Delicious Curry Fish Head at Samy's Curry, Dempsey Hill

Yay: Well cooked, fresh and fragrant fish head curry, served on banana leaf!
Nay: A bit on the Spicy side; Parking is a bitch.


Samy's Curry opened its' doors some 30-ish years ago in Dempsey Hill, serving up a full menu worth of curries, breads, tandoor meats ... and fish head curry. I'm a big fan of Indian-style fish head curry - I like the more robust spice and flavor compared to Chinese-style. And perhaps there's also just that something about free flow rice and vegetables on a banana leaf.


I'm glad to report, then, that the fish head curry in Samy's Curry is very good! The snapper head itself is fresh and well cooked - flesh is moist and succulent. I liked the curry itself as well - had the right balance of tanginess and spice from the curry.


The other dishes we tried were a little hit and miss, though. Tandoori chicken and the Fish Cutlets were par for the course; and the dry-cooked lamb while being chock full of flavor was a little too spicy for our taste buds.


The Masala Chicken also a mixed bag - nice taste on the sauce but the dry parts of the chicken were simply too dry to appreciate and enjoy.


If you're in the mood for a nice, solid fish head curry then Samy's Curry is a no brainer! Do turn up early though - parking in the area can get quite annoying once the crowd starts building up. Dinner with drinks should fall in around $15-$20/pax.

Personalized Western & Asian Food at Temptations, Bdr Mahkota Cheras

Temptations Restaurant and Bar in Bandar Mahkota Cheras is one of the very few places I know where you can actually call up the Chef and ask him to customize / personalize a meal for you (and your family). If you've got an upcoming date and your partner loves ribs, call up, and the Chef will happily go look for a nice rack for the day. It makes the entire dining experience pretty personal, especially since the Chef will likely also come out of the kitchen and pay you a visit to ask how everything is.


For my birthday lunch with family, my mum called up and requested for a decent steak, so the Chef went out and bought some Angus Rib Eye, served on a bed of mashed potatoes and broccoli. While I thought that the meat was well seared and well rested, I would have preferred a more substantial (read: thicker) cut of meat.


The Crispy Salmon comes with the same mashed potatoes and broccoli, served with a squash puree. I also thought that the fish was pretty well cooked, with the skin giving a nice crisp.


Coming back to the personalization thing. Temptations is a Western restaurant, but because my dad isn't a big fan of Western cuisine, the Chef bought and cooked up a nice pot of Curry Fish Head with rice and pappadum. It's not the best curry in the world, but it's solid enough to hold its' own in a proper curry restaurant.


One small minus point is that the place isn't air-conditioned. While it was plenty cool enough to have a comfortable lunch in, the lack of any (tinted) glass means that it can get a bit glaring for guests facing outside.


Friendly service and personalized food cooked to your liking - what's not to love, right? Unfortunately Temptations is located in Bandar Mahkota Cheras, and it seems the local populace doesn't perhaps have much stomach for medium-range Western Food. Pity, then, because it really is a pretty nice place to have a casual meal. Non-halal.

Phone Number: 03-9010 3020

Muthu's Curry Fish Head @ Suntec City

One of my favorite foods is a good Indian-style Curry Fish Head - with banana leaf rice. If you're reading this and you're from Kota Kinabalu, chances are you'd have probably eaten Krishna's Fish Head at least once. Surprisingly, I haven't really been able to find anything similarly delicious outside of KK, so I'm always on the lookout for a fresh head served in a huge bowl of fragrant curry.

One place I've managed to find that serves a pretty mean Fish Head is over at Muthu's Curry Restaurant. Free flow papadum and vegetables and white / biryani rice on banana leaf comes at $3 / $4 per person.


The fish head itself comes in three prices - SGD20, SGD25 and SGD30. Strangely enough, these three price levels don't correspond to the actual size of the fish head, but instead, they correspond to how much the fish cost at the market in the morning. So on one visit three people could be satisfied with a $20 head, but on the next visit two people might still be hungry after polishing off a $25 head.


The inconsistency carries over to the cooking, too. While the curry fish head is generally pretty good, it does tend to be more delicious some days and not really that good on others.


For about $15 per person and all-you-can-eat rice & vegetables, Muthu's Curry Fish Head has been pretty high on my go-to list of restaurants whenever I'm craving some Curry.

