YA NUR

Another restaurant for you to choose and sample the food. Mostly Asian food in nature as well as famous for its banana leaf cuisine. Ya Nur is the place in Gadong if you want privacy and simple place to dine. You can also book the place for small private family gathering that can fit up to 30 people. Also, you can ask them for their catering services for weddings and thanksgivings functions at your place. For more info, please can SANTOS at 8719986, for menu list and quotations. Here are a sample of food being catered:

sambal udang

rendang daging

sambal kerang

chili crab

kai lan with mushroom

Oh! That night.. we had mee rebus as well and rojak singapore.. Yumm Yum!!

Fusion Restaurant, The Mall, Gadong.

Apparently, a new restaurant opened up in the Mall, taking over the spot that used to belonged to KURA. It's called Fusion and I am always a fan of fusion cuisine, where east meets west, the global cuisine where you mix different styles and ingredients from different genres of cooking. Needless to say, I was interested and decided to have a try.

The initial impression was good for their furniture and outlook. Furtheremore, got promotion - 30% discount. When I received their menu, I was appalled. Poorly designed, no description for each food and the pictures were scattered around. I had to ask the waiter what picture is which and what is actually the food I am ordering. One pasta dish's name was the God Father but when I asked the waiter what type of pasta it was, his reply was - it's pasta sir. My god, does he think I am an idiot? I asked him what kind of sauce it is and he can't even answer.

I decided to order Truffle chicken and my friend ordered the beef straganoff pasta. My other friend ordered the cherry cheesecake. The beef straganoff pasta was normal - nothing special, I would had rathered eat all I can at Capers, to be honest. The cheesecake was well .... to be honest .... disappointing, I would be ultra disappointed if there wasn't a 30% discount.

Now the chicken meat , it was UNDERCOOKED! IT HAD PINK BITS! My gosh! Their excuse was, it's grilled chicken, so it has pink bits. My gosh. Frankly, my dear readers, I am appalled and decided to ask the food to be sent back to the kitchen - I had already eaten part of it anyway and had to pay the bloody $7 for possible food poisoning.

Quote: From Good Medicine

"And you don’t want to eat chicken undercooked. At retail stores, salmonella and campylobacter are commonly found on chicken products. These live bacteria easily transfer to cooking surfaces, utensils, and hands and can cause a serious intestinal illness."

Frankly, the foods average and gives the WRONG impression on fusion cuisine. I don't see any FUSION at all. As my friend Wan says, it's more CONFUSION than fusion, since they first got our orders wrong, then our bill came and it was very wrong - from $25 increase till $48. So big difference meh?

My other friend Sasha thought their motto : East Meets West was pathetic. It should had been East Meets Ass. I would honestly not eat at this restaurant again.

Verdict: Avoid it. Spend your hard earned money elsewhere.

Advice to restaurant: Change your menu design, train your staff about the food, menu needs to actually be FUSION cuisine as I don't see only western cuisines in the restaurant, staff needs to be more professional when dealing with ordering and billing. Chef needs something up his arse as well for serving undercooked grilled chicken and then claimed grilled chicken has pink undercooked bits as normal.

Note: I didn't take any photos as I did not bring my camera with me, but thank god I didn't, would had been a waste of battery energy.

Unedited review by Thanis

Lemongrass Restaurant

The other day I went to Lemongrass Restaurant in Kiulap for dinner. My friends were surprised to hear that I didn't know about Lemongrass. They claimed every Chinese in Brunei should know about Lemongrass: a thai restaurant. I usually eat at the Thai restaurant in Jerudong and I'm a known lover of green curries and tom yams.


This is the seafood tomyam soup presented on a nice claypot bowl. It's hot and sour flavour has a nice kick and not too spicy so most people should enjoy this soup but personally I prefer my favourite Jerudong Thai Restaurant.

This panang curry would be suitable for those who can't eat really spicy. Spicy curries lover should avoid this and order the green curry.

The fishcakes were alright but I find them lacking texture and greasy. Could had done better.

My friends highly recommend their pandan chicken. You need to get your hands greasy for this as you unwrap the pandan chicken. Inside the parcel is marinated mince chicken that tastes awesome. This is one of the reasons I would come back here again.

Thanks to Thanis for the review.

This satay got no stick one...

Night before last, Da missus and I ventured a little outside of our usual dinner haunts in search of some out of the way gems and find one we did. Zar Zar Cafe is located among a row of newly built shophouses at Simpang 173 along Jalan Mulaut on the way to KL (Kuala Lurah).

