Ben's - Pavillion, Kuala Lumpur

Christmas song is everywhere and the place is crowded with people even it is Wednesday, yes it is Christmas day! Merry Christmas everyone! I was in Pavillion to do some year-end shopping before the sales period over or before all the good stuffs was taken, as expected, there are crazy lots of people in Pavillion, Time Square, and in fact I think everywhere will be crowded compare to normal days. Now back to the title of this blog, we have manage to get ourselves (my friends and me) table in the Ben’s restaurant, we have been waiting for seats for the last 15 minutes on the couch at the waiting area.

The waiting coach... OMG so many people waiting

As long as we had our seats we took the menu and order our lunch because we are already starving due to a lot of walking and we did not really have our breakfast because one of our friend is late, do not follow this practice, please have your breakfast first guys.

Alright this is what we ordered:

Main dish

Ben’s cheeseburger on sesame seed bun (RM 26.00) – with cheddar slices & French fries

Aglio olio spaghetti (RM 14.00) – tossed in olive oil, garlic & dried chilies

Beef Bolognese spaghetti (RM 23.00) – served with parmigiano

*government tax and service charges are not included for the above prices.

After we made our order with the waiter, we took out a stack of paper cards which place in a box, you will find this box on every table in the restaurant, what is so special about this paper card is that these are the random questions and facts for friends to ask to one another and sometimes to have weird answers.

 

Text on the black paper card "STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE AND GIVE YOUR FINGERS A BREAK"

The food is slightly slower to be serve due to the amount of customer here, take a look at the photo:

Good business 

But it is ok, I am enjoying the paper card questions and facts at the moment and forgotten we actually waited for around 25 minutes or more, time passes fast when you are having fun.

Alright the food is served finally

 

Yuummmyyy!

The vegetable looks fresh

Cheessseeeee

The Ben’s cheeseburger is one of their recommended food, as the photo shows, it consisted of a cheeseburger with cheddar cheese slice, a type of cheese which is smooth in taste and originally made in Cheddar, southern England. The stuffs on top the cheese is some sort of onion with pepper? I am not really sure but it taste good. The meat under the cheese is beef with medium steak doneness, the meat is easy to chew. The vegetable under the beef is fresh, and the bun has nothing much to describe but the amount of sesame is way a lot that most of the burger I had before. Besides this the French fries taste good, it is crispy yet not oily and the smell is so much tempting. There is a small portion of salad provided, it has tomato, pea, sun flower seeds, cabbage, carrot and other vegetables, like any other salad it mixed with olive oil, and the vegetable is fresh enough, just like the one with the burger.

Ok move to the other dish which my friend had ordered:

 

Aglio Olio spaghetti

The Aglio Olio spaghetti, this dish is very simple for its ingredient, so there is nothing much to describe about in terms of the outlook, I had tried a few and I thought the spaghetti is a little bit dry to swallow, other than that it is a simply and normal spaghetti dish, suitable for those who do not want a heavy main dish such as Ben’s burger, and the dried chilies, I do not think those are edible one (maybe the mint leaf is edible?)

The final dish is the beef Bolognese spaghetti

beef Bolognese spaghetti

As you can see the slices which mixed with the beef Bolognese sauce is cheese, a type of hard cheese named parmigiano, the cheese is made from raw cow’s milk, and there is also a mint leaf on the top of the beef Bolognese sauce, alright about the taste of this dish, it taste more sour because of the sauce and the cheese, it does not feel dry and hard to swallow compare to Aglio Olio spaghetti.

That all about it guys, we had a nice lunch and funny moments with the paper cards and the food was nice in overall, especially mine one because it satisfied my appetite. Even though Christmas had passed but I still wish you all Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Below are the google maps for the restaurant.

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3 wise monkeys – Setia Walk, Puchong

3 wise monkeys, you have seen or heard this phrase before origin from a famous proverb from Japan, “see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil”. This phrase suggest us in having a good mind, speech and action, but in this case the restaurant gave it a twist, “see the party, eat the party and drink the party!” the newly twisted phrase sounds better when it’s Friday night, time to have some good food!

3 wise monkeys is a restaurant, Bistro and bar located in Setia Walk, Puchong established last year, May and it is a non-halal restaurant.

 

Christmas decorations

The above photo was taken outside their shop, the logo in this photo in not very clear, I will have clearer later in the post. I would say it will be a nice hangout place during the night due to the luminance of the warm color lights. They also have a place specifically build for beer drinkers to hangout and chat.

