Porcine goodness at Daorae Korean BBQ - Sri Petaling outlet.

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There are tons of Korean BBQ restaurants in and around KL (and its surrounding areas). Vast majority of them are single-shop outlets though; Daorae is the only one I can think of that operates on a chain-restaurant, many-outlets-around-town style. We're trying out the Sri Petaling outlet to see if it's any good!


I don't know if you feel the same, but when I first started eating Korean BBQ years ago, you had to grill your own meat. This gave a pretty good sense of "attachment" to the meat, since ... well you know, since you cooked it yourself. Nowadays almost all joints have foreigners cooking the meat for you at your table though. Perhaps the restaurants don't want you to screw up the cooking of the meat and then subconsciously think "ew the food here sucks."


Salt-spice oil, garlic, and other condiments. And a big jug of cold water without needing to ask for it. In my opinion all restaurants should do this, not just Korean ones.


Of course, no Korean meal is complete without the accompanying side dishes, or banchan. These are either "complimentary," or "priced into the bill" depending on how you want to look at it. We found that the kimchi was nice, but the rest of the dishes were very ordinary.


While we're snacking on the banchan, a waiter cooks up our pork! We hardly ever eat beef at Korean BBQ's - mostly because of the price. Pork belly and pork loin normally runs rm20-rm25 per serving, but beef rib-eye can be more than twice that. Why is beef that much more expensive than pork? I buy my rib-eye steaks at Jaya Grocer for rm8/100gm. But anyway, once it's cooked, grab a slice (or two), dip it in your sauce of choice, wrap it in a salad leaf, add whatever else you want, and voila! Heavenly bite-sized morsel.



We found Daorae overall solid but not outstanding. There are plenty of other Korean BBQ joints with better and more value-for-money food. Specifically in this neck of the woods, I'd prefer a short drive over to Taman Danau Desa to eat at Seoul Korea. The place is dirtier, warmer, and darker, but food's better - and if memory serves me right - a little cheaper, too!

Daorae is in Sri Petaling, along the same road as the Sri Petaling Hotel, and opposite the Shell service station. Non-halal (obviously).

Barbecued Goodness at Uncle R Original Charcoal BBQ Restaurant!

Uncle R (R for Ronnie) Original Charcoal BBQ Restaurant in Sri Petaling has a large charcoal BBQ grill outside on the walkway, where Ronnie (owner and chef) grills his meats. It feels nostalgic, sort of reminding me of younger days when we'd get together with a BBQ pit and some charcoal, spend an hour starting the fire to grill marinated chicken wings, and wash it all down with soft drinks (ice in a Coleman cooler box, of course).

(Wow, that made me sound hella old)


Ahem, enough reminiscing. Anyways, if you're hankering for charcoal BBQ/grill meats, but feel that organizing a BBQ is way too much hassle, head over to Uncle R and get him to BBQ it for you!

Drinks are decently priced - the large watermelon juice below was MYR5. Kedondong (Golden Apple for you non-Malaysians) juice was part of the set dinner, but more on that later.


The darling orders the Twin BBQ Sausage (MYR9.00). This comes with a plain chicken sausage, and a chicken-with-cheese sausage. The gravy was nice and flavorful, but the sausages themselves weren't particularly special, being very obviously 'off the counter' somewhere (rather than being home-made).


I order the set dinner (MYR28.00), which in addition to the kedondong juice, opens up with mushroom soup and some garlic toast. The soup was par for the course, and the garlic toast was exactly how I remembered eating it during a childhood BBQ (that is to say, it was cold and soft).


The grilled meats platter that comes with the set dinner was a very bittersweet affair. On one hand the chicken, beef and lamb were grilled very, very well, being nice and tender. But on the other hand, they were also overpowered by a 'generic'-tasting black pepper gravy. I'm a huge fan of actually tasting my meats, rather than having the same black pepper gravy taste for everything.


Set dinner finishes with coffee/tea, and ice cream with a pasar malam wafer. Exactly as interesting as it looks/sounds.


