Rating:

• Food (1-10): 7
• Price (1-10): 7
• Environment (1-10): 7

10 May 2009: Colmar Tropicale is a French-themed Resort in Bukit Tinggi, Pahang. L’Orient is a restaurant in Colmar Tropicale serving Indo-China and South-East Asian cuisine. Based on my survey, I found that L’Orient is the most economical restaurant in Colmar Tropicale. Most of the other restaurants in Colmar Tropicale are quite costly.

Here’s what we had…

• Mee Khmer (Stir-fried thin rice noodles) (RM9++) -> quite big portion, taste not bad, but a bit too sweet
• Indochine Fried Rice (RM9++) -> taste good, recommended
• Mango Coconut (RM5++) -> very thick coconut milk with fresh mango, worth a try

Although the price for food served here is quite reasonable, the drinks are actually quite expensive. A glass of soft drink costs RM7++, which is even more expensive than their desserts.

Rating:

• Food (1-10): 7
• Price (1-10): 7
• Environment (1-10): 6.5

10 May 2009: It was 8.30am and we are looking for a place nearby my house to have breakfast. The first idea that popped up was Hong Kee Dim Sum. It is non air-conditioned but since it’s early in the morning, it shouldn’t be too hot to have breakfast there.

Here’s what we had…

• Yam puff (wu kok) -> crispy, tender and taste, recommended
• Deep-fried radish cake -> extremely oily, not crispy, please avoid ordering this
• Egg tart -> not bad but taste slightly too milky
• Chu cheong fun -> satisfactory
• Har gao -> the skin was too thick and tasteless, the prawns were ok
• Siu mai -> quite good, recommended
• Scallap dumplings -> so so
• Char siu bao -> common

The above dim sum and a pot of chinese tea costed us RM27.90, which I think is a reasonable price. This place is worth a visit if you are looking for a affordable and casual eating-out place for breakfast.

Here’s the location (Google map) and link to my earlier post -> 13 July 2008

Rating:

• Food (1-10): 5
• Price (1-10): 6
• Environment (1-10): 6.5

2 May 2009: Despite the “steamboat everywhere” scenario in Cameron Highlands, we decided to have a light dinner because we knew that we won’t be able to finish the food served for steamboat set. Hence, we walked into one of the restaurants along the main road in Brinchang town. It is called Restoran Makanan Laut Cameron Highlands (高原火锅海鲜饭店), as shown in the image below. The waiter recommended us to try their steamboat but we seriously did not feel like having steamboat again. Hence, we ordered ala carte dishes instead.

Here’s what we had…

• Minced Pork Tauhu (RM10) -> taste common, small portion and expensive (more expensive than Kuala Lumpur standard price)
• Stir-fried Yau Mak with Garlic (RM8) -> similary, small portion and expensive, nothing special
• Claypot Shanghai Chicken (RM15) -> smallest portion of claypot dish I’ve ever seen, the chicken only filled up less than half of the claypot, it was supposed to be cooked with chinese herbs but I could hardly taste herbs, the chicken were cut into very small pieces which were mainly bones, this is one of the most not worthy chicken dish I’ve ever had

In conclusion, I’m not sure about the steamboat set meal served here, but I would like to warn everyone, “Dont ever order ala carte dishes here!“.

Anyway, here’s the location (Google map) of this restaurant…

Address: 2, Main Road, Brinchang, 39100, Cameron Highlands, Pahang.

2 May 2009: We went to another strawberry farm, Big Red Strawberry Farm, which is located in Brinchang. It looks quite new and it is run in larger scale as compared to other strawberry farms here. Besides strawberry farm, it also has a hydroponic farm.

