Cheapest Fine Dining EVER!!

My past few blog posts aren't really affordable food. So here's one really affordable and the taste worth more than value for money!

I've decided to hangout in this chic student-operating restaurant in my university, Truffles Restaurant. And yeap, this is my first time. There's only one fixed menu everyday, operated by different classes of Culinary Art students and Hospitality students daily. The food there only cost RM 10 for this 3-course meal per person.

Less talking, and here comes the picture!!!

The Menu of the Day
Designed by DH39 Group 4

Pink Guava juice (this is an add on for myself)

The starter bun
I LOVE this. It's freshly baked from the oven (I hope it is, it tasted like it is)

Salad Pasta with Pesto
I kinda love the taste, but the presentation for this was messy

Grilled Chicken served with Sauté Potatoes and Onions with hint of thyme

 

Lastly, Chocolate Mousse served with Whipped Cream and Strawberry

The food here isn't that a WOW factor. The fact that it's only 10 bucks for all these food and the ambience was awesome. And they had this little wine performance for every table, they were practicing how to open the wine bottle. It was great, no wine though, just pipe water.

This restaurant is located in the Taylor's Lakeside Campus, academic block, ground floor. I would highly recommend this place for its cheap priced fine dine!

LOL

Bon apetit!

A Great 21 Birthday Caterer

Was invited to my senior's 21st birthday party. As junior, I attended obediently and the reason, I don't have exams coming up so soon, can still afford the time. I'm glad I attended the party, the food there was FABU-LICIOUS! There was an on site barbecue of a huge lamb. Upon arriving at the door steps with my other seniors and my friends, we saw a HUGE lamb sitting at the side of the house. The food theme last night was local delicacies. A very Malaysian style buffet. TOO BAD, I didn't take any pictures of my lamb. But got a few of others instead.

 THE LAMB was superb! It was served with mint sauce. The meat is so tender and soft, not like the usual chewing gum texture. MmmmMMmmmm.. So sorry, my bad for not uploading the pictures. I ALWAYS  finish up the food before remembering snapping a picture.

ABC Ice-Kacang

This shaved ice is covered in evaporated milk and SUPER thick gula Melaka ( a local brown sugar, caramelised). At the bottom of this shaved ice, it is filled with peanuts, red beans, sweetened corn, jelly and nata de coco.

Satay

 I'm sure most people are familiar with this dish. It is another infamous local delicacy, it is actually barbecued seasoned meat on stick served with peanut curry sauce. The meat itself is sweetened with honey and the texture is soft and easily chewed off the sticks.

Nyonya kuihs

These are the local style of tea-time cakes. They're all mainly made of glutinous rice batter using natural colouring from plants like pandan (better known as lemon grass). (from top left (the green and white piece) clockwise down : Kuih Talam, Onde-onde, Kuih Ubi Kayu, Green Angku, Red Angku, Pandan Kuih Lapis, Kuih Lapis)

My apologies for not snapping all the pictures. I so very sorry.

I'll name a few food they had there, They served

Char Kuey Teow (also known as Fried Kuey Teow) - Kuey Teow means some kind of chinese noodles, they're usually flat and white in colour fried in black soy sauce, eggs, prawns and spring onions. Surprisingly the one served here was AWESOME. Fried kuey teow is usually famous in Penang.

Tempuras - A Japanese delicacy. They cut up varieties of raw food from veges to seafood, dip them in batter and then deep fried till golden brown with a puffy appearance. They're usually served with pickled garlic and light soy sauce for dipping.

Curry Laksa (better known to Penangites as Curry Mee) - It's another local infamous delicacy. This is a bowl of noodles served with thick curry soup. They curry soup is cooked with coconut's milk and usually prawn stock to give it taste. There are a variety of noodles to choose from, it has choices of bihun (known as rice vermicelli), mee (a yellow noodle) and kuey teow (flat white noodle).

