Thursday, October 18, 2007

Oriental Pavilion, Jaya 33

The thing I love about Monday public holidays is the fact that it's just like Sunday, but Sunday is usually taken up by Church, afterwhich half the day is gone, and by the time lunch is over, it's nap time. Or exercise, depending on the weather.

So, Monday holidays allows us to go Yum Cha, which is nice. Sister invited us to try the new Oriental Pavilion, at Jaya 33, opposite the old Jaya Supermarket. You can't miss it unless you were blindfolded. True Fitness is displayed in all its glory, and seems more tasteful than the Hartamas one, which resembles a gigantic lighted hamster cage, where you can see the little creatures running on the treadmills, on various levels.

Parking was easy enough. It's a rather spacious building, with generous ingress and egress. The restaurant, part of the Oriental Chain (Ming Room, Noble House, Oriental, etc), is adequately ID-ed, not over the top, but still, it is basically a Chinese restaurant.

At 11.15am, the crowds were trickling in already. In another half an hour, the restaurant would be packed, and we would overhear the table next to us threatening to complain to the malay mail because of the slow service. Gosh, some people are impatient, and I thought I was bad.

For a place like this though, I'd have expected it to be teeming with trolleys of steaming stuff, with a swarm of waitresses plonking masses of dim sum on the table. Instead, we had to virtually grab whatever crumbs that were left in the trolleys.

The food however, is fairly consistent with their other outlets, which is usually of an acceptable standard.

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Bean Curd Rolls, nice and crispy, and despite visible oil stains, didn't taste overly oily.


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Egg Tarts, definitely a must. The pastry is gorgeously flaky, and the filling nice and smooth, if not a bit on a sweet side. I would have preferred them piping hot, but as I said, one had to grab whatever came by.

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Har Gao...well, nothing spectacular, though I can't really say I HAVE tasted spectacular Har Gaos anywhere. Some items are just destined for mediocrity in the food chain. I mean, like how orgasmic can har gao or siew mai actually be?


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The Fried Sang Mee Noodles with sea food. Rather generous with their prawns, I have to say. I love sang meen, and it would take quite an effort to really botch up a plate of fried noodles. Again, nothing that you'd see me swooning over. Life gets harder as you get older and more jaded.

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Platter of Roasts. The duck was excellent, skin done just right, and meat tender and moist. The char siu, well, nothing to shout about. The pig must have been going to True Fitness next door, for it seemed rather lean. Worth a mention is the roast pork, which was crisp almost all around. How did they manage that? Again, maybe from the same pig, aka Mr Lean.

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The cheong fun....smooth, melt in the mouth texture. Alas, by this time I was a bit distracted with the sms I received informing me of the sudden death of one of my classmates. "Jatuh di kebun", was the COD. (cause of death). Sometimes the lack of detail can cause imagination to run wild, but I later on found out that it was a heart attack. All this in the same breath as talking about the lack of fat in siu yoke.


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Fish Balls, which are the kid's favourite food when it comes to dim sum. Nice and springy, but I think now with my magimix, I have been producing better fish balls any time.

The bill sounded reasonable, about RM30 per head. Nice to know that there's yet another dim sum joint in town. Actually, where ELSE can one get good dim sum, (apart from Hong Kee)?

16 comments:

Precious Pea said...

Wat do you mean by grabbing food from trolley? Self-service?

Anonymous said...

Ooooohh.. look at the layers on that tart!!
I was just telling babe I can live without tofu for a while, then I see the silky smooth tofu next to the charsiu... what I wouldn't do to have that slither down my throat now...

I actually quite like this place. Went for a formal dinner there once, and it was different from the usual wedding banquet dishes. The prawn was plain boiled (none of those butter/si-chap ones, these were supremely fresh) and the fish were fillets (can't remember what sauce) instead of a whole fish. Even the obligatory fried rice was served in a crab shell. I had a look at their other sets, quite interesting and different. Refreshing.

MeiyeN said...

did they actually move all da way from jaya shopping mall? i only been to da oriental in jaya early this year and da dimsum really not bad :D

fatboybakes said...

meiyen, i think jaya oriental is still there.

kat, yar, the food in this chain is a notch above the average, but so is the pricing lar. apparently you can make your own silky tofu using the magimix.....but not being a tofu fan, or even taufufah fan, my bag of soyabeans is still sitting there...might germinate soon.

precious, yar, ALMOST to that extent. they seemed ill equipped for the large morning crowd. my bro in law literally had to go to the trolley and point to what he wanted, which wasnt much choice.

Tracy Tan said...

there's ah yat abalone restaurant near unique seafood which is just round the corner from oriental pavilion. not too bad and on sundays and pub hols you get 30% off. On mons to sat a 50% off.

the dim sum wasn't too bad but i prefer the one at oriental (old outlet).

i've also had formal dinners at oriental and find the food good. they try to be different from your regular chinese restaurant - more fusion....but not too much :)

Krew said...

Ok, when and what time?

boo_licious said...

Ah, I have yet to check out the dim sum here which I heard good things so far. The Jaya one will close soon as the place is scheduled to be torn down, so sad!

Sorry to hear abt yr friend.

daphne said...

the pictures looks decent and it sounds like an enjoyable morning over dimsum! Boy, I miss a good dimsum =)

fatboybakes said...

daphne, arent you in oz? plenty of good dimsum there surely.

boolicious, yup, not bad at all. yar, re my friend, i just got more update. very the tragic. found dead at the oil palm plantation he was managing, clutching his meds in his hand. leaving behind a brood and incomeles widow.

crewcut, what u talking about?? what where what time what?

tracy, ahyat gives 50% discount too? i know unique does, but unique is uniquely pork free, and pork free dim sum is like soy burgers.

sc said...

i'd usually pop over ah yat just down the road. ah yat gives 50% discount on sundays, 30% discounts on sat & pub hols. taste wise, comparable to oriental's but i think ah yat's got more variety..

wmw said...

Mmm...another nearby place to check out!

Anonymous said...

I have no idea where is this place :S

Krew said...

ok, tried the dry sang ha min and it's burnt. 2 ** for the prawns only.

fatboybakes said...

crew, well, i did say it was nothing i'd swoon over.

jason, its opposite jaya supermarket, one of the oldest landmarks in PJ, probably before you were born.

wmw, yar, but as i said, dont set the bar too high.

jackson, its decent lah, as i said in my post, not orgasmic.

sc, ahyat has got that all important ingredient or not? coz unique's dim sum is err.... oink free.

ai wei said...

oh my! the tarts ... i want Them!

Julian Si said...

SLURRRP nice write up ...

I am going there for LOH SANG Part Deux tonite, lets hope its good!

:-)