Niko Niko Onigiri, Puchong

Onigiri are also known as Japanese rice balls. It is made of white rice formed usually into a triangular shape wrapped in Japanese seaweed and it comes with various types of fillings and flavours. Onigiri are usually my preferred choice of food when I'm in need of something convenient yet delicious or when I'm looking for something simple and less fussy. It's a must for you to have onigiri when you're in Japan but this is the best I can find nearer to home.

Niko Niko Onigiri is best known for their variety of onigiri although there are other kinds of Japanese food available in their menu. It is a simple and casual cafe that serves Japanese Chinese food. They have a number of outlets around Klang Valley but the selection of onigiri may not be the same in each outlet. The one I visit frequently is the outlet in Puchong.

This is how the onigiri here looks like. Each onigiri is prepared fresh and wrapped individually. The seaweed sheet is wrapped within a plastic sheet so that it could retain its crispness for a longer period of time to ensure a better taste experience. However, there are proper steps to follow when you want to remove the plastic sheet and at the same time maintain its triangular shape.

Image taken from https://livejapan.com/en/article-a0001721/

Once you've removed the plastic sheet, it will look like this...

My personal favourite is the Tanuki Mixed Rice Onigiri. It is Japanese Fried Rice wrapped in seaweed and I opened it just to show you what it looks like...

They also have some local Malaysian flavours that I was keen to try.

This is the Sambal Onigiri. Don't worry, it is not very spicy. It may be a bit spicy for most children but it is not for an adult.

They have more than 20 flavours to choose from and I'm sure there's something for everyone. The price ranges from RM 3 to RM 4.80 per onigiri depending on the type of filling you choose

OUR RATING (Based on Puchong Outlet)

Ambience : 3.5/5

Service : 4/5

Food Quality : 3.5/5

Price Range : $

Status : Halal

Other information:

Address : No 39, Jalan Puteri 2/3, Bandar Puteri, 47100 Puchong, Selangor

Contact No. : 019-351 0541

Business Hours : 10.00am - 10.00pm (Monday - Friday) / 9am - 10.00pm (Saturday - Sunday)

Links : https://www.facebook.com/NikoNikoOnigiriPuchong/

Other outlets:

1. Jalan Radin Tengah, Sri Petaling
2. SS 15/4D, Subang Jaya
3. Jalan Batu Nilam 5, Bukit Tinggi, Klang
4. Kuchai Exchange
5. Glomac Cyberjaya
6. Jalan 4/1, Taman Bukit Serdang, Sri Kembangan
7. Permas Mall, Permas Jaya, Johor

(I'm not sure if there are more or the above outlets are still in operation)

Banh Mi Cafe, Bandar Puteri Puchong

Date visited : 8 April 2018

This place has been in my neighbourhood for a long time now. I was googling for good food in Puchong some time back and this place came up. I drove there just to have a look but when I got there, I changed my mind. So at that time I left it as that.

Recently this place came highly recommended on FB and my sister even shared it to me. So since I was nearby on a Sunday afternoon, I thought it was time for me to give it a try.

By the time I got here, it was packed with locals, mainly families, as well as Vietnamese. Once I step into the restaurant, I felt like I'm in a local restaurant in Vietnam. It is not like one of those fancy Vietnamese restaurants, it is a cozy family restaurant that serves casual Vietnamese food.

When we talk about Vietnamese cuisine, the first thing that comes to my mind is...

The Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup. The taste of this beef noodle is quite similar to the ones I had in Vietnam. It is not adjusted in anyway to our local palates and that makes it delicious and very authentic.

Before we had our mains, we ordered two popular Vietnamese snacks.

This is the fresh Prawn Spring Roll. You can also choose to have it with pork instead of prawn. The dipping sauce was a tasty compliment to the spring rolls.

Another one of our favourite are the Fried Spring Rolls. From the looks of it, you might think that the skin is thick but when you take a bite into it, you'll soon find that it is actually not. It tastes as good as the yummy ones I had in Vietnam.

For my main, I ordered the Vermicelli Bowl Grill Pork & Spring Roll with Fish Sauce. This dish is quite delicious. From the picture it may look like a dry dish but it is not. The fish sauce moist the vermicelli enough and taste really good eaten together with the grilled pork and spring rolls.

This is not a dish that I usually find in a Vietnamese restaurant... Sizzling Beef Steak with Baguette. If you have a hearty appetite, this may be a choice you might want to consider.

