Clarissane reviews: Free Mori Bakery & Cafe @ Publika, Solaris

There’s a new bakery in town! From breads, pastries and cakes… a carb-laden haven!


One of their specialty and best-seller, the Layered Bun.


Meant to be peeled layer by layer and eaten fresh. With its soft, fluffy texture… every bread lovers dream! Taste a bit plain on its own, spread some peanut butter or nutella and voila!


The Parmesan Chicken Ham Bun was delicious! Just a hint of cheese on the bun wrapping a thin layer of ham, this is the perfect morning pick-me-up and will keep you going till lunch.

This Chicken Floss bun was my favourite among the lot! Generous amount of chicken floss buried beneath the bun, layer by layer.. every bite was heavenly!

Being an avid bread lover.. I’m in heaven already!


Their Coffee Cake is definitely worth a mention. Past few visits render a repeat of this item on my list. Subtle hint of bitterness with the right combination of sweetness makes it not overly empowering. Goes very well with their famous La Petite Free Coffee! Absolutely satisfying!

Address:
G2 - 67, Publika, Solaris Dutamas,
Jalan Dutamas 1,
50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Map *here*

Free Mori also has branches in SS2, Damansara Utama, SS15 and the most recent one in Taman Danau Desa.

ronnycakes reviews: Marutama Ramen, Fahrenheit88 KL

The search for good ramen will never come to an end; and we’ve heard some pretty good things about Marutama Ramen at Fahrenheit. Marutama like our all time favourite Santouka, is a franchise that hails from Japan and is considered amongst the best of ramen chains internationally.
Marutama is hidden at a pretty secluded corner of Fahrenheit (1st floor and all the way at the end), but the bright basketball-like logo will catch your attention immediately.

    
What makes Marutama different is that instead of using pork broth (as most other ramen places use), they use chicken broth that has been simmered for over 16 hours for all the flavour to seep out.

 
The signature Marutama Ramen (RM18), chicken soup ramen with a slice of roast pork, seaweed and spring onions and of course the unmissable soft centred egg that I love so much. At first glance you can already tell its quite different from the usual ramen due to the deeper yellow-ish tint to the soup which I think comes from the yellow tinge of chicken fat. Whilst I’ll always be a huge fan of pork stock ramen, I did find Marutama’s soup to be delicious despite the fact that it’s chicken stock. Plus points for that! Roast pork wise, was just average. I did love the addition of seaweed though.

 
Marutama’s Nama-Karashi Ramen (RM18) looks exactly the same as Marutama Ramen but packs a hidden punch. The soup is a numbing spiciness not unlike the sensation that you get from tom yam (minus the sour-ness) and I actually preferred this to the Marutama Ramen; I’m a lover of spice! :D
The egg at Marutama was lovely, one of the best ones I’ve had. Very well seasoned and almost every piece had a properly done yolk. I think I ordered about 3 eggs to myself excluding the half side I got in my noodles.

 

Marutama is a no-frills and simple place for you to get your noodles fix, or if you’re interested to find out what chicken stock ramen tastes like.While in my books Santouka is still better, Marutama is cheaper and something different you can have if you’re bored with the other ramen places.

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Address:
Fahrenheit 88, Bukit Bintang
Lot Flr. 27.01, 1st floor
Tel: 03 – 2141 1573

Map *here*

ronnycakes reviews: Spasso Milano, Pavilion KL

We hear that Spasso Milano has moved from Jalan Ampang to the top floor at Pavilion, taking over what used to be the Angus Steakhouse. We’re suckers for non-halal Italian food so how could we miss this one out?

The executive chef at Spasso Milano is Italian, so rest assured that everything served here is authentic Italian food that some say is country-style.

For starters, we had a Pizza Aromatica (RM12.80): pizza bread topped with olive oil, oregano, salt and baked in a wood-fire oven.

This was absolutely delicious, you could taste the wood-fire aroma in every slice of the crispy pizza bread. Perfectly seasoned with salt and spices as well!

 
I had the Aglio Olio with Italian Sausage (RM28), one of my favourite styles of pastas of all time.
After such a promising starter, Wils and I had such high hopes for the main courses but I was quite disappointed with my pasta. It was bland and was slightly too oily for my palate, with the only savoury thing being the pork sausage.

 
Wils had the All’amatriciana (RM28.80); tomato, bacon, onion, chili flakes and pecorino. This went the same way as my olio: bland and flavourless. We couldn’t even taste the bacon bits and there was no tang in the tomato sauce.

After doing quick google searches after our experience at Spasso Milano, I was surprised that other food bloggers rated the food so highly after our disappointing trip. This leads me to think maybe we were just unlucky on our trip when the standard of food was slightly down?

 

We did also see the lunch antipasti buffet at a very reasonable price (RM18++ per person) so that’s something to return for!

