More diminutive than definitive, but we hope we’ve covered just enough to whet your appetite.

The not-so-good: Bangkok isn’t great for the hydro homies. Free-flow filtered water? You’d be lucky to find more than a few spots. Expect to tote around a lot of water bottles. And…expect (very) dark roast coffee practically everywhere.

The good: the food. Especially, to our surprise, those less street-food-y types. Read through and you’ll see why.

The Bangkok guide is divided into 4 categories, ordered alphabetically within each list, and will continuously be updated – photos and individual posts coming next.

The great:

• Charmgang Curry Shop: Spectacular. From the cowa leaves curry (fantastic, with the smokiest, most luscious pork jowl) to the grilled koji-aged picanha skewer (paired with a stunning fermented fish chili and tomato relish) to sublime duck. Only downside is the desserts pale in comparison – both the Thai caramel rice bar and custard apple in coconut syrup were a step below the cooked dishes. Also, they can be a bit heavy handed on the salt, even for a saline boi like me – e.g. the smoked swordfish curry was delectable, with gorgeously cooked and smoky fish, but crept up in saltiness towards the end. The casual setup of the place is great though, absolutely buzzing with a lovely open kitchen, beautifully decorated walls, perfect light levels etc. A must-visit, like every other spot in the “Great” category.
• Cote by Mauro Colagreco: Close to faultless. Impeccable service, great great food.
• G.O.D.: photos / videos don’t capture how impressive this place looks. Drinks fantastic too. Conceptual, yes, but the taste backs that up as well. Should be in my top 5 bars list for Bangkok, with Ku Bar, Rabbit Hole etc.
• Homeburg: Purely taste-wise, this had to be one of the greatest meals of my life. Definitely one of the most technically impressive too. This single location featured one of the best chawanmushi I’ve ever had, the best jerk chicken, the best ginger ale, the best steak, the best french fries etc…unreal. Luckily the desserts were just-okay, or this would have completely redefined what it means to be great.
• Ku Bar: Absolute gem of a space, has to be one of our favourite bars in Bangkok. Insanely cool setup and layout, with fantastically layered and complex cocktails. For instance: Bael-infused whisky with tobacco syrup, xuixian tea and rose water. Or a warm saffron latte longan. Or a super strong Szechuan peppercorn drink that slowly oozes more banana as you sip. S’all good, man.
• Larder: Oh wow, the best breakfast. Perfect thick-cut bacon slices, surprisingly yummy sourdough (surprising cos they slice it real thin), delish blood sausage
• Pad Thai Fai Ta Lu: Why are noodle portions so tiny in Bangkok? This place served some of the best pad thai (and siew yoke) that we’ve had though.
• Rabbit Hole: Great cocktails! Delicious, rich, complex, and just really well thought out. Take, for instance, the London Jesus (longan, saffron, coffee, salted Tonka cream) or the salted lemon butter layers of the Cowboy Pie. Thrilling stuff.
• Saawaan: Refined Southern Thai tasting menu. Loved a lot of it, especially the “toned-down” subtlety of flavours, the highlighting of specific techniques, and the petit fours actually being the strongest flavour punch of the meal.
• Samlor: Silly good. Delicious dishes. Attentive service. A must-visit.
• Some Time Blue: From what we could tell, they only have drip coffee. Both cups were great. Finally a cafe without crazy dark roasts. And they have free-flow water too. My kind of aesthetic, could easily double as a jazz / listening bar. Love the furniture.
• Tax: Love the interiors, the walls, the spacious layout split up into a lot of nooks, without being overly loud and echo-y, and the concept – vinegars from liquors etc. Tried two great cocktails, including a killer oolong with a sudden aftertaste of roasty toasty cashews. Definitely feels more of my place than Asia Today, but both would easily place in my top bars list in KL. And I’d be a regular at Tax.
• Zao Ekkamai: Insanely good Isaan food, one of the highlights of our Bangkok trip. Challenging, excitingly different flavours, all bursting out of some exceptional, layered, and well-priced dishes. Word of caution though: some of the dishes are crazy crazy spicy. Great service, lovely buzz in the dining room(s).

The good:

• 168 Thai Restaurant, inside Chatuchak market. Surprisingly delicious. Only tried 2 dishes, but still. Red curry thing is killer. Spicy sour soup very tasty. Coconut pudding delicious too.
• A Keen House: Iced long black fares much better than the hot, oddly enough. Good music, gorgeous design.
• Aksorn: A 1-star that doesn’t push boundaries too much, but bundles in a tasty meal within a lovely experience. The setting is cozy and inviting, the music top-notch, service pretty good, and the crockery and interiors mesh into a unique statement. Highlights of the food itself was the shrimp paste relish, a red curry with grilled salted beef, and the smoky sugar snap peas. Oh, and the nice walk down to the nice washroom.
• Asia Today: Backdoor Bodega vibes, but really tasty cocktails based around honey. Need to try more to potentially move it further up. The Eastern Honey (with the bee wax mug) was tasty, and the Bitter Have My Moni was even more so, with that punchy, vinegary cherry pickled liquor. Delightful.
• Bar 10010: nice ice cream – with loads of interesting flavours!
• Bask Project: good coffee, lovely space. Lots of cool stuff to look at and buy
• Bun Meat and Cheese: From the mad genius brain of Mr. Homeburg. Doesn’t quite reach those heights, but it’s still very good. Not as earth-shattering as the first time trying Homeburg, but it certainly beats out pretty much all burger joints in Malaysia, even Barbacoa.
• Nai Soon Charoen Nakhon: Delicious duck noodles…less depth than Heng Dee’s broth in Malaysia perhaps, but still hella tasty. Very competitively priced too.
• Okonomi: Japanese breakfast! Lovely little place.
• Rot Rue Dee: like the setup a lot. Well-priced too IMO. Well-cooked fare like the massaman curry with killer smokiness from the chicken. Decent mango sticky rice too.
• Rung Reung (Tung) noodle: yum pork noods, even the dry one.
• Save Our Souls: They say the burgers are good here, but I didn’t try them. The basil rice is solid though, surprisingly enough. Nice selection of craft beers to go alongside.
• Sugarray Apartment: Lovely bar setup (seats 10 at most along the bar counter, a small nook for 3 at the corner). Good drinks that would place it quite high up the KL Bar list, but not quite at the level of those in the Great category.

The decent:

• A Coffee Roaster by Li-bra-ry: Espresso was…almost kinda decent? Flat white tasty. Could potentially be the best out of the cafes in this category.
• Flaneur
• Gatta Cafe inside Siam Square: Slightly better than some other cafes we tried, but not by much.
• Mother Roaster: interesting space, decent coffee
• Nana Coffee Roasters Ari: Lush garden, great rendition of a dirty (though it ran a tad sweet, was still the best we had in BKK), but the default long black was a really dark roast, as per usual in BKK. Stick to milk-based stuff and you’d probably have a better time here.
• OFTR: Like the setup. The drinks are more mediocre – wouldn’t be out of place in KL.
• Prego: We only tried a risotto but it was fantastic. Potential to shoot up this list if all other dishes are as good.
• Shelter coffee
• Tai Soon Bar: A relatively nice space, with 18 beers on tap, opposite the overhyped Jay Fai. Not exactly the setup / feel / clientele / selection of beers that appealed to us though.

The not so good:

• Baan Pueng Chom: Highly recommended, highly disappointing. The star was the stir fried glass noodles with petai – every other dish was poor.
• Brave Roasters: Both long black and the filter served with too much water IMO, ratio feels off.
• Buay Pochana Thonglor: Decent egg noods, decent soup, nice duck leg, meh duck wonton. Overall serviceable but not a must-visit by any measure.
• Chimchim: Terrible coffee, breathtaking interiors. Might actually be worth visiting just for that.
• Conkey’s: The setting is gorgeous. Tranquil back garden. And the spread of bakes sets the heart a-flutter alright. But the pastries themselves are surprisingly not-great. E.g. the donut – love the orange custard filling in the bombolini but the donut itself could be better. Salty fig tart not bad, not great. Sourdough croissant very dense. Fairly mediocre even if it were in KL. Breads do look decent though.
• Holey Artisan: Challah meh. Berliner meh but the butterscotch glaze was quite alright. Disappointing beef baguette – everything cold and so-so, with the baguette being incredibly tough.
• Jasmine Siam Kitchen: Pineapple fried rice with tofu was expensive, and the rice was mushy. Red curry was tasty, despite the tough beef. Factoring in the prices vs setting etc, hard to justify moving this out of this category though.
• Paga: Boy do they love their dark roasts here. We had one alright filter, one standard-order dark-roast nearly-undrinkable long black.
• Red Diamond @ Thonglor: THB 120 for espresso. Fairly meh, all things considered. Strong dark roast like most places here.
• Supanniga: Disappointing. Expensive. At least the service is good. And the kai-yok song does have some tasty, plump crab meat.
• Tropic City: Hmmm.

Naturally, we’ve barely scratched the surface with Bangkok. Some other places we want to check out next time:

• 23 Bar & Gallery (bar in an art space)
• 80/20 (1 star)
• Alonetogether (collab between Sugar Ray and Ku Bar owners) (jazz performances Wed-Sun night. B400 cocktails, happy hour B300 from 6-8pm daily)
• Bamboo Bar (Mandarin Oriental)
• Bar Marco (listening bar)
• Beer Belly (20 taps)
• BKK Social Club (bar)
• Black King Pizzeria
• Bloom Pretzel & Coffee (pretzels and coffee)
• Blue by Alain Ducasse (1 star)
• Brioche from Heaven (cinnamon brioche and caramel, yuzu meringue)
• Cadence by Dan Bark (1 star)
• Canvas (1 star)
• Casa Blue (8 craft beers on tap, good German food)
• Craft Silom (20 taps)
• Doc Club & Pub (indie cinema)
• Dukedon (specializes in grilled, dry-aged Thai catfish. Duke don (B219), pla mor (perch fish) don (B249)) (Fri 12-7pm, Sat 10-7pm, Sun 10-5pm)
• Eight Days a Week Home Bar (only Thai craft beer – prices around B180-300) (5pm-12am daily)
• Gaa (1 of the best restaurants in Thailand) (B 4400++)
• Grow Tea Studio (Uji tea from South Kyoto)
• GTG Cafe (CBD infused drinks and cookies)
• Hair of the Dog (great craft beer spot) (11am-12am daily)
• Homeburg (6 courses, including the burger. B2500++)
• Huus of Bread (Jap-Scandi bakery. Shokupan-donut (shonut)) (10am-4.30pm, closed Mon)
• IGNIV Bangkok (1 star, “global” fine dining, 3 course lunch B 2000, 4 course dinner B 4000)
• Ink & Lion (great coffee) (9am-4pm daily)
• Keaton Tailor
• Kimi sushi bar (semi-outdoors omakase sushi,10 rotating natty wines, 6 seats per seating, B 2100 for 15 courses)
• Koji-delic (Nordic-style cuisine, all based around koji and fermentation. 10 courses B 3,500)
• Koryoriya-te (low-key shochu and sake bar) (6-11pm, closed Sun and Thurs)
• Laab Udon (good Isaan food, off Surasak BTS station) (4pm-3am daily)
• Labyrinth Cafe (great coffee in a basement bunker) (10am-6pm, closed Mon)
• Lahnyai (modern Thai. 14 courses B3,590++)
• Le Du (1 star, elevated Thai) (4 course tasting B 3000, 6 course tasting B 3600)
• Le Normandie (2 stars, Alain Roux (from 3 starred Waterside Inn) arrived in Jan 22. 3 course lunch menu B 3400)
• Liberty Area One @ Ekkamai (great clothing spot)
• Methavalai Sorndaeng (1 star)
• Mash (16 rotating beers, nice setting) (5-11pm, closed Sun)
• Mazzluna (2 stars)
• Mezzaluna (French Japanese fine dining, 7 courses B 6500)
• Middle Bar (good cocktails, B400)
• Mihara Tofuten (Gaggan partnering with someone from Fukuoka. Fine dining dedicated to tofu from Kyushu. 12 courses B 4900)
• Ministry of Crab (branch of Sri Lanka’s best restaurant. B 1,800 for 800g medium sized crab)
• Mod Kaew Wine Bar (ex-somm of Gaggan. No wine list. B690 for a 3 wine flight. Or get a bottle)
• Nahim Cafe x Handcraft 
• Nahm (1 star)
• Nine Pastry (challah, Jerusalem bagel etc) (8am-5pm, closed Wed)
• Paste (1 star)(modern progressive Thai, 1 star) (B 4300 for tasting menu, can get ala carte for around B1,000 per dish) (12-2pm, 6-11pm daily)
• Pijiu (Chinese beer bar)
• Pizza Massilia (great pizza)
• Potong (Thai-Chinese fine dining, 20 courses B 4,500)
• R u u classic cocktails (B300-400 cocktails, chill spot)
• R-Haan (2 stars)
• Rue De Mansri (good croissant, decent coffee, nice place)
• Saep Sudjai (good Isaan dishes, especially the pork liver with toasted rice)
• Samrub Samrub Thai (private dining, some of the best food in Thailand. B 4,500 for tasting menu) 
• Saneh Jaan (1 star, old school Thai dishes)
• Savelberg (1 star, French cuisine with touch of Dutch influence) (B 4750)
• Shuu Shuu (umeshu bar)
• Siwilai Sound Club (cocktail and jazz bar) (6pm-1am, closed Mon)
• Smalls (jazz bar)
• Soei (10.30am-9.30pm, closed Sat) (fried mackerel cheeks – may need to reserve, Thai shrimp ceviche, pla goong, soft shell crab in curry powder) (can end up queueing for 1-2 hours)
• Som Tam Sida (family run Isaan restaurant)
• Somtum Der (Isaan food)
• Sorn (2 stars)
• Soufflé and me (souffle) (11am-10pm daily)
• Sra Bua (1 star)
• Sunray (bright, pastely and airy cocktail bar. Drinks B300) (6pm-12am daily)
• Table 38 (great food, need to book way in advance next time) (5-9.30pm, closed Mon)
• Tapas Music Bar (modern tapas)
• Teens of Thailand (cocktail bar, gin-focused)
• Thaipioka (cocktails influenced by Thai flavours, B350) (7pm-2am daily)
• The Jam Factory (crafts, stores)
• The Rose Natural Wine Bar (small space, about 14 bottles usually. B350++ per glass, B1,600 upwards per bottle)
• The White House (great food and cocktails)
• Timo & Tintin (good coffee, gallery space)
• To More (jazz bar, nice cocktails)
• Varen (good coffee)
• Vesper (bar)
• Walden Home Cafe (good coffee, Parisian interiors)
• Wattanapanich (beef and goat soup noodles) (9am-7pm daily)

The post Bangkok, Thailand appeared first on Foodgazer.