Another nice choice was the Crispy Chicken Wings in sweet and spicy fish sauce. However, I would have liked it more with lesser onions.

We saw this on the menu and decided to order the Grilled Prawn for trying. Now this turn out to be a bit of a let down because it was too dry for my liking.

That's all we had during this visit and I may come back to try their Bahn Mi, a Vietnamese style baguette. If you're looking for some casual Vietnamese food in Puchong that's not too expensive, you may want to give this place a try.

OUR RATING

Ambience : 3.5/5 

Service : 3/5

Food Quality : 3.5/5

Price Range : $
Status : Non-Halal

Other information:
Address : 1 Jalan Puteri 7/10, Bandar Puteri Puchong, 47100 Puchong
Contact No. : 03-8060 0127
Business Hours : 10.30am - 10pm (Daily)
Transaction : Cash
Links : https://www.facebook.com/banhmikl/

Restoran Xfrens, Kemuning Utama

Date visited : 24 February 2018

It's Chinese New Year again and it also means feasting time! For some, the feasting starts 15 days before Chinese New Year and continues till Chap Goh Mei, the 15th day Chinese New Year which is also the last day of the celebration.

This year, we decided to have our annual school friends CNY dinner get together at this place, Restoran Xfrens, Kemuning Utama. When I was searching for the location in Waze only did I realize that they also have branches in Subang Jaya and Puchong Jaya (I'll share the addresses at the end of this post).

I arrived at 7pm and the place was already packed. Thank God my friend was wise enough to call and made reservations for 2 tables the day before, otherwise, we would have been one of those standing around waiting for tables to be available. So, if you're planning to come on a weekend with a big group, it is advisable to make reservations prior to your visit.

At first we thought of ordering a CNY set that starts from RM688, but because the ala carte dishes on their menu seems more interesting, we decided to each choose a dish from their ala carte menu instead.

Since it was CNY, Yee Sang was definitely a must, so we ordered the Yee Sang with octopus.

The Yee Sang was very tasty. There was a good balance between the sweet and the sour. Since there was a lot of unfavourable noise about salmon, the octopus was a rather good replacement.

Let's start with the vegetable dishes first.

This is the Stir Fried Potato Leaf with belacan. It is not very spicy and not too overwhelmed with the taste of belacan.

This is the Stir Fried Lotus Root with Waterchesnut. The combination of vegetables in this dish was quite tasty. The thing I appreciated most was they actually removed the "string" from the snow peas which many restaurants failed to do.

This is one of my favourite dish in the beancurd category, Beancurd with Pumpkin Gravy. I like the way they prepared this dish because it has that creamy buttery taste with a hint of spiciness from the bird's eye chili (cili padi) and fragrant smell from the curry leaves.

Now let's proceed with the meat dishes...

This is the Claypot Kampung Chicken with Chinese Wine. Maybe because of a bad first experience, I usually try avoiding this dish... even if it was cooked by my mom. I didn't want to be picky about food in front of my friends, so I decided to give it a go. To my own surprise, it was good! 

This is the Pork with Salted Fish in Claypot. It is also nice because the meat is not too fat and on overall, it's not too salty.

We also ordered another pork dish called the Pork Ribs in 3 Flavours. It is savoury, sweet, spicy and a fragrant taste of curry all at the same time.

And the last dish is my all time favourite, Salted Egg Mantis Prawns. It is crispy and well covered with salted egg. Yummy!

I highly recommend this place if you're looking for a decent place for a Chinese style dinner with your family or friends. Also, it won't burn a big hole in your pocket at the end of the meal.

OUR RATING

Ambience : 3.5/5 

Service : 3.5/5

Food Quality : 4/5

Price Range : $$

Status : Non-Halal

Other information:

Shah Alam Branch :

Address : No.10 & 12 Jalan Kemuning Prima E33/E Kemuning Utama, 40400 Shah Alam

Contact No. : 03-5131 9279

Business Hours : 11am - 3pm / 5.30pm - 10.30pm (Closed on Wednesdays) 

Transaction : Credit cash & Cash

Subang Jaya Branch :

Address : No 51, Jalan SS 18/1B, SS 18, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor

Contact No. : 03-5611 0488

Business Hours : 10.30am - 3pm / 5.30pm - 10.30pm (Only 10.30am - 3pm on Wednesdays) 

Transaction : Credit cash & Cash

Puchong Branch :

Address : No 7 & 9, Jalan Kenari 18B, Bandar Puchong Jaya, 47100 Puchong, Selangor

Contact No. : 03-8080 7800

Business Hours : 11am - 3pm / 6pm - 10pm (Daily) 

Transaction : Credit cash & Cash

Tae Yang Korean BBQ, Puchong

Date Visited : 15 April 2017

Puchong is known to be a food heaven for most people and this has also made the food business here very competitive. Residents of Puchong have very picky taste buds. They will always give a newly opened restaurant a first try but if the food is no good, you will never see them again.

