dish here is the squid with salted egg yolk (RM21). Crispy and tender at the same time, with that sinful salted egg coating. A must-try here. :)

Hubby's favorite dish here is the crispy chicken with homemade Thai dressing (RM17). Deep fried to crispy perfection, the chicken pieces are coated in the appetizing Thai dressing made up of onions, mango and lime. My darling daughter declared that she loved this dish too.

One of the dishes which really impressed me on our first visit here was the braised homemade beancurd Nanjing style (RM16) and we always order this ever since. The eggy tofu is not as smooth as it used to be, however still delicious. The sauce is very good with white rice.

And stir fried kailan with garlic (RM15) for my mum who loves vege. Nice and crunchy!

Verdict: Taste of food is excellent, portions are generous and prices are reasonable. Definitely one of the best Chinese restaurants in Alam Damai, Cheras area.

Opening times: 11.30am - 2.30pm (Lunch); 6.00pm-10.30pm (Dinner). Closed on Mondays.

Price: RM104.41 for 4 adults 2 children.

Location: Restoran Xian Cantonese Cuisine, 22A Jalan Alam Damai 1, Damai 23, Alam Damai, 56000 Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Street parking available)

Tel: 012-293 0040

GPS Coordinates: 3.071138, 101.742582

Website: https://www.facebook.com/mycantonesecuisine/

If you enjoyed reading my posts, LIKE me on Facebook! You can also follow me on Instagram (@babysumo) for more photo updates or Dayre for daily updates. Thanks :)

Banana leaf rice @ Mano Mega Curry House, Alam Damai, Cheras

*Update: This restaurant has closed down.

Every week, we find ourselves at the same places for lunch - the usual suspects are chilli pan mee, char koay teow, curry laksa or chicken rice. Hubby suggested we try out this newly opened shop at The Corner shoplots at Alam Damai - Mano Mega Curry House, which specialises in banana leaf rice and Indian cuisine.

We wasted no time at all, and promptly ordered 2 banana leaf rice sets. Happy to report that they still use banana leaves here to keep it authentic. The man approaches us and ladles rice onto the leaf - you gotta tell him when to stop or you'll end up with a huge mound of rice :P Then another man places 3 types of vegetables - my favorite cabbage, braised bittergourd and pickled cucumber. You can choose what curry you want on your rice - fish, chicken or vegetarian dhal. Deep fried chillies, rasam and crispy pappadums complete this banana leaf rice set. We always order a mutton curry to go with the banana leaf rice.

Banana leaf rice with mutton curry

We opted for the chicken curry on our rice, and it was really good. Hubby ended up having extra rice. We also enjoyed the mutton curry, tender chunks of meat and quite a lot of it too (unlike some places with lots of bone and little meat). This is definitely one to return for ;)

When we were leaving, the staff was deep frying some chicken and it smelt crazy good! I will have to order that the next time I come for BLR.

We visited again for breakfast, this time with the kids in tow.  Kids had roti canai each and teh tarik, and I was surprised that both of them finished a whole portion of roti canai on their own. I tried some, and it was good, especially with the delicious curry. We also tried the rava thosai, which was paper thin, with lots of nice spices. My mum wanted to try their banana leaf rice after hearing our good reviews, this time it is served with cabbage, cauliflower/long beans and pickled cucumber. She also gave this a thumbs up.

Rava thosai (dosa)

Banana leaf rice

Looks like we've found ourselves a new breakfast/brunch/lunch spot.

Banana leaf rice is available from 11am to 9pm.


Price: RM21.60 (1st visit - 2BLR + lamb + 2 drinks) + RM13.90 (2nd visit - food + 3 drinks )

Location: Mano Mega Curry House, The Corner, Jalan Damai Niaga, Alam Damai, 56000 Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.

GPS Coordinates: 3.074417, 101.735952

Japanese Food @ Daimon Yokocho, Alam Damai, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur

We actually ate here a few months ago, but the photos sort of got lost in my pile of backlog. Daimon Yokocho serves Japanese food such as noodles, rice and gyoza, and you will not find things like sashimi here (though I think they sometimes serve this as a monthly promotion thing). Apparently it's a chain from HK, so on their walls you will see lots of photos of HK celebrities which have dined in their restaurant.

They serve both ramen and udon here, but the specialty is udon, which is handmade. All their ramen are above RM15 if I'm not mistaken, and if you choose the tonkotsu soup base, the price is on par/slightly more expensive than Gokuraku Ramen. Since we were here for lunch, we decided to order from their set lunch which is available from Mon-Fri (from 12pm-4pm) as it is better value for money. There are 9 choices, all served with green tea and flavoured egg. 

Green tea

The decor is pretty simple, lots of wood furniture and furnishing

The set lunch menu

We weren't expecting the flavoured egg as it wasn't stated as being part of the set lunch. I have to say, it was very yummy. Still runny egg yolk and slightly soft egg white.. :)

Hubby ordered the Hokkaido Gyoza Ramen (RM16.90). The ramen is served with a lot of sweetcorn (I didn't mind it but Hubby thought it was maybe too much), fish cake, sugar snap peas and leeks. The broth tasted a bit weird for us, we asked the waitress what it was made of and she said "butter". Hmmm.... other than the broth, the noodles texture was fine.

The best thing we ate here was possibly the gyoza. I think the style of preparation was similar to GokuRaku Ramen too, steamed on one side and grilled on another. The filling was very juicy.