Address:
Lot 6.44 & 6.45,
Level 6, Pavilion KL, 
168 Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur

Map *here*

ronnycakes reviews: Ristorante Porto Romano, The Intermark KL

The first time I was at Porto Romano, I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the food. After months of telling Wils about how great the food was, we decided to pick Porto Romano as our restaurant of choice for Valentine’s and headed to their newest branch at the Intermark.

Deco is exactly the same as the Mon’t Kiara branch with a bit more polish and modernity. The walls are lined with beautiful vintage posters and the interior is incredibly spacious with lots of seating.

Zuppa alla Porto Romano – Porto Romano Seafood Soup (RM24) was absolutely amazing. One of the best tangy tomato-based soups I have had with extremely fresh seafood and chockfull of spices. It was so good that we almost ordered another one even though we were nursing very full tummies!

Calamari rings, shrimp, clams and mussels were added to the mix.

Porto Romano serves tapas as well (not sure whether it’s a new addition to all the menus or it’s a branch exclusive thing) and we sampled the Chili Prawns with Red Chili, Garlic & Paprika (RM19). Prawns were fresh and properly deveined (plus points for that!) and the combination of chili, garlic and paprika was fragrant beyond belief. The Chinese upbringing in me badly wanted to pair it with some rice. :p

I normally don’t review food that I’ve already tried before but this is a special case as Rissotto Frutti di Mare – Seafood Risotto coated in creamy white wine sauce (RM32) was quite different than the one I tried the first time. Intermark’s version tasted a little bit like nasi kunyit; I think they slightly overdosed with the yellow ginger giving the whole dish a yellow-tone. Personally I preferred the one at Mon’t Kiara due to the absence of overpowering yellow ginger aroma, and the fact that they used diced prawns instead of whole prawns.

 
Wils had the Spaghetti with Slipper Lobster (RM38) which was another winner! The waiter assured us it was tomato-base sauce but we couldn’t really taste any hint of tomato. Nevertheless, the spaghetti was al dente and freshness of the slipper lobster was top notch.

Meaty lobster… yummy!

I’m glad to say that our visit did not disappoint at all with the exception of the risotto. Service was wonderful (the waiter even “directed” us when we asked him to take a photo for us, haha) and ambience was great as well. It’s a nice place to bring dates if you’re looking for somewhere quiet to talk. We even got 20% discount off our food! Not sure why, and whether it applies at any time of the day, or every day of the week.
I can’t wait to go back for seconds of the soup *slurps*.

Happy belated Valentine’s from us! ♥

Note: Porto Romano serves alcohol.

Address:
The Intermark
Lot 6 Lower Concourse
182 Jalan Tun Razak
50400 Kuala Lumpur
T: +603 2162 6799

Map *here*

ronnycakes reviews: New Shanghai 新上海, Pavilion KL

Tucked away in the farthest corner of Pavilion’s food basement floor is New Shanghai (新上海); a tiny restaurant that serves pork-free dim sum. I’m always incredibly skeptical of pork-free dim sum somehow it just never tastes as good, but because New Shanghai is constantly patronized by throngs and throngs of people we decided to check it out to see what all the fuss was about.

An olden day bicycle complete with rattan baskets – vintage posters on brick walls – takeaway boxes?

Buns steaming away – New Shanghai’s open kitchen – a very Shanghai-esque dining interior.

At New Shanghai, you help yourself to the food, i.e. you queue up at the end of the line and pick and choose what you want from the fried items, baked items, steamed buns and dessert. As for steamed dim sum, you order it at the counter and they’ll deliver it to your table freshly steamed.

Our first plate of greed, Deep Fried Prawn Roll, Deep Fried Crab Roll and Pan Fried Fish Cake. Best thing for me was the fish cake, tasted hand-made and authentic. Not like those machine-made-bleached-white fish cakes.

Nyom nyom, look at that glistening oil…

The Pan Fried Lotus Root Pancake was one of the more unique items; lotus root blended with chicken paste.

Shrimp Dumplings (or Har Gau) were one of the highlights of the trip, with huge, fresh and juicy prawns in each delicately wrapped dumpling.

The never-missed Siew Mai (Pork and Prawn Dumplings, in this case chicken) was pretty good, almost good enough to forget that it was made of chicken.

Shanghainese Dumplings were served with chili oil and spring onion. This was pretty average and tasted exactly like what it was made of: chicken.

 
I think this is Shrimp Wanton (the result of having too many backlogged reviews T.T) but I distinctly remember it as tasting quite similar to the Shanghainese Dumplings.

We finished off our meal with a refreshing Osmanthus Cake, a blend of jelly with Osmanthus flowers and wolfberries. Sadly the flowers were not aromatic enough and all we tasted was sweet jelly.

All in all, dim sum at New Shanghai has its hits and misses but our experience was generally a good one. Pork-free dim sum is done very well, sometimes one even starts to forget that everything is made with chicken…
If you’re planning to come by New Shanghai, do come a little earlier or a little after lunchtime as it can get quite packed and chaotic, not to mention service definitely drops a couple of notches during peak times.

Address:
Lot 1.02.00, Pavilion KL,
168, Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel:03-2142 2833

Map *here*