Last update: 18 Sep 2022 (no photos yet, for the most part!)

Must-go:

1. Gekko: #cocktails Exeunt Bar Shake, enter Gekko. That dastardly bartender has moved to a nice new nook, with more convenient dining options all around – although we miss the gorgeous bar counter at Bar Shake. Anyway, they have bar bites here. The smoked stuff are a must-try, especially the stunning smoked cream cheese. And, oh yeah, drinks. All the cocktails are top-tier stuff. Sublime, legendary, mangosteen saketini (more mangosteen-y than mangosteen), the clear Bloody Mary, experimental stuff like bak-kut-teh-whisky…we could go on and on. Passionfruit with Tumugi? Mango or pear with rum? Banana bourbon? Spicy screwdriver? Everything slaps. And like we said before, once you down the route of proper fresh fruit cocktails, it’s hard to turn back. Places like Gekko and Bar Ishinohana in Tokyo just do it so, so well.
2. Ver
3. 61 Monarchy: #whisky So I’ve had cocktails here before. I’ve had the Douglas Laing whisky highballs (great value) too. But really, your best bet is to ignore all that and come for the whisk(e)y alone. Dizzying selection available, highly informative and friendly staff, and one of the best atmospheres IMO. Much prefer Monarchy to Whisky Bar. Oh, and yeah, a good range of flights too (although as of July 2020, it seems that may be temporarily off the menu?)! What a place.
4. Jann: #cocktails Painfully underrated. Love almost all their cocktails here. Killer happy hour prices (RM 40 for 2 cocktails from the happy hour menu) and generally solid drinks
5. Reka bar: #cocktails The shiny new place everyone’s screaming about. Love the concept of the menu and love a couple of the drinks. Good gems peppered here and there throughout. Highlights include the dusun (tuak and tempoyak further fermented with tequila), Drink Your Toast (lovely warm cocktail, comforting and creamy, and reminiscent of a certain drink at Jann), and the stunning Cloud and Clear (one of the standout drinks). Expecting great things from this place.
6. Canvass: #cocktails Not a bar, not really. Unless you sit at the bar counter and don’t eat, I guess? Great drinks though, with a great focus on sustainability and zero-waste. Fair warning, the drinks aren’t ALWAYS great, since they vary a lot from each visit (understand their concept and how they operate, and this makes sense). But when they hit their peak, boy almighty are these special.
7. Stretch: #cocktails Yet again, not a bar. Great food, great pizzas, great cocktails though.
8. Monster & Beer: #beer Catapulting its way up the list and into my heart comes Monster & Beer – a bright beer bar with lots of quirky, great artwork everywhere. When’s the merch coming? This stuff is great. As is the food – courtesy of the Shokudo peeps, with almost every item on the M&B menu a real hit (18 Sep 22 update: the menu has undergone some changes, as has the kitchen staff (presumably), the food really isn’t as good anymore). Genuinely surprised by the food the first time I visited and have been consistently satiated ever since (except for one visit where the quality dipped a bit). Beer-wise, they usually have a decent selection too. Distribution license for Kaiju etc. Great, great happy hour prices!
9. Hyde: #cocktails I mean I enjoy the fact that by default, their cocktails aren’t sickly sweet. But they do also put some thought into the drinks. One of the better bars around.
10. Ales & Lagers: #beer Let’s face it, if the old Great Beer Bar was still around (great lamb bowls, great stuffed curry in chicken wings, best intestines in town, good yakitori, great craft beer, great people), it would be number one on the list. But GBB has moved on, and so have we. And as it turns out, we’ve moved back to Ales & Lagers, which stocks lots of craft beers, usually has 3 options on tap (typically 2 from Modern Madness!) is super comfortable, has great air-conditioning, a nice communal table and breakaway seats, and is tucked away into a print shop in Publika. You could get dinner at Senya beforehand, it’s right underneath. Or you can get the Texas BBQ place to send food over. Ales & Lagers is the sort of casual craft beer bar we wish were everywhere in the city.
11. Gavel: #beer Now that they have craft beer on tap (typically 3 on rotation, with stuff from Rogue and Beerfarm) to supplement their fridge of craft beers (a growing selection, at that) and wine selection, I think it’s worth adding Gavel to the list. The food has always been very good (and painfully underrated). Now the drinks are too. And RM 28-30 or so for craft beer on tap is pretty decent, especially when you’re looking at the higher ABV pulls. One of my favorite spots in the city.
12. Happy Stan: #cocktails Karl’s here now. Personally never been a fan of coffee cocktails, so I avoid that and get the others. Can always ask him to whip up something special too. Generally solid.
13. Botak Liquor Bar: #cocktails Up and down stuff. Great the first 3 visits, disappointing in August 2019 (horrendous, horrifically spicy chili chocolate cocktail and a very sweet starfruit curry drink), promising in early 2020 (slightly too sweet still), and mixed in 2021 (very impressive during a few visits, not-so for other visits for diff drinks)
14. Rakh
15. Small Shifting Space: #wine would be higher up if they had more wines by the glass. But oof what a gorgeous small space. Love the wine bar concept, with rotating food programmes.
16. School of Animals: #beer Same team, same vibe as Monster and Beer, but in a smaller place, transplanted to KL. Food isn’t anywhere as good, and selection very slightly more limited.
17. The Chow Kit: [24 Nov ’21 update: the new cocktails by Bar Mizukami are very disappointing, may potentially drop further after another revisit to test] Surprise, surprise. Had a bunch of cocktails on 2 separate visits, and enjoyed all of them. Go and try! Good food too.

Can-go:

1. Trigona : You know what, it’s not too bad. Some good drinks, some mediocre drinks. Food is very extravagantly priced. The bar area looks stunning. The views from the windows are pretty sweet too. Great vibes push this bar up the list. Also they won KL Best Bar 2019 – I mean, yeah, pointless insider circlejerk award but still!
2. Three x Co : Need to revisit to rejig the memory but vaguely recall drinks being pretty decent. Also, whisk(e)y by the shot was very decently priced, which shoots it up the list. Nice place, tucked away inside BSC. Relatively spacious compared to some other bars, and has a nice atmosphere.
3. Skullduggery : Some cocktails here were actually pretty good. Might be worth giving them a heads up on your preferred sweetness level though, like most places. And it’s quite nice inside, though it gets very packed. Due for a revisit to assess more of the menu.
4. Frank’s: tried a couple of drinks. Probably need a revisit to reassess, but nothing too impressive.
5. Whisky Bar : Dislike the atmosphere and the steep, steep prices, but the whisky selection is admittedly great. If money is not a concern, this would likely be higher up in your personal list. Also, you can have dinner at Malaysia’s best yakitori spot before walking down the hill to Whisky Bar.
6. Coley : The new place sure is pretty, but the bar seats are annoyingly high, and it tends to get annoyingly crowded. The cocktails are very one-note too. Most are fun on the first try, but you’d rarely come across any that you’d want to repeatedly order. Although they do have some great guest bartenders over sometimes! Like Old Man HK.
7. Taps Beer Bar : Good craft beer selection that’ll destroy your wallet. Doesn’t quite have the same feel as GBB of old, or even the current Ales & Lagers. Not sure what it is, but the whole atmosphere of the place isn’t great. And might be best to avoid the food, pretty bad. Good bands though!
8. Soma : essentially placing this bar based solely on one drink – the peanut butter drink, because it was the only one we had from the actual menu. We also had the 3 omakase drinks for RM 100 which all ended up pretty mediocre/bad. We do need to revisit to assess the other drinks. But the peanut butter was nice!
9. Nomi Tomo : Go if you’re into sake. Great vibes.
10. 13th Suzuki Shoten : Lovely sake bar inside Publika. Not to be confused with the 13th Suzuki Hanten, which is in Lorong Yap Kwan Seng, is run by the same owner, and serves Szechuan food by a Japanese chef. This sake bar does some good tidbits too, I’m told. Lovely setting inside too.
11. PS 150 : You used to be alright, what happened? We visited before they officially had the front entrance and raved about the place. Quality gradually, then rapidly, slid downhill, especially after Angel pretty much stopped directly bartending there. Tried the place again on 17 August. Lychee no. 3 is nowhere what it used to be. Aggressively sickly sweet. Also, the music is largely trash now (remember the good old times when people would ask for the playlist links?), and played at annoyingly loud volumes. It’s always packed though, especially with travelers and expats, so we suppose they’re doing well.

If you’ve nowhere else to go:

1. Rentak Bar: Dope vibes. Hidden away on top of Cafe ETC. Great when there’s a guest DJ in the house, especially if they play jazz or retro Jap-pop. The drinks are still being tweaked at the moment – 1 or 2 were too sweet. Feel of the place helps make up for it, somewhat.
2. Bar Moku: #cocktails Sharp improvement on the second visit. Well worth a visit. (18 Sep ’22 update: has since plummeted drastically)
3. Pahit : Not a huge gin fan, so maybe that was why I wasn’t overly impressed by the cocktails at Pahit. Having said that, they had a pop-up at Tiffin Food Court and the cocomelon (gin, honeydew, evaporated milk, sago inside a coconut) was delicious.
4. Powerplant : Yes, really. They have somewhat decent pours of Guinness, depending on the outlet. Plus satisfying fried chicken. Nothing mindblowing, but it’s better than Kyochon in our estimation
5. Uncle Don : Never thought much of the food. But hey, relatively affordable Guinness
6. Locker & Loft : cheap whisky by the shot, which is good. Cocktails bit better than Pawn Room
7. Red Chamber : Some drinks are actually pretty interesting, but most are too syrupy sweet.
8. Sebastian’s Gastro Bar : [24 Nov ’21: RIP old Sebastians. No more Guinness. Times have changed a lot] Forgive the odd choice and the nostalgia-lenses, but I’ve such good memories of Sebastian’s. The food was great. The alcohol – do they even have cocktails? Doubtful. And even if they do, it’s anyone’s guess how good they are. Just get a Guinness there. We had good pours of Guinness. Just Guinness and great food, and you’re likely to have a better experience than drinking concentrated sugar water in most cocktail bars in the city. Dingy neighborhood-bar feel, by the way.
9. Pawn Room : Meh cocktails across the board, but whisky selection a bit better (and more expensive) than Locker & Loft
10. Attic Bar : Only saving grace is the drinks are pretty cheap
11. Berlin : There is purportedly alcohol in the cocktails, so that’s one thing going for them. But the place doesn’t look too awful, I guess
12. Mantra Bar : just wanted to point out that everything was bad when I tried it but I only tried it once. On the list because the place is relatively nice
13. Bar Atas : it’s popular
14. Kenshin: it’s hidden

On Foodgae’s To-Try List:

• Coppersmith
• Junglebird
• Rum Bar
• Folio
• Cabinet

RIP:

Omakase + Appreciate : Farewell to the OG hidden bar, highly underappreciated, with some of the best drinks around. Amazingly talented and inventive bartenders – the standard routine here was to give them some tasting notes / flavors, and leave with a challenged, expanded, and often pleasured palate. There were at the forefront of the Malaysian cocktail scene IMO and it’s painful to see them go. Karl is at Happy Stan though, so visit him there. I’ll leave this entry here for memories.

The post Best Bars in Klang Valley appeared first on Foodgazer.

The food scene is pretty underrated here IMO, especially for the non-local food. And the drinks? Wow. Best gin ever. Unfortunately a lot of our favourite joints closed down during the pandemic.

Anyway, as per usual, summarized some of my top picks below. Ctrl+F to read more about a place.

Last updated: 29 July 2023 – photos added and I am told this now formally qualifies as a proper list!