Since the specialty here is udon, I decided to try tomato soup handmade udon with gyoza (RM19.90). This is one of their bestseller but the soup is too tangy for me. I think I prefer a clear soup with my udon or ramen. Maybe I'm not supposed to drink the soup and only eat the noodles ala Japanese style? Thankfully, I also got a serving of 4 gyozas with my noodles.

We were given red paper fish to write our wishes on, and then the waitress would hang it from the ceiling of the al fresco section of the restaurant (at the back). It's really cool.

More views in the restaurant

This is BIG SUMO

Map to the restaurant

Restaurant exterior

Verdict: While the noodles were good, the broth was not really to our liking. If we return, we would possibly try the tonkotsu broth which we're accustomed to. Btw, there is a sauce/broth called satay peanut sauce. Hmm wonder how that would taste with udon.

Non-halal.

Opening times: 12-5pm, 6pm-12am.

Location: Restoran Jepun Daimon Yokocho, 32A, Jalan Alam Damai 1, Damai 23, 56000 Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-9105 5063.

GPS Coordinates: 3.071481, 101.742282

Indian Food @ Restoran Sri Anandan Villas, Alam Damai, Cheras

*Update: This restaurant has closed down (May 2012). 

In the papers last week, we read about the shortage of banana leaves hence banana leaf rice is now served on paper leaves in some restaurants. No such problem here at Sri Anandan Villas though, where the banana leaf rice is still served traditionally on a banana leaf!

Authentic banana leaf rice

More on the banana leaf rice later. Early January, I read another article about emerging food trends in 2012 (for UK if I'm not mistaken), and one of it was Malaysian food. Wonder how the Westerners will cope eating Malaysian food for breakfast? Hubby thought it was weird at first that we Malaysians eat rice and noodles for breakfast -- but now he's morphing into one of us too! LOL.

Roti canai happens to be one of our favourite breakfast food. Sri Anandan starts serving roti canai around 9am, so we only come here if we're wanting a late breakfast. The roti canai here is made fresh to order, which makes it taste much better than the ones we get at the mamak (which sometimes has been sitting around for a bit). Their curry sauce which you can order with the roti canai is really good as well, it has a sourish tinge and very flavoursome.

Roti bom

Curry sauce

I have also tried their mee goreng, which is quite decent. I still haven't found the perfect mee goreng in KL yet, used to get a really mean mee goreng from a Malay aunty in my hometown. Any recommendations?

Original lassi

Ice lemon tea

Teh tarik

We've been here several times for banana leaf rice as the restaurant is pretty clean and also air-conditioned during lunch, so it makes dining very comfortable. The vegetable options are nothing fancy, but I do find them very tasty. Along with rice, there will be three vegetables as well as poppadum with a rasam soup -- all served on a banana leaf. I like to drizzle my rice with sauces provided. I don't usually eat much rice for lunch but I find myself able to eat quite a lot when it comes to banana leaf rice! Must be because of the appetizing sauce, I think.

Tofu in spicy/sweet sambal

Bittergourd - I like!

Just normal choy sam but it taste really good for some reason!

The sauces to drizzle over the rice

Another must-have for us here when to go with our banana leaf rice is the mutton curry. It's very delicious, plus you get quite a lot of meat (some places give lots of bone or gristle) which is tender and flavoursome.

Full set of photos available to view here.

Opening times: 9am to 9pm.

Price: Reasonable.

Location: Restoran Sri Anandan Villas, Damai 8, No. 15, Jalan Damai Puspa 5, Alam Damai, 56000 Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. (next to KK Kopitiam and Food Court by the market/police station)

GPS Coordinates: 3.057312, 101.746117

Tumes Cafe @ The Corner, Alam Damai, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur

Tumes Cafe opened its doors for business yesterday. We have been hoping for a good restaurant / cafe to open here at The Corner shophouses in Alam Damai, and it looks like our prayers have been answered. 

After our first visit here, we would definitely be returning to try more of their menu.

The restaurant is brightly lit and decor is simple but cosy. 

Feature wall

The menu consists of mainly Southern Malay and Western fusion dishes. When I was going through the menu, I was delighted to see soto on the menu, one of my favorite Malay dishes to eat. Hubby decided to try one of the Western dishes, spaghetti aglio olio and then finish off with a dessert.

Ice Lemon Tea (RM2.50) - love the mug!

Sirap Gembira (RM3.00) - I ordered it cos I liked the name... basically it's sirap bandung with a twist (think it's lime?), pretty good. 

The Soto Ayam Mee Hoon (RM5.50) came in a generous portion. Well-prepared, satisfyingly good. I wouldn't mind having this again next week :) Other than mee hoon, you can also order soto ayam nasi impit or mee kuning.

I was quite surprised when Hubby ordered the Pasta Aglio Olio (RM8.90) but his reasoning was that he wanted to see how this cafe fared in terms of both types of cuisines they were serving. The pasta was nicely prepared, cooked to al dente and flavorful.

For the time being, the only dessert available is the chocolate moist cake with ice-cream (RM5.50). It was delicious. If I'm not mistaken, the owner of this cafe used to bake cakes and sell them online. Can't wait to try more of her desserts later. 

Rice with Ayam masak merah (RM6.50)

Laksa Johor (RM6.50)

Verdict: The food is unpretentious, well-prepared and very reasonably priced. I want to try the lontong, mee hoon kari and laksa Johor next :)

Opening times: 9.00am to 7.00pm. 

Full set of photos and menu here. 

15% off food & drinks until 27 November 2011. Join their on Facebook page here. 

Location: Tumes Cafe, The Corner, 29 Jalan Damai Niaga, Alam Damai, 56000 Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. 

Tel: 03-9101 4145

GPS Coordinates: 3.074417, 101.735952