Steak Hut @ Suzi’s Corner, Ampang Point, KL

 
A good fillet steak is one of my favourite meals and when I first arrived in KL 11yrs ago I soon the discovered the Coliseum Cafe and its great sizzling steaks quickly became favourite of mine. A short while later while I can still recount a friend telling me about a place in Ampang called Suzi’s Corner which according to him served some of the best steaks in KL but was essentially a “shed/hut next to flyover” and was “very basic”.

Initially this didn’t exactly fill me with any enthusiasm but in Malaysia you soon learn it’s all about the food and not necessarily the restuarant decor with some of the best food available being served in the most modest surroundings.

Being rather sceptical at first I remember visiting Suzi’s and being bowled over by how tasty, tender and great value the steaks were. Over the years I’ve frequented the outlet although for some reason not as often as I should considering the quality of the food. With that in mind I thought it was a perfect time to check it out for a review.

At first Suzi’s looks like any other non descript eating place but on closer inspection this one has several differences in that there is usually a large contingent of Mat Salleh (westerners) and it serves beer. In addition to the Mat Saleh, Ampang Point has a large expat community and this combined with dinners from all parts of Malaysia’s racial spectrum gives Suzi’s a different feel from many other outlets of a similar setup.


Suzi’s corner has a good variety of food available with the usual Indian/mamak & malay fare but it also has some additional stalls by separate operators selling different food. One of these stalls is called Steak Hut and this is what has made Suzi’s famous due to the fantastic tender, tasty and affordable steaks it serves.

Timeout KL has a top 40 food places feature every month and Suzi’s Corner seems to be included every time.

 
 
Due to there being several stall operators you need to order your food & drinks from the different operators and when settling the bill each operator is paid separately.



For drinks we started with a fresh watermelon, fresh barley and then proceeded to order several cans or Tiger beer.



I ordered the highly recommended sizzling tenderloin steak which was served with a bread roll, fries, vegetables and brown sauce although black pepper or garlic sauces are also available. Owing to the bread role being quite small I also ordered a cheese naan to help soak up the sauce although when this arrived it was almost a meal in its own right.

The steak was served sizzling on a (very) hot plate with a large portion of sauce in separate bowl. The tenderloin cut was a good size but the portion of fries and vegetables wasn’t particularly big.

I asked for the steak to be medium cooked and with great anticipation I cut into the steak and it was perfectly cooked, being little pink in the middle and having a plenty of juice. As usual the steak was extremely delicious and I cannot find any fault with it at all.


The cheese naan and its associated side trimmings were very tasty and was almost a complete meal on its own.

 
My wife ordered grilled stingray, chicken & vegetable soup and white rice. The food was good and tasty and the soup contained a hearty portion of meat and vegetables.


Whilst eating several vendors circulate hawking their products but are not obtrusive and there is even a “resident” DVD seller so whilst eating you can decide which of the latest movies that came out the previous day you want to watch later.

In addition to food, Suzi’s also has a car wash concession which was reasonably priced and allowed us to get our Sportage washed for RM15 whilst we were fed and watered.



The price of the steak is now RM32 so on average it seems to increase by about RM1 per year. For the drinks and other food it came to RM47 which is reasonable when you take into account that I ordered 3 cans of Tiger beer.

I will return to Suzi’s again soon because of the quality and variety of food as well as the availability of beer.

One final thing to nore is the spelling, its Suzi's and not Suzy's becuase I note that so many sites have spelt it incorrectly.

Food/Beverage: 9
Ambiance: 9
Value: 9
Service: 9

Suzi’s Corner
213/26 Jalan Ampang batu 4 1/2,
Jalan ulu kelang
Ampang, Malaysia, 68000
17:00-05:00
Please note: The Steak Hut stall is only 18:00-23:00 and is closed on Tuesdays
Tel: 03-42566720
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/suzis-corner/187090090532?v=info

Suzi’s Corner is located at Ampang point on the corner of the road junction of the MRR2. To get there if you are heading from KL along Jalan Ampang just before Ampang Point turn left for the MRR2 and almost immediately on the left is a small turn for Suzi’s Corner.