The Takeaway (kind-of in order of my personal must-go):

• Mawsim (must reserve ahead. Insane hospitality, dodgy location, excellent gin, jazz of course. Buy back a few bottles! That orange fizz gin cocktail is delicious, and the raisin gin butter wew)
• Sak Pub (could be my favorite craft beer bar at PP right now. All their brews hit the spot)
• Seekers (Phnom Penh-made gin! Also, 1st Friday every month is a great Seekers-based cocktail menu. IMO they should do it every night, it’s such a great place)
• Samai (Thursdays-only cocktail parties at the distillery, delicious cocktails)
• Malis (great breakfast spot, delicious Khmer food)
• Mexicano (Proper perfect tortillas, addictive frozen margaritas, delicious tacos overall. Thought the quality of the tacos has dipped a bit during the last visit.)
• Topaz (USD25 business lunch set is well worth it. Decent French food – not quite Hanoi-tier, but there are some good dishes)
• Sushi Lab (USD 25 lunch omakase sushi set! And it’s good!)
• Pizza 4P’s (it’s not as good as in Vietnam but it’s still very very good!)
• Garage Sale (tasty smash burgers)
• Katanashi (legit izakaya, quality has dipped but still solid. Love the feel, and love the food even more)
• Sundown Social Club (gorgeous interiors, great fish tacos, cocktails better and cheaper than Coley’s Koktels, some cocktails may be a tad too sweet)
• So Wat Coffee Roasters (cafe hidden away inside an alley, with a large roasting area in front. Note: apart from So Wat and Story etc, not many 3rd wave coffee spots in PP. Don’t expect a scene like Hanoi or KL, it’s not quite there yet.)
• La Volpaia (it aint cheap, but the pastas are good. And the setting is lovely)
• Soba and Udon Chiyoda (great tempura and soba – could be mid Tokyo level – but expensive)
• The Chug Lab (tucked away in a housing area, metal and craft beer. Giggity)
• Embargo (craft beer from around Indochina and more, worth visiting after Katanashi etc)
• Delikat Gelato (delicious gelato) (rebranded to Pinocchio Gelato?)
• Le Marche (great French grocery store with lots of nice products – and a cafe upstairs)
• Farmhouse (nice Chemex pourover, super chill vibe. Great to relax and/or work)
• Brooklyn Pizza (good pizza, great craft beer)
• Story Coffee Roasters (more commercial feel, but the filter coffee was great)
• Feel Good Coffee (espresso wasn’t great but deserves a revisit)
• Nesat Seafood House (beautiful place, lots of greenery, delicious pasta pastis, good to great seafood – although quality has dipped quite a lot in the latest visit)
• Eleven One Kitchen (good Khmer food, better than 72 Restaurant. Nice setting)
• Indy Steak(order the fried chicken and bring it to Tini – although since Tini has closed down, you might want to eat it at your air BnB)
• Long After Dark (good selection of whisky. Whisky flight worth it. Individual drinks may be a bit pricey)
• La’Baab (decent Khmer fare, very nice setting, pricey)
• Odin Bar (used to be a fantastic place, but it feels very different now. No longer the Tokyo-vibes of a hidden whisky bar with only Japanese patrons, smoking away at the countertop. More limited whisky options now, though they still have a wide range. Food nowhere near as good as it used to be. Plus it’s bloody expensive)
• No Style (Maruhi Sakaba-level yakitori, cool setting)
• Khema Pasteur (decent breakfast place)
• 72 Restaurant (relatively cheap Khmer food, not bad)
• Le Boutier (decent cocktails – best to ask to tone down the sweetness)
• Integrite (nice setting, very relaxing, coffee expensive and so-so)
• Open Wine (Pretty place, French food. USD 14 bistro lunch is cheap but food underwhelming especially compared to Hanoi)
• Pepe & Co (local artisan charcuterie, made from local ingredients. Truly delicious stuff. Super informative and friendly owner too.) Tragically, this has closed
• Tini (cocktails better than Coley, great coffee, great vibe, can bring outside food etc – recommended to bring in from Indy House. Absolute gem of a place) Tragically, this has closed
• Masamune (ramen better than KL, great gyoza too) Tragically, this has closed
• Phka Slaa Khmer (Great Khmer food without the Malis price – the USD 6 lunch set is killer value) Tragically, this has closed
• HanaMizuki (solid tempura in a Japan-like tiny spot) Tragically, this has closed

Haven’t visited the following places yet: Botanico Wine (jazz and craft beer), Kingdom Breweries, Seibur (cocktails), Enso (great breakfast?), Chubby Brother បងម៉ាប់ អយស្ទ័រ 1 (grilled stuff for sharing), Piccolo Italia (pizzeria), The Providore ($10 Spanish platter), 54 Langeach Sros (great ribs, goat with black ants etc), Jidaiya (legit yakitori – eggplant dote-katsu is a must), The Box Office (craft beer), Bouchon Wine Bar, Himajin, Buffalo Sister, Friends the Restaurant, Romdeng, Kinin (pasta pastis, kampot lok lak, drinks), Lot 369 (coffee), Maloop (good food, good cocktails), Juniper Gin Bar (cash only) (5-7pm happy hour!), d.e.s. Coffee roasters, Cheriny (pastries, cakes, desserts), Himawari Microbrewery (craft beers), noisy chili tap house, Voodoo Boulevard (cocktails), Oh San ramen, Prei speakeasy, The Keys by Tomaka (cocktails), Itacate (Taco Tuesdays)

Integrite:

• Decent espresso, not amazing. Everything seems a bit pricey. Although Gin & Tonic with Roku for USD 5, and Monkey Shoulder Old Fashioned USD 6 were enticing. Lovely top floor setting. Super chill.

Sundown Social Club:

• Gorgeous views, gorgeous interiors. Less grand than Pacific Standard Bar but I prefer how it looks. Bit like Miami was smashed against Pacific Standard Bar, if that makes sense.
• Great fish tacos. Nice and crispy, not soggy at all. Good flaky flesh too. Eggplant tacos were terrible though. So watery, eggplants poorly cooked
• Very good cocktail actually. Sundown Social Club Special cocktail. Very boozy, can taste the high alcohol content, but not too sweet. Much better than Coley’s KOKtel menu and cheaper

Nesat Seafood House:

• What a beautiful place. Lovely open kitchen. So lovely. Hard wood tables. Boat with cushions on it, and tables. Lots and lots of greenery everywhere. Have I said the open kitchen is gorgeous? It is. Draft $1 even before happy hour strikes
• They’ve moved, by the way, to a much bigger place, and it’s arguably even prettier now. Lots of open space, open air, lots of plants
• Pasta pastis is delicious. Damn. Don’t like pastis but it’s a stroke of brilliance to pair it with the creamy sauce. Rich, decadent, bite of sweetness and er acid? Astringency? Whatever it is, it’s great. An excellent plate of pasta – only point to nitpick is pasta could be more al dente
• Nesat madness platter – lovely grilled squid, cooked perfectly. Crab super sweet, delicious with the kampot pepper. Prawns sadly not very fresh. Would advise to steer away from this platter and get the other dishes. Hard to go too wrong here, it’s just seafood cooked simply but well. Love the place tbh.

Mory pizza:

Back-of-a-van style pizza oven. Pretty cool. Nice toppings, poor crust, don’t expect too much. Good enough if you’re looking for something to soak up the alcohol

Samai:

Go on Thursdays, but bring a friend. Or a group of friends. And go early, it gets super packed. Fun stuff though. Try all the rums and the cocktails and the delicious chocolate truffles. Most of the cocktails are pretty dope. I did ask them to tone down the sweetness even before I ordered though, so might not be able to ascertain accurately. Damn I do love those truffles though. Anyway, the store is open pretty much everyday and it’s right opposite the distillery so you can check that out too during other days.

Malis:

What a gorgeous courtyard. Open air, lots of greenery etc, perfect place to be in the early morning. Unfortunately, no fermented amok in the morning though, and I hear that’s great. Fortunately, breakfast is very much impressive enough to warrant many returns.

Had the Kuy Teav Prahok Ktis (USD 4.80) which was bloody delicious. The pork broth came separately from the dry noodles, and boy was it a big portion. Huge pork rib inside. And I loved the noodles too! The fermented fish paste was delicious. Huge plump, juicy prawns. Overall dish was impressively subtle with its layers of flavors.

Farmhouse:

Very decent Chemex pourover. Nothing exceptional but it does the job. Also, very chill and quiet place. Perfect to chill/work.

Le Marche:

A very well-stocked French grocery store. Impressive range of stuff. And they have a cafe upstairs. Neat.

Mexicano:

Best believe these are the best tacos I’ve had, and nothing in KL even comes remotely close. The decor inside is gorgeous of course. And the frozen margarita (USD 3) is so addictive. Not too sweet at all. Dangerous!

Tacos are USD 7 but they come in a set of 3 and are absolutely packed to the brim. Only gripe with the place is they overload the tacos a bit too much IMO. Becomes messy. Not that it matters, it’s still delicious. And the tortilla shells don’t break apart like at Momo’s, and don’t go soggy and limp like at most other places. Because the tortillas are…god, so bloody good. The taste and bite of the corn is perfect.

Great great tacos. Won’t bother telling you which ones I got, because I’m confident they’ll all be good.

Seekers:
Surely a must-visit. What a beautiful place. They really should open up every night for cocktails, instead of only on the 1st Friday of each month. Ah well. You can still buy the bottles during normal days anyway. 11 native botanicals from the Mekong river (everything from pomelo to pandan to palm seed) and spring water from the Kampot mountains make a bloody good gin. Oh, and don’t sleep on their bottled martini. Surprisingly great!

Lot 369:

• Leafy entrance, green wall at the side, plants at each table. The greenery seems to be a common theme in PP.
• Long black served too hot at first. Beans roasted by the famous Feel Good chaps. When it cools down a bit though, the flavour is good. Robust without being overly roasted/burnt. Laces of acidity. Very drinkable. Good deal better than a lot of places in KL, I’ll give them that.
• Chicken bobor was a mistake to order. Comes floating in a massive bowl of soup. Never a fan of porridge, especially when it’s this watery. Oh well.

Phka Slaa Khmer

• Gorgeous place. Bit glitzy without being tacky.
• USD 6 lunch set is fantastic value. Green curry chicken – chicken is tough and stringy but the curry delicious. A watery curry far removed from the usual Thai fare – barely any heat, but it bursts with a more complex medley of flavours. A tad salty though. The pork rib (also in the curry) is very tender. Dumplings are good – crunchy wonton skin outside isn’t anything special but the filling is surprisingly rich, meaty, fatty, and has a nice bite to it. Clams are fresh and the sauce is great. Tastes like a very mild touch of white wine, and lemongrass gives it a SEA-spin.
• Was told to get pumpkin flowers but not available today sadly.
• Coconut expensive at USD 2 but really great. So sweet and soothing.

Hanamizuki

Is this Japan? A 7-seater izakaya, stumbled upon it – can’t even find it on Google Maps for that matter. There’s jazz! And they only have kushiage and tempura, plus some other small dishes. Oh, no smoking inside, so I suppose it’s not Japan. Plus the ventilation is…non-existent, so expect to sweat when the cooking gets going.

But anyway the $7 tempura set was great great value. Ran out of shrimps so he swapped out with pork for me – and oof the pork tempura is good. Not the greatest coating but it’s almost certainly better than the vast majority in KL (so much better than Tendon Kohaku KL lol but that’s a different story). Can’t remember the last tempura in KL that matched up to this – perhaps Makoto? Haven’t been back there for close to 1.5-2 years though. Anyway, juicy and tender pork inside this one. And boi the tempura set is just an endless array of more and more deep-fried goodness. Only drawback is it’s a bit greasier than the best tempura spots in Japan. So much food though!

Also had the hot udon with a lovely subtle, soothing broth. So-so noodles but liked the broth a lot.

Embargo:

Tucked away further down inside the same lane as Sushi Lab, Katanashi etc. Craft beer spot, mainly featuring Cambodian breweries on tap. Generally not a huge fan of Cerevisa (Himawari is a bit better), but prices are cheap and the breweries are slowly improving. Worth supporting. Nice, chill place too. And lots of other bottles available.

Taste Budz:

Dosa is very meh, nothing on MTR. Great idli though.

Pepe & Co:

A local artisanal charcuterie, using local ingredients to make everything from fennel salami to guanciale. Both of which I tried and both of which are bloody delicious. The owner is also super friendly and informative, chat with him for recommendations if you’re not sure what to get. Love this place.

Le Boutier:

Cocktails. Tiny, gorgeous place – 3 floors, each one seats 10 people at a squeeze. A tight squeeze. Decent cocktails but generally all too sweet – definitely ask them to tone down the sweetness.

Khema Pasteur:

Decent “Western”-style breakfast place. USD 12 for free-flow breakfast but IMO not worth it, given the limited options. Heard the steak frites and pate here are good, so maybe try those. Pain au choc was nice, croissant wasn’t. The sausage that came with the “eggs your way” was nice too.

Feel Good:

Two outlets, as far as I know. Went to Feel Good II, which is under a hostel, and next door to Botanico. Deserves a re-visit. Espresso I had there was so-so, though Tini gets a special blend from Feel Good that tastes great. Very nice place to chill at and work/relax anyway.

Sushi Lab:

What a find! USD 25 for the lunch set omakase is such a steal. The female Japanese sushi chef ran the show. Snails for starter was a surprise – very atypical of the usual sushiya, to say the least! – but loved it. Portion was surprisingly massive, but I do love me some snails. The nigiri in general ranged from good to great. Rice was nice and warm, no temperature modulation in general but at least it was warmer than Ori and Oribe. Bit more vinegar would be better too. Also there’s a lot more wasabi here than in most places.

Standouts were the ika/squid which easily contends with Ori/Oribe, barracuda with yuzu kosho, sawara (with a touch of chili!), and the akami (one of the better renditions I’ve had).

Great pacing, by the way. 90 minutes just flew by. Amazing value at USD 25. It’s not the most sophisticated omakase experience by any means, but would easily be top 5 in KL. Worth visiting for dinner too, of course. But that lunch deal is unbeatable. Oh, and they also serve a ginger ice cream that’s so much better than the ice cream ending at Ori and Oribe.