Nasi Lemak - Ahhh... This dish is a combination of the different races in Malaysia. This dish includes santan cooked rice (rice cooked with coconut's milk and pandan leave), sambal (prawn paste cooked with chilli and small dried prawns), hard boiled egg, ikan billis (anchovies) and roasted peanuts. Sometimes it's also served with Chicken Rendang (another kind of chicken cooked in curry)

I've taken down their contacts *for future use, maybe*

They got a separate caterer for the Ice-kacang and the other buffet dishes.

This is the contact card for the Ice-Kacang caterer, it is AWESOME!

The buffet caterer. I LOVE THE LAMB!!!

And yours truly,
(That'll be me holding a cupcake trying to smash it on my senior's face)

5 blocks to Germany!

Where I'm staying right now, are where the Penang tourist hot spots are in. My dad's friend from the hotel he worked in has started a German cuisine restaurant nearby, Ingolf's Kneipe (kneipe means pub in German), where we're staying right now. It's a frequent dining area for the Zhang family. Well, it wouldn't be frequent if we don't get discounts. ;)

Here're are our usuals..

The Goulash soup
RM 9.80

This is a soup made of meat and vegetable stew, for this instance, it's beef stew. There's a hint of paprika that gives it the spicy taste. And potato that gives it the thick texture like a broth. Mmmm.. My dad's usual when the Chef was still working in the same hotel. It has always been my dad's favourite and now it's ours too. Sluuuuuuuuurps!

The Tossed Salad 'Niçoise' Style
RM 14.80

 Like any other normal Garden salad. The distinct part of this salad is that the dressing and the capsicums gives it a tangy taste.

Pork Cordon Bleu Fried to a Golden Brown
RM 26.80

 Covered in bread crumbs deep fried till the golden brown appearance, stuffed with cheese in the pork. Served together with buttered peas, french fries ad salad.

Grilled Chicken Meat Loaf
RM 22.80

Like the name of the dish, it's grilled chicken, served with thick mushroom sauce. It's also served with buttered peas, mashed potatoes and garden salad. The mashed potato has a very nice creamy taste and a little hint of fried onion to give it taste.

What I like best of this restaurant is the Goulash Soup and the potato pancakes. The pancakes are actually somewhat like grilled mashed potatoes. It only comes in sidelines with the main dish, and you can hardly get them, they usually appear in Today's special. Pfft!

This German Restaurant cum Pub is affordable, and they come in large portion. If you're a small eater, I suggest to share a dish with someone, it's gonna get you well-fed bloated at the end.

P/s : They're closed on Sundays.

This is their Business Hours like :

Monday – Saturday 3:00pm to Midnight
Dinner 6:00pm to 10:30p

Photo credits to Deidre, my sister.

360 degrees Night View of Georgetown, Penang

Mom popped up to me and told that dad wants to have dinner in the Bayview Georgetown Hotel's Revolving Restaurant, she asked me to decide whether or not I want to go. And DEFINITELY I said, 'HELL YA!'

And so the whole family got all dressed and ready to go down town for a spectacular night view restaurant for dinner. So we head down town, dad drove. It took us 45 minutes to get there as there were slight jams in between. And so, here we are!

What I see the moment I entered, the grill meat area!

The dessert counter no.1

The dessert counter no. 2

The workers behind the scene

Apparently there were a bunch of tourist too!

 The above are all pictures I took when I entered the restaurant. The first counter I stopped at is, of course, nonetheless the DESSERT counter. They all looked so pretty and tempting. Ahh....

The theme last night for the buffet is fusion style of the Malaysian culture with a little bit of European and Japanese.

My all time favourite juice, starfruit.

 I just love starfruit juice. It is always my first choice fruit juice unless they don't have in any dining area. It's tastes best when you add in a hint of salt, and it's super rich in vitamin C.

My starter

 It may look like an ordinary garlic bread and dinner bun. Trust me, it's not. The garlic bread is actually tom-yam garlic bread and the bun is a..... dinner bun! I had it with a bowl of indian cream soup. The indian soup was known as ullie something, it tastes like a mixture of dahl and pumpkin soup and a hint of curry powder in it. Too bad I didn't manage to snap a good picture of it. BUT IT WAS FANTASTIC!