There is also a food court that serves a wide variety of food based on their strawberry and hydroponic vegetables products. We only managed to try two of them, as shown below:

• Fried ice-cream (RM3.90) -> the fried portion was too hard and not crispy enough, the ice-cream filling has melted before I started eating, strawberries were sour…
• Strawberry yogurt smoothie (RM5.90) -> taste great! worth a try

Besides, the food court also serves…

• Fresh strawberry juice (RM3.90)
• Butterhead juice (RM3.90)
• Fresh strawberry milkshake (RM3.90)
• Strawberry sundae (RM5.90)
• Fresh strawberries with cream (RM4.90)
• Strawberry muffin (RM4)
• Yogurt with fresh strawberries (RM3.90)
• Waffle with ice-cream (RM5)
• Tea and scones (RM6.90)
• Strawberry lassi (RM4.90)
• French fries (RM3.90)
• Strawberry muffin pancake (RM5)
• Strawberry coffee and muffin (RM6.90)
• Strawberry coffee milkshake (RM4.90)

Here’s the map to Big Red Strawberry Farm (behind Cactus Valley), which is only 10 minutes walk from Brinchang town…

Rating:

• Food (1-10): 6.5
• Price (1-10): 7
• Environment (1-10): 6.5

1 May 2009: We discovered that almost every Chinese restaurants in Cameron Highlands serves steamboat. Hence, we decided to have steamboat dinner in Hong Kong Restaurant, which is located along the main road of Tanah Rata.

It offers steamboat set meal at RM14 per pax, which includes a wide variety of ingredients, as shown below…

Here’s what they served for a 2 person steamboat set…

Generally, the portion of steamboat ingredients served is very generous. We actually ended up with quite a lot of leftovers. The food served here were very fresh, including the meat and seafood.

However, the only thing I would like to emphasize here, is the tomyam soup base, which was too oily. On the other hand, the other soup was quite tasty and not too oily.

In conclusion, this restaurant is recommended for those who are looking for a HOT & HEAVY dinner. In fact, I would like to go again and try their herbal steamboat, if there’s a chance.

Here’s the location (Google map) of the restaurant:

Address: 5, Jalan Besar, Tanah Rata, 39000 Cameron Highlands, Pahang.

1 May 2009: There are many strawberry farms in Cameron Highlands. Hence, we went to the one nearest to the hotel we stayed in, which is Healthy Strawberry Farm.

Self-plucking of strawberries is also available here, which costs RM20 for a box-full of strawberries. Unfortunately, I did not manage to snap the photo of the size of the box.

The strawberry ‘products’ available here are:

• Fresh small strawberries (RM10 for 3 boxes) -> as shown below
• Fresh big strawberries (RM10 for 2 boxes) -> sorry, forgot to snap the photo of how big is it
• Ice-cream with fresh strawberries (RM5) -> fresh strawberries topped with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavoured ice-cream, as shown below, worth a try

I’ve surveyed on the price of fresh strawberries sold in other strawberry farms, as well as, the stalls in pasar malam. I found that those sold in Healthy Strawberry Farm are most worthy.

Rating:

• Food (1-10): 3
• Price (1-10): 4
• Environment (1-10): 4
• Service (1-10): 3

1 May 2009: It was 5pm in the afternoon and we were very hungry because we had early lunch (brunch). Hence, we decided to eat something light before we can have dinner. We headed to Tanah Rata town and walked into Restaurant Kumar which is supposed to serve “Authentic South Indian Food”, as shown below:

First of all, we noticed there were thousands of flies flying around the restaurant. Anyway, due to our severe hunger, we ignored the flies and placed our order, which includes a mango lassi (mango yogurt drink), iced lemon tea and two maggi goreng (fried instant noodle). We waited for more than half an hour and repeated our order to 4 different waiters.

After waiting for more than half an hour, we finally got our drinks and food. Here’s how the maggi goreng and mango lassi look like:

• Mango lassi -> I could only taste yogurt, I couldn’t taste any mango at all
• Iced lemon tea -> almost tasteless, taste more like iced water
• Maggi goreng -> without any normal taste of maggi goreng with additional of peanut taste, I could never imagine maggi goreng can be this bad

Finally, a mango lassi, iced lemon and two plates of maggi goreng costed us RM14. With such quality of food and environment, I would say it is very expensive and not worthy.

Warning: Please stay away from this restaurant!

Here’s the location (Google map) of the restaurant:

Address: 26, Jalan Besar, Tanah Rata, 39000 Cameron Highlands, Pahang.

