malaysian food

on cyber monday, restaurant.com was offering deep discounts on their already discounted certificates. i bought $250 worth for $20. but these things really have a catch--there is a minimum amount you have to spend to be able to use your certificate. for example, if you have a $25 certificate, you usually have to spend a minimum of $50, not including drinks & tip (the tip is actually a preset percentage added to the the full bill). though it's not really that great a deal, it's a good way to try some new restaurants and still save some money (even if it's only a little bit).

so this past wednesday (my designated day to provide dinner), i decided to one of my $25 certificates. we went to belacan grill right nearby. my sister had mentioned before that it's good, but i'd never had the chance to eat there. so this was as good a chance as any.

the restaurant is pretty small, but they have a good menu. it was hard to decide, especially since not all of us ate spicy food and we had kids with limited palates with us. but we actually had a good mix. for appetizers, we had crispy calamari and chicken and beef satay. both dishes were delicious!

we ordered the satay--that was going to be their dinner. though they like barbeque, i wasn't sure that they would like it because of the different spices used. but they actually really liked it. my niece liked the chicken better, while my nephew liked the beef. they looked so good that we (the adults) wanted to try them as well. so we wound up getting another order of it.

my sister loves calamari, and now i like it, too. so, we had to order these, especially since she'd already had it before and knew they were good. they used the little squid, which i like better. and they were good. the kids actually ended up eating these, too.

for our main entrees, i wanted to try the "must try" malaysian curry chicken. my sister suggested the "favorite" daging kicap manis (soy glazed beef), while my brother-in-law chose the claypot seafood with tofu.

though the menu indicated that it would be spicy, the chicken curry actually was not. my sister thinks it's because she had asked about something else being spicy, so they might have made it mild. whatever the reason, i was rather disappointed with this dish. i expected spicy, and i wanted it spicy. and i felt like this would be a malaysian signature dish, and it just didn't seem that to me. my sister thinks that maybe this tasted bland because the others were so flavorful. could be.

(addendum (1/9/09): okay, i completely change my mind about this curry. i just had the leftovers--the only leftover we had from this dinner, and it tastes as it should--rich and spicy. mmm. mmm. my sister might be right about the other flavors overpowering this dish, but i suspect that it took this time for the spices to fully steep.)

the soy-glazed beef was very good. as you can see from the pepper pieces, it had some spiciness to it, and that contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the glaze. this was probably the best out of the entrees.

the seafood claypot was also delicious. as you can see, the ingredients look fresh and cooked just right. it was very flavorful.

though we were already full, we thought that we might as well try some of the desserts. we tasted a couple that sounded like filipino desserts--we wanted to see what their malaysian versions would be like. we ordered ice kacang and pulut hitam

the ice kacang is like the filipino halo-halo, but not. it consists of "shaved ice with red beans, sweet corn, grass jelly, red rose syrup and evaporated milk." i just had a taste. i didn't particularly like it. i don't exactly like halo-halo either, but i like this even less.

pulut hitam is "black glutinous rice topped with sweet coconut cream." i thought that this might be like the filipino suman/puto, but again, it really wasn't. to me, this was just so-so. my niece said it tasted like the tapioca dessert they serve at the chinese restaurant, and i guess it did.

so, all in all, the desserts were not that great. but, overall, the food was excellent. i'm thinking of doing an apala social here.

it was rather expensive there, though (and their servings were small). when we were ordering, we were trying to make sure that we met the $50 minimum. that turned out not to be a problem. our total came out to about $95 after the 18+% tip. so, after the $25 certificate was deducted, i still paid about $75. it turned out to be more expensive than our normal dinners out (at other places and without certificates), but i was glad we went there. and, as i told the kids, now they (and i) can say that they've (i've) had malaysian food.