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EwF by Everything with Fries @ Orchard Central, Singapore

EwF is a fast food variant from Everything with Fries which have several outlets in Singapore and sell a range of premium burgers in a fast food environment as opposed to their existing restaurant type of set up.

The outlet is located on the ground floor of Orchard Central mall and has seating both in and outside their unit. The outside area is located within an indoor alfresco type of setting next to Coffee Bean.


I have visited EwF several times and my favourite order there is the lamb burger with original style fries. I believe that the bread and meat patties are hand made and all food is cooked fresh to order. On my last visit I again ordered a lamb burger which contains a mixture of spices and is topped off by caramelized onions, garlic cream cheese and a tomato relish. Owing to the being handmade and freshly cooked it’s juicy, tender and very tasty to eat.

There is a choice of fries and I again took the original fries which are standard french fries with a covering of spices which tasted like the Mc Donalds shaker fries. These were very average at best and I think they would be better off with thicker fries or even handmade fries similar to those found at Smiths & Chips.

The food used to be served in a paper box however this time it came in a paper lined tray which I personally prefer because a box is a waste of paper.


There are several other burgers available to order some of which come with different breads as well as different flavour fries. In addition a few side orders and desserts are also available however to date I’ve not tried them.

The cost of the lamb burger meal was SGD $9.90 which I think is pretty reasonable when compared to the cost of a meal at Wendys, Carls and Handburger.

The service was prompt and polite but the student like staff seemed to be disorganised and not particularly enthusiastic or observant with several tables left dirty for a extended period of time whilst they chatted.

There is now a fair bit a competition in Singapore for premium/gourmet burgers but I think EwF can hold its own with a quality food product.

Overall I like EwF and during the afternoons it’s a nice quiet, chilled place to eat and escape the crowds on orchard road.

Food/Beverage 8
Ambiance 7
Value 8
Service 5

181 Orchard Central
#01-24/25
Sun – Thurs 11am-10pm
Fri & Sat 11am-11pm
Tel: +6566348358

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk – A review of the good, not so good and the downright ugly

From a very young age I’ve always been rather partial to Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate and the various associated brands such as Buttons, Flake and Creme Eggs. So what is Cadbury’s Dairy Milk? it's a popular mass produced chocolate product available in multiple global locations and is not what a chocolate connoisseur would describe as one of the worlds best however it remains extremely popular globally.

I remember a defining moment of great disappointment back in June 2000 on a BA flight from JFK to London Gatwick when I realised that not all Dairy Milk bars are the same. During that rather tedious flight on a cramped BA aircraft I thought that a moment a pleasure had arrived in the form a small bar of Dairy Milk with the meal. Due to the excitement of seeing my favourite chocolate I decided to eat the chocolate bar before the dinner. I still remember the moment of disappointment when I took a bite only to find that the taste of the Canadian made bar was very different from the UK variety that I was used to.

A few months later I moved to Malaysia and was pleasantly surprised that most of the food shops seemed to stock my favourite chocolate although these were either made in Australia or Malaysia. Again disappointment quickly struck with the bars made in Malaysia tasting pretty awful and the Australian variant being passable when I really needed a chocolate fix.

From time to time the local Cold Storage supermarket in Bangsar Shopping Centre would stock the UK variant at hugely inflated prices and combined with the frequent trips to back to the UK it allowed be to keep a stash of UK chocolate in my fridge.

Several years later I moved to Singapore and noticed that most places only stocked the Australian bars, a few UK imports in Cold Storage or Market Place and the Malaysian made products being the specialist flavours and products. I thought this was a little odd when you consider that the factory in KL is only 300+ km from Singapore compared to Australia is several thousand kilometres away.