It was a pleasant surprise to find the area quite happening when we turned into the simpang. It was bustling with activity and the carpark was quite full. Anyways, the interior decor of the cafe is classic kopitiam style with a modern touch. You can see paraphernalia lying around from the fifites and sixties including an old radio and a bicycle. There was even a huge poster of Jesselton which reminded me of my dad's hometown.

The owner, Zainal, is a splendidly charming retired police officer who is realizing his long time dream of setting up an eatery together with his wonderful missus. He talked to us about the challenges he faced while starting up his business and how his special honeyed beverages have become quite a hit among the regulars. So da missus ordered a honey lemon tea and I ordered honey coffee, a first for me. Zainal explained that the honey he used is all natural and contains some extra herbs which give it an extra kick.

Foodwise, the specialty at Zar Zar Cafe is the Satay Alloha and the tumpi. We decided to try both. The tumpi was nice and crispy on the outside and soft and doughy on the inside. It is accompanied by chicken or beef curry. Da missus and I liked the chicken better. It was a nice appetizer to start with.

Next was the Satay Alloha. It comes in two preparations, the usual charcoal grilled, and the other, less commonly served at restaurants, pan-fried variety. I personally loved the pan-fried satay. Another difference to the satay is that it is served in "sets" rather than the usual dollar value worth of satays. So you would order small medium or large depending on the size of your group and appetite. The satay itself is just right with a perfect blend of spices, none over-powering the other in the final flavour. The gravy was peanuty rich and thick, just the way I like it. Thumbs up from me.

For mains, both of us ordered the black pepper beef with rice. Interesting preparation jua on this dish. It looks like thin slices of roast beef with black pepper sauce over it. It was delicious and the beef was succulent without the tenderizer taste of typical chinese stir-fries.

Overall, the portions were generous and the prices very reasonable. It was an enjoyable and satisfying meal washed down with the special honeyed beverages, the effects of which I shall not get into in this particular post ;)

If you'd like to try a slightly different dining experience away from the mainstream, give Zar Zar a try. Contact Zainal on 8881575 for reservations.

Check out my other reviews:

The Capers Caper...

Capers Restaurant in Kiulap has been around for some time but on Monday night, to celebrate rugrat number 1's birthday, I finally went to try the joint with da missus and da rugrats. This of course was after having read several accounts of the place by Eleanor and Bulimic.

The restaurant itself is situated in Kiulap just above Jungle Gym. I've been to Le'Taj several times but never ventured beyond it where Capers is located. The place itself is quite spacious with a central pizza kitchen and drinks counter. There were some private booths on the side and a raised area similar to Le'Taj where you can sit facing the window.
Capers is currently having an all-you-can-eat promo at B$12.80 for adults and B$6.00 for kids. I think it ROCKS cos it covers all the pizza and pasta on the menu. We ordered a couple of pizzas to start with. The margherita for the kids and the seafood pizza for the grown-ups. For the pasta, we had:

Beef bacon penne with spicy barbecue sauce. This was a spicy dish with a nice kick. I liked it and so did da missus. Very original and tasty.
Beef-rib with fetuccini. I loved this dish. Very rustic and beefy sauce which left me wanting seconds heheh. And I did!
Lamb-shank penne. Da missus loved it but I found the lamb a little tasteless. But it was definitely melt-in-your-mouth tender.
We also had the fetuccini carbonara, and the spaghetti bolognaise which are not pictured here. The carbonara was very rich and the rugrats liked it a lot. Same goes for the bolognaise which rugrat number 2 cannot resist! We had seconds for both!

Overall an excellent dining experience in a comfortable environment served by friendly staff very promptly. Like I said, for a nice pizza and pasta meal, come hungry, and you wont go wrong :) 4 out of 5.

Check out my other reviews:

Cafe Au Lait

This afternoon, me and some friends went to try out the new cafe on the ground floor of the Seri QLap Mall, called Cafe Au Lait ( french for on milk but it can be pronounce as Ole). It was a great treat as we were hungry and there was much choice in terms of menu ranging from pasta, salad, burgers, chicken wings, cheesy fries, desserts , mocktails and coffee, of course.The coffee is brewed by a trained barista.

The following are some of the pics of the food we tried today. I love the ambience, choice of furniture. There is wireless access for Internet and it's a great place to meet up with friends especially before or after watching movies upstairs.

Price is reasonable. Go ahead and give it a try! For pics of the cafe, you can view it here!

Salmon and asparagus salad. I had this and I love the taste of it!

Rigatonni pasta with spicy beef rashers. Yumm!

Succulent beef Burger with big fries. Beef so good and I felt like in Heaven!

Fish Burger with Big Fries

T-Bone Steak with Vegetables and mushroom or spicy BBQ sauce. Suits any rugby player!

Hazel nut latte. Great taste coffe and I love the design on top!