So Wat Coffee Roasters:

• What a cool place. Right up front is the roaster, go further in to find the tucked-away coffee bar.
• Costa Rica single origin espresso: good cream, perfect temp, good body to it. Generally very good.
• Chill setup. Single wood (proper wood, as always here) and pipe table that seats 6. A 5-seater bar around the espresso machine. That’s all the space there is. The roasting space is as big, if not bigger.

Brooklyn Pizza:

• So happy I came here. Beats most of the pizzas in Malaysia easily. Inside looks like a blend of Mikey’s and a homey Italian joint. However, upon 2nd visit (1 Jan 2020), the Brooklyn Bridge wasn’t that good. Probably steer away from the pies that have too much meat/toppings on them.
• Riel Craft Beer – IPA ($4 on draft): Very nice. Bright bite at first, hops linger for quite a bit. Sure, it’s 4x the normal stuff on draught in PP – which actually is much better than like a Tiger or Carlsberg or whatever piss Pilsner the usual bars stock in Malaysia – but it’s still a really good price. It’s half the price of a craft beer on tap in KL.
• Riel Craft Coffee Stout – thick, very coffee-y, but gets a bit overwhelming after a bit. Too syrupy in mouthfeel.
• Riel Craft Honey Blonde – insanely sweet. Too sweet for me. Still finished it, but it was a chore.
• New York classic cheese thingy – fantastic pizza. Crust as hard as Mikey’s when it first came to Malaysia, but had a more satisfying chew to it. No flopping. The cornicione not as good as Proof etc but small price to pay for such a delicious bite to the crust. Tart, citrusy, umami tomatoes and very good cheese. Would eat it regularly if it was in Malaysia.

Chiyoda:

• Place is expensive. USD 16 for a (very small) starter, a drink (well, at least I can get a highball), soba and tempura.
• Love the place outside and in. Like an authentic slice of Tokyo. And surprise surprise, the food could be right out of Tokyo too.
• The appetiser was alright. Slimy okra was almost too slimy. Understated sauce was a bit too subtle.
• Tempura was excellent. Rivals Makoto in KL which means it’d be one of the best in KL. Perfectly crunchy, light batter without any feeling of greasiness. Prawn was plump and juicy. Vegetables still crisp inside.
• Soba even better. Far superior to any soba in KL. There’s a really satisfying bite to the noodle – grainy, chewy, and you can feel the bruised edges and all the nooks and crannies. Better than the one I tried in Fukuoka, not as good as the best in Tokyo. But definitely formidable.

Long After Dark

• Not bad. It’s dark inside, vinyls on the wall, alright collection of whiskey, some cool beers on tap. Long ass bar seating (again, proper timber) that can sit 15 people in total.
• Drinks are a bit pricey but the USD 12 explorer flight is great value. Nikka All Malt (haven’t had it before, very marshmallow-like), Laphroaig Quarter Cask (always good), Rebel Yell Rye (not a distinctive rye apart from the sharp initial bite), Bushmill’s Black (never been a fan)
• Wanted gnocchi but finished. Empanadas sucked, so probably best to stay away from the (expensive) food

Story Coffee Roasters:

• Outside, leafy as most places here are. Inside, more upscale and polished and sort of clinical. USD 3.50 for the filter which is a well-poured V60 to be fair. Very good filter.

Masamune:

• Ridiculously cool location. Tucked away inside a tiny alley that has a bunch of other bars and restaurants and little stores. Dope. Cool inside too. Reminiscent of walking into Seirinkan to a certain extent. Small place at ground floor, about 4 can sit at the ‘bar’ – or, well, the top directly facing the semi-open kitchen (the customers are separated from the smoke by glass), and there are a couple of tables near the actual bar area.
• USD 7 lunch set (shoyu ramen + gyoza + Salad). USD 2 Asahi bottle
• Salad bright and crisp.
• Ramen fantastic. Rivals Keisuke Tonkotsu King in SG except it’s shoyu, not tonkotsu. Noodles are perfect. Don’t have to ask for hard. Auto-hard, bro. Stiff like morning wood. Slurpy bite to them. Bamboo shoot not good. Meat (shoulder) very lean and not amazing either. Shoyu broth subtle but good – although only gripe is it’s a bit too salty. All comes together for a Tokyo-level ramen.
• Gyoza – again, better than KL. Beats Hanabi’s. Perfectly crispy at one end. Resistive but soft on the other.
• Ajitama cold and very salty, shouldn’t have added it

Indy House:

• How not to love the concept. Small place, 1 man runs the grill from 11 to 3, and 4 until sold out. Choose your protein, he grills it. Also, this dude has such a strong Thai rockstar vibe. Chicken @ USD 3 comes with fries, rice, huge salad. Place is always packed with people waiting downstairs for their to-go order, or eating inside. Packed for a reason, dawg. It’s not amazing but the chicken is tender and juicy inside. The accompanying sauce is very slightly spicy and sweet, and pairs great. Simple, but satisfying. Although rice mushy so I didn’t eat much. And the fries are frozen fries. Go for the pork instead of the chicken.

Tini:

• This place speaks to my goddamn soul lmao. Cafe, bar, art space, cinema, outdoor area, coffee that’s cheaper if you get it to-go, interesting cocktails, most of the furniture and decor on loan from an antiques store. You can even bring food from outside to eat in. The Indy House guy came buy to collect plates.
• Happy hour goes from 5 to 7pm: 25% off all bottles of wine, buy 1 free 1 glass of house wine / cocktail
• Great music too. Heard while I was there: Flume, Grimes, Royal Blood, Sufjan Stevens, The National, Radiohead, The xx
• Cafferinha (USD 4): happy hour means this costs USD 2, or MYR 8. Insane. Also much better than Coley’s KOKtel range. Coffee-infused cachaca cuts through immediately with a boozy haymaker. Palm sugar and lime round out the simple drink – not too sweet, which I’m always thankful for.
• Don’t Be Shy (USD 4): Stolichnaya vodka, fresh watermelon juice, mint, lime. So refreshing. Tastes like a freshly squashed watermelon juice, with all the pulp. Real mouthfeel, namean. Like a buzzy, boozy watermelon juice. Balanced and refreshing.
• Merik Mule very tasty too. Lovely peppercorn bomb.
• The M. Chapouter Marius wines were not my thing but hey, cheap. Not a huge loss.
• Long black very good too. USD 1 for a takeaway

Sesame Noodle Bar:

• Like a lot of other takeaway spots here, they use a natural plant fibre biodegradable takeaway box.
• Nice looking space, plays a lot of Radiohead
• Thor Buns: Good pork. Soft buns are ehhh but the spicy firm pork is delicious.
• Noodles with ground pork: pricey at USD 4.50 but big portion but ehhhh it doesn’t taste great. Nice, not amazing, noodles.
• Also there looks like there’s a legit Chinese dumplings store next to it

Katanashi:

• Izakaya down another insane alley. Like the back roads of Tokyo. Random dodgy looking, then you go in and there’s a whole bunch of tiny Jap joints and some not-so-tiny ones. Katanashi for instance is actually one of the bigger ones around. But it’s still cool. It’s very cool.
• USD 1.90 for a highball. Not too boozy, but that’s okay. Helps to drop the alcohol level a bit. Definitely tastes like a highball right out of Japan. Play the dice game anyway, it’s fun.
• Downstairs, about 8 people can fit around the bartop. Space for about 8 to 10 others around the tables. Then there’s an upstairs spot.
• Katanashi beef steak: USD 3.90 for 100g, got 180g. Great. Only gripe is that sometimes the meat ends up getting cold by the time it reaches the table. A could-order, rather than a must-order.
• Scotch Shime Saba (USD 3.90) – salted, vinegared mackerel. Then they torch it. Brilliant. Great portion. Very vinegary. Inside soft and luscious. So it’s like a ceviche inside but outside is smoky and firm. Skin not very crisp but not limp and chewy either. A must-order
• Mentai butter gohan: pretty nice.
• Mentai & potato ahijo: meh bread, but super delish oil and garlic. Get it!
• Pickles meh don’t order
• Squid and lemon thing: garlicky, lemony, umami. Squid is great, perfectly cooked. Bread isn’t great but does the job. The anchovy taste very prominent. Loved it overall.
• Osaka-style omelet: love it. Runny eggs, delicious dish.

The Snack:

• Grilled and deep fried shit basically
• Low tables, low stools, sauces on table, you know how we roll.
• Salad was tasteless, just random sliced up cucumbers and carrots
• Chili served at the table was very fiery but tasty
• Staff all super young + command of English non-existent
• Nice grilled frog. Slightly sweet which lent itself well to the ferocious chili
• Lunch set: fried chicken stuff. Juicy chicken. Skin too dry though. Thai-tasting sweet dipping sauce.
• Decent meal, worth dropping by if you’re nearby, but don’t go out of your way

72 Restaurant:

• Was told this is the best cheap Khmer restaurant around
• They’ve all sorts of dishes, alright. Rice, noodles, the whole gamut.
• Ordered random fried noodles. Kinda pricey. USD 3 gets a bunch of stuff fried together. Wet noodles, which I’m not usually a fan of, but at least not too soggy.
• Satisfying without being great. Probably better value to get the rice stuff. Not amazing.

Delikat Gelato:

• Love the low key palace-like vibes. Long ass bench thing is a brilliant way to maximise seating space while giving a nice structural flow to the floor. Love the tree too, right at the entrance. Huge cook-space, completely see through behind the glass panels. See-through, sectioned-off washroom area: open the door to a garden-like short walk to get to the toilets. Gorgeous.
• Avocado ice cream: delicious gelato. Thick, creamy, lush. Rivals Piccoli Lotti, really does. USD 1.50 for a big ass scoop. Really happy that it’s not too sweet
• Free yoghurt: wow, delicious. Much better than Llao Llao etc. Imagine this with the Llao Llao cookie sauce, god damn. Tart, not too sour, or too sweet, and it’s quite milky. Very pleasing, thick mouthfeel. Chewy, almost!

No Style:

• Yakitori. The bar counter sits 8 in total. Very small place. There’s one table by the side that can sit 4 people, then there’s a washroom. That’s about it.
• Fucked up card game unlike the cool dice game at Katanashi where everyone wins. Here, I ended up paying USD 2.20 for a normal size draft instead of USD 0.90. Thanks fam.
• 12/10 for atmosphere etc. But food-wise, it’s largely around the same level as Maruhi Sakaba only – okay, but not great.
• Tsuya Buta: Pretty good. Fatty. Not amazing.
• Kamo Negi: Duck breast and leek. Very nice duck. Leek was alright.
• Negi Maki: Nice, smoky, salty bacon.
• Ichiya dori: Very juicy chicken leg. Could do with more salt
• Chicken pate: Very nice crispy chewy biscuit. The pate is not bad – Yench does better pate
• Truffle pepper shrimp: Alright.
• Atsu age: tofu with walnut miso. Meh
• Gari Bara: Pork with weird ginger. Meh

Odin Bar:

• Jazz and whisky, baby. Long single bar counter seats up to 12. Massive, long timber piece. Beautiful. Prices are steep though.
• Must be 500 bottles up in here at least. Beautiful. Crazy whisky bar.
• All Jap clientele the entire night (the first time). The second time, there was a group of noisy Frenchmen. So annoying.
• Akkeshi is a new distillery established in 2016 in Hokkaido. This one is a vatted blend of non-elated malts matured for 5-14 months in bourbon casks, bottled in Jan 18 and released in a limited run of 10,000 bottles. Clean, straightforward nose that then develops into a distinct, strangely pleasing fermentation aroma. Malty cereal mixed with mustard seeds, almost. Tastes faintly of ginger, of ripe apples, rich, short finish etc. Best Jap whisky I’ve had.
• See whisky reviews for further notes (Hokkaido Akkeshi, Hibiki 17, Springbank 17, SMWS 125.69)
• Tsukemen: USD 7.50 feels very expensive for no pork, no meat etc. But then it comes out and the noodles are just perfection. Chewy, resistive, so slurpy, so pleasurable to gnaw at. The broth is shrimp flavour bean paste, ridiculously thick, more solid than liquid, and too salty for me. But I still ate it anyway, that insanely salty insanely thick sesame and (anchovies?) broth. Tokyo-level, but unfortunately not around anymore.
• Tantanmen at USD 8 was great nevertheless. Spicy, but not too spicy. Rich, but not too rich. Lovely bite to the ramen. Definitely recommended to order this.

Open Wine:

USD 14 bistro lunch, 11-5pm everyday. Is it worth it? Kinda. It’s cheap, but food not great. Definitely worse than Topaz. Brown bread – decent bread, butter too cold. Chardonnay by the glass wasn’t too bad though. Starter – mozza – was very much lacking in flavor. Basil oil was too subtle, and both the tomato and mozza weren’t great. Main – fish was overcooked. Had to season with salt and pepper myself too – imagine that, adding more salt in a French restaurant! Apple tart so-so. Would suggest sticking to Topaz biz lunch, but no harm trying this of course.