Recently I've noticed a new Korean restaurant in Bandar Puteri, Puchong called Tae Yang Korean BBQ. Since I'm a lover of Korean food, I do have a favourite go to restaurant, which I'll be sharing with you when I have more photos,  for my usual Korean craving. I was at home on a Saturday, tired and in need for some simple Korean food fix... so I decided to give this new place a try.

I arrived at about 6.45pm for dinner and this place was already packed and I had to put my name in the waiting list. Luckily I didn't have to wait for too long as I was already seated by 7pm.

I decided to order the basics because if they can't get the basics right, we can forget about the fancy stuff.

Let's start with the banchan first. The variety was reasonable and 4 out of 5 of these dishes were okay. The egg roll was not that great for me because it was cold and a bit hard.

I ordered a Pork Dolsot Bimbibap and Pork Kimchi Jiggae.

The ingredients in the Bimbibap was fresh and the added pork meat makes it delicious.

The Kimchi Jiggae here is not too strong and I think can be accepted by many people as it was not too spicy and has the right level of sourness. It was acceptable to my taste buds for that day as I was looking for something simple.

This is their version of the Yukgaejang. The portion is huge and might be even enough for 3 person to share.

Their version is not too bad but if compared to my favourite place, it's still a bit lacking in terms of flavour.

And for something non spicy, this is the Kal Guksu. It's a Korean noodle dish consisting of handmade, knife-cut wheat flour noodles served in a large bowl with broth.

It's not something I will usually order in a Korean restaurant but it's not bad. If you don't prefer a spicy dish with a strong Korean taste, you can definitely give this a try.

After tasting the basics, I might want to return to try the BBQ stuff. This could be my near to home, quick fix for my Korean cravings.

OUR RATING

Ambience : 4/5

Service : 4/5

Food Quality : 3.5/5

Price Range : $$

Status : Non Halal
Will we go back for more : Yes.

Other information:

Address : 72, Jalan Puteri 2/4, Bandar Puteri, Puchong

Contact No. : 012-300 5735

Business Hours : 12.00pm-3.00pm / 5.30pm-10.00pm (Daily)

Transaction : Cash & Credit Card

Links : https://www.facebook.com/taeyangbbq/

Lai Foong Beef Noodle, Puchong

Date visited : 18 March 2017

There are 3 types of beef noodles that I know of... the soupy kind, the dry and sticky kind (Seremban style) and the Kota Bharu style kind. This one's the soupy kind (you can also have it dry if you want).

This beef noodle stall started its business in Lai Foong Restaurant, KL in 1956 and has been serving delicious beef noodles to many customers since then. And that would make a total 61 years of goodness this year.

My parents used to bring us there for breakfast when we were kids and that was back in the days when the KL traffic condition was not as crazy. But I don't go there anymore not because it's not good but I really don't like the KL traffic condition and parking problems in this area. However, my father still goes to this coffee shop every time he takes the public transport down to KL to run some errands.

Recently I was informed by my father that they now have a branch in Puchong. So I took the opportunity to go reminisce the taste that I've known since my childhood.

And here it is... the famous Lai Foong Beef Noodle! The soup is a mixture of more than 10 kinds of medicinal herbs with addition of a secret recipe using the ox bone making it thick and flavourful.

There are 4 types of noodles for you to choose from, mee hoon, mee, kuey teow and lai fun. You could also choose your preferred combination of ingredients... beef ball, lean meat, brisket, tripe, tendon or leaf tripe. If you prefer to add a bit more spice to your noodles, you will love their homemade chilli sauce.

To me this is the best soupy beef noodle in KL. If you are a beef noodle lover, why not give it a try and tell me what you think.

