Food Review: Avanti Italian American Restorante @ Sunway Hotel

This time I'm reviewing Avanti Italian American Restorante @ Sunway Hotel. I know its rare to see me do food reviews but its 1.30am on christmas day and I'm wide awake from sleeping earlier.

Surprisingly easy to find, and easily accessible with lots of parking at Sunway Hotel. Parking rates are surprisingly very decent compared to what you would normally expect at a parking. Easy parking at decent rates makes starts the night on a good foot.

Sorry it's abit blur.

 Ambience-wise it was definitely something, and some other pictures did not do it justice. It's windows face the front of sunway hotel which is almost always litted up with some nice lights. I'd recommend it for dinner over lunch based on ambience and setting.

Live band 

The live band was a very nice touch, and both the singers were amazingly good. This is rather important because it would have been horrible to sit through a few hours of dinner if there was terrible karaoke just right behind us.

There's an upstairs as well, but since it was rather a slow day when I came, it was not open for seating.

The table is lined with paper and crayon is provided for the kids to draw on the table. While the paper lining seemed a little cheap, I figured they did have a legitimate excuse for them, which I thought was smart. I guess they're promoting it as a family restaurant more than a restaurant you would bring your date to impress.

Duck Breast with mashed potatoes, asparagus, and some sauce I forgot the name. RM39

And finally the food. The menu wasn't very big, in fact it was only two pages. There wasn't that much of a choice to choose from, as pastas and pizzas takes up one page already. But this caught my eye and I decided to go for the duck breast. At RM39, I was not expecting that much, but I was silently impressed.

Expect fine-dining-like portions at Avanti, which are pretty much a few bites for most parts. Not the place you would want to bring big eaters especially if they are hungry. Nonetheless, the taste impressed, and that is the most that matters.

Ravioli Pasta RM 30

I can't say the same for the Ravioli pasta. I did not have this dish but the person who did mention it was disappointing. For starters, I'm all for small portions over big taste, but this kinds of pushes the limit. It was literally 6 bites. The orange sauce that the pasta seem to be soaked in is apparently sour-ish. At RM30, it was RM5 per piece. It was hard not to count it that way when it was so easy to do so.

Salmon Steak RM-I-forgot

Perhaps the most impressive of all our dishes is the salmon steak, which despite it's rather plain and untasty look, is pretty good. A complete contrary to the pasta portions, it was practically huge. The salmon was fresh, and the sauce completed it very well.

Rock-salted fish RM-I-forgot

And finally the last was the rock-salted umm.. fish. I apologize for not remembering the exact name of the fish!  This took 30 minutes to come (written on the menu), and is apparently an authentic traditional italian food. Not hard to see why, as the fish was coated entirely in rock salt. My best word to describe it was probably.. interesting. Lots of bones though, avoid if you hate fishes with lots of bones. It does come with some mushrooms and asparagus sides with what seemed to be melted butter sauce.

Service
One thing I have a little concern about is the service. While the service is definitely very friendly and welcoming, it lacked a little of the professional side that I was expecting. If you were going there with the expectation of a family restaurant, it would be fine, but I was going there with the expectation of a higher class restaurant, particularly since it was in a hotel.

For example, the waiter that was showing us to our table brought us half the way and then disappeared without a word, leaving us standing in the middle of the restaurant looking lost for a few moments. The one that took over there brought us to a area of the restaurants and then looked lost herself. Every table around us was empty.

The manager did come by later and asked if our order was all good. This was good except that I felt he chatted a little too long while we were having foods in our mouths and chewing. I mean, it's really unfair to say that his service was terrible when he was being friendly and explaining about the rock-salted dishes being a traditional dish in Italy but it would probably have been better suited waiting until we have finished our meals instead of trying to start a conversation when we were in the middle of chewing our meals.

Conclusion
Nonetheless, it was a good experience and a place worth noting for good food at decent prices.

Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa Persiaran Lagoon
46150 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
+60 3 7495 1888

Business Hours
Lunch: 12.00noon - 2.30pm (Tue - Fri & Sun)

Dinner:
6.30pm - 9.30pm (Tue - Sun)

Closed on Saturday for lunch, and on Monday for lunch and dinner


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Lawy3rz

Food Review: Serai @ Empire, Subang Jaya

It's been a while since I last did a food review. While I know this isn't a food blog, I do tend to do my own bit of review from time to time when I'm trying something new and interesting.

