Izzy's & Izakaya Tamako

It was so sweet of Ipoh Banker and Stanchart Model (from 19XX) asked to meet up for lunch, also for the reason of celebrating birthday. It's been years since any of us celebrated each other's birthdays, so it was quite a surprise.

Ipoh Banker was late, and the rendez vous was to have been at Pavilion. Stanchart Model then suggested Izzy's, along that row where Ship used to be (is it still there?), apparently an Indonesian owned franchise selling a mish mash of local and pseudo Italian food. The place was packed, which is always a good sign.

As I had been killing time in Pavilion, I used up my 20% birthday voucher from Times bookshop, intermittently on the line with Boolicious of Masak Masak, my walking wikipedia for all things food related. What a privilege to have such an invaluable guide. Anyway, I couldn't really find any books I really wanted, but the kiasu in me felt I HAD to use the voucher, so ended up buying one cook book and one comic book (SHERMAN'S LAGOONS LATEST, Sharks Just Wanna Have Fun).

Stanchart and I sat down, while waiting for Ipoh Banker (who actually now works in KL) to appear. He appeared, looking very dapper with shirt and tie, instead of the usual bank uniform that make them look like highly paid janitors. Anyway, he spied this package on the table, (my Times purchase) and assumed it was a present from Stanchart, so quickly chirped, "oh, the present is from the both of us".....

Roll eyes! Anyway, after a good chuckle, we proceeded to order. Stanchart recommended the Prawn Aglio Olio and the funghi pizza.

The pasta was lovely, and light. Perfect for lunchtime food. Not too oily either.



Mmmm, the pizza was rather good, with generous mushroom topping. The crust could have been thinner, but overall, it was better than your average pizza hut or dominos....

I forgot to take a pic, but the bread with garlic butter was heavenly. The latter especially, but beware if you have to attend a meeting after lunch, for that garlic smell really lingers in the breath, and through the burps.....

They have this really strange deal, whereby if your mains are above RMX, you get 70% (yup, SEVENTY) discount. The soft drinks are bottomless too. Without the discount, the alacarte prices seem pricey, but our total bill came up to just over RM40, for 2 pastas, 1 large pizza, the bread and garlic butter, bottomless iced lemon tea....cheap what hor.

Since they both sound similar, I thought I'd blog about Izzykaya too in the same post. One night, AWOL and the toy couple on MSN decide they would meet up for a late dinner. As I had brought the kids for the 7pm screening of Madagascar II, we also needed to eat something for supper, so invited ourselves.

AWOL was famished, and had ordered ahead, a plate of Japanese Pork Curry Katsu with rice.

There's something about Japanese curry. It's really a completely different taste. Rather good, but cannot be compared with our Malay curries.

This Izakaya is famous for its various skewered stuff. Gosh, the term escapes me. But I simply LURVE the bacon and enoki yakitori. The bacon is gorgeous and porcine, without being overly fat, and the enoki lends a fabulously fibrous texture that assuages your guilt at chomping on bacon. Not being a tomato fan, I didnt care much for the bacon wrapped cherry tomato, although it wasn't bad.

Despite having SPECIFIED I wanted SOBA, the FAT ONE, I got udon instead. Bah. The buckwheat taste is a tad too healthy for me. The tempura and soup were nice, but the noodle really spoilt it for me. AND to make things WORSE, Hairy Berry's Tampopo post, and AWOL's reference to Ramen had given me a serious Ramen craving which was not about to be fulfilled that night. Argh. Good ramen recommendations anyone?

I always thought the Japanese were exceedingly healthy, but these skewered crispy chicken skin yakitori indicates that they can sin afterall. It's LARRRVELLLY, and were it not for the health implications, I'd have had 5 myself.

Toyboy couldnt resist his usual staple of garlic fried rice, although they had eaten dinner. Tsk, the youth of today.



Ooh, this one was some kind of belly pork yakitori. A carnivore's sure road to esctasy. A bit too much meat, unlike the enoki rolls which had the enoki to balance out the plentiful pork but very delicious.

Not content with all the above, we ordered more bacon enoki rolls. Absolutely yummy.

Check out the other review at AWOL's blog.

I am off to the Western Seaboard, for the school holidays, and will be absent till Friday. Have fun at work, peeps. Pbbbbbbth.....