For Ipoh people, last Thursday was a big day because it was the opening of a new mall in Ipoh after over a decade of having just 1 decent mall to shop at. The new mall, Aeon (formerly known as Jusco) is located at Station 18. And it’s huge. The largest mall in Ipoh. So because of the new mall, it has opened up its doors for new business ventures in Ipoh. This means, new restaurants for Ipoh people!

The first Nando’s branch in Ipoh! I’m so excited about this because I have a friend who also loves Nando’s. I only had one chance to go to Nando’s while in KL because none of my friends preferred eating there. Looking forward to do some food review there.

I used to be SO EXCITED about Sakae Sushi until I found out that it’s not halal.. meaning they put alcohol in their sushi. I was so crushed because Sakae Sushi is one of my favorite sushi restaurants ever. I need to clarify what I can and cannot eat later at Sakae Sushi.

There’s also new opening for Tako Tao (my favorite!), Wendy’s (my most wished restaurant!) and Papa John’s pizza. It’s amazing and mind-boggling that all of these opened in Ipoh because these are my favorite restaurants and I had never expected they would open a branch in Ipoh – what used to be a very dead town. At least I’m glad we have more options for food outlet. Hopefully there will be more in the future.

Last February 25th was my birthday. So on March 1st I decided to have sort of like a late birthday dinner after that awful experience at Serai Satay Kajang. So I went to Kinta City’s Secret Recipe with my mom because I’ve been craving lasagna.

One thing I really love about Secret Recipe is the cake. Who doesn’t love their super awesome cakes and cheesecakes? But here’s a story. Recently I had their cakes – a slice of durian cake and strawberry marshmallow cheesecake. The durian cake was frozen – I mean so frozen that you don’t taste their durian or cake but instead chunks of ice. And then the cheesecake. Strawberry marshmallow cheesecake is my favorite so I know very well how it taste like but the one I had was SOUR. The kind of sour taste that you get in expired milk or cheese.. it was really bad. But since I had already bought it, I ate it all. I even told my mom about it.

My stomach has very low tolerance for expired stuff. So I knew the cheesecake had in fact gone bad when at 3 am in the morning I started having a serious case of extreme diarrhea. I was praying for no vomiting so thank God, I didn’t. I hate vomiting. But the diarrhea was so bad that I felt all the liquid in my body had been drained. And it went on for 2 days. It was my worst case of food poisoning. I wasted like RM60 at the clinic. And what’s even worse, was that on that day I was supposed to work at an event. So my whole day was ruined from going back and forth to the even, clinic, and stuff because my stomach was hurting so bad.

Pissed off, I emailed Secret Secret. Shortly after I received a reply, sent them my scanned receipt, and they claimed they’d do an investigation and all that. I received a call from a person from the store I bough it at (Secret Recipe @ The Syuen Hotel, Ipoh) and said they’d give complimentary slice of cake or something? But I didn’t call the person back, lost her number and I guess they’ve forgotten.

But turned out, I wasn’t the only one with a case of bad cheesecakes that tastes sour.

So anyways.

So once my palate is accepting Secret Recipe again, I ordered a slice of their Black Forest cheesecake. The taste of the cheese, and the jam, and the dark sweet cherry filling plus chocolates just melts in your mouth. It was so awesome. It was so sinfully delicious. Gosh just writing about it right now makes my mouth waters. If I wasn’t lazy, and it didn’t just rain, I’d go out and get me a slice right now.

The drink I could never go without at Secret Recipe would be the OREO MILKSHAKE. I can never get enough of this. It’s quite a bad idea if you’re having cakes with it, because it’s very thick and creamy but I never cared. I have to thank my friend for introducing me to this drink. Big oreo lover here.

