Shinjuku Cafe, Japanese Restaurant at Raja Uda

I think in the mind of most people, we got to eat western food during Valentine's Day, the candle light's charm...

Therefore, those places are packed with lots of people. To avoid traffic, we, mainlandant have to stay at mainland for the day.
This indeed make people a really big head, where not much nice western food in mainland as far as I know. Moreover, I need something new, not Nando's, not Manhattan Fish Market... @_@

After Googled bunch of things, decided to go Richard's Top Taste Cafe in Inderawasih. It's very near to my house, it's cheaper, and vkeong's blog mentioned about it.
I purposely drive passed the shop on my way back home. I got scared away by it's outlook. Ok, I'm not gonna go there during Valentine's Day. Quickly called another restaurant on my list, fully booked. Call another one... Fortunately~
And here we are, Shinjuku Japanese Restaurant near Raja Uda at Pusat Perniagaan Teras Jaya.

And yes, we going to have Japanese food on Valentine's, not western.

The shop is on the same street with Who's Bryan and Apex, and on the 1st floor (upstairs, not so easy to spot), opposite of Chung Ling Secondary School (北海钟灵中学对面). The interior is ok, not a high-class one but with dim light, room temperature, not hot and not cold either, and not noisy, the thing that I felt most grateful.

My kids just tooooo cute

In fact, I was quite worry about the food.

The first dish comes up was salmon sashimi. The salmon given was quite thick, but still small in portion with a price of RM13.80. It's fresh and taste good, which make us happy for awhile.

 Next is the cheese-baked scallops (hotate), RM12.80. It was disappointed. I need to scratch the shell to take out the scallop meat, obviously overcooked. And I could not understand the taste of the sauce. Taste like there is ginger inside... never had a scallop with ginger before. Kinda weird, probably because I really don't like ginger.

Teppanyaki chicken set came later. The chicken tasted quite nice, a satisfied one. It costs RM16.80 with miso soup, salad, fruits and green tea. The miso soup is terrible by the way. I cooked a better miso soup with the miso paste bought from organic shop. @_@

Another main course we ordered is Gekikara Ramen (Spicy Seafood Ramen). The appearance looks convincing, but the first mouth make my eyes really big, what is this...?
It taste really weird, I can't tell what is wrong with it. After few more mouth, I felt it was scorch. I didn't ask waiter/waitress about it. Still wondering is it how it supposed to taste or it is really burnt. I couldn't finish the noodles.

Well, it wasn't a good experience. I just so glad it was my main course that tasted terrible. But still, we hardly get a pure Japanese Restaurant in mainland here (Sushi King & Sakae not count la), it does have a chance that their sushi could be nice. If anyone happened to taste their sushi, do update us on it. :)
 



Shinjuku Japanese Restaurant
Address：28,Lorong Teras Jaya 8, Kawasan Perniagaan Teras Jaya, 12300 Butterworth, Malaysia
Business Hour： Mon - Sun:   11:30am - 03:00pm / 05:30pm - 10:00pm

Tel: 04-3246588

GPS Coordinate：N 5 26.022   E 100 23.436

Stone Age Cafe & Restaurant in Bukit Mertajam

There is an area in Bukit Mertajam that has recently became a fabulous hang out place, Pusat Perniagaan Gemilang. Cafe, restaurant, dessert house, boutique, saloon, pub and club established like growing mushrooms. Soon it will be like another Auto-City! Glad for fellows staying in BM.

Not too far from the auto-city, the place located on the famous off Jalan Song Ban Keng, Opposite Taman Limau Manis and behind Taman Gemilang. It's like my second home and I came here almost everyday. Due to laziness, now only I started blog about this place. This post, we going to talk about Stone Age Cafe & Restaurant. I will write about others later. :)

To our surprise, all the while we thought it is a pub, and I dressed really well that day, hah! At the end, it's actually a restaurant.

The interior and exterior using plenty of wood as their theme. Wood-like table, chairs and the significant big tree at the center of the restaurant which you can see it even if you just drive passed the restaurant.

Looking up on the menu, the price is surprisingly reasonable given on the very nice look and feel of the restaurant. Drinks are consider reasonable for a hang out place.

 

Once you step into the restaurant, you could simply sense that the whole place is covered with attempting BBQ smells.

The food on a 400 Celsius hot stone, their signature dish.

