Dining With Jewelle

Once when we stayed at four star hotel in Singapore, I was pleasantly surprised when the hotel sent me a a cake on my birthday.

This was quite different from a five star resort in Sabah which I had to arrange for a complimentary cake as we stayed there to celebrate my parents’ birthdays. Of course, their presentation was more special as a group of restaurant staff came out to serenade my parents’ as they presented the cake.

Recently, my husband stayed at the Crowne Plaza Mutiara, another five star hotel in Kuala Lumpur, and received a funny surprise. Sent to his room was a cake with a “Happy Honeymoon” plaque!

Of course he informed the reception of the mistake but wasn’t it nice to receive surprise gifts like that when you check in a hotel?

Whenever I’m asked where to dine, my family knows that my first choice would usually be Indian food.

What more when I’m back in Sabah.

So when I was home for a short trip last weekend, I finally dined at the Spice Garden with my sister and her fiance as she’s been there before and thought I should try it.

When we arrived for lunch, we were the only patrons - and I’ve noticed that this is also the case for most of the Indian restaurants that I’ve visited in Kota Kinabalu. So unlike most Japanese restaurants - at the same building was the Umai Restaurant and that was packed then.

I was craving for chicken biryani so I ordered their version.

My verdict : Either their biryani is the authentic version or it’s simply is not that good because I definitely preferred the biryani at Choice Restaurant. For one thing, at Choice, you can see the chicken leg straight away while you had to fish your meat out from the depth of the pot in this.

Anyway at the Spice Garden, we were recommended this plate of tandoori of all sorts - from seafood to meat. While it’s reasonably good, I did not fancy it much because generally I don’t really fancy tandooris.

Of course, whenever I had Indian food, the one must have thing is the Aloo Gobi. And again, this must be the authentic Northern Indian taste because the kind that I fancy - as in the type cooked by my friend’s Southern Indian mother - is different. And those gingers seemed out of place in this dish…

My sister ordered some soup and ordered other biryanis - which I’m sure she will blogged about herself soon.

The place itself was beautiful with lovely paintings of Indian ladies adorning its walls. The service was good and the prices were reasonable - for 3 biryanis, 2 extra dishes and 1 soup plus drinks costs RM100.

Needless to say, we were extremely full. I’m still on the quest for the perfect Aloo Gobi and so far, I liked the Anjappar’s version. There is another popular “fine dining” Indian restaurant which I’ve yet to check out because it has to be at the right time of the day - since it’s without air-conditioners.

Still, Spice Garden is a nice place to dine at and although I was not thrilled with this first try, I think I will come again.

Reading some of Brunei’s prominent bloggers raving about the latest restaurant in the country is nothing unusual. What piqued my interest about this latest Italian place in the country was when another blogger chose to be harder to please - perhaps because he claimed to have real Italian experiences and definitely because the others were singing too many happy praises about it.

My sister informed me that she had visited Villa Mauri’s sister restaurant at the Jesselton Hotel in Kota Kinabalu called Bella Italia- which as per Rano’s interview with the owner, was opened 2 years ago.

She was not too thrilled with her main dish then but she adored the celebrated Fantasia Di Maria which was incidently the chocolate pudding I wanted to try.

So last weekend when I was back in town, my sister, her fiance and I met for dessert at Bella Italia and indulged in one Fantasia Di Maria….

And one Tiramisu…

Each of these slices now cost RM12 each - an increase of RM3 from when my sister first had it. The Fantasia Di Maria was delicious but as I quote them “Not as soft and high as before”.

But the chocolate that oozed out from it’s centre, the garnished ice cream and the extra cherry which I noted was missing from both the Villa Mauri’s and my sister’s previous visit to Bella Italia quite made up for it - although to be honest it smelt and tasted quite like the kind of chocolate cake I used to make, minus the gooey centre of course, and I am not even a baker…

The Tiramisu however was what a cake should be - I can’t say if it’s a great Tiramisu though. Soft, light, not too sweet, beautiful to look at but missing the coffee smell - and isn’t that what makes Tiramisu special?

Perhaps it was not the baker’s good day or my expectation was too high or I forgot that I actually don’t really like cake all that much but I quite honestly don’t see why the Fantasia Di Maria is supposedly very famous.

But of course, I will try it again one day just to see if I will change my mind…

So our first dining experience in KK during this trip was at the Wagamama at Komplex Asia City where it was not crowded (plus point) and spacious (plus point). The food selections were typical although I think their sushi range were not as much as Excapade (?).

I thought their food and the service was good.