 

Nice environment

One thing to keep in mind is that their menu design, is quite HUGE and LONG just like newspaper size, so I have a little hard time in flipping back and forth when choosing my choice of dinner there (you will be seeing a bunch of people doing kung fu flipping with the menu on their seats)

 

Newspaper size menu

The logo of 3 Wise Monkeys

Ok back to the food I ordered:

Main course

Rib Eye Steak (RM38.00)

Prime Rib Eye Cuts. Sautéed Potatoes. Grilled vegetables. And a pick of choice for the sauce topping (with in this case black pepper sauce)

Pizza

Margherita – Monkey Story (RM19.00)

Classic Cheese Pizza Garnished with Basil and Oregano

For the pizza part, I am not sure why they added the different types of “Monkey” word at the end of the pizza menu, other pizzas such as:

•  Pig Out – Hungry Monkey (Their signature pizza)
• Vegetarian – Monkey Zen
• Pepperoni – 3WMKYs Fav (3 Wise Monkeys favourite)
•  Seafood – Scuba Monkey
•  Hawaiian – Bikini Monkey

Besides this there are some funny names in the menu such as Parma ham and rocket – Rocket to the moon, Spicy BBQ Pork Special – Monkey on Fire (Wait …. What?) and much more even crazier names, an interesting menu to discover, I believe the purpose is to have you in an food-hunting adventure, because since you do not really know what it taste like by looking the name, you might as well forget about what to expect it, well-played monkeys.

Around 10 minutes, the pizza is served

Yummy cheese pizza

Well the looks of the pizza tells exactly like the menu, it’s just cheese garnished with Basil and Oregano, for you information Basil is a type of herbs largely used in South East Asia and Italian cuisine, part of a family of mints, on the other hand the Oregano is another type of herb which is also part of the mints family, it has more aromatic and it more like marjoram but less sweet due to its pungency, mostly used in making pizza, now this is the type of pizza with thin bread as its based, the cheese is nicely done without having it to be sticky that you need to make extra effort in slicing with knife several times to cut it off. The taste of this pizza, thanks to the Oregano and Basil, they give the pizza a little sharp smell which mixed with the taste of cheese, and because the thin bread, it did not quickly make your stomach full quickly, allow you to grab another slice in no time.

Not for long, the main course is served

Rib Eye Steak

Oh before I continue, the beef is cooked between medium to medium rare in terms of steak doneness, this might be their default steak doneness because I did not mention about how the steak is going to be, so they made it a medium. They offered a small amount of pepper sauce for the steak. I think the price for this meal is kind of cheap because maybe the beef is not from Australia, Australian steak cost more.

A medium rare steak

Alright actually to be honest I am pleased with the potatoes more than the steak, not that the steak is not good, but I give more credits to the potatoes, maybe because of the cooking style, the word “Sautéed” is in French, “Sauté” meaning to jump, meaning the potatoes are fried on the pan really quick, as you can see the potatoes are accompany with the fried garlic slices, made it very tasty and the smell are nice.

Nice potatoes

I think that is all about it for this dish, the grilled vegetable is just normal and has nothing else to comment about. In my opinion I think the vegetable potion is a little bit small though.

For those who wanted to try for a hangout place off KL area can come to this restaurant, below is the map.

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Legend of Xiao Long Bao – Paradise Dynasty

On a sunny Sunday morning my friend and I have a random appetite for Chinese cuisine, last time I already went to the Dragon-I, so today my friend suggested we go for a Chinese restaurant name the PARADISE DYNASTY (樂天皇朝) – LEGENG OF XIAO LONG BAO which is located inside Paradigm Mall, Kelana Jaya. So off we go!

When we arrived, the time is around 11.30am, so there are not so many customers yet and I got the chance to take some photos of the restaurant’s environment without being awkward with some of my unintentionally weird pose while attempting to shoot a photo.

The reflection and the water

I kind of like the environment of the restaurant, as far as I know this is the only restaurant which has a huge Buddha statue at the center of the restaurant and it’s beautifully placed.

Alright for the food we had ordered:

Main dish

Wok-fried Rice with Egg (蛋炒饭) – RM 12.90

Side dish

Scrambled Egg White with Fish and Dried Scallop (瑶柱芙蓉赛螃蟹) – RM 20.90

Glutinous Rice Dumplings in Fermented Rice Wine (桂花酒酿丸子) – RM 6.90

Pan-fried Shanghai Pork Bun (上海生煎包) (3pcs) – RM 9.90

Signature Dynasty Xiao Long Bao (皇朝小籠包) (8 pcs) – RM 25.80

We decided to order only one main dish is because we wanted to try the signature dumplings and their main dish has only few selection of rice and “La mian”, hand-pulled noodles; and we did not order drinks because in my opinion, when going to Chinese restaurant, always go for their soup because it is much more worth it.

