Showing posts with label Buffet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buffet. Show all posts

Monday, November 29, 2010

Daidomon Japanese BBQ Buffet @ Great Eastern Mall, Jalan Ampang, KL

@ Level 3 Great Eastern Mall
Interior
If you are a big fan of BBQ Ox tongue and beef slices, Daidamon's buffet is value for money. For just RM45.90++ per head, you will be able to feast on unlimited amounts of ox tongue, tripe, beef harami, beef ribs, yukke, sashimi, chicken, fish, seafood, hot Japanese dishes, green tea, cordial drinks, fruits, desserts and etc.

Sashimi, Karubi&Harami, Prawns
The buffet package also came along with 1 serving of oysters in a foil, and 1 serving of scallops per person, which we found to be fresh and delicious.

Rosu, Scallops, Honetsuki
Ox Tongue, Oysters, Gyu Tataki
However, apart from the BBQ Beef dishes most of the other dishes were at best, mediocre. Most of the hot dishes on the buffet spread table were cold and soggy, and the salmon sashimi was sliced very crudely and lacking In freshness. Additionally, the fruits and salads on the spread were not covered and I saw a couple of flies hanging around it. The biggest dissapointment of the night was the BBQ prawns. Although it was huge in size, the meat was soft and mushy.

Mushrooms
Yukke Sashi
All BBQ buffet dishes here are served only when ordered. As a party of 4, we ordered many rounds of ox tongue. On our 6th round and onwards, we found that the tongue was more frozen than chilled, and got progressively harder to chew on. However, this could be a one-time off scenario as some of our friends recently visited and did not experienced any frozen beef even after their 10th serving. They however, complained that even when they had specifically ask the waiter to bring a bigger portion when serving, the waiter still brought a small serving of 5 slices only.

Buffet Spread

Verdict:

On the night we visited, there were only 1 or 2 other tables occupied. With such a buffet spread (mixture of bbq meat + sashimis & Japanese dishes), Daidamon should be packed with customers. Perhaps due to their lack of quality control, business is slow and they should definitely start correcting these issues. If you plan to offer buffets, always offer with a generous heart - good portions and high quality. There are so many restaurants mushrooming out every month in the city. It only takes one bad impression before patrons write you off for good.

On weekends the dinner buffet is slightly more expensive at RM 55.90 ++. If Wagyu Beef is your thing, they also offer a dinner buffet with unlimited wagyu at RM 88 ++ per head.


Toothpick says :
Will visit again to see whether presentation and quality have improved.


Sandal says : Skip the food on the buffet table. Choose only the made-to-order dishes from the buffet menu.


Address :
Lot 4, Level 3, Great Eastern Mall
No. 303 Jln Ampang
50450 Kuala Lumpur
Tel : (603) 4252 8155

GPS : 
N = 3° 9' 36.75", E = 101° 44' 12.88"

Google Map : 
3.160215, 101.736906

.

Monday, November 22, 2010

La Gomera Spanish Buffet @ Neo Damansara - Damansara Perdana

La Gomera Buffet
La Gomera is a restaurant that offers Spanish Buffet, which is rather hard to come by. As I am a huge fan of tapas, I was very excited to try this restaurant. Furthermore, they are currently having a promotion where there is a 30% discount off from their normal buffet price of RM49.90 dinner.

A glimpse of what you'll be getting
At the salad counter, there was a large variety of salads laid out including bruschettas, very fresh cold prawns, lobster salad, and cold cuts. After sampling a little bit of everything, Sandal and I felt that the cold prawns stole the show for this counter. I was actually looking forward to many helpings of the lobster salad but personally found that the use of mayonnaise (preferably of the Japanese variant) instead of thousand island sauce would have been a better salad mix for the lobster salad. The thousand island sauce was too sweet for my liking and it  hid the natural taste of the lobster. Near the salad counter, there was also a huge portion of paella with seafood. The paella was OK, but nothing memorable. 

The second counter in the restaurant served soups, beef stew, lamb stew, beef tripe stew, beef balls, clams in wine sauce and etc. The beef and lamb for the stews were flavourful and tender, but the beef balls were really salty. The winning dish for this buffet counter was the seafood soup hands down. It was really aromatic and had a very strong, refreshing taste of seafood. And if you are a weight watcher, you'll be delighted to know that the soup is not the creamy kind but the clear sort.

Buffet spread
On each of the dinner tables, there will be little numbered clips. You can bring this clips along with you to the 3rd buffet counter (walk through the little alley way in the restaurant to reach this section), and place the clips into little bowls that represent the dish that you want the kitchen staff here to cook fresh for you. You get to choose from a variety of pasta, pizza, steak, grilled fish, chicken chop, fresh oysters, cheese baked scallops, and sausages. There were also some pre-cooked fried food here such as fried cheese dumplings, prawns, bean curd and onion rings. The steak we ordered was mediocre, carbonara pasta was bad, and the fresh oysters, although tasted fine was not cold enough.



The buffet also came with desserts such as tiramisu (I didn't get to try this as they ran out of it) and creme brulee (don't bother, hard as an omelette!), soft drinks, juices, hot drinks, and ice cream.

Oh and not forgetting, each seated table will get 1 helping of seafood platter which is a tomato-base soup with lots of seafood.

Entrance

Verdict:
After the 30% discount, our total bill came up to only RM76.85 inclusive of 10% tax for 2 pax. All in all, for the price paid and the huge spread provided, La Gomera is definitely worth a try. I hope that they will tweak some of their dishes based on the comments I left in their comment card so as to improve the quality of their spread here. Do take note that La Gomera is quite hard to find if you are not familiar with Damansara Perdana. The restaurant is actually inside the Neo Damansara Building in Damansara Perdana. Once you  take your parking ticket and enter into the building area, do try to park on that level itself (open air) instead of going into the basement as the basement parking is huge, very very empty after 7 pm, and can be confusing if you park in the wrong block.

Toothpick says : Will come back again to see whether there is any improvement.

Sandal says : Mediocre but good deal. Faster try it before the discount ends:)

Address :
Block E-LG-2,
Neo Damansara,
Jln PJU 8/1,
Damansara Perdana,
47820 Selangor.

GPS :
N = 3° 9' 52.78", E = 101° 36' 48.42"

Google Map : 
3.164661, 101.61345