Verdict? Prices are reasonable, and Uncle Ronnie is a friendly, chatty chap. But the food is just average-tasting, and unless you're ketagih-ing some meat BBQ'ed over a charcoal BBQ pit, there really isn't any reason to come here to eat.

If you are in the mood to take a nostalgic trip to BBQ cook-outs, though, then I don't know of any other place anywhere in Kay-El that'll give you as close an experience as Uncle R.


Uncle R
49 Jalan Radin Anum 1,
Taman Sri Petaling,
Kuala Lumpur

Maiu Japanese Restaurant's très affordable Japanese Buffet at RM 38.80+

What's not to like about buffets? The combination of being able to sample dozens of different dishes, and to eat and drink to your heart's content. Or in the typical Malaysian style, until your stomach overflows :) The seemingly never-ending popularity of Japanese buffet places like Jogoya or Tenji despite their (in my opinion) barely-above-average food quality is testament to the popularity of the buffet.

Food quality normally suffers due to the need to cook 'large' portions of any dish though. Unless it's not strictly a 'buffet,' but instead an 'unlimited ala-carte' - which is how the six-month-old Maiu Japanese Restaurant have set up their all you can eat offering. The feather in the cap is the price - MYR38.80 (plus 10% service charge)!

The first impression we get of the Sri Petaling branch is "oh no." An empty restaurant is never a good sign. We ask the waitress about this, and she says that they're typically light during lunchtime due to parking problem around the area, but weeknights normally require reservations.


Anyways the prices seem pretty reasonable. It's under MYR20 for a set lunch, and ala carte menu prices are similar to mid-range Japanese places like Sushi Tei / Sushi Zanmai. The all you can eat menu is naturally limited to the more basic/popular menu items.

We open up with some sushi and sashimi - the sashimi surprisingly comes garnished and served on a bed of crushed ice! Fish was fresh, too, which is the most important thing when it comes to sushi/sashimi.


We also tried the Salmon Mayo Maki. This one came with some deep fried tempura batter to give an interesting crunch, but I thought the amount of salmon was a bit kiam siap.


Miso soup. Tad bit too much miso and/or salt.


Time to move on to the hot items - Saba Shioyaki (grilled mackerel with salt), Shishamo (grilled pregnant smelt fish) and Soft Shelled crab were all pretty standard fare - comparable to most other Japanese restaurants.


Tempura. Nicely battered and fried. I found it a bit odd that they included ladies fingers (okra) - first time eating tempura okra which was ... interesting. I'm not sure if I'm convinced by the marriage of the crispy tempura batter and the slimy okra seeds.


Beef sukiyaki was a bit of a miss for us. I don't know how to describe it, but the sauce/soup used here was somewhat different from other places - sweet and yet a bit sour at the same time.


Chicken Teppanyaki was a huge miss. It's nowhere near what a normal Japanese Teppanyaki-style dish should be, it's more akin to some sort of stewed Chinese chicken on hot plate dish. Not a bad-tasting one, just ... not what we were expecting.


For dessert - green tea and wasabi ice creams. Wasabi! It had a strong wasabi taste but lacked the 'kick' - and the darling commented that it was just a bit 'too much wasabi for one meal.' :)


Overall verdict? The food is par for the course for an average Kay-El Japanese restaurant (aside from the teppanyaki which you should avoid). However the all-you-can-eat offering does give it top points for value for money. The darling and I would have racked up an RM250+ bill off the ala-carte menu but instead we paid just slightly above RM40 per person, which seems like a steal.

(of course I also mean that the food is better than those rubbish fast food sushi joints like Sushi King)

Anyway, the all-you-can-eat menu is only in Japanese, so keep an ala-carte menu around for translation services :)





Maiu Japanese Restaurant has two outlets - one in Sri Petaling and one in Damansara Perdana. Their all-you-can-eat offering is available for both lunch and dinner. No pork is served.


G-3A, The Place,
Jalan PJU 8/5D,
Bandar Damansara Perdana,
47820 Petaling Jaya
+603 7729 0015

No. 39-1, Gd Flr,
Jalan Radin Anum 2,
Bandar Baru Seri Petaling
57000 Kuala Lumpur
+6017 396 9906