My favorite of all! This is my second favorite actually.. my first favorite would be their Chicken Cordon Bleu but I was craving lasagna. At first I thought their lasagna is small.. but the meat is very filling so it was just nice. It’s all just meat in there.. I barely tasted the lasagne pasta. Just meat. They also give you a bun so you could dip it into the yummy meat filling. I’m very big on cheese so I wish the cheese was a lot more.. :)

My mom ordered their Tom Yum Noodle. I think it cost about RM14 or 15? For that price, you really get what you’re paying. The portion of the noodle is HUGE.. it comes in a HUGE bowl. I think for light eater like my mom, the bowl can feed 2 people. They’re generous with the ingredients too.. especially mushroom. I love mushrooms. The tom yam soup is a bit sour and spicy so for those who don’t like spicy, be careful. I love it spicy.

Overall it was a good meal for my birthday dinner compared to the last one at Serai Satay Kajang.

SECRET RECIPE® KINTA CITY
F62, 1st Floor,
Kinta City Shopping Centre,
No. 2, Jalan Teh Lean Swee,
Off Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah Utara,
31400 Ipoh, Perak.

Tel: 05-548 0298
Opening Hours: 10.30 AM-10.30 PM (Daily)

Website: http://www.secretrecipe.com.my

Who doesn’t love satay? I’m sure satay is one of the favorites among meat lovers. Of course we all know the famous Satay Kajang Hj Samuri and for Ipoh people, some of you would know the very popular Satay Endut.

Ipoh has been growing rapidly for the past 2-3 years and lots of new restaurants popped up.. one of them being Serai Sate Kajang (Lemongrass Kajang Satay). I don’t think it’s related to Hj Samuri. There’s another satay kajang restaurant opened in Jalan Gopeng which I will review one day. But on my birthday last Saturday (25th February), I decided to eat satay as sort of like a birthday late lunch. BOY WAS THAT A TERRIBLE AND BAD IDEA!

It was around 4-5 pm, and the place was empty. One thing I despise when buying satay at this restaurant is the waiting time. It’s like waiting to grow a beard. It was like eternity!

Staff? WHAT STAFF? This is the part that I’m very pissed about. Here comes the problem. According to my mom, there was a few staff there taking order.. but not one of them gave a fuck.. most were just young boys sitting and chatting while SMOKING. They’re so inefficient and ignorant that when we left the place, they got our orders wrong! We ordered 10 pieces of chicken satay and 10 pieces of beef satay but what did we get? 5 pieces of chicken and 5 pieces of beef! What the hell? So I had to make a u-turn and went back to the store. They were very lucky I wasn’t dressed up to get out of the car or else I would’ve given them a piece of my mind for being so careless.

Mom complaint and added 10 pieces of beef to the new order and without any apology or anything, they proceed with the new order. NO APOLOGY? You fucking made me u-turn for your own damn mistakes and you didn’t even bother to give an apology? How rude.

So not wanting to receive another wrong order, she asked to check what they wrote them. Mother of mercy. Guess what? For the 2nd effing time, they got the order wrong AGAIN. The dumbass wrote 10 chicken and 10 beef when my mom only asked for 10 beef.  Again, they were really lucky that I wasn’t there to really bitch at their lazyness and inefficiency. If you want to smoke and chit chat with your co-workers, go to a damn bar. Did they not receive any training? How did they get hired in the first place?

The beef satay was very dry and hard and trust me, barely chewable! I had such a hard time chewing that crap that I wonder if it’ll ever get digested in my stomach or just form a big clump of undigested lemongrass satay meat. The chicken was alright. What we realized then was that instead of them costing RM0.70 per stick, it’s now RM0.85 per stick. For very dry and hard beef satay at that price? It’s ridiculous.

Here comes my second problem. The peanut sauce/gravy. What I love about Satay Kajang Hj Samuri is the thick sauce with crunchy peanuts. It’s supposed to be that way but noooo. This place has very runny sauce that it’s almost like dipping the satay into a bowl of colored tap water. Not only that, the crunchy peanut was non-existent. Instead of crunchy, the peanut was so soft that it didn’t taste anything.. it just dissolves in your mouth without you realizing it.