Eleven One Kitchen TTP:

• Smaller than expected, but looks great. Partially open air, plenty of natural light
• Fri & Sat from 7pm onwards, there’s a $4.95 BBQ Pork Ribs, chicken wings, seafood (usually shrimp skewers) and a side. Sounds like a good deal to me
• $5 for fish amok and rice. Which isn’t super expensive but does feel a bit expensive compared to a lot of other options around. Atas Khmer stuff
• The white rice strangely enough was nice. Smaller/shorter grains than I’m used to. Slightly sticky but not disgustingly wet like some rice can be sometimes.
• Fish amok was alright. Fish cooked perfectly. The curry subtle and yeah, just subtle. Nothing particularly remarkable about it.
• Luckily, the place is not too expensive. Still a good place to try it. Recommended also because of the setting of course

Topaz:

• USD 25 biz set lunch is good value for the setting. Gorgeous, glitzy place. Plus you get 3 courses, wine, and coffee/tea
• It’s beautiful inside. And the garden @ the back is splendid. Heck, even the walk to get in to Topaz is very nice. Inside, soothing, calm jazz
• The house red is quite nice.
• Bread is alright. Took the hardest one possible. I like the hard crust. But it’s a bit gluey inside. The butter is nice though, very good butter
• Surprise starter shrimp was okay
• Appetizer/starter – should have taken the charcuterie bar. The rilettes, pates look good. Instead, took froggu legs pan fried – plate very warm which was nice. Frogs are usually quite tasteless but could have done with more salt / more sauce directly on to the frog. Needed more flavour. Bit bland. Also cos pan friend, some parts not as nice and crisp as others so less flavour. Overall decent.
• Pork fillet mignon – looked great. Unfortunately very dry and tough. Not to the point of being inedible, but just enough to make me wonder if perhaps should have sent it back. But I trudged on away.
• Carrots are nice. Extremely soft. Quite salty though. French-level salty. But works well to take a bit of carrot and a bite of the pork.
• Sauce is nice, and helps to add moisture. Overall pretty good
• Pistachio financiers: looks brilliant. Plating and presentation perfectly on point, but the flavour isn’t quite there yet. They’re not great, but they do taste a bit better when paired with the long black, at least.
• Coffee: good. Even though the beans taste too roasted/dark for me
• To be fair, likely not even the main chef cooking

The post Phnom Penh, Cambodia appeared first on Foodgazer.

There’s just…too much. Of everything. The food is endless, the second-hand clothes are insane, you can drink at dressed-up cocktail bars and whisky shrines, or at tiny hole-in-the-walls masquerading as wine bars, or at a local izakaya that seats a maximum of five people, four of whom are already very much drunk, or you can forgo alcohol and instead spend the time eating and queuing up to eat and browsing used cameras, slack-jawed, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder at Mandarake to skim through manga, and taking photos of the pachinko and the people, who, by the way, are everywhere. Which is all to say: I don’t fancy cities, I don’t like skyscraper skylines, I don’t like masses of people, but I am absolutely addicted to Tokyo. There’s nothing like it.

So, anyway, it’s an impossible task to summarize Tokyo. I’m nowhere close to scraping the surface. But here’s what we’ll do. This is a summary of my personal must-visit spots, you can Ctrl+F to read more about each of them below. The full post also covers other spots that may be worth visiting. Read to find out, I suppose!

Last update (9 Jan 2024): 

The Takeaway (kind-of in order of must-go):

• Kappo Sanoya (sublime kappo. Every dish a hit. Sake pairing sensational, brought it to the next level)
• Gracia (fantastic tasting menu)
• Konjiki Hototogisu (best ramen ever for me. Clam based soup)
• Kagari echika fit ramen (top 3 ramen spot for me. Top-tier chicken ramen)
• Terunari (possibly my favorite food experience in Tokyo. Modern kaiseki at a bargain price. Best to book online beforehand)
• Bar Unknown
• The Hisaka Bar
• Mantensushi Marunouchi (some of my favorite sushi ever are from here. Modulation of temperature of the rice is so cool. Recommended to book online for dinner) 
• Ten To Sen
• Mantensushi Nihonbashi (possibly even better that the Marunouchi branch, at least the time I went. Lovely pieces. Though lacks the variety of the temperature modulation)
• Bar Ishinohana (my favorite bar in Tokyo)
• ENEKO (very unique experience, some very good dishes. Best to book online beforehand)
• Savoy Azabu-Juban (‘24 update: still good but nowhere near as good as before. I wonder what changed. best pizza in the world. Warning: it’ll ruin you. Pizza in Malaysia in comparison isn’t just in a different league, they aren’t even playing the same game)
• Gyukatsu Motomura (‘24 update: a lot more touristy now, with loads of branches. Still good though, but maybe not as shocking as the first time. Revelatory gyukatsu, prepare for crazy queues)
• Nata de Cristiano (perfect Portugese tarts. Take away only)
• Bear Pond Espresso
• Standing Sushi Bar, Shibuya (good sushi for cheap. Casual setting, and it’s a standing sushi bar! You kind of have to try it, don’t you)
• Glitch Coffee (best coffee in town)
• Bonjour Records (records, clothes, coffee. Good coffee)
• Ita Soba (best soba I’ve had, not too expensive)
• Torikizoku (cheap but very good yakitori)
• Jinroku (izakaya near Fuglen, Monocle etc)
• 麺屋 みちしるべ (Menya Michishirube) (great tonkotsu-style ramen)
• Kuriya Kashi Kurogi (warabi mochi is incredible, but expensive)
• Seirinkan (original bad boy of the pizza scene)
• Tsukiji Eel nisshin tasuke (great value eel if you’re in Tsukiji market)
• Chuuka Soba Tomita (a living legend dishes out a legendary bowl, but it’s more cerebral than enjoyable. Definitely not recommended for ramen beginners)
• Nakajima (go for the lunch sardine set – Yanagawa Nabe, enjoyable and comforting)
• 4/4 Coffee (good long black, heard the hand drip is great)

Bonjour Records is such a crazy dope store. Records, brilliant music played loud enough without being obnoxiously so. Brilliant books and zines. Vinyls, casettes, CDs. Clothes. And a coffee stand. Amazing stuff really. The vibe is exquisite. Slightly sub culture and street without being gaudy garbage like Supreme, namean. Y 302 for Guatemala pourover. Yeah I’m paying that price any day sir. Not the most refined pour but it’s very nice regardless. About the same or better than the one I had at Onibus. Goes on the list of must visit stores.

Kamasi Washington to Lana del Rey to Harriet Brown, the music here is exquisite. I find it difficult to even leave. What a place. So good. Listening to killer tracks properly played out loud while reading the Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes and sipping on a filter. Bliss.

Seirinkan
– what a crazy looking place. In a good way. Bgm is Beatles. Winding stairs up to multiple floors below and above. Pizza itself is…interesting, and great. Two types only. Very Neapolitan style in a way: watery-ish sauce, slightly soggy base, not sliced. The cornicione is killer. It’s not Pizza Savoy but god damn is it a million times better than Dihyang.

Shout out to Brooch – one of the best used stores so far. Fantastic selection and very reasonable prices. Bought a Givenchy sweater there.

Torikizoku

Cheap Y 321-a-skewer yakitori that beats almost everything in Malaysia (apart from Palillos). It’s a damn chain but God is it good. Keep the skewers and beer flowing (the beer goes for the same price too). Soft bones are great, pretty much everything is good. Come hungry, and come with friends. Thanks again, Ken, Ryan.

麺屋 みちしるべ (Menya Michishirube)

If you like tonkotsu, come here. Great broth. Noodles squiggly and stunning. Tsukemen perhaps even better. Simple joys in life.

Also, you know how Fukuoka is the birthplace of tonkotsu etc? Yeah, well, this place beats every tonkotsu there hands-down. So good.

Gohanya isshin daikan-yama

Right underneath some police box thing. Place looks ridiculously nice for lunch sets that start at 950 and top out at 1890. Most are 1300. This stupid gaijin went for 1.8k of course. And a tiny Kirin draft for 400 which is a rip-off for the size. At least the place is great! Dimly lit, but not too dim. Frank Socolow (sp?) plays in the background, amidst other great jazz tunes.

The rice is very good. But honestly Menya Hanabi in Malaysia has really great rice – probably even better than this one here. Not that this place is too far off. Nice bite, almost as good as Onigiri Bongo’s rice.

Sashimi : the maguro is great. Only slightly less fatty than Yamazaki’s. Nice resistance and creaminess to the salmon too. Lovely. Tempura good but a bit oily. Doesn’t compare to proper tempura spots like Tempura Tenko at Fukuoka or even Tempura Kohaku in Singapore. Still pleasurable though.

Avoid the Kirin draft. Tiny size. At least it’s not swill like Carlsberg and Tiger though, very very drinkable. Basically not the greatest food in the world. But atmosphere is stunning for the cheap prices.

Kagari echika fit ramen

Close to a religious experience. The tori paitan soba is just..something else.

Where to even begin with this ramen? I would be ecstatic if I could cycle between this and Afuri every other day. It’s an incredibly creamy chicken broth that isn’t overly oily and fatty. It’s rich in all the right ways. It’s silky. Luxurious. And the chicken breast is very good though I wish it was seared a bit for some textural contrast – but I’m nitpicking the best chicken breasts I’ve ever had. And it looks stunning for a sub 1k bowl of ramen. It matches the place itself – a super comfy and cramped oasis that shutters off the sounds of the world outside apart from the soft rumbling of the train overhead and the pitter patter of feet. It only sits a few people (of course), so queue up and wait outside. It’s worth it.

I want to eat this out forever until I get lockjaw, but even the creamiest of things come to an end eventually, and so this gluttonous slob mulched its way back home after (with a quick onigiri pit stop at Onigiri Bongo along the way).

Note: the rice with raw egg is good too. The egg is good, yeah, but the rice is excellent. Would love to try the risotto next time.

Kuriya Kashi Kurogi
A must-try but it’s a bit too pricey for multiple return visits, in my humble wallet’s opinion. Warabi mochi set is Y 2700, for instance.

But, hey, it’s in a gorgeous, gorgeous spot inside a campus. Beautiful layered roof and wall. Small indoor seating. Very comfy. Much larger space outside, which I bet is great during spring and summer.

The set comes with filter coffee (delicate, sweet, but decent body to it too), and some jelly thing (deliciously savoury and umami). The mochi itself is layered around daintily like iceberg…pebbles on a gorgeous lake. With pink flowers on the water. Presentation is top top notch. Very noice.

The texture of the mochi itself is incredible too. Not just soft and sticky but luxuriously, lusciously layered. Really stumped how to describe the texture but it’s a singular experience. Much more jelly-like than regular mochi but still retains a satisfying bite and the underlying flavour bursting through right at the end. Both kinako taste markedly different but both are great complements.

What a place! Expensive, very expensive, but very good.

ENEKO
What a sublime experience.

Food generally all stellar except for the doneness of the duck. And the desserts and petit four were too sweet for me, but that’s personal preference. Excellent service too. Y 10,692 including the meme egg, which is a bargain.

First, I started off with a picnic in a greenhouse garden. Crazy stuff in test tubes, lots of pruned plants and stuff to smell and touch and uh photograph. Some lubrication to start with. Then the picnic basket: a delicious crunchy brioche with mild-tasting unagi inside and punchy anchovy cream, foie gras with orange (this shit is wild. Foie gras and orange is a GENIUS combo), and a…kaipiritxa? Cherry tomato looking thang, with wine inside. Intense, sour, boozy, sweet, lovely. Spanish bloke walked me through the entire thing, then escorted me up to the dining area upstairs. Very much felt like walking from a garden up to a dining hall.

Truffled egg add-on: For an additional Y 1500! Not really worth it, but it’s a cool experience. Part of the yolk is removed and replaced with truffle injection.

Starter: Basque-style mushrooms, sliced super fine. Great texture, great technique, but so-so taste-wise. Good, not amazing. The tempura yolk is the star imo. Light tempura, and the yolk (removed from the truffled egg!) explodes in the mouth. Gorgeous. Take me back, please.

Fish: Bacon-rolled monkfish fillet, roasted red peppers sauce, pickled grapes. The bacon wrap is super thin! Almost looks like the skin of the fish itself, and feels like it (super light and crispy). Monkfish was perfect. Texture almost like scallops. Can taste the individual strands of the meat as it flakes away in the mouth. Moist as anything.

Meat: Charcoal-grilled duck breast, apple, basil, served on a very warm (nice!) marble (probably not?) plate. Duck unfortunately quite chewy. Lots of flavour while you chew away, gamey, bits of smoke, but the parts in the middle are just a bit too tough on the old jaws. Great with the sauces though – basil sauce, apple puree give the dish a sparkling new layer of flavours.

Dessert: Strawberries and roses. Comes with coffee (below-average espresso). The dessert was very interesting. Marshmallow base. Tastes more like super soft foam. But somehow both rose and strawberry flavours inside! Wild. Too sweet for me (y’know I like Sitka-style desserts), but wild.

Petit four: Basil and yogurt lollipop (it’s a shell! The shell cracks apart. Very cool. And tasty. Waitress gave me a second helping!). Raspberry and mint macaron (actually prefer the macarons from Tiny Temptress last time lol). Berry and pepper jelly (could do with more pepper, super sweet). Red wine bonbon (meh).

So, yeah, not the best ending. But a great meal nonetheless. And a great price imo.

Mantensushi Marunouchi

It’s a magical place. It really is.

Y6k for the dinner omakase is a crazy good bargain. You get 27 different dishes and yes, that’s not a typo. Nice, cozy space, everything comes out at a fast pace (but far from Jiro-style fast) over the 70-80 minutes meal, and there’s notably less of an emphasis on ebb and flow of flavours that you’d expect from the more premium, top-tier omakase courses. But it’s Y6k, so who gives a shit? The sushi is fantastic. The interplay of temperatures is stunning. Selected dishes below.

