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Last weekend, I was invited by Coca to their restaurant for a steamboat buffet dinner for 2 adults worth RM78++ per pax. In return, I will write a review for them. It was the first time I was personally invited by a Marketing Manager to do a review on a restaurant. So, how could I reject the invitation? To be honest, it was an honor and who wouldn’t want a free buffet lol. Although this can be considered a paid (via free food) restaurant review, I will not be biased. If it’s good, then it’s good and vice versa.

The restaurant is clean, well designed and I immediately felt welcomed once I entered it. The very nice and polite staff immediately ushered me to my seat and I finally met Andrea, the Marketing Manager. She presented me with the menu and we immediately got down to business, ordering the food!

I thought that having a steamboat would be quite hot, so I had a fresh coconut while Siang Leng had her favorite iced lemon tea. The coconut was really fresh and well-ripe, just nice to be enjoyed.

Coca uses electric steamboat which I feel is better than using the conventional cooking gas. Sitting next to a gas tank while having steamboat isn’t exactly very nice lol. And it’s not that messy too! For the soup base, we chose a dual of Chicken and Tomyam Soup.

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Technorati Tags: restaurant review, Coca

Golden BBQ Steamboat Restaurant located along Nagore Street (Jalan Nagore)is a buffet style steamboat restaurant. Besides steamboat, you can also fry or barbecue food on the round pan beside the pot. Most restaurants that offer this style of steamboat are usually eat all you can for a fixed price.

Technorati Tags: Nagore Street, Jalan Nagore, steamboat

“Flame” Steamboat Restaurant is opened by a quite famous Hong Kong actor in the 90s, Mark Cheng. For those who don’t know him, maybe a cardboard version of himself could help to refresh your memory haha.

This is the guy who owns this chain of steamboat restaurants. The one we went to was located in Bayan Lepas area, in Krystal Point. You cannot miss it, it’s the corner shop. My brother actually went to this restaurant once with his Altera colleagues. He recommended it as it was quite unique, serving a lot of unheard soup bases. Normally when we go for steamboats, we only can choose from either Tomyam or Ching Thong right? Well “Flame” offers more than just two, they have Herbal Ching Thong, Ma Lat (spicy and numbing) and even Winter Melon Soup!

My sister’s birthday was coming soon(but already over if you are reading this lol) so we celebrated it here. We ordered the biggest set they have to offer @ RM168 called the “Prosperity Set”, but drinks were not included.

Peanuts, as starters. Let’s move on to see what ingredients were included in the set we had.

First, we have the free chilli sauce, lol. There are six containers here, but only 4 types to choose from actually. They were not very good, one was too sour while the other one was just normal sambal belacan. It would be much better if they had Thai chilli sauce.

Some pretty much normal looking vegetables, fresh nonetheless.

Kimchim mushroom, sui kao, yam paste slices, fish paste cubes(nice!) and some bean curd.

A few slices or pork meat, from the neck perhaps? So few that you can actually count the number of slices given, 6 only.

Even more fish balls, pastes and noodles. Common stuff.

Nicely arranged seafood, with a crab sitting on top of an array of prawns and cuttlefish. Speaking of which, I don’t remember eating any prawns that day, who finished it lol?!

This plate of mutton is actually a side-order. It was being offered as a new item and had a pretty good discount on it. It cost RM28 for a plate(usual price RM48) They were good and do not have the milky taste as disliked by some folks.

Tomyam soup base on the left, Herbal soup base on the right.

Overall I would give this restaurant a 65/100 score. If you fancy steamboat with a variety of soup bases to choose from, along with some special ingredients, you could give it a try. The cheapest set comes at RM38 if I remember correctly which and serves 2, and RM68 for 4-6.

“Hoi Tong” is an eat-all-you-can steamboat restaurant located in Bukit Serdang. Siang Leng just submitted her FYP report and we decided to celebrate it. Moreover, we have been on a light diet since last week because of Unite. What’s better to reward yourself after a disastrous and starving night? Steamboat ala buffet style of course
It’s easy to spot this big restaurant but it’s a pain to find parking. Worse still , the parking space is uneven, narrow and rocky.

So many people leh..
As usual, the restaurant is fully packed and sometimes you may have to wait for tables or end up in a bad spot(at the sides) Lucky for us, there was an empty table for two when we arrived.
The ingredients are placed at the right corner of the restaurants. They include marinated meat, various balls lol, seafood, fruits and ice cream.

Various balls.. no pun intended lol

Fresh seafood oooo. The nicest thing about this steamboat restaurant is that you get to fry your food yourself Abundant banana leaves and butter are provided for you. The satay chicken, pork and curry sotong are a must if you like to fry stuff. The butter is nicely placed on a plastic sauce holder (like those found in McD) in ball shapes.. cute.

Fry those yummy satay chicken

This is butter There a two types of soup base available, “ching thong” and tomyam. You are allowed to have both, but I recommend that you eat with “ching thong” because the tomyam soup tends to get very salty. On the other hand, the “ching thong” soup will be really sweet(esp if you add a lot of “lai liu ha” @ Mantis Prawn)

Boiling + Frying in action. The ice cream counter always has people lining up (even uncles and aunties :P) Have all the ice-cream you want, it can never run out! 3 flavors are available: corn, chocolate and yam. I always have at least 3 rounds of ice-cream lol.. but warned though, the ice-cream is very very fulling and not recommended to have before you finish your steamboat. Be on a lookout for small kids that do not scoop the ice-cream into the cups provided, they eat from the spoon on the spot! Yuck..

Unlimited supply of ice-cream!

Fruits and jellies to help your digestion. I have been here for 3 times and spent an average of 3 hours every meal. Have it slow, chit-chat with your friends, take some memorable photos, eat more mantis/tiger prawns, oysters and crabs and your RM19.90 will be very worth spent.

Technorati Tags: steamboat, Bukit Serdang