You can order ala-carte but the set meals of a "main course" + side dish + drink are much better value. Glancing around the restaurant it does seem like most of the other diners have also gone this route so we play along.
The drinks (Guava and Pineapple juices) are served first - nothing much to say about them as they're clearly poured from a can. Or a carton.
You can choose to have meat, tendon, or both with your Beef Noodle. It's decent tasting and the meat is tender, but I didn't feel that it was any better than the noodles you'd get at any of the Taiwanese stalls at kopitiam, food republic or any other random food court.
The Taiwan Noodle also offers you a choice of meat - you can choose from fish slices (pictured below), meatballs, and a couple of other choices that I forgot and is also unimportant anyway because this noodle soup isn't worth wasting stomach space on - it's bland and uninspiring.
Our two side dishes were the Salt & Pepper Chicken and the Braised Cabbage. I've sampled many salt & pepper chicken at different Taiwanese joints but this one takes the cake ... for being bad. It's overcooked, dry, and has barely any hint of either salt or pepper. At least the cabbage was pretty nice: had a strong taste of being braised with dried oyster (which I dig).
With the price coming in at around $17 per person, this mediocre experience doesn't even qualify as good value. Taiwanese food seems to be less strongly seasoned & flavored than our local food, so if you've got simple tastes you might find the food here suitable to your palette. The rest of us should take our money & spend it elsewhere.
Lai Lai Casual Dining has quite a number of outlets - I know of outlets at Nex, Jurong Point and Leang Seah.
yikes. ok, here's hoping lai lai doesn't open any branches in KL, heh =)
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