Muthu's Curry has 3 outlets - Racecourse Road, Dempsey Hill and Suntec City.

Thai Chi - Africanized Thai cuisine in The Sarova Stanley Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya.

So anyway I've suddenly realized that since the birth of Look See Eat, we've never blogged about any sort of Thai food. Possibly because even though Thailand is our neighbor, there aren't really that many Thai restaurants in KL. So naturally, in order to rectify the obvious lack of Thai food on the blog, there is no other choice than to travel to Nairobi in the heart of Kenya to get some Thai food going, in the Thai Chi restaurant in the Sarova Stanley!


The Thai Chi restaurant is actually pretty small. I don't have exact figures but it would probably only seat 50 diners at the most. It's also pretty popular, so much so that without a reservation you pretty much get turned away like we did - twice - even on a weeknight.


Decorations are ... well ... I don't actually know if they're authentic, but the restaurant does feel quite nice and cozy.


On to the food, though, and we start off with an appetizer of Poh Pai Jee (Thai vegetable rolls with carrot relish). I have to say that it was just mediocre - nothing different from any other spring roll / popiah.


The Tom Yum Gai was better. Fragrant and tasty, with just the right amount of sour-ness. Could have used a bit more on the spice/chili though.


We had two curry dishes. The first one being the Gang Kiew Wan (Fragrant green curry dressed vegetables with coconut cream and basil):


And the second was the Gai Gang Ped (Traditional Thai red curry with basil). Both curries smelled great and were very tasty. But both curries were also flat. Despite being marked on the menu as "moderate hot," neither curry had the slightest hint of any chili at all. Naturally this was a huge disappointment, as eating Thai food that isn't spicy is like eating a vegetarian burger. What's the point?


Rounding up the main course was Phad Thai (Wok tossed noodles with shrimp, tofu, spring onions, palm sugar and eggs with tamarind sauce, fresh bean sprouts and peanuts). The shrimp were actually very fresh, which was a pleasant surprise. The texture of the noodles were pretty good, but taste-wise again they were a little bland.


Dessert was just a simple deep-fried vanilla ice cream. Because I was eating with colleagues I had to control macho (ha ha), but I'm always amazed at how ice cream can be deep fried and not melt. Yes I could probably wikipedia to find out, but then the magic would be lost!


Well, while I don't doubt that the Thai Chi is probably one of the better Thai joints in Nairobi, the food has very obviously been adapted for non-Thai tastes. It's actually decently good, fragrant and tasty, just missing the 'kick' that Chili gives. If you ever do find yourself here, make sure you tell your waitress to up the chili level.

The Thai Chi is in the Sarova Stanley hotel in the middle of Nairobi's Central Business District. Dinner above for 3 persons plus some non-alcoholic beverages was about 6,500 Sh (RM 232.05).

La Rougaille Creole - Grand Baie, Mauritius

Continuing my Mauritius journey, the darling and I, after an hour-long search in vain for another restaurant, find ourselves seated in La Rougaille Creole in Grand Baie (north-west corner of the island). It's a pretty cozy restaurant by the roadside, with an extremely friendly waiter.


Appetizer (free) is some sort of deep-fried eggplant, served with a chili dip. The chili is delicious, has a very unique taste to it - but it's also pretty hot. Shame that neither of us are big eggplant fans, though.


We open up with Seafood Gratin, which is chunks of calamari, octopus, fish and prawn in a thick cream-based sauce, topped off with biscuit crumbs. Heavenly!


For mains, we restrict ourselves to the "Creole" section of the menu, of which I pick out Beef Curry. It's a bit of a disappointment - while the curry is spicy (flavorful), it is also not at all spicy (hot). I'm not a chili fanatic, but I prefer my curries to have some "kick" to them. Beef was a bit tough, too.


The darling's Calamari in Creole sauce was similarly unimpressive. Hardly tasted any different from just a tomato sauce. Calamari itself was nice and fresh, though.


Unfortunately we come away rather disappointed. Seeing as Grand Baie is essentially a tourist area, it's possible the cooking wasn't authentic Mauritian Creole cuisine. That, and the somewhat expensive price - lunch for the two of us was about a thousand rupees - about rm100.