Crystal Jade @ Causeway Point Woodlands

Everywhere seemed rather packed on this public holiday and it was difficult to find a restaurant that can accommodate 7 pax with no reservations. Was told of a 30 minutes wait for the first restaurant that we enquired. Fortunately, Crystal Jade managed to get us seated within 2 minutes.

Ordered a pot of pu-er tea while we contemplated on the dishes.

pu-er tea

table for bigger groups

wet towel

Dad wanted to try fried rice, so we got a medium plate to share on top of dishes like tofu, vegetable, pork, chicken and steam rice.

braised pork with preserved vege (梅菜扣肉)

The steel burner not only gleames and shines but it did a great job in heating up the food. So much so that the waitress had to turn off the fire after less than a minute.

don't underestimate the fire

fatty portion was nice

The 梅菜扣肉 dish was not too salty and the ratio of fat to meat was just 1:4. Surprisingly, there wasn't alot of preserved vege in this dish.

Vegetables is a must, so we had spinach stir fried with garlic.

spinach (菠菜)

Loved the greens. Nicely tender and none of that 'old' fibrious texture.

spicy chilies

beancurd dish

chicken with black snow fungus

The fried rice was a tad dry, so the bubbling sauce from the chicken dish made a good companion. The chicken dish tasted quite homely.

Service in general was good. The staff who took our orders would come by repeatedly and ask if we needed to add anymore dishes as she strongly feels that our order was insufficient.

Seoul Yummy @ The Central, Clarke Quay

Located at Level 3 of The Central. Had a late dinner with my niece. First impression of the place? It felt somewhat smallish.

Placed our order and was served with complimentary banchan right after. Liked the anchovies, tofu and kimchi.

kimchi, anchovies, tofu, peanuts, radish and potato

For drinks, I had the Korean pear drink (@$3.90++). The glass was rather slim so one could finish the drink in no time. It tasted kind of familiar. A bit similar to Qoo minus the jelly and substituted with small pear cubes.

Korean pear

My niece wasn't feeling hungry so we ordered small snacks to share.

fried kimchi dumplings (@$6.90++)

closer view

seafood pancake (@$7.90++)

The kimchi dumplings and seafood pancake were disappointing, in terms of size, price and taste.

tender beef (light portion @$9.90++)

The beef was sweetish and nice. This was a smaller portion. The regular ones would costs about six dollars more.

Service was intriguing. The lady who brought out the dishes to our table was sullen looking and deposited the items onto the table disinterestingly.

Dinner for two costs around $38.

Pinos Pizza and Pasta @ Wisma Thrifty, Petaling Jaya

Located at a little rundown looking Wisma Thrifty (there's a Courts inside) at Jalan Barat, Petaling Jaya, a friend bought us there to try simple Italian food.

And by simple, it means that the menu has only that few items. The mains consist only of pizza and pasta. Just 10 types of pizza and 8 types of pasta. That's it. A no frills joint.

quaint serving dish

For pizza, we tried their Super Special aka "what also have" kind of pizza. It has mozzarella cheese, chicken, capsicum, seafood, pineapple, anchovies and olives.

Super Special Pizza

thin crust

We liked. Not a big pizza, perhaps just nice for two pax, although I suspect a guy could finish this on his own.

Carbonara

Also tried the Carbonara and boy, it was tasty! Yums! The sauce was just right, not too watery, flavourful and noodles well cooked. Best of all, the cream was not overpowering. Polished it up in seconds.

Also tried another pasta dish, the Tony's Special Ala Mama. This has the tomato based sauce, anchovies, chicken sausage, olives and lots of chili padi. Hahaa, my friend had to reach out for her cold drink every now so often!

Prices for the pasta and pizza ranged between RM12 to RM18, if not wrong.