Snapper: crazy sweet fish. Paired with very very warm sushi rice. Surprising. Delicious. Great start.

Unknown drink: looks like diluted cum. Salty and warm. Nice.

Octopus sashimi: interesting. Salty, squiggly.

Sawada (spanish mackerel): skin delicately fired up. Wonderful. Just wonderful. The smokiness danced around the tongue and lingered for the rest of the Tokyo trip.

Saba: initially alright, just alright. Then the oil starts coming through slowly at first, then all at once, like a gushing oil well. Delicious. The saba itself is warmer than the snapper, and the rice is correspondingly less warm here. Interesting!

Tofu: Not jiggly, quite firm outside. Bite in, though, and it’s an explosion. Softer and creamier than cream cheese. Amazing. Incredible. In the note book, I just wrote: “Amazing!” five times, so yeah

Oysters: Intense. Briny. Sweet. Mouthwateringly good.

Enoki sushi: enoki colder than saba, so the temperature of the rice hikes up once again. Very warm, more vinegary.

Mentaiko: faintly spicy with wasabi, then the beads of roe explode into a million constituents in the mouth. Texturally, a goddamn delight. So satisfying. Better than the mentaiko in Fukuoka

Red snapper (kinmedai): Slightly too heavy-handed on the wasabi but still a good piece. The last time I was at Oribe, Nao-san served a better kinmedai though. This piece is a bit less sweet and bold.

Steamed egg: temperature too hot to eat straight away. Egg was alright. But the crab meat inside was great! Lots and lots of it. Delicate but held together enough to feel the chunks and chunks of crab.

Abalone sashimi: Immediate top note of yuzu opens up into an earthy mushroom umami I’ve never really associated with abalone. Firm texture, and each bite releases more earthiness. Wow!

Shirako (milt): Hey, isn’t this sperm? Milky, creamy.

Shrimp: warmest rice yet. Very very warm. The shrimp bursts into a creamy explosion but I’ve had sweeter shrimps before. Rice is the star.

Akami: Has to be the most flavourful lean tuna I’ve ever had. Gives way willingly to the bite, but has such a depth of flavour.

Otoro: Slightly, delicately warm rice. Super super fatty, melting, glistening, rich, oily beast of a fish slice. Best tuna I’ve ever had, hands down.

Ikura roe on rice: ikura itself not too cold, which is nice. Taste-wise, the Hokkaido Izakaya in Singapore still has the best ikura I’ve ever tasted.

Uni from Hokkaido: pretty good, but sadly uni was a bit too cold. Not the best I’ve had.

Tamago: pretty good. Layered nicely. About on par with Sourakuya at its peak, though less sweet.

Tiny clam soup: warm, sweet, fantastic. So satisfying. Vaguely tastes of sake at the back end.

Sea eel (anago): cold rice because…it’s aburi anago! Very very light smoke right at the back end but the juxtaposition of warm, almost hot, anago with cold rice is so good.

Tuna onions rice roll: Mmmm warm rice, chopped tuna, onions. Onion lingers a bit too much at the end but still very very good!

Sole strawberry as the ending! Perfect sweetness, IMO. Barely any tartness, just there at the back end. Better dessert than Eneko’s sweet stuff, lol.

Bar Orchard
Place feels like a dream, walking in. Size-wise, it’s about the size of Omakase. Bar counter is lovely. Lots of cool stuff and the ‘menu’ are the fruits.

Apple base first – very good. Pulpy apple. Bit of vodka flowing here and there. “Medium level” alcohol is surprisingly boozy. Egg white. Tasty, very tasty.

Persimmon – super sweet, fleshy. Delicious. I love persimmon. Comes with liquid nitrogen matcha liqueur (Wow! Sweet, bitter, delicate). Scoop the matcha and sip the persimmon and white wine. Sublime. Tasty, boozy, not too sweet.

Red pepper base – blowtorched bacon on top. Tastes almost like bak kwa without the sweetness. 7-spice etc, so it makes sense. Super foamy drink. Intense body and a fresh, spicy pepperiness. Bit of black pepper on the foam too. Bright and punchy.

Overall thoughts? Generally very good, but also overpriced. Y1000 cover charge (ouch). Total bill of Y7000 (insane). Preferred Bar Ishinohana.

Tompachitei @ Ueno

Katsuraisu for weekday lunches. 900 gets you pickles rice katsu etc. 5 counter seats and 4 tables. So you queue outside quite long lor. Tokyo like that lor. Super cozy homely feel inside. Run by an old couple.

Prefer the cabbage to maisen. Katsu is very good. Understandably the pork itself not as good cut as maisen. Less rich and deep in flavour. Then again this isn’t their recommended rosekatsu. It’s just the cheap lunch cut. Half the price. I really like the miso soup and the silky tofu. I love the homely feel of the place. I love that two people run everything. The chef actually leaves the counter to come and serve you. I love the crunchy crust, can’t fault that either. It’s just the inferior pork cut that lets it down a bit. I have no doubt their rosekatsu will be killer though.

Kagura (if you must eat sushi in Tsukiji, eat this)

Notes on Kagura in Tsukiji (outer market). Also, shout-out to the amazing grilled eel on a skewer (up to Y200 from 100, but it’s still to me) and the beef dumplings in the outer market. Y’all the real champs to this penny-pinching pauper.

But hey what’s Tsukiji without a sushi set or two. Kagura was my first stop before Yamazaki, and it took first spot in my hearttu. It’s a ramshackle hole in the wall, with vinyl curtains to keep out the winter chill (and cast a red hue over all the photos). There’s a bit of jazz in the background, like basically everywhere in Tokyo. The chef is super friendly. Sit by the counter if you can, there are only two small seats. Get any set that has a good mix of the usual nigiri and their aburi (grilled) specialties. Rice is generally alright here though would prefer a more vinegary style. Love the amount of wasabi though, perfectly balanced for each piece. The scallops? Stunning. Smooth, gentle, tender, ridiculously fresh.

And the whole course goes that way, pretty much. The shrimp, the tuna (even the least fatty cut feels absolutely infused with a rich fatty mouthfeel), the uni (incredibly rich and creamy without being overwhelmingly salty), and then there’s the grilled boys. All the seared stuff is on some nother other shit. The grilled char is like a flavour bomb overwhelming the senses. Gotta try this stuff. Only downer is the rice (not the best), the tamago (there are a lot of better ones around) and the negishio (ok ok la). Still a must visit though imo.

Tsuta

8.15am on a Thursday in winter, CNY eve. Waltzed in with no queue to collect the ticket I wanted: a 3pm slot. Can we all agree that the queue system is weird af though. You queue up then you have to go in and use the vending machine to order then give your ticket then get a card thing then go back in line.

Shoyu soba with chashu and wanton: Wanton sucks. Noodles soft and mediocre.

Chashu very soft and thin. Bit like bacon and ham in a way. Nice. The soup is good though, have to admit. Much better than the shoyu at tsuta Singapore. And strangely enough much less salty. Almost like two completely different bowls really. Really like the broth. It’s not top tier but it’s very good. Wouldn’t queue up for it again.

Ichiran @ Ueno

You know what, the Ichiran here was better than the Ichiran in Fukuoka. And it’s 24/7, which is great. Also, it’s definitely not as isolation chamber as you might think. If anything, it gets a bit noisier / more distracting than the regular ramen spots, since it’s so small and cramped.

Broth: good. Balanced. About the same level as the broth at Haneda Airport, which is to say it’s pretty good. Kind of around-ish the same level as Menya Shi Shi Do’s black garlic (Kuro) in KL. The chili doesn’t do much for me. 

Pork: decent, nothing to shout about. Better than some of the stuff in Fukuoka, worse than some of the spots in KL. Salted soft-boiled egg: alright. Can skip and spring for kaedama (extra noodles) instead. Noodles: good! The ones I had here were much better than the noods at Ichiran Fukuoka. Firm, very firm, and tasty. 

Best ramen? Of course not. But it’s a fun experience and the convenient times are commendable. Sometimes you want a bowl after and before 11 and nowhere is open. Plus them noodles are good. And Ueno is denim central*. So hell yeah I would return if I was in the area. 

* Don’t miss out on the denim stores in Ueno. Lots of next-level stuff around. Area feels a bit like Petaling Street collided with Shibuya, but if you’re focused on your Barbour or your Momotaro, there’s really no point buying from anywhere else. Place is crazy. 

In particular, check out Hinoya. Super knowledgeable and friendly staff. Recommended and let me try on all sorts of jeans: Momotaro, PBJs, etc. Believe it or not, I actually ended up with their house brand collab w Warehouse. Loved (and still love!) the slubbiness. 

Next level customer service, really. Dude gave me a bunch of different jean releases to look up online and jizz at afterwards. 

Tsukiji Eel nisshin tasuke @ Tsukiji market- fucking good. Blows away the tare Unagi in Malaysia easily. 200Y a skewer is a bargain but get the bowls for even better value. Tempted to get more.

If you’re still at Tsukiji, get the Yoshizawa Shoten (Matsuzaka minced beef cake). This is killer. Huge huge matsuzaka minced beef. Delicious dumpling. Really massive, you have to get it. Nice and fatty and meaty too. Lovely.

Yamazaki @ Tsukiji

Place is like 4 times bigger than kagura. Still small but doesn’t look as painfully cramped and rushed as Dai. And a queue of Chinese and white tourists is so off-putting. Fuck that. Worth getting omakase here for 5k? Maybe. Think kagura is a better bit though. Rice a bit grainier too compared to kagura.

Tamago here much better than kagura. Really top tier this one. So good. Surf clam good. Nice sweetness to it. Scallop very good too. 

Salmon is salmon. Good salmon but still. Prefer grilled. Squid. Interestingly textured. Love the chew and almost sliminess. In a good way. Snow crab. It’s okay. Shrimps. Crazy sweet. Builds on the slimy squid

Tuna. Not bad. Also fatty but not as good as kagura. Salmon roe wew salty. Not as good as the Hokkaido ikura in Singapore eh.

Anyway overall good but prefer kagura. The aburi there is great and the normal nigiri solid too. Rice here a bit disappointing. Super friendly chefs though. And they speak English well. Worth a visit if you have to but would return to kagura instead. Dai and daiwa ew. Those queues. Those tourists. No thanks. Yeah I dunno. If youre coming to tsukiji I would say hit up that amazing eel and matsasuka dumpling and kagura at the outer market. Then head to a random sushi place slightly off from the Dai alley in the inner market (couple of steps away into another alley and you can see spots that actual locals are at). Doubt there’ll be a drastic difference in quality plus you don’t get the off-putting tourists vibe. You’ll be the offputting tourist instead! Just keep chanting sumimasen and apologize for your intrusion and existence etc.

Onigiri bongo
Hey, a specialist onigiri spot!

Great rice. Fillings bit salty. Nice big portion. Overall pretty nice. A step above the typical konbini onigiri, which is by no means bad anyway. 

Maisen

The super hot towel feels wonderful in winter.

Radish appetizer a bit too strong, until you add the yuzu soy. Lifts it up a bit. The tea is very good.

The pork itself is very good. Fatty but nice bite. Good crust. Essentially, it’s slightly better than the best tonkatsu I’ve ever had in KL – but the differential is not that big vs KL’s offerings (as compared to the difference when it comes to ramen, sushi etc). It’s not massively better. FOr the price, wouldn’t really bother returning. Would go to the standing sushi bar nearby AND the gyukatsu place for the same total bill. 

Gyukatsu Motomura – original location

Shit on me, why is this so goddamn satisfying. Queued for close to 2 hours in the cold, and every second was worth it. Tender, succulent beef inside, perfect crust outside, perfect setting etc etc. I don’t know, man. It just hit the spot so well.

Chuuka Soba Tomita

The legend. Honestly, too hardcore and experimental to be really enjoyable. Like post-modern art and avant garde noise music, you kind of have to appreciate the history leading up to the movement to “get” the movement. You have to know what it’s upending, after all. Here, every component of a typical tsukemen is taken to its logical extreme.

Noodles – you like them chewy? Of course you do. Soft, soggy ramen noodles is a fucking travesty (ahem, unless you’re Hototogisu). Malaysian Chinese love their flaccid, limpdick noods, but most good ramen temples in Tokyo are going to be serving up the hard stuff. Tomita goes 3 to 4 steps further and churns out the chewiest, toughest noodles you’ll ever have. It’s a struggle, a full-on battle, with each bite. And to give it extra slurpiness and make it more of a challenge, the noodles are also extremely long.

Broth – thick, beyond goopy, and extremely salty. It’s almost all about texture here. It’s slimy, thick like pulped down sardines, it sticks to the noodles and your mouth, it barely moves in the bowl.

Pork – varied in doneness. Goes from barely cooked to deliciously blowtorched.

In summary? It’s a top 10 bowl in terms of how much I enjoyed it, but boy was it a cerebral struggle to enjoy. It’s not easily accessible, that’s for sure.

Fuglen

Legit beautiful place. But way too packed with tourists taking photos. Place was ruined for me, tbh. Coffee alright.

Nata de Cristiano

Perfection, basically. 

Terunari
Y 6500 is an insanely good bargain. I’m 100% penciling Terunari down for every single Tokyo trip from now on. Possibly the most enjoyable experience I’ve had in Tokyo.

Beautiful bar counter, right up next to the young chefs. Gorgeous open kitchen. Love, love, love it. Right up next to the action. And the seating is super comfortable (the leg support, the railing etc etc). Bar counter seating is a must if you’re not in a large group, and the service is beyond top notch (kept chatting with the chefs, main chef exchanged a few food and drink recommendations, insisted on taking photos together etc).

