Pumpkin House @ Jalan PJU 5/4 Dataran Sunway, Kota Damansara

Dataran Sunway in Kota Damansara boasts a lot of good eateries lately. With the latest addition of The Strand and Sunway Giza, we are spoilt with choices than ever. Many restauranteurs have set up business in this area to cater for the increasing population as well as existing one in the vicinity of Bandar Utama, Tropicana, Mutiara Damansara and Damansara Perdana. Pumpkin House is one of them... trying to be creative using.. well, as the name suggests - PUMPKIN!

Ho Chak and Chui Ling (One Day Five Meal) had already come and introduced this place. Intriqued by what this place has to offer, Jenn & I came here one Saturday for lunch.. well, it's quite near my house actually :)

Most of the items in the menu have some pumpkin element in it. Pumpkin is chock full of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. With all those organic and healthy hypes going on around Klang Valley, the proprietor has decided to capitalise on this concept. There are so many ways to cook dishes using pumpkin alone. For one, we started with PUMPKIN JUICE RICE BALL (RM3.50). Similar to those tong sui with glutonious ball, they subsituted the usual ginger soup with healthier pumpkin juice!

Feeling adventurous, I ordered Homemade Fresh Pumpkin Juice & Yakult Ice Blended @ RM6.90. To be frank, it tasted weird but not in a bad way. It's just hard to describe :P

Dry handmade pumpkin house noodles @ RM4.90 - just like regular pan mee, topped with fried anchovies and fried pumpkin ball. Not bad at all!

Sze Chuan hot spicy homemade pumpkin noodle @ RM6.90 - mediocre

Pumpkin Rice @ RM7.90 - I don't know about you but I definitely like this dish. Actually I am a fan of fried rice... be it pineapple fried rice, salted fish fried rice, kampung fried rice or whatever!

Leo's verdict - Special mention has to be given to their homemade fried meat ball which is infused with pumpkin. Crispy, non-oily and appetising! For those who like healthy stuff especially pumpkin, this place might appeal to you.

The Diner on Maarof

After reading numerous posting on Shivz, particularly from Joe's... I knew that someday, someday I would be coming here for dinner. But it was like 6 months ago when I read those postings... lol!! Better late than nothing :) Anyway, with the baby along I knew that we couldn't go out too long... so we packed our stuff and drove to Bangsar immediately after Sher Ryn's feeding. Lucky for us that we found a parking spot right in front of the restaurant itself, saving me the hassle to walk all the way (you know how difficult it is to find parking in Bangsar Baru).

Actually I was expecting a lot of diners as it was already dinner time. According to Joe, the restaurant's concept is to provide value for money food and ambience.. but the whole place was almost empty. On the outside... Have I gone to the wrong place??? I walked outside again just to make sure... next to Maybank (check!), Shivz Diner at Maarof (check!), on Jalan Maarof (check!!)

And inside... actually there was only another table of family having dinner. Oh well! At least the setting looked comfortable. We chose a table at the corner end so that we could place the stroller (can you spot my wife and the stroller??)

The interior was quite dim, providing a relaxed environment but then I spotted the club-like bar which was very bright. For once I thought that the whole place would turn into a clubbing scene after certain hour.. lol!!! Oh yes, Bollywood songs were also playing non-stop too... to my dismay and it was quite loud too.

We started our dinner with soup and appetisers. The bruchetta platter (RM8) came first... where the toasted baguettes were topped with mushroom, capsicum, tomato basil and eggplant. While I thought that the ingredients were fresh, the breads were quite hard to chew & rather cold. By the way, I think that they were out of eggplant, as there were two baguettes with mushroom :)

Wild mushroom soup (RM8) - the soup was hot, rich, not overly creamy and prepared with fresh mushroom... just the way I like my soup to be! The complimentary garlic bread was fresh and crispy too. Still I prefer the version with heaps of mushroom chunks in it.

Lemongrass dory (RM15) - it wasn't a hard decision to make as I am a huge fan of lemongrass. I pointed to the dish straight away to the waiter upon sighting the word "lemongrass"... LOL!!! This dish is a pan fried dory marinated in lemongrass mousse and served with cilantro sauce. I hardly tasted the lemongrass flavour due to the strong taste of cilantro sauce. However the meat was firm and flaky. And I love how they actually placed ginger shreds on top of the sauteed potatoes, which were then placed under the dory fish. Accompanied with fresh vegetables, I enjoyed each and every bite. Thumbs up!

Rack of lamb (RM32) - grilled rack of lamb with fresh rosemary sauce and comes with baked potatoes and sauteed vegetables. The rosemary sauce was a killer!! But then the lamb was slightly under-cooked. She promptly informed the waiter at the end of the dinner in which he apologised and promised to improve the quality in the future.

A glass of Shiraz Cabernet for her and a glass of Tiger beer for me. They only have one selection of wine so we had no choice. The wine was quite sour-ish too! My beer??? Ahhhhhh.....

Leo's verdict - the total bill came in at RM91!!! There were no service and government tax charged. Reasonable price for the dishes and service was not bad too... but at that time we were served by a waiter with heavy Indian accent so we had to listen carefully on what he was trying to say. Apart from that... this place is definitely worth a visit! I've set my sight on some other dishes in the menu (now if I could only find the time)

The place : Shivz Restaurant

Simply Fusion @ Jaya 1, Section 13 PJ

We didn't know what to eat for dinner... so I asked Jenn to decide on one particular place/area and I would figure out the rest. Jaya 1 came into her mind and so off we went... We took our time to explore around, as this place is relatively new and we have only been here for about 3 times. This place has a lot of new restaurants popping up recently.

My eyes locked at the dessert section :)

This place looked quite interesting with its decor. Usage of mirrors and chandeliers + dark interior created a comtemporary feeling. There were quite a number of patrons inside, so we thought that the food would be nice.
The menu

The waiter was fast to attend to us once we were seated. Looking at their menu, I ordered their Value Set (total of 8) which was Seafood Garlic Fried Rice. And it came with complimentary coffee/tea/iced lemon tea & a choice of cake from their bar. The price?? RM19.20++! Iced lemon tea was rather plain. However, the fried rice was good... prawns were fresh and the accompanied grilled chicken on skewers with teriyaki sauce really made the difference. Thumbs up!
Iced lemon tea.. not so good. Oh well! At least it's free

Jenn opted for Chicken Shogayaki - Chargrilled chicken, saffron butter rice @ seasonal vegetables @ RM11.80++. This dish was similar to mine, as the chicken was marinated with teriyaki sauce as well. Generous portion of chicken while the butter rice was sweet too.

I had mentioned earlier that I got to choose a slice of cake of my choice... Brownie Cheese Cake. It looked very nice on the shelf and it certainly tasted very nice too. A perfect dessert to conclude my dinner here.

Leo's verdict - A relatively new restaurant which offer diners with a variety of food to choose from the menu. The lunch and dinner sets that they offer were meant to attract new crowds and working executives. I'd say that they really gave me a good first impression... first the overall outlook and then the food. I'll be back to try their other food on my next trip.