Around the same time I met a former senior exec of Cadbury’s Malaysia at a dinner and we had a good a discussion regarding the differences in taste and why the Malaysian made bars are not widely sold in Singapore.

From memory the key points of the discussion were:

• The Malaysian bars contain palm oil and a different milk recipe (possibly not using fresh milk??)
• The Malaysian bars were tried in Singapore but didn’t sell well because the Australian and UK products were established and consumers didn’t like the different taste
• He acknowledged that the Malaysian bars don’t taste as good but stated that they are much cheaper and that Malaysians are not chocolate connoisseurs so they won’t know the difference
• The UK recipe is not suitable for the warm climates of Asia and Australia

I’ve recently been looking into the different taste etc and have also discovered that the following:

• In 2009 Cadbury's were forced to the change the AU/NZ bars back to their original recipe after a massive campaign against the use of palm oil
• The size of the bars seems to have shrunk and Cadbury's claim this is due to rising costs
• The UK/AU bars are now Fair-trade certified
• The Malaysian bars which are exported around SE Asia are not Fair-trade certified and seem to contain some palm oil

From talking to several people they also feel that the Malaysian made bars are inferior and whilst researching for this article I found some good reviews on chocolate amongst other things on Dougs Republic.

After reading Doug’s reviews I performed my own tasting session and was surprised by the findings. The Australian bars were much closer to the UK bars than I remembered and in the warm Malaysian climate they were definitely firmer.

The Malaysian made chocolate does not taste as milky as the UK/AU bars and the sweetness tastes rather artificial. Previously (>3 yrs ago) I’ve detected a bitterness in the local bars but not this time. I’m not sure if this is due to my taste buds or the recipe changing or maybe both! Although the taste wasn't as bad as expected I would still rather go without then eat the stuff made locally in KL.

The small bars seen the shops in KL and Singapore are all different sizes:
UK: 49g
Australian: 50g
Malaysian 40g

In Singapore the AU/UK bars retail for SGD $1.75/$2.15 and in Malaysia the bar is approximately RM2.5 so just like most imported food in Singapore its almost double the price of that in the UK.

So what else is different between the Dairy Milk bars? let’s take a look at the ingredients and nutritional values:

UK	Australian	Malaysian
Milk	Full cream milk	n/a
Fair trade Sugar	Sugar	Sugar
Cocoa Solids 20% min, act 23%	Cocoa Solids 26%	n/a
Milk Solids 20%	Milk Solids 28%	Milk Solids
Fair trade Cocoa butter	Cocoa Butter	Cocoa Butter
Fair trade Cocoa mass	Cocoa Mass	Cocoa Mass
Vegetable fat	n/a	Veg Oil (Palm, IllIPE, Shea)
Emulsifier E472	Emulsifiers - Soya Lecithin, #E476	Emulsifiers - Soya Lecithin, #E476
Flavouring	Flavours	Flavour

per 100g	UK	Australian	Malaysian
Energy kjc	2200 kjc	2230 kjc	2200 kjc
Kcal	535 kcal	n/a	530 kcal
Protein	7.5g	8.1g	7.1g
Carbs	57g	57.4g	61.8g
- sugar	56.7g	56.2g	38.7g
Fat	29.8g	29.6g	28.4g
- saturated	18.5g	18.2g	n/a
Fibre	n/a	0.7g	n/a
Sodium	0.9g	80mg	69mg

I’m not a food nutritionist so I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusion but for me if I could only eat one more bar of Cadbury's then it would have to be a bar from the UK regardless of what the above numbers stated.

Following the Kraft acquisition of Cadbury PLC there is a great deal of suspicion that Kraft will change the product and several small campaigns have been started. I seriously hope they don't change the taste of Dairy Milk in the UK and if they do the backlash from the UK public would likely be huge.

To give Cadbury's a chance to reply I emailed the UK and Malaysia offices but almost a week later at the time of writing they have not responded.