This time the food review is on Serai @ Empire Gallery in Subang Jaya. Recently opened shopping complex with an impressive food titans such as Chilis, Italiannies, Starbucks, and many other smaller shops that have so far impressed me.

Apparently, the satay was very nice here, so we had to try them.

This was the speciality menu page, where all the dishes are served with their signature Serai rice. Prices ranged from RM20-RM30 for mains.

Ambience wise it was quite nice as well.

This was the Serai Platter, RM25. It had a bit of everything, which included oxtail asam pedas, honey squid, acar and friend chicken. I actually thought this was amazing, where the sweet flavours of the squid complemented the somewhat spicy rendang-like oxtail. The flavours complemented each other and definitely deserved to be their signature dish.

Our satay, although it did come first, the mains came almost immediately after, leaving it forgotten until at the end of the meal when it was not as hot and fresh as it had been when it first came out. Nonetheless, it was definitely delicious, and the peanut sauce is definitely a class away from the hawkers stalls. However, at RM14 (if I remembered correctly), it was somewhat steep for 6 satays, pricing each stick more than RM2 each.

Conclusions
In conclusion, the food and ambience definitely sells, the pricing is just okay, wouldn't call it cheap but wouldn't call it expensive either. Asked if I would go there again, I would.

Pricing - RM20-RM30 Mains
Ambience - 8.5/10
Food 8.5/10

Contact Details

LG37 Lower Ground, Jalan SS16/1, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor
Telephone: 603 5635 9818 / 603 5635 9858
Fax:  603 56355898

Operating Hours:
Monday-Sunday (Including Public Holiday) 10am to 10pm


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This is a rather short and quick review, but maybe next time I will have a chance to do a bigger one.

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Lawy3rz

Oh Malaysia, you are so far behind..

Seriously Malaysia, as much as you are still home to me, you are still very far behind in so many things. From internet speeds/pricing to public service to post office, you are so far behind.

57 people in front of me. great.

So I was at the post office today. I spend 45 minutes in line of what seemed like eternity where only 2 of the 5 counters was open. To be fair, 2 more counters opened later, and one closed. Seems like suka suka open suka suka close. Waiting 45 minutes to do a 1 minute transaction is ridiculous.

Then there's the internet. Oh Unifi, how you seemed like the glitter of hope of all Malaysians that we could all enjoy high speed for the first time in Malaysia ever. Sadly none of us ever thought that the hope be dashed by unaffordable and ridiculously expensive plans with horrible low bandwidth quotas.

Oh look! Its RM249 a month for a 120GB quota!

Oh hang on, its UNLIMITED for $29.99 a month which is only about RM90! 

Congrats for being 3 times more expensive than Australia for a worse plan. Though at least it was some good effort. Here I am typing this on a 0.5Mbps connection which sometimes I feel is like Jaring dial-up. I swear that snails finish marathons faster than me trying to watch a youtube video that pauses to load every 3 seconds.

Oh don't get me started on cars. Really, what the hell? Right below you see a Toyota Corolla Altis from Australia.

$20,990. Roughly RM65,000?

But no, for some messed up reason, the Malaysian government decided that their citizens are rich bastards who can afford to pay taxes through their nose.

Here we see RM105,990 for the same, damned car.

Who in the right mind can see the rationale in paying additional RM40,000 for the same, damned, car. It's bad enough that Ringgit is a currency which is so low, resulting in the dollar-to-dollar difference of $21k to RM65k, you have to extort an additional RM40,000 taxes as well from the people.

So take away the fuel subsidies if you must, as you like to decry it as the cause of bankruptcy of the country, but also take away the absurd taxes on the car. Raising fuel prices but leaving these extorting taxes is nothing short of robbery.

If the opposition has the balls to right this wrong, they have my vote.

If you wonder why your brightest minds and citizens are leaving, how about you stop making up stupid and  crappy come-home programs and calling the people who leave as traitors, but rather look at the fucked up mess in your face.

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Lawy3rz

So I'm back.

Months ago I decided to leave Melbourne. I'm finally back in Malaysia. Honestly initially it felt weird. It stills feels a little weird but it's all fading away quickly. Hot, Humid, Malaysia. Somehow still home. Despite its drawbacks, it is still home.

In any case, I am back for now, and although I will not stay forever, I am still here.

Did I mention I went to test-drive the Nissan Slyphy? Oh I'm in love. :D

It's an amazing car, it felt like driving the vios for the first time after driving the wira for so long. It felt the same. It felt good.

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Lawy3rz