Rating:

• Food (1-10): 6.5
• Price (1-10): 6.5
• Environment (1-10): 8

22 April 2009: Dragon-i serves Chinese food from China, especially Shanghai, Szechuan, Beijing and Lanzhou. Its signature dishes are Xiao Long Bao (Shanghainese steamed meat dumplings) and La Mian (hand-pulled noodles).

In conjunction with Dragon-i’s 3rd anniversary, there’s an ongoing promotion until 30th April 2009, which offer a soya sauce chicken for RM1. However, please note that this promotion is valid for 3 person and above only. Here’s the promotion leaflet:

Although our initial plan was to try the RM1 soya sauce chicken, we ended up order many other dishes. Here’s what we had (for 4 pax)…

• Soya Sauce Chicken (RM1++) ->  very meaty and too sweet, I thought soya sauce chicken is supposed to taste salty?
• Braised Beancurd in Szechuan Style (RM16++) -> not bad, but slightly expensive
• Braised Pork Belly (RM18++) -> I personally do not like too fatty dishes
• Xiao Long Bao (FOC) -> quite good, I’m not sure why is it free of charge
• Stir-fried Spinach (RM18++) -> slightly bitter and very expensive, we did not finish it, not recommended

In conclusion, it’s very unlikely for me to go again in near future…

Here’s the contact details:

Address: S313A, 2nd floor, New Wing, 1 Utama, No. 1, Persiaran Bandar Utama.

Tel: 03-77258822

Rating:

• Food (1-10): 5.5
• Price (1-10): 7
• Environment (1-10): 5.5

17 April 2009: Nong & Jimmy Thai Seafood BBQ is actually 10 mins walk from my house but I had never felt like want to try it out. Recent few years, I heard some positive comment about it and I always see it packed with customers, causing jam to the junction to this restaurant.

Hence, I decided to try it out. It looks more like a big food stall than a restaurant with open-space dining area and open-space car park next to it. The car park is always full while the dining area is always packed, causing it to be hot and stuffy, especially near the BBQ area.

I know this restaurant is famous for their cheap Thai seafood BBQ, but I’m not really a seafood lover. Hence, here’s what we tried…

• Fried kangkung (RM9) -> this teaches me not to order vegetables here again, this is really expensive for such a common dish in such a dining environment
• Fried rice (RM5) -> common but quite big portion and worthy, the only thing I like in it is the fried egg, merely because I’m an egg lover
• Tom yam seafood (RM10) -> taste mainly sour and slightly spicy, without any other taste (sweet & salty), not very recommended but for this price, it’s still worth a try
• BBQ kembong fish (RM12) -> tasteless, rough and dry with a lot of fine bones, I know I’ve ordered the wrong fish and walked into the wrong restaurant, Thai BBQ is meant to be tasteless, without additional marinated taste or sauce

In conclusion, I can only say this restaurant serves cheap Thai BBQ seafood. As for the taste, I’m not going to comment much because I’m not a Thai BBQ lover. For those who like Thai BBQ, it is worth a try.

Here’s the location (Google map) and contact details…

Address: Lot 27363, Jalan Cahaya 1, Taman Cahaya, 68000 Ampang, Selangor.

Tel: 03-42511807

Rating:

• Food (1-10): 6.5
• Price (1-10): 6.5
• Environment (1-10): 8

14 April 2009: Italiannies is doing a set lunch promotion, which includes soup, selected main course and drinks, from RM13.90++, depending on the selection of main course. Please take note of the word ‘from’ because only 1 type of main course costs RM13.90++. Here’s the menu…

We ordered 2 sets and here’s what we had…

• Bread (starter) -> nothing to comment about
• Mushroom soup -> common
• Chicken & mushroom spaghetti -> taste not bad but the spaghetti was not cooked enough, should have complained and get another well-cooked serving
• Penne bolognese -> tomatoes too sour causing the whole plate of pasta taste only sour, without other taste, not cheesy enough
• Iced lemon tea -> normal iced lemon tea

Generally, I would say this set lunch promotion is not worth going for. At least I’ve tried once, and I won’t go again.