Okay, let’s go step by step.

Appetizer: stir-fried shrimps from Kochi. Juicy, plump, but with a gentle touch of smoke. Tiny egg yolk. Delicious start.

Congealed puffer fish: welp, does nothing for me. Fish in jelly. But nice snappy, crunchy cucumber slices.

Tuna: mediocre. Squid: the lemon really steps up the broiled white squid to another level. Bright without being sour, it lets the wisps of smoke slowly seep in while eating. Very subtle but incredibly rewarding.

Egg custard: very watery. Smells amazing. Tastes stunning. Like essence of beef. Is this boiled down beef sinew? Very oily, meaty, umami. Insane. It’s more like drinking beef consomme with floating bits of egg. Like a sort of inverted chawanmushi. The egg is not the focus, it’s there to add texture – and they feel like light floating icebergs that dissolve against the tongue. Easily my favourite chawanmushi ever by far.

Chicken liver mousse sandwich: excellent. Super light cracker biscuit shell – delicate, slightly sweet. Rich, cold liver with bits of very thinly diced up sour pickles. Best liver dish I’ve ever had. Flower has a very mild spiciness to it. Sweet potato chips don’t add much but sort of echo the sweetness of the liver shell. Pate itself so pink it looks like strawberry ice cream. Remarkable dish.

Kochi yellowtail, lightly deep fried. Served in a soup. Sweet fish. Firm flesh. Not bad.

Yamagata roasted pig is the main dish, and what a main dish. Fantastic pork. Slightly pink, slightly resistive, but not too chewy. Each bite bursts with an almost agonizing crescendo of flavour. Unabashedly porky. Sherry vinegar reduction. Only sore point is the meh salad (and the chef insisted it’s a “taste-good salad”!). Can sub out meat for the more expensive stuff (eg. +Y800 for Hungarian duck, +Y800 for Ezo dear, +Y1k for ostrich, +Y1.2k for wagyu – and the wagyu looks phenomenal). 

Sawanoi sake: added this on, of course. Haven’t had any sake I’ve fancied before, but this was fantastic. Really the best by far. Mild initial nose, mild initial taste. Gradually sweetens in the mouth then blooms with light notes of subtle spiciness as it warms. Sharp and spicy towards the end. 

Rice with bamboo shoots, baked chicken. Love watching them prepare the claypot and rush it to the stove. Tastes like a posh, polished claypot rice! Lovely smell. Glistening oily rice. Chicken bits have the faintest hint of charring from the blowtorch. Toasted sesame seeds. Heavenly. Eat 3 bowls of it and still have enough to pack back for the next morning’s breakfast.

Miso soup with aka dashi was meh. Mantensushi still has the best.

Dessert: tea and new hand towel first, and damn the tea is delish. Dessert: strawberry and mint jelly. Looks great. Tastes great. Better than Eneko’s desserts. 

ALSO there are more desserts? Meme-y Pocky stick with callebaut ruby chocolate. Milk ice cream. Very creamy. Taken with the cold cheesecake and Japanese orange? Delicious and decadent.

Random wine bar

Sorry, I forgot the name. But I loved the place. Tiny space, fits about 6 people at most. Super comfortable bar seats. Super chill vibes. 

Date No Gyutan 

Actually pretty damn good curry rice. The beef was flank – moderately tough but plenty of flavour. Lots of depth in the curry itself. And very nice salad.

Ita Soba @ Ebisu

What a great place. Sick jazz. 2 super long huge tables. Sesame cold dipping sauce so creamy, so good. Soba itself is perfection. Hard and mean to the bite. Great, great soba. 

Switch Coffee

Lovely small cafe. Great espresso.

Jinroku

Great izakaya near Fuglen, Monocle etc. Cover charge, but it gets you very tasty stuff (we had lovely oden, some of the best I’ve ever had). Great music played from CDs. Love the vibe. Goes from old school R&B to jazz to chill trip-hop to the entirety of Snail Mail’s album. 

Tuna sashimi: lovely, huge chunks, very buttery. Light hand on the wasabi sauce. So creamy and soft. Almost, almost as tasty as Mantensushi! Which means it’s a damn sight better than anything in KL.

Eggplant: smells captivating. Tastes brilliant. Lovely bits of char, not too slimy, firm flesh. Smoky and firm, goddamn. Delicious.

Deep fried lotus root: mediocre batter but the lotus root itself very very crunchy and juicy.

Karaage: Batter seasoned perfectly. Juicy and tender inside. Also, on a separate note, Family Mart does some damn fine karaage. Particularly like the boneless spicy one.

Octopus, tomatoes, bell pepper, broccoli, garlic, cheese: so good I almost cried. No joke. So satisfying. Home-cooked-tasting in the best possible way. Just an absolute bomb of flavours and a perfect way to end the meal.

Bar Ishinohana

Long bar counter seats about 12 people comfortably, with space for another 5-6 at the back. Lovely space. Better than Bar Orchard, probably my fave bar so far in Tokyo. Very much has the heart and soul of Bar Shake in KL, but with the bells and whistles of Omakase+Appreciate.

Strawberry pistachio Alexander: strawberry from Chiba. Strong nose of pistachio, very nutty and robust. Pulpy strawberry. Milkshake-like consistency. Very enjoyable.

Strawberry earl grey collins: super refreshing, not too sweet. Very well balanced.

Kiwi x Lavender Martin: kiwi from Nagano. Very tart-tasting, but addicted to the mouthfeel of the fruit pulp. Housemade lavender-infused gin. Fresh pineapple in there too, and housemade honey syrup. What a drink.

Claudia: rum, pineapple, ground peppers, caramel syrup, so good.

I’m picky with cocktails. Most place in KL just throw some alcohol together with a shopping list of other ingredients and try to add a ‘twist’ to it that sounds good on the menu. Give me simple stuff done right, please.

Oribe: beefeater, matcha, milk, wasabon sugar, gold powder. Gorgeous glass befitting of a gorgeous drink. Lovely fresh milk. It’s like matcha with excellent cold milk. So tasty. Beefeater just sort of rounds out the back end of the drink – really just feels like you’re drinking the tastiest matcha with milk ever.

Espresso whisky, cacao liqueur: very nice but boy oh boy does it caffeinate you up.

Larceny bourbon (92 proof), Pernod absinthe, etc (custom off-menu): almost singed my eyebrows off. Super strong. Crazy alcohol level. But what a way to end. A real uppercut of a drink.

Glitch Coffee

Best damn coffee around. End of.

Konjiki Hototogisu

Number one. The best ramen I’ve had. 90 mins wait and it’s worth it. Noodles soft but for once, it actually makes sense to be soft here. I’ve always wanted the firmest, hardest noodles possible, but the soft noods belong to this bowl. They fit perfectly with the amazing clam soup. Super clammy, super delicious shoyu. Pork brilliant too. Layers of flavour everywhere. Orgasmic. The shio is intense too, perhaps even better somehow. Insane bowls.

Savoy Azabu-Juban 

Even if the pizza was mediocre, I’d come here over and over again if I could. The place is amazing. But of course the pizza isn’t mediocre. It’s unforgettable.

Seirinkan deservedly gets all the plaudits – Susuma Kakinuma is the Holy Father of the Tokyo pizza scene and was a springboard for some of the best pizzerias in town. They all trace their roots back to the master. As does Savoy Azabu-Juban.

So, yes, Seirinkan deserves all the plaudits, but Savoy Azabu-Juban is pretty much a case of the student surpassing the master.

There’s a quadrant that seats about 8 people, all of us bunched up around and facing the massive wood-fired oven, with the chips and blocks lined up neatly under the furnace. You can feel the waves of heat immediately as you walk in. The dough is fingered gently, the rich red tomato spooned around it. You hear the spit and snarl of the wood, and watch as the maestro shaves away at a head of garlic, letting it fall liberally on the pizza. Surely it’s too much garlic? Well. Of course it isn’t.

The pizza goes in, some wood chips are thrown in to flare up the fire, and barely a minute later, your pizza is in front of you. 

The dough is…magical. Transformative. Orgasmic, even. It’s crispy and smoky and slightly, just very slightly, pleasantly bitter and acrid on the outside. Bite in and it explodes with air pockets of smoke and sea salt. It’s chewy, springy, bouncy, elastic, chewy, fluffy, buzzing with olive oil, chewy, and the gently pulsating shaved garlic is almost fully melted and embedded into the dough. It’s insane how good it is. It’s almost too good. Superlatives float gently to the surface, buffeted by the digesting dough, and they each melt away against the searing reality of the meal.

There’s really no way to explain the experience of the place. The pizzas are magical, the jazz dances around the spitting of the fire, the boys running the place are hilarious, the atmosphere is warm and jovial and…unforgettable.

There are only two pizzas on the menu. Both are sublime and beyond the bounds of what I previously thought possible. 

Passage Coffee

Along a very long strip mall-ish set of roads. Lovely space, bright and pretty spacious for Tokyo. Good hand drip, enjoyable. Drinkable. Comfortable, chill spot.

4/4 Coffee

Lovely place near Shinjuku-Sanchome station. Cool, small spot. Long black delicious. Lovely smell, cakes look great, heard hand drip great too. The sort of place you wish you could get your daily coffee from.

Nakajima

Michelin star spot that is famous for doing sardine stuff for lunch. Cute concept.

Y900 for the yanagawa nabe set. Cool place. Very spacious and comfortable for a basement spot. Sardines are big. Taste-wise, no ‘wow’ factor but tastes like the best home-cooked food ever. Deep fried sardines are lovely. 

Overall: sweet, warming, comforting. 

And of course there are about a billion or so other places I haven’t tried out yet in Tokyo. If you’re there, try out some of these and let me know how they go. I’m told they’re good. And of course, it’s not my actual exhaustive to-go list, that one is a good deal more extensive.

• Toritsune Shizendo (Y1-2k oyakodon lunch set, Michelin bib gourmand)
• Narikura (one of the best tonkatsu)
• Kintoki (tantanmen, great chicken ramen) (1-2-7, Tokyo, Nerima-ku, Kotakecho 1-2-7) (nearest station: Ekoda) (Open 11-2pm; 5.30-8.30pm; closed Mon & Tue)
• Taishoken ramen (Tsukemen)
• Nikunchu (yakiniku – tenderloin, daily offal)
• Isshin (Asakusa) – 1 michelin. Lunch sets start at Y 6000
• Sushi Kanesaka – 1 michelin. Lunch starts at Y 5000
• Pizza Strada (great pizza, dude moved to Savoy though)
• Pizza Studio Tamaki (potentially better than Savoy?) (must-order lemonade too)
• Pizza Dada (great pizza too)
• Yakitori Ebisu Nishi-Ogikubo (Y 100 Yakitori which are all good)
• Mugitooribu in Ginza (ramen – chicken broth, dashi, clam)
• Mensho Tokyo @ Kasuga (ramen – lamb bone soup)
• Fuunji (tsukemen – get nami (normal))
• Den
• Zuisetsu @ Setagaya (1 Michelin star) (set lunch from Y1620) (Cantonese food w Jap flair)
• Toyoken (expensive black curry – Matsuzaka wagyu beef, cooked for a month)
• Sushi Ryusuke (Y5000 for 10-piece nigiri lunch set)
• Yoshino Sushi Honten (Y2200 lunch set for 8 pieces)
• Tateru Yoshino Ginza (2 michelin star French joint, about 13k for lunch)
• Path @ Shibuya (dutch pancake with ham, wait 8am)
• Utsura Utsura @ Shibuya (hot sake, great otoshi)
• Forrester @ Nakameguro (Jap curry and 100 types of gin)
• Cocktail Works Jinbocho (great cocktails, e.g. matcha chai latte, opens 11.30am)
• Marugo Tokyo for tabi boots
• Tempura Nakayama (black tendon) @ Nihonbashi
• Yoroniku Ebisu (one of the highest rated restaurants on Tabelog, around Y10k, foreigners not allowed to make reservation. Must arrive and wait in line after 9pm. Last order 11pm. 150-0013 Tokyo, Shibuya, Ebisu, 1 Chome−11−5 GEMS 8F (2min walk from JR Yamanote Line or Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line Ebisu Station)(5:00 pm – 12:00 am
  – Nakiryu ramen (Y1000) (1 Michelin star) (dandanmen is great but long line) (queue up 1 hr before opening time)
  – Tamarawai (Good soba miso and yuba (tofu skin). Doesn’t take reservations)
  – Tai Shio Soba Touka (top Shio)
  – Muginae (Tsukemen) (3rd highest in Tabelog)
  – Menya Ishin (near Meguro) (Michelin bib gourmand) (yuzushio special for Y 1100)
  – Menson Rage (hidden gem, far away. Shoyu and mazesoba both great)
  – Mengyo (ramen broth from seabream and chicken, pork smoked with cherry wood)
  – Muginae (6 types of shoyu in broth, buckwheat noodles)
  – Kanda Matsuya (Best soba?)
  – Ibuki (dried sardines in broth)
  – Shichisai (order the Kitakata Niku-soba – Niboshi – one of the best noodles around) (2-13-2, Hatchobori, Chuo-ku) (11am-3.30pm; 5.30-9pm everyday)
  – Naniwaya (original taiyaki) (1-8-14 Azabu-Juban, Minato-ku)
  – Ippodo Tea (#1 ranked tea room in Tokyo)
  – Rokurinsha amazing tsukemen opens at 7.30am – ramen street at Tokyo station
  – Kajitsuen fruit parlor
  – Ahiru Store @ Shibuya, closer to Yoyogi-Koen station (natural wines by glass from Y1k upward, great breads, homemade sausages and pates) (1-19-4 Tomigaya, Shibuya-ku Tokyo) (Mon-Fri 6pm-12midnight, Sat 3pm-9pm / closed Sun) (no need reservations, but go early fam)
  – Gyoza Shack @ Setagaya (special gyoza + natural wine) (2-3-10 Sangenjaya, Setagaya-ku) (5pm-12am)