Grilled Chicken on Hot Stone, Rm16.80

You can choose from the various main dish on the stone. There are chicken, fish, steak, tiger prawns, scallop and etc. And complimentary 4 sidelines you can choose out of 6 selection, among them are wedges, mashed potato, rice, corn and etc.

The chicken that we had, marinated well and on the hot stone is definitely an interesting point. However, the sidelines are not hot, like fries and wedges are pre-fried. So we ended up putting all of the sidelines on the stone to heat them up (if that was the intention... lol).

We also ordered the seafood carbonara fettuccine. It was not hot either, just warm and the scallops are small and over-cooked. I understand that it is not so easy to cook scallops to its perfection, let's just don't take risk. This one failed.

Seafood Carbonara, <RM15

Another thing that deserve compliment is the services. The staff they recruit always with positive attitude and really responsive as far as I seen. Just got to know that every Tuesday is their hot stone BBQ buffet night, RM50+ per pax, RM25+ for children below 12 years old.

The hot stone meal is satisfying and have a generous portion. This make me definitely want to revisit again.

* Photo credited to V - Life Simple Pleasures

* Revisit Stone Age today and tried on their Hot Stone Tilapia, still prefer chicken because unlike chicken, fish doesn't have much oil to burn on the stone, which make it a little bit dry.
The sidelines do have improvement, getting hotter nowadays, but still don't feel like they make it upon order.

Stone Age Cafe
Business Hour:
Mon - Thu: 11:00 am - 1:00 am
Fri - Sat    : 11:00 am - 2:00 am
Sun           : 11:00 am - 1:00 am

Contact Number: +604-537 7228
Address: 11, Jalan Gemilang 2, Pusat Perniagaan Gemilang, 14000 Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia
GPS Coordinate： N 5 21.044   E 100 26.555

Direction: If drive from Penang Island, drive toward north-south highway (Kuala Lumpur direction). Exit at Juru/Bukit Mertajam, turn left without waiting for the traffic light. Drive all the way straight until you reach a T-junction with small weird round about with traffic light. Turn right on the traffic light you will find yourself driving on Jalan Song Ban Keng. Drive straight until you see Honda Center on your left, then ready to turn into left. After turn into left, turn right immediately and you will see Stone Age on your left.

Micke's Place, Love Lane Penang

Passed by Micke's Place when we visit Behind 50 the other day. Haven't been heard its name so far, not a famous one maybe but the exterior does catch our attention.

One day after work, we decided to check out this Micke's Place.

The shop is small but homey, with about 6 tables inside, some at the outside, comfortable lighting and temperature. There are few foreigners in the shop, looks like it's favor by tourists but not discovered by the locals yet.

Two sides of the walls are full of remarkable messages left by the visitors. Especially love this one - "It's always good at the end. If it's not good, it's not the end." :)

The price is really cheap for a restaurant run on the famous Love Lane. The food are not some high-class cuisine but definitely a delicious one with a strong taste of local home cooking. I never know I could actually taste localness in a spaghetti! Hah!

The Grilled Lamb with Napolitana Linguine I ordered come with quite a big portion of lamb chop but really small portion of linguine. Kinda weird but I love the lamb so much~ It cooked just nice, tender and juicy~ So much better than many local western cafe.

RM15

The Aglio olio Spaghetti tasted relatively good as well but a bit too spicy, even for locals like us. Tips: try request for less spicy. Besides that, they also serve various Asian food.

RM10/RM12, can't remember d...

The lady who serve us came by to "sembang" (chit-chating) with us. Get to know Micke's Place is just open since August 2011, many of the decoration in the shop are from her grandma, how this restaurant startup, stories on the wall and many more about Micke's Place.

I must say, aunty cooked really well. :)

We say goodbye to the aunty and left with my bag full of stories. I had a really wonderful night here.

*Photo credited to V - Life's Simple Pleasures
Micke's Place Information
Forgot to ask for their opening hours, and can't find much information on the internet about them. But can check out Micke's Place Review on TripAdvisor. Just drop by there to try your luck!
Direction: Turn in to Lorong Love (Love Lane) from Lebuh Chulia (Chulia Street), Micke's Place is the first shop on left after you turn in, right behind the 7-eleven.
GPS Coordinate: N 5 25.115  E 100 20.181