Of Yayasan and Nyonya

13/9/07 Evening
Yayasan Complex, BSB

I was in Yayasan Complex last evening for the Gerai Ramadan there. It is very special considering even fast food restaurants like KFC and Ideal Cafe and Grill took part. It even have Indian food and dim sum. There are tables and chairs set up so the patrons can just break their fast there.

Was checking out the stall when the the cannon fired. BOOM! That marks the start of Sungkai and a call to prayer follows. Thousands of spoons must have met dinner plates simultaneously at that particular time period!

Back to the stalls, it is very small compared to those set up all around Brunei. My most notable purchase would be Zaika's combo meal. That meal is damn expensive. I ordered Chicken Masala ($3) and the person just scoop in one piece of chicken and a lot of sauce. I was alarmed! I thought it would at least come with some rice or even a plain roti. A $3 piece of chicken! This better be good!!! In the end I ordered that with plain briyani($3), dal ($3)and a cup of lassi ($1.50) all for the price of $8 since it is a combo. This is so far the most expensive food I bought from food stall considering the portion.

So was the purchase worth the price? No. I think it is worth only $5. The masala is tasty but too small. Think it is worth $1.00. The dal just taste weird (worth $0.50), the briyani is nice but too plain as the name suggested but I still love the Basmati rice (worth $2). The lassi is great(worth $1.50) Should give the lassi a try.

Verdict (Zaika's Stall): AVOID. Only the Lassi is reasonable.

Overall the Yayasan Gerai Ramadan is pretty good, some variety but try to avoid Zaika. So, schedule a visit to Yayasan one of these evenings, but I want to emphasize again... Avoid Zaika!

14/9/07 Noon
Nyonya Restaurant, Gadong

Kinda forgot about the profound disatisfaction of buying from Zaika... must be the lassi working its magic! This lunch time I manage to go to Nyonya's to try the $0.99 dim sum.

In Nyonya, there's a lot of people there and I remember the last time I went there we are the only customers. Think they are not used to handling more than one table of customers because the service is so damn slow. It turns out we have to wait for the waiters to serve us. Waiting for waiters, twisted isn't it.

About the dim sum, the siew mai looks over cooked, the skin of shark fin dumpling is very dry and we have to eat dim sum with fork! By the time the dim sum is in our mouth, it is ruined! Sounds like a bad reveiw coming eh?

Truthfully, it is the best halal dim sum I have ever had!

And I love the ambience in Nyonya, especially the place for washing hands. It has a nice mirror and decorated with flowers and other decorations. It feels like a sacred altar for self-worshipping.

Now back to the dim sum. I really like the chunky, meaty feel without it being a challenge to bite. Really like the shrimp dumpling but can't really rate it because the most important part, the skin is ruined everytime I pick it up with a fork, and don't even expect me to pick it up with my hands!

(Talking about shrimp dumpling, I firmly advise against the ones in Foodzone Yayasan. Looks great and that's it. The skin is too soft, and the prawn in the is mushy!!! You aren't suppose to chop up the prawn you idiot! Sorry for being emotional... but its about food!)

Now comes the part for rating Nyonya' Dim Sum offer:

Ambience: 18/20 (Very good especially the "altar")
Presentation of food: 10/20 (Points off for the dry skin in shark fin dumpling)
Smell of food: 15/20 (Nothing special, just mediocre)
Taste of food: 13/20 (Best halal dim sum I ever had but a tad too salty. Marks off for the weird tasting plain water)
Service: 15/20 (Points off for slow service but gained some with the very beautiful cashier)

Total marks: 71% (very good considering my picky-ness)
Verdict: Good and definitely will go again sometime during this season.