So after we ordered the first dish was served:

Glutinous Rice Dumplings in Fermented Rice Wine (桂花酒酿丸子) 

This dish is made out of Osmanthus (type of flower), some small dumplings, rice wine, and yellow sugar. The taste is sour because as the menu state it is a fermented rice wine, the way of making it is kind of like making a yogurt, you put some rice in a container with some ingredient together and store it for a certain amount of time to have that “sour” taste, besides the smell of the dish is sour too so for those who are sensitive in smell and dislike the fermented taste you may not like this as it might remind you slightly about the smell of spoiled food, however to those who are not, you will enjoy the mouth-smoothing soup accompany with some of the slight sticky dumpling.

After a while the second dish came:

Scrambled Egg White with Fish and Dried Scallop (瑶柱芙蓉赛螃蟹)

Firstly I have to point out a thing is, the menu in English did not mention any word of “Crab” but in the Chinese words it shows, I think this might be a typo, so I make a quick stir to even the egg York with the rest of the ingredient, and as I was tasting it, the taste of crab and the scallop came right after the taste of the egg, it is delicious and it aroused one’s appetite but we did not finish it first because we thought we need to consume it with the fried rice with will be coming in a moment.

But nop, the fried rice did not came first it is the 8 signature Chinese dumplings

Signature Dynasty Xiao Long Bao (皇朝小籠包) 

I must say it is quite nice to see it all neatly arranged (you may order separately), I shall name it according in the menu:

• Steamed Original Xiao Long Bao (原味小籠包)
• Steamed Foie Gras Xiao Long Bao (鹅肝小籠包)
• Steamed Black Truffle Xiao Long Bao (黑松露小籠包)
• Steamed Crab Roe Xiao Long Bao (蟹粉小籠包)
• Steamed Ginseng Xiao Long Bao (人参小籠包)
• Steamed Cheesy Xiao Long Bao (芝士小籠包)
• Steamed Garlic Xiao Long Bao (蒜香小籠包)
• Steamed Szechuan Xiao Long Bao (麻辣小籠包) 

Alright before you start to eat, you may need look around the table, there is a card which specially made for this dish titled “THE RIGHT WAY OF EATING XIAO LONG BAO” it stated the steps of which dumplings should you consume first until the last to have a “succulent journey”; you may follow the steps but as for us, we only ordered one set so we did not follow the sequence given. We divided 4 by 4 (2 persons) what I had was:

• Steamed Original Xiao Long Bao
• Steamed Foie Gras Xiao Long Bao
• Steamed Crab Roe Xiao Long Bao
• Steamed Szechuan Xiao Long Bao 

Overall like the usual dumplings, the filling has hot and juicy soup inside so be careful when consuming it. These dumplings have slight thicker skin than the one in Dragon-I, but they have the 8 special flavoring instead of one. Out of 4 dumplings, the one that caught my attention is the Szechuan one, for your information most of the dish with the word “Szechuan” are usually spicy, so at first I did not expect a spicy dumpling until I taste it on my own, the spicy taste came in fast, (during that time make sure you won’t choke because if you do, you might have a bad time) but did not last long, however it leaves your tongue numb for a while, you have to try it yourself because the taste is like no other. Meanwhile a comment from my friend who have the other four dumplings said that the Steamed Cheesy flavor is the best out of 4 and the taste is quite unique for my friend.

After we finish the 8 dumplings, we waited for about 2 minutes and the fried rice came:

Wok-fried Rice with Egg (蛋炒饭)

Nothing much about this dish though but it still taste good when we mixed it with the scrambled egg, it smoothen the texture of the hot fried rice.

At last the final dish:

Pan-fried Shanghai Pork Bun 

So these buns are not halal because it used pork as filling, the filling has some pork-essence soup as well, it is not hard to bite and it will tear off easily due to a not so thick bun skin, a good sign of a bun, even the pork is easy to chew, oh and the smell is nice too, those who like meat bun especially pork must try this dish.

So this restaurant’s signature dish is dumplings, which also same with Dragon-I’s signature dish, since I had tried both, the only differences is that the portion of the dumplings in Dragon-I is larger than the Paradise Dynasty and the dumpling skin is thinner so the feeling as a whole feels better, but as for Paradise Dynasty, the nice 8 flavors of dumplings brings new experience for customers like me yet the taste is not that bad just that the portion is a little smaller. Well the similarities is that both restaurants has shown great skills in demonstrating the art of a Chinese cuisine, for me if you ask me which to choose I will answer “Why not both?”

Paradise Dynasty is located at:

Lot 1F-15

Operating hour is from 11am to 10PM daily

Below is the google map for Paradigm Mall:

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