Dinner at La La Chong Restaurant

This year, my birthday is celebrated with 2 special meaning.

First, the date : 20 09 2009, 20th Sept 2009. The date is kinda special right ? Right ??

Second : Status upgraded to being a Daddy. So, we have 2 daddies on the dinner table.

It was a choice of either the new food stall near my house or La La Chong Seafood Restaurant which is now at Kayu Ara, Damansara. Previously, it was opposite Terminal 3 at Subang Airport. Heard that rental there is getting too expensive. Though the location of the previous shop at Terminal 3 is easy to find, parking may be a problem for late comers. This place is usually packed to its fullest by 7pm. I like the new place at Kayu Ara. Firstly, it's near my house and secondly, ample parking. It's certainly competing with Pantai Seafood Restaurant for business as these 2 restaurants are now within walking distance from each other.

The 6 of us excluding baby Clarisse wanted to dine alfresco but a few droplets of rain changed our minds and we moved in to the air con area. It was also the 1st day of Hari Raya and a Sunday. So, the place was doubly packed.

We started the 'makan' session with an order of satay from the Malay lady which has a stall outside the restaurant. The satay was nicely grilled with succulent pieces of chicken meat nicely tucked into the stick. From the irregular size of the stick, you can tell that the satay is not those from industrial mass-produced. The thickness of the sticks are not all standard. You have some of the sticks fatter and some thinner.

Entree : Good old satay

As there were only 6 adults, we ordered 5 dishes. We ordered the stir fry 'kangkung', yamcake with cuttlefish and dried chilli, lemon chicken, hot plate tofu and deed fried mantis prawns with dried chilli. Though the restaurant was packed to the fullest, our dishes came quite fast. We waited for about 15 minutes for the dishes to arrive.

Stir fry 'kangkung'

You have to forgive me for the quality of the photos as I'm still learning how to snap photos of different things using a digital camera with multiple scenes selections. Some photos were taken half way through the eating session as hungry stomach is more important than taking photos :-)
The str-fry 'kangkung' taste fine. I find it cooked right to my liking, not too soft or undercooked.

Yamcake with stir fry cuttlefish and dried chilli

The tofu would have looked better if came with the hot plate and wooden base. My parents liked the yamcake with cuttlefish though. The only downside of this dish is that the gravy was too little, making the dish a bit dry. If only the chef had put in more gravy, this dish would have win hands down.

Lemon Chicken

The lemon chicken was the forth dish that came to our table. I like the chicken crispy to the right degree. You can feel the crunchy bits in your mouth when you bite them. We find that for this dish the lemon sauce was too much. The plate was practically flooded by the lemon sauce. It would have been nicer to have a thicker and lesser sauce so that the presentation of this dish is not like a plate of fried chicken in flooded lemon sauce.

The fifth and also the last dish we ordered was the fried mantis prawns with dried chilli. The mantis prawns were kinda letdown. Seemed like a lot of flour was mixed with the prawns. You end up eating like lumps of flour instead of mantis prawns.

In the end, the bill came up to around RM113. It was a decent amount for 6 of us. Anyway, it was on my birthday and it's nice to have my family together for a dinner.

Overall, here's my rating for the dinner ( 5=excellent, 1=poor ) :
Service : 4
Value for Money : 3
Ambience : 3
Food Quality : 3
Overall : 3

Address:
La La Chong Seafood Restaurant (Next to Pantai Seafood @ Kayu Ara)
Lot 13556, Jalan Cempaka,Kayu Ara Damansara, 47400 Petaling Jaya.
Tel : 03-77281906