Magic Wok - First post in 2013 (after more than a year of hiatus!)

Looking back at my last post (November 2011)... I realised that I have been missing for more than a year! Workload took a huge chunk of my time in 2012 - the rest was spent with family. Of course, I would still read blogs from those whom I follow from time to time... subjected to free time. At the moment, I would just simply use Instagram to post up the photo of the food that I had eaten which was then uploaded into Facebook.

Despite the convenience of using Instagram, I still love writing... perhaps I was just lazy and being pampered by all those apps in iPhone these days. I don't have time during the day because most of my times were spent down in the factory and when I got back to the office, I had to do paperworks and that didn't include my outstation trips. The remaining time had to be spent with the family when I got home. At night, the wife would normally hog the laptop and thus I didn't have much time to post anything. Forget about Tweeter - I have already stopped using this app after a few months.

Right! Now it's 2013 - new year with new resolution! Chinese New Year is around the corner and all the necessary preparations have been made to celebrate this joyous occasion. After all, this time of the year is the time where I get together with my family and relatives - the only time when all my siblings and parents would sit down for reunion dinner. I truly cherish this moment and that is also the reason why I am looking forward to this holiday. It's a tradition to wear everything new on the first day and I assure you that my wallet has been bleeding one month earlier leading toward February 10th.

My first ever post is on Magic Wok - a relatively established restaurant in Damansara Jaya whom I have never thought of going before even when I moved to PJ. My first visit there was during the Winter Soltice festival but I didn't bring anything there then. We went there again to celebrate Keith's 2nd birthday - and this time I brought my DSLR along. Normally we would go earlier to avoid the dinner crowd.

We were the only patrons at that time and so we got all the attention :) it was a restaurant with adjoining bar where a lot of people having happy hours next door. Sometimes they would seat you there if the place was packed!

Claypot tilapia with white pepper and roasted meat - the soup was nice enough without overpowered by the white pepper. It was all bones in the end!

3 meat combination - forget the charsiew, siew yoke was decent (skin was crack-a-lacking) but not memorable and the only good was the roasted duck which I thought was good but still not comparable to Sun Ming Kee in Cheras.

Signature Magic Wok fried rice - wok hei is assured and with the siew yoke thrown into the rice, each and every bite was a bliss

Braised pork knuckle (boneless) akin to the dong po yoke - nothing was left in the end except for the layer of fat on top of the meat. We even sapu all the gravy with the accompanying steamed buns. It was good without being too salty and the meat was very tender with fall-off-the-bone texture.

Nai bak with yam - comfort food that most people would find pleasant to the tummy

Fried chicken with sliced ginger was definitely the highlight of the night! We would have ordered the second helping if we didn't take into consideration the calory. The chicken meat was aromatic, juicy and still juicy on the inside as we sank our teeth in... and please help yourself to the crispy ginger slices which we could not get enough of!!

Leo's verdict - this place is family-oriented and the service was quite fast. The servers didn't make a lot of fuss despite Sher Ryn and Keith boy running and playing around. Oh yes... I'll end this blog with a family portrait taken during the dinner. 

Disclaimer:
1) I'm not paid to promote/endorse any particular event, restaurant or person in this blog. ALL are based on my unbiased personal opinion.
2) My reviews are based on my personal taste and preference and therefore may vary for others.

Restoran Jin Yuan Hong Kong @ Damansara Jaya SS22

I would never notice this particular dim sum restaurant if I didn't read FBB's a few months back. I normally stick to Hung Kee Dim Sum which is located nearby but I had to say, their dim sum's quality had dropped. So Jenn & I decided to try this place, as dim sum is one of our favourite food to have for breakfast... while sipping Chinese tea. We arrived early Saturday morning and managed to find a parking spot in the normally chaotic area.

As we entered, you could see all the kitchen staff busy preparing dim sum while the waiter or waitress passed the order to them.

There is a corner for takeaways where customers can choose from a variety of dim sum available.

As there were only 2 of us, we couldn't possibly order all the dim sum that were offered. That is why we stick to our usual dishes... just to see if they fared better compared to Hung Kee.

Loh mai kai - I like the smoothness and softness of the glutonious rice. On top of that, there were waxed meat, chicken meat and mushroom.

This honey glazed pork ribs was my least favourite dish of the day. I found the flavour to be artificial and the dish was already cold when it was served.

Chee cheong fun - I ticked for the mixture of BBQ pork (char siew) and prawns... they were not stingy on the meat and prawns.

Salad prawns - the crust was crispy and the prawn meat was fresh... that's all that I asked for.

Char Siew Bao - the filling was generous and not overly sweet...

Har gao - thumbs up!!

Leo's verdict - as soon as we finished our breakfast here, we have already found a new haunt for our dim sum craving. Apart from the parking which can be very hard to find, service was quite fast. And upon chatting with one of the staffs, I realised that Jin Yuan used to be called Kam Hin in the past, as a matter of fact there is still an outlet called Kam Hin in Kuchai Lama. I recalled frequenting their outlets in Puchong Jaya and Bandar Puteri before they were closed (I didn't ask why though). Now that their Uptown outlet has opened, it's more convenient for me...