Other information:

Address : 5-1, Jalan Kenari 18b, Bandar Puchong Jaya, 47100 Puchong, Selangor

Business Hours : 9am - 6pm (Closed on Mondays)

Transaction : Cash Only

Links : https://www.facebook.com/puchonglaifoong/

Porcupine Place, Puchong

Date visited : 10 February 2017

I've heard about this place for quite some time now but I've always delayed my visit here because it's so near to home and I kept telling myself that it can wait... But now I kept asking myself why didn't I come earlier and I'm kicking myself for it.

It was by chance that I finally get to try out this place. We were organising a farewell dinner for our now ex-colleague and we had to choose a place... so TA-DA! Porcupine Place in Setiawalk, Puchong.

It was still CNY season and the Lion Dance team was going around to bless the tenants in Setiawalk, so that explains the few cute characters standing at the shop front.

Before I go into details of all the super delicious food I've tasted here, let me introduce you to the porcupine brothers, Peter and Patrick Porcupine (I named them... hehe). They will be assisting me today.

Porcupine Place is a very cosy restaurant suitable for all and for any occasion. The staff here are very friendly and attentive, making us felt so welcomed and comfortable. They have so many things on their menu for us to choose from.

They have many unique drinks in the menu and mine's called the Pink Lemonade & Basil. You should be adventurous and try something different too.

We ordered a few items for starters while waiting for others to arrive and salad is definitely a MUST have. This is the Quinoa Salad and it's vegetarian friendly.

This is the BBQ Pork Skewers. It's grilled Thai marinated pork escalopes with cool Japanese cucumber salsa, herb and chilli dip. This is really delicious.

The following dish is called the Quack & Oink. It's smoked duck and house smoked bacon wraps with capsicum confit and lemon cream finish.

And this is called the Spicy Fish & Prawn Pops. It's fragrant fish patty marinated with chilli padi and seared prawn with sour cream finish.

It's meant to be eaten in one bite to have that burst of flavours in your mouth.

When our group is complete, we ordered a few mains for sharing and the first one served was the Herbed Atlantic Cod.

It's seared cod fish in melting herbed butter and tomato salsa with creamy leeks, spring vegetables with fresh lemon finish.

Next we have the Spicy Seafood Burger.

The patty is freshly made of snapper fish and prawn, layered with their house lemon ginger mayonnaise, cucumber and spring onion finish. The taste of the patty combined with the other ingredients makes it unique and delicious.

Next we have the ChimiChurri Lamb Rack.

It's grilled New Zealand lamb rack with Brazilian Chimichurri Crust served with roasted potatoes and chunky root vegetables. You can choose the level of doneness to your own liking. The meat is tender, juicy and delicious.

And we also ordered their house special pasta, the Spicy Oink Oink.

It's usually not served as shown above. We had to separate the Spanish Chorizo (pork sausage) because one of our friend is a pescatarian (a person who does not eat meat but does eat fish and other seafood) would also want to try this dish, so they recommended to serve it this way.

Our last main dish is also one of their best seller, the Sticky Honey Chicken.

It's roasted chicken quarters in honey glaze served with kimchi and seaweed rice, sesame seeds, egg and lemon quinoa salad.

The taste of the chicken and the rice complimented each other very well. No wonder this is a popular choice.

After spending some time chatting and laughing, we finally had space for dessert. If you love the taste of basil, you should try this... the Tarte Au Citron Basilic.

The green in colour is a basil sorbet and those white foam like drops are their homemade marshmallows. You really have to try it.

For the chocolate lovers, this is for you... the Molten Butterscotch Sea salt Lava served with Dark Chocolate ice-cream.

You could also opt for Vanilla ice-cream if you feel the chocolate is too overwhelming.

And now presenting the best item of all... The Scotsman!

It's a dose of espresso with Scottish whisky, brown cane sugar, fresh cream and chocolate fudge. I'm really not a coffee person, but this is really out of this world!

It's so delicious that we ended up licking the chocolate fudge off our cups!

Porcupine Place also provide catering services and accepts order for customised cakes, cookies and other bakery items. Just call them if you want more information.

OUR RATING

Ambience : 4/5
Service : 4.5/5
Food Quality : 4/5
Price Range : $$$

Status : Non Halal
Will we go back for more : Yes.

Other information:

Address : B-3A-G Setiawalk, Puchong

Contact No. : 03-5888 9929
Email : porcupineplace@gmail.com

Business Hours : 10.30am - 10pm (Tues - Fri) / 9.30am - 10.30pm (Sat-Sun) / Closed on Mondays

Transaction : Cash & Credit Card

Links : https://www.facebook.com/porcupineplacepuchong/