– Higashi-Mukojima Coffee-ten (coffee, great no-bake cheesecake) (1-34-7 Higashi-Mukojima, Sumida-ku – near Hikifune station) (8.30am-8pm / closed Wed)
– Good People & Good Coffee (3-4-11 Higashiyama, Meguro-ku, Tue-Fri 9am-6pm; Sat, Sun & hols 10.30am-6pm / closed Mon
– Cafe Obscura (specializes in siphon coffee) ( Setagaya-ku, Sangenjaya, 1-9-16, Tokyo)

– Gen Yamamoto (apparently a MUST GO. Also recommended by Mona so there’s that. 4 cocktail tasting menu Y 5k + Y1k cover charge 〒106-0045 Tokyo, Minato, 麻布十番1-6-4 アニバーサリービル 1F)(need to make reservations by phone though) (Tue-Sat 3pm-11pm, Sun 3pm-10pm / closed Mon)
– Beer Pub Ishii (craft beer – 3 rotating taps)
– Jazz Spot Intro (6.30pm-12am) (near Takadanobaba Station) (go Tues-Thurs for gigs)
– Intro @ Shinjuku: narrow, cramped jazz bar with live music 3-4 nights a week (jazzspot.intro.co.jp)
– Iron Fairies @ Ginza (cool vibe, great drinks, cotton candy cloud drink)
– YYG Brewery & Beer Kitchen (try the house brews at 1st floor. At 7th floor, there’s food to go with the beer – probably stick to biru eh)
– Beersaurus Ikebukuro
– Bar Ben Fiddich (Yamatoya Bldg. 9F, 1-13-7 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku) (near Shinjuku station) (6pm-3am the next day) (completely custom)

– No., Shibuya

– Beer Bar Ushitora @ Setagaya (great home craft beers, and great pub food!)
– Grandfather’s Inn, Shibuya (Flat Bld. B1F, 1-24-7 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, walking distance from Shibuya station) (vinyl, atmosphere, whiskey decently priced)
– Le Labo: Tokyo exclusive – Gaiac 10. 

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Looks dingy but don’t be fooled – prepare yourself for some culinary delights here. Sebastian’s brings South America to Malaysia in a delicious manner, and it’s one of our favourite little finds.

Sebastian’s sits unassumingly down the row from the more famous occupants of Persiaran Ampang. The facade is a glass and wood affair, inviting patrons to look beyond the rather modest surface. Having arrived a little before 7 in the evening on a Thursday, the shutters were half-closed. A quick query to the waitress inside informed us that Sebastian’s operates a rather interesting set of opening hours from 7pm to 3am. After a short wait, we finally step inside.

The first impressions of the decor might strike one as dingy, what with the narrow layout. All that soon fades as a vague comfort replaces our initial misgivings. A wood-paneled bar is the centrepiece and base of operations, regulars sitting up familiarly against it. For most part, the decor stays relatively in line with the facade, lending the bar a rustic air. Hints of Latin America dot the otherwise old-timey landscape. A Venezuelan flag hangs in the corner above from a piano in a show of patriotism. The left wall is a display of contemporary art, all bold brush patterns and vivid colours. Eccentric pieces of art catch the eye as it pours over the landscape. The contrast somehow meshes together old and new, giving a quirky personality to the place. Jazzy tunes from South America play over the speaker, with the occasional diversion into more rock-n-roll territory.

Sebastian’s is the brainchild of 3 Venezuelan brothers: the eponymous head honcho and founder, Sebastian; Memo, bartender and front-of-house; and Vladimir, the man in the kitchen. Memo approaches our table with the menu. Thursday, he tells us, is Empanada Night. For those who have not had the pleasure of eating these delicious things, Empanadas are pretty much the Latin cousin of the curry puff with crusts made from either wheat, plantain, cassava or corn. Every Thursday, Venezuelan celebrity chef Tamara Rodriguez plans a gastronomic trek across South America through regional varieties of stuffed pastry. The journey, may I say, is quite exhilarating.

These are not your auntie’s curry puffs. A basket of 5 empanadas lands on our table, each an ambassador of a South American locale. Tamara rotates the selection week to week, so one can always find a different diplomat to schmooze with. Their entourage comes in the form of a trio of dipping sauces: a creamy avacado mayonnaise, a peanut sauce with a great textural crunch (our personal fave) and a chili oil like sauce, intense in flavour.

Firstly, we start with the Argentinean empanada. Filled with ground beef, boiled egg and olive, the earthy beefiness and umami is tempered well by the heat of the chilli oil. Colombia follows in the form of a cassava-based crust, starchy with a hint of sweet, in which a molten centre of cheese hides. Chef Tamara tells us that traditionally they would use a Colombian queso instead of the standard cheeses. Nonetheless, it is excellent. Next up, Venezuela is all chicken and avacado mayo, a creamy savoury delight. Not to be outdone, Peru gives us a stunner of aji di gallina and tiger’s milk, a blend of traditional Peruvian chicken stew and the milky citrus marinade used in ceviche. Rounding things off, we return to Argentina, where the cheekily named Maradonna greets us in a cheesy pool of corn and brisket. Wonderful, heart-warming wholesome food.

A beverage related aside: The house pouring for the night is a Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile. Excellent value at RM21 for a generous glass, full bodied with a slight hint of acidity. Easy on the palate with a surprising complexity, we could have had a bottle. By we, I mean me and my potential descent into full-on alcoholism. But I digress.

The regular menu is concise, with an offering of bar snacks and appetisers followed by about a half-dozen mains. The pork loin with raspberry sauce catches our eye. As does the stingray lasagna, which is no combination we’ve ever heard of, making it a must order. Alas, as the kitchen are in the midst of rolling out a new menu, both were out of stock.

Instead, this traditional Venezuelan dish filled the void. A ubiquitous rice and beans dish some consider the national dish of Venezuela, this was served with pulled beef and a side of fried plantains (tajadas). The rice itself is excellent, each grain separate with a good al-dente bite. Butter coats each grain, rendering it a sinful, pillowy comfort. Black beans come well-cooked, not too mushy, with an earthiness to bring you back down from the buttery ecstasy. But, the star of the dish is clearly the fried plantains. There’s just something in the frying process that extracts such an intense savoury sweetness from the fruit, an utterly beguiling and addictive snack. Shame they aren’t offered as a bar snack. Unfortunately, the beef while well-seasoned was dry, almost crying out for an extra sauce element.

And onto the next one! A lightly battered white fish was excellently cooked, the flesh still moist and flaky. Accompanied again by that pillowy heaven of rice (take that, mediocre briyani everywhere) this time with a fresh salad providing counterpoint. The fresh, bright juiciness of the tomatoes lifted the salad even higher. But, let’s get to the point: this dish is all about that sauce. Ah, the sauce. Look at how it glistens. Pieces of shrimp and mussels lay atop the fish, almost like a garnish, no doubt used to infuse the sauce with its deep, briny oceanic flavour. The silken, velvety texture is enough to make one enact a musical rendition of the Little Mermaid. Leftover rice from the Pabellon provided a perfect vehicle for mopping up the last dregs of this intense liquid. Delicious.

We skipped dessert, mostly due to us feeling like we were in our third trimester.

All in all, Persiaran Ampang may have the heavyweights like La Risata, Las Carretas and the more recent addition of Flint but overlook Sebastian’s at your own risk. A cozy little bar where you can walk in for a quiet drink or five with a friend accompanied by some of the brave flavours of South America. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with sticking to the regular old Italian favourites or Mexican standards. But to skip out on a relative rarity in Malaysian’s restaurant scene? It’s your loss, mi pana.

Sebastian’s Gastro Bar
32, Persiaran Ampang Hilir,
Taman U Thant 55000
Kuala Lumpur

Opening hours: 7pm to 3am daily

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We ruminate on the state of gentrification in KL while appreciating the Chinatown bar PS 150 in the middle of 2016, a good half year after our first visit. As of 22 October 2017, quite a number of things have changed: in particular, we’ve heard talk of the oftentimes brusque and arrogant service. You may want to bear that in mind while also weighing it against the fact that PS 150 still serves up some of the better cocktails in town for the price point.

Before its official launch in mid-January 2016, PS 150 was a poorly-kept secret hidden away in the same building as Merchant’s Lane. Slightly outside of Chinatown-proper (ie. the garish crossroads packed with consumeristic spoofs and once-good food), there wasn’t even a front entrance in place. Thirsty patrons entered through a door in the back alley. Reservations were made through a mobile phone.

Six months on (give or take), PS150 has quite firmly established itself as one of the leading purveyors of cocktails in Malaysia. To understand why, let’s go for a brief detour:

Malaysia has no real cultural cachet of its own. Or more precisely, the urban middle class of KL has none. We largely trail in the slipstream of other soft powers and bounce from trend to trend as they expand, pivot or burn out. As a consequence, KL is currently in the midst of a curious wave of faux-speakeasies and earnest “conscious” consumerism. Aesthetics must now be backed by narratives – but more on this later. While I stop short of completely condemning the hypocrisy, as Zizek does, it’s interesting to note how pervasive this mindset is amongst the privileged.

Back to alcohol though, the crux of the current zeitgeist is the blurry line between experimentation and tradition. While some opt for a specific camp, it’s become increasingly common to find new bars comfortable with operating in both zones. So where does that leave PS 150?

First of all, it’s gorgeous. It’s part of a refurbished former-brothel, there are now three visually distinct areas to the bar, and everything looks both vintage-nostalgic and authentic. The chairs are heavy, substantial, luxuriously comfortable. The walls are exposed brick. The new entrance mimics a toy shop display and leads into a quiet alley of seats. The lighting, and lack thereof, speak of a Chinatown somehow more authentic than the ugly, real, 2016 Chinatown just outside. Everything is a haze of desaturated beauty. When I’m there, I’m typically the ugliest thing in the bar.

The drinks themselves are delectable for the most part, with a standout or two amongst the rotating menus. The Nikka from the Barrel shines without help but of course that’s a given. It’s one of the fruitiest whiskies out there, with a smoky vanilla-toffee aftertaste and a smooth top note. It’s good, but how can you judge a bar by it? The proof is not in the raw, unadorned high-proof spirits, but in the cocktails – more specifically, in the finesse of execution, in the way the disparate elements complement and contrast, in the flourish of the preparation (remember, the narrative of the experience is as important as the product), and in the layers of flavours that hit the palate and build in the mind.

By most subjective measures, it’s hard to say that PS 150 is anything but a success. The profiles are nuanced, the drinks are interesting without being overtly experimental (like, say, Bitters and Love from Singapore), and perhaps most importantly, they lack the distinct cloying sweetness that plagues most of KL’s old bar scene. In this instance, it’s handy to borrow terminology from the coffee world: PS 150 plants itself quite firmly in the new second wave renaissance of bars.

Most of the concoctions hover around the RM 40 price point, which is pretty good value for what you get.

Note: Some of the drinks below may no longer be available, PS 150 refreshes their menu every couple of months.

The lychee no. 3 is as tasty as it looks. It’s a great pick for those who prefer their drinks to be slightly sweet, and just a generally good pick for anyone looking for an interesting drink.

The Dragon Eye Fist is good. The Assamboi Margarita is even better. The Pandan Flip features pandan-spiced rum, the Southside in the East relies instead on the pairing of lemongrass and lime.

Now for the interesting part. Let’s place PS150 in its larger context. What does the proliferation of replica-speakeasies say about KL? And before you whip out gentrification, no. That’s not the answer. Never mind the obese body of research proving its effect has been grossly overstated, gentrification is a hilariously overblown bogeyman when slapped into the Malaysian landscape. This is Kuala Lumpur. There isn’t a mass of affluent Gen-whatever-we’re-called swarming over Melbourne-makeover neighbourhoods and snapping up property. We don’t have thousands of startup millionaires and billionaires descending into, and colonizing, Petaling Street. The majority of the upper-middle class come from families that were already in the same economic band.

I think it’s more valid to posit that the explosion of the 2nd wave is instead intricately tied to the cultural values of our time. Which, thanks to the good ol Interwebs, happens to be values that are largely shared across the middle class all over the world, values that look suspiciously like conscious consumerism. It’s not hard to see the innate appeal of the speakeasy. The bartender is an artisan dedicated to the intertwining of life and craft. The bar is their canvas and exhibition space alike, the physical location is masked from the commonfolk, the drinks are cheeky nods to childhood and tradition. The speakeasy comes from a time long past – a time that most of the current consumers have only experienced through arthouse movies, articles and the odd listicle or two. At the end of the day, what defines our modern generation more than our rabid hunger to romanticize nostalgia, even if it’s for a past we’ve never actually experienced? There are a whole lot of people born in the 90s who are going crazy over Stranger Things (myself included), a show that’s very deeply rooted in the 80s. 

Anyway, PS 150 dishes out some good (and some great) drinks in one of the prettiest bars in KL. You should try it. Most people already have.

Facebook page: PS 150

New fancy website: PS 150

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