The sauce is EXTREMELY SWEET. By extremely I mean that it has the potential to give you DIABETES. Yes, it was that sweet! It was so disgusting and gross. Luckily you could put the chilli paste/sambal in it and I had to put at least 6-8 spoonful of chilli paste to make it extra hot, but even that wouldn’t drown the taste of sweetness. When my mom asked them, they said it’s meant to be very sweet. People likes it. And people wonder why majority of Malaysians have diabetes….. seriously… you guys like sweet peanut sauce? Really?

But apart from the ridiculous waiting time, the increased price, inefficient staff, the diabetes-causing peanut sauce, the extra hard and dry beef satay, my consolation is that I love the taste of the lemongrass. It gave such a great taste/flavor to the satay meat that it’s delicious on its own..without dipping it into any sauce. Usually I’ll just eat it on its own…unless you don’t like lemongrass then the taste might not please your taste bud.

“Gardenia… so good you can even eat it on its own”.. eh wait, wrong jingle, wrong product. Oops.

Overall, I had a terrible time with this restaurant and it’s extremely lousy and unfriendly service and this wasn’t the first time. I have not seen any improvements but instead they got worse. Not going back there again, thank you.

SERAI SATE KAJANG
Jalan Medan Ipoh 1E,
Medan Ipoh Bestari,
31400 Ipoh

I took the opportunity of the RM5 burger for Supreme Angus Steakhouse at Burger King.

I left house at 5 pm and luckily I reached there in time, just before 6 pm because the offer is until 6 pm only. Apparently the old Burger King outlet near Kinta City mall at the De Garden is no longer available? So the only place would be at Jalan Gopeng, the new outlet. Is the one at De Garden closed permanently or temporarily for construction/renovation? So I rushed to Jalan Gopeng despite scary lightning strikes here and there.

It’s actually very small but it has a drive-thru. It’s next to McDonald’s. So I went to the drive-thru and ordered my Supreme Angus Steakhouse. The condition is that I have to buy a medium sized drink to get the burger at that price so the total cost is RM8.60. Quite expensive I’ll say. So then I quickly rushed home.

It looked like a normal burger. Normal size. But since I chose the black pepper flavor it does have the strong black pepper sauce smell.. just like prosperity burger and I’m a huge fan of prosperity burger from McDonald’s. Just smelling the black pepper sauce alone couldn’t keep me from salivating in my mouth.

When I opened the wrapper, boy am I surprised!

Meat lover would absolutely LOVE it. I mean the portion of the meat is HUGE, bigger than the burger itself. The black pepper sauce was just spilling out. The melted cheese adds the color to the meat. The smell.. oh gosh.. I’m even salivating right now as I’m writing this. For RM5 offer, it was definitely and totally worth it. It looks meaty enough. And yes, it was super delicious! I totally loved it, especially the amount of beef. It was definitely a nice change from McDonald’s.

Now that it’s easier to drive-thru at this Burger King outlet compared to the one at De Garden, I might stop by again. They do have delicious selection of burgers if I want a change from McDonald’s. I’m bored with McD. If only they weren’t so expensive.

No. 200A Burger Houz,
Jalan Dr. Nazrin Shah, 31350, Ipoh.

Tel: 05-311 1132
Operation Hours: 24 hours

Anybody getting this tomorrow??

I’m not a big fan of burger king due to the expensive burgers. However I’m so getting this tomorrow! It’s like the last time when they had the RM1 whopper! Click here to read my RM1 Whopper review.

It was such a hit that I had to wait in a very long queue only to be told that whopper was sold out! Only consolation was that I get to claim the burger in the next 4 days and because I bought an expensive meal set because I was starving after the long queue, I got 2 stamps so therefore I got to claim 2 burgers for only RM1 each!

I hope it won’t be the same for tomorrow and they have enough stock. But now a new burger king outlet has opened in Ipoh so there’s 2 instead of 1 so at least people won’t flock to only 1 outlet. We’ll see tomorrow.