1881 Chong Tian Cultural Hotel & Restaurant

 1881 Chong Tian Cultural Hotel & Restaurant located along Rope Walk or also known as Jalan Pinta Tali.

It boasts to be the first and so far the only Chinese Heritage hotel in Malaysia. This taken from their website at http://www.1881chongtian.com/

We visited this place for lunch. And we were amazed by the decor of this hotel & restaurant.

I must warn you, this post will be heavily loaded with lots of pics.

The interior itself was so beautiful with many wooden carving and old artifacts filled reminisent of Chinese culture and tradision. It's a very good place to bring tourists and visitors from out of town.

Next-up is the food. They serve both Chinese and Western cuisine here. We ordered from both set of menus and this is what we chose - two ala chart dishes with rice.
1) claypot taufu with seafood
2) honey glazed roasted chicken

The chicken was very nicely prepared - marinated and glazed well with honey.
The seafood taufu saw kept warm with a burning flame. I think they hand-make their own taufu. This dish was satisfying.

Next-up, the western menu.
We ordered one set lunch.
This set consist of one soup, one glass ice lemon tea, one main course, dessert and coffee/tea.
The choice of our main course was chicken chop for RM22.
(Different main courses had different pricing... )

Mushroom soup with croutons

Chicken chop with gravy on the side

Coffee and dessert

We went close to 2pm and by that time, most people had already finished lunch. If I was not mistaken, the previous people had desserts different from the one I got. I think the others had pudding in a nice tall glass for their dessert. So, I was suprised when mine came in a plate. It was a morsel of cheese cake the size of a 50cent coin (or maybe smaller) with cream on the side. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one. I didn't have another table to compare the dessert... so, the dessert part was abit disappointing for me.

Anyway, this was a nice place to visit... besides the food :))

Bread History @ Queensbay

 

These day, bakeries have started with a one-stop eat concept. And Bread History is one of them. Bread History outlet at Queensbay mall doubles as a cafe on top of being a bakery. I recently went there for lunch and I tried out their set lunches.

 

They had set A and set B

Set A costs RM9.90 for a choice of pasta and coffee or tea

Set B was RM19.90 for choices from their chicken selection (poultry) - if i'm not mistaken... Dun worry, the waitress will explain the menu as you sit down and she hands you the menu :)

 

So, we choice one set A and one set B

 

The set A we chose was Spaghetti bolognese with hot coffee...and for set B, we picked chicken gordon blue, with iced tea.

 



Iced tea, and hot coffee

Spaghetti Bolognese

Chicken Gordon Blue

The spaghetti sauce was tasty and had pieces of meanced meat. This was good. And at only RM9.90, what a great deal.

The chicken gordon blue was also another great choice. It came with the same sauce as would the chicken chop choice. So, it wasn't dry. The batter was crisp, thin and light. Just the way anything fried in batter should be!! Very impressed.

The chicken (like the dish name suggests) was stuffed with ham and cheese. Really good amounts of ham and cheese was found in my stuffed chicken. Happy about that! :)

So my opinion is that this set thinggy is a good deal! Value for money
 

Macalister Mansion

 

 Tucked away in the heart of town amongst the hustle and bustle of city life, is a pretty white mansion very nicely decorated and covered in a rich coat of white paint.
This is Macalister Mansion located on (needless to say) Macalister Road.
It's just next to new wing of  Loh Guan Lye specialist hospital.

 Once you step, in it feels like a totally different place. It feels like home. This is the Living Room. No, it's not the living room of your house. The name of the restaurant is called the Living Room; which of course tries to simulate a home living-room environment :)

 

Notice the cleverly drawn and painted mural of a fire-place in the wall... And book-racks with cat drawings too... NICE!  Love the 'all-white' concept. It gives the room a wide and spacious effect. Yes, white tends to do that to a room. The simple yet effective decor like hanging plants and lamp shades are accented in comparison to the white walls.

Okay, enough of the ambiance. Down to the food.

