L’Entrecote The French Brasserie at Suntec City

Another casual night, Kwan and Paul invited me to join their dinner, different than the other times, Carl also joined us. We met at Suntec City entrance with a big screen, I had no idea for what we gonna have for dinner, just followed their steps and leaded me to a restaurant, L'Entrecote the French Brasserie.

The restaurant is neat and cozy, what caught my eye was the table, instead of putting table cloth, they put white paper to cover the table top; which reminds me that I had been an Italian restaurant once, they also put white paper as table cloth, and provided crayon that allows kids to draw or sketch on it while having dinner.






Kwan strongly recommended their signature steak with fries to me, which is also highlighted on their menu. I don't have any reason not to choose the steak; hence, Kwan and I chose the steak, Paul ordered baked fish with rice and vegetable, and salad; Carl ordered stew beef with penne pasta.







They didn't take too long for delivering the food, the steak just looked fantastic. it was perfectly medium grilled and cut into size, the yellowish sauce covered on top of the tempting steak; with a large portion of golden brown french fries on side, do I have any more description for the dish? I can simply skip the fries as it was just normal fries, but worth to mention is the fries was unlimited to top up. Well, the steak was tender and juicy as expected; the sauce was really fragrant and unexpectedly mild. I though it would be very strong tasted, but it was certainly not, it reminds me Rendang beef, but it doesn't like Rendang that having a strong favorite, you can smell there are different kind of herb and spices but it still preserved the taste of fresh beef. However, Kwan told me his first experience was so much better.

Stew beef with Penne Pasta

Baked fish with rice and Vege

Green Salad

I didn't tried their food, Carl's pasta looked pretty good for me either; the fish looked quite dry for me, but good thing is they providing sauce on the side.

After finishing the main course, we decided to get a dessert, profiteroles de l'entrecote; aka the vanilla ice cream puff with chocolate syrup on the top and dazzling almond chips. The dessert was just ok for me.

Overall, the expereince was quite decent and memorable. Will I go for second time? sure. why not.

Hakka Lei-Cha 擂茶, Kelapa Sawit, Kulai 古来沙威

Hakka Lei-Cha 擂茶 is one of my favorite traditional food for all time, it requires complicated steps  and numerous of different ingredients to process. Lei-Cha also called Hum-Cha 咸茶, it's because it tasted salty, mild and make you feel comfortable and delightful. It has a unique fragrant and layers of enjoyable tastes, and most importantly, it deeply represents the profound spirit of Hakka, that friendly, hardworking, simple and less-demanding of life. Lei-Cha was very popular and likable for most people, and due to the long process requirement, you can't easily find Lei-Cha from any place else.

The traditional ingredient for Lei-Cha including peanut, sesame, tea leaf, mint's leaf , herb's leaf and etc to mix and stir in a big bowl with a big chunky stick into paste, and pouring hot water to mix with the paste to become the soup. The mixing and stirring with the chunky stick gesture is called "Lei" in Hakka, and that's how it called "Lei Cha".
Worth to mention is the herb leaf, they called it 苦丽心, just like the way it called, it taste bitter; but it help to digest and cool down body temperature.



For the main food itself, it's mixed with different vegetables such as deep fried chopped bean curd with green garlic 豆干炒大蒜, 树籽菜or马尼菜, stirred fried long bean 菜豆 and dried radish 菜脯 (my favorite). Each one of the dish already tasted very tasty and fragrant, the key ingredient which can found among every dish is dried shrimp 虾米. The fragrant of dried shrimp can push the taste of each bowl of Lei-Cha to another level. Combining all the tasty dishes together, the taste is powerful and definitely beyond the imagination.

Mixing with stream rice, (some may use Garlic rice or Deep fried dehydrated rice 锅巴or蓬米) and peanut (they should provide on side); and of course pouring with the soup, mixing together and start digging up; it shall overwhelm your appetite.

In Kelapa Sawit, Kulai. a Hakka town filling with human kindness and friendliness. Not only their warm-heartiness is worth mentioned, their good food also makes them proud. The most representative dish among their good is definitely Lei-cha. It's not easy to find a good Lei-Cha in other places, the taste of Lei-cha in Kelapa Sawit makes you think of childhood, the taste of warmness and comfy.

The feel of tasting Lei-Cha to me, the first taste is comfortable, the sweet and salty combination is perfectly matched. you will keep dig your bowl until it finishes without your awareness.

This is always be the taste that I miss the most after all the years that I spent at outside for studying and working. I'm proud to be part of this sweet hometown; and I will be definitely introduce this heavenly food for any outsider.