Restaurant Siu Siu Sg Besi 小小饭店

Called for farewell dinner again, this time Simon and Yee are flying for REAL! Everyone pretended indifferent since we already lost count how many times they had their flight rescheduled.

It's always a difficult task for us to locate a suitable venue that serves good meal at the same time ensure everyone enjoys the meal under a "stress-free" environment. “Stress-free" in the sense of less crowd and getting parking at ease, especially when we have elderly around. We picked this restaurant as I came across this restaurant from a newspaper's review and both of us had dined here several times, we used to think the food here was not bad, price was reasonable, most of all, they provide ample parking space for diners.

If not mistaken, our last visit was 2 years back. Usually restaurant like this, you need to have minimum 4 to 5 pax in order to sample their signature dishes.

Only 2 tables of guest, the business seemed to cut down a lot, is it due to the bad economy setback!? Or the plunge of food standard!? Let’s find out then....

A Chinese lady from China came up and took order for us, captain looking man joint in later. The only thing that irritates Moon is their persistency, they kept persuading us to go for the expensive fish like Sultan fish苏丹鱼, Marble Goby笋壳鱼 and etc. Moon is rather skeptical coz usually the captain would say something like” Oh, 100gram for only RM25, not expenssive at all!” Beware! obviously it's part of their marketing strategy, coz usually one whole fish for steam can easily weigh 1Kilogram (1000gram) or more…..If you come across a news telling how a guy being misled to pay hefty money for a piece of steamed "wild Sultan fish", you know what I mean.

After all, fish is still a must, Moon and uncle eventually picked catfish 白须公鱼 steamed with Chinese pickles 菜埔蒸白须公鱼-RM72 . Too bad, I dont' have photo of the fish (usually under this kind of reunion, we're prone to skip it coz too busy catching up with each other;-P). This fish was huge and served to us last. It's about the length of one 12-inches long ruler. Simon complained about the muddy smell and thought it was way over done (grown up in Australia, there's reason for him to be particular about fish). However, he was not alone this time coz the 11 tastebuds of us (excluding a 9 months old baby gal) judged the same! None of us showed preference for this, think it's convincing enough that the steamed catfish is out of specification! Luckily we did not go for the "high end fish", it's just a waste of money if the chef is unable to control the culinary timing, don't you agree with me?

Other than the fish, we also ordered a number of their signature dishes.

Char Siu 叉烧 (BBQ pork, my all time favorite)- RM20
Mun and myself thought it was delicious ( and I'd say it's the best out of all on the table), while Yin and Yee said the one served at Mooi Mooi tasted better (needless to say, that's also my super favorite) in term of texture and the natural fragrant pervaded from charcoal….

Home-style braised pork Belly with sweet potatoes served in clay pot 家乡花腩煲 –RM18
I think the gravy was fine, not excellent though. Father in law and Yee complained they had only the sweet potatoes but failed to grab any meat coz they could hardly find one in the pot ( sorry to hear about that)!Milky and creamy Fresh Water Prawn 奶皇生虾-RM95
Moon knew this dish was not gonna be cheap when she saw the Sang Har 生虾( a kind of fresh water prawn with big head, is it known as "Big Head Prawn"!?) was about the size of adult's palm. Since the prawn was big, 5 pieces of the prawn was sliced into half and each of us got the share out of it. The prawn was basically fresh yet very unfortunate, being spoilt by the gravy which was way too rich, too creamy and absolutely awful ( maybe they should consider to omit this dish from the signature list if they could not do anything better to improve the gravy...) Braised eggplants with salted prawn 咸虾茄子RM20
Moon probably can produce similar dish with much cheaper material cost. lol Tofu served with minced pork 山城豆腐 RM24.
Another dish that Moon can prepare with a much cheaper cost. lol Green dish was sautéed Nai Pak 奶白 with garlic clove RM 16.

Total amount of the bill is RM291.00 with complimentary fruits platter, I think it's slightly at the high side, what do you think? If gastrotomy is good, I believe no one would care to pay a little bit more but the verdict is culinary skill has apparently slackened...

Restaurant Siu Siu Sungai Besi

Address : No 1, Kampung Satu Seksyen 93, Jalan Sungai Besi, 57100 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel : 016-370 8555 (Mr Ng)

Business Hours 11.00am to 11pm ( closed on every Tuesday)