 It seems to me, the main theme colour in the Living Room is White and Green accents... menu cover is green, menu bow is green, place mate has lime-green motives. NICE!

 The Living Room offers set lunches called Express Lunch from 12pm till 3pm at RM45 ++ as well as ala chart choices. The some set lunch selection has additional charges to the RM45++, so be watchful of what you're ordering.

 Needless to say, I ordered the set lunch.
First course was the soup of the day ~ Mushroom soup with dark, crouton. Dunno why they roasted the crouton till it's this colour... (pic below)

Soup was okay. Alittle wattered down for my liking. But still tasty.

 Choice of coffee or tea. Mind you, although they sell TWG teas, the one that comes with the set is not from TWG.

My main course was the Chicken breast with mash potato (sorry can't remember exactly the name of this dish). I must say, I was worried the chicken breast would taste tough and fibrous. But to my pleasant surprise, it was moist and tender, not to mention tasty and juicy!!! The most difficult part of the chicken to marinate and make juicy, the Living Room chef managed to do just that!!! Impressed!

 

The crumbly beige pieces you see on the right side of my plate is actually cauliflower diced. This was not expected, but something new... Loved the potato mash below. And see the dark sauce beneath everything else? That's a sauce made from olive oil... or at least that's what I heard from the waiter, if I heard it correctly... ahah. That, my fellow readers made the whole dish super tasty... I can't quite describe it.. It's just YUM!

 My friend ordered the angel hair spaghetti with I think it was seafood (I might be wrong). She says it's was okay :))

Finally, desserts...
The dessert of the say was this lovely moist coffee-cake! I called it coffee cake because it had a hint of tiramisu, but it's not tiramisu. And has alcohol in it. Again, the waiter did say the name of the cake, but it escapes me... (sorry). What I remember is the crunchy caramel coated walnuts or pecan nuts on top. And the yummy sponge cake which was soaked in alcohol... maybe rum..and...mascarpone. It was simply heavenly... hahah

Find out more about the Living Room at
www.macalistermansion.com/
 

Brussels @ Gurney Paragon

This is my second time at Brussels cafe & bar. Í was attracted to their RM15 set lunch offer with buffet style salad.

 

 

Table set-up

Chicken breast with mushroom sauce

Braised pork with corn rice

I ordered the chicken breast with mushroom sauce. The sauce was tasty, but unfortunately, they gave too little sauce for the tough chicken breast. The potato side was complimenting the dish well. Loved the potatoes and vegetables.

They had this buffet style salad bar, which offered cold pasta, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, lettuce, and olives, onions and pineapple & watermelon to choose from. (sorry no pic)

The braised pork had a lot of gravy, which is what I like. It was flavourful.

All in all, the lunch was ok for RM15.

Penang's Fisherman's Wharf @ Sunshine Square

The Fisherman's Wharf at Sunshine Square offers various Chinese cuisine at affordable prices. Their set menus are even more money saving!

The set meals comes in a few types depending on the number of people.

We took set A for 1-3 pax which offers:
1) one soup
2) one fish dish
3) one meat/chicken dish
4) one vegetable dish

rice and drinks are not included.

To me the number of dishes are in itself enough to feed more than 3 pax! And the service is really quick! Talk about Chinese fast-food!!


So, we ordered 1) fish dish - fish steamed with soya sauce & ginger 2) onion chicken 3) kangkung sambal

The soup of the day was Black bean soup

First was the fish dish. They gave us slices of fish. It was fresh and the ginger was not over powering - just the way i like it

The best was the Onion chicken. It's basically fried chicken with friend onion rings in a delicious gravy!! Loving everything fried, it's no wonder I like this the most.

Kangkung sambal was pretty good! Not too salty, not too spicy. Just right!

Take a look at the surroundings... They also cater for family functions, weddings, etc... fully air-conditioned. Haha... ok, now I sound like i'm advertising for them... hmm... they should pay me, eh? haha

Here's their address: Printed on the napkins...