All fibers for a healthy start. Psst, there're two raw scallops hiding under the veges

 I only realised the need of having vegetables salad when my dad started of his meal here with a rich helping of salad. I didn't want to get constipation after this buffet, and so I went and get myself something. Like normal salads, carrots, lettuce, cucumber yadaa yadaa.. I served it with French dressing, and I hid two raw scallops at the bottom. YUM!

I skipped all the carbs, and took the meat and one helping of veges and fungi

 I went on the main dish counter, I skipped all the Chinese fragrant rice, tomato rice and the bee-hoon (Chinese vermicelli). They're carbs, they'll make you full before you can finish one round of buffet. What I have here on my plate are mutton curry, tandoori chicken, curry venison, roasted duck and more meat. I got some stir-fried veges and fungi (mushrooms and what i call the black cloud's ear or better known as the wood ear) too.

Voila! The anticipation of the night, DESSERT!

DESSERT!! I had myself two different kind of chilled jelly, custard pudding and custard pie. This was first round dessert. Second round when they replenished their dessert counter, I had pandan(lemon grass) agar-agar layered chocolate cake, carrot cake and some sago served with 'Gula Melaka' (local brown sugar) and santan (coconut's milk)

Look at the view behind. Awesome panoramic!

There're a lot of food than just what I showed here. I just got bored snapping pictures, as my food can't wait. The pricing is like any average buffet dining. Costing RM 50.00 ++ per adult. We were lucky that night, aunty Evelyn treat us as she bumped into us here that night. So dad saved up to RM 300 ++ (including drinks and taxes).

My family and I enjoyed our dinner ad the 360 degress view of Penang Georgetown and we get to see Butterworth across the sea. 

Random Italiano Lunch

And so apparently I did not post up a post on what's my daily breakfast like. THANK GOD!

It was just a random Friday afternoon, right after my mom pick my siblings up from their school and tuition classes. My mom decided to take us 3Ds for lunch in the coffee shop a block away from our house. We arrived, parking spaces were all taken up.I suggested why not have our lunch in the Food court in Tesco super market. Cheap. That's what our initial thoughts were, CHEAP lunch.

We got to Tesco, 3Ds decided to eat Mc Donalds, but mommy doesn't like Mc Donalds at all. My smart little brother then decided to have lunch in a gourmet Italian restaurant in Straights Quay. Mom did some grocery shopping before leaving Tesco.

Here we are!

Rustika Pizza
RM 32
- Filled with Mozarella Cheese, thin beef slices and generously filled with greens.

I'm not sure what fresh veges are those, but they are crispy and juicy. It also gives out a fragrant smell when you bite at 'em. Try it with chili flakes, honestly, it is also good as it is!

Calzone Pizza
RM 28
- This crust pizza wrap filled with Mozarella cheese and fresh mushrooms

This is something I think it was special, pizza wraps. How often to stumble across such things? The last time I had a Calzone pizza was in HardRock hotel Pizzeria. The melted cheese and fresh mushrooms, MMMmmmm...

Millefoglie
RM 18.80
- Puff pastry filled with whipped cream and slices of can peach served with vanilla ice-cream

This puff pastry if filled with whipped cream and served with  vanilla ice-cream. I'm not really a big fan of it, the pastry was a wee bit too buttery. :S Eat it with ice-cream covers the buttery taste for a moment.

Spasso Milano, the restaurant

All in all, we spent RM 150.80 in this gourmet restaurant. The portion served isn't small, except for the desserts. Other than that, everything is well money spent. Especially the beef part of it. 

This branch of Spasso Milano restaurant I went to, is located in Straights Quay Penang, off Jalan Tanjung Tokong in Seri Tanjung. Click on the links to check it out.

Signing off, to get ready for my dinner tonight in the Bayview Georgetown's Revolving Restaurant.

Till then.