Rimba Rasa....

Went to Perlis yesterday....will post on that trip later in my other blog:)
We went to Kangar; the capital of the state to have our lunch since it is actually a town area.
After much scouting, we decided to go for Malay food.There's no decent Chinese restaurant here; only a couple Kopitiam style selling chicken rice. The other options were Pizza Hut and KFC but since I was here, I wanted to try out something different and local to the place.
This was the first Malay restaurant we actually stumbled upon and thus, after a couple of rounds in town, we decided to give this place a try. It looked rather decorative and I personally felt the design and decor was rather impressive:)

(Somehow Malays are always very particular about their exterior presentation and go to great lengths to display nice and impressive stuffs to capture people's attention),

It is called Rimba Rasa - Forest of Tastes and I did see Chinese diners in the restaurant as well. I remember that I visited this Malay food stall with my family when I was young (dad brought us there) in Port Dickson which also happened to be my first encounter with Malay cuisine.

The minute we got down from our car and walked towards the restaurant, there were more than a dozen eyes looking at us...hmmmm...I should say, STARING at us with big eyes...as though we look like aliens invading their territory.

Guess in more remote/rural places, the mindset is still in the conservative direction....coz we do not see such weird behaviour in KL - the metropolitan city:)

However, I was fine and more comfortable when I caught a Chinese family there as well.

They left when we were approaching the restaurant.

I was thinking of asking them whether they know of any interesting eating places here when my friend suggested that they were probably tourists themselves....LOL...so true:p

I was expecting some Malay home-style cooking - where you can order those dishes and have them with the good ol' white carbo food of the East (the rice).

However, I was pretty disappointed when I saw their menu.

Anyway, they do serve the economy rice style with a buffet spread of the normal fried eggs, fried/dried fish:p, raw veggies (yay...that's the best part of Malay food....using fresh and raw veggies for condiments and also for their salad/ulam:)

Then they do serve Western food as well.

We found ourselves a table at the verandah but we moved into the interior when it began to rain....bummer.

We were trying to get the menu; somehow the table out front did not have the menu on it and we carried this menu along with us when we got it from another table. Then I started noticing that each table has this menu EXCEPT our first table...weird.

It was so embarassing to be carrying the menu around with us....*smacks ourselves*

They don't have those popular Malay dishes such sayur goreng, udang/ikan/sotong dishes, etc.

They have those fried rice and noodles type of menu.

However, they do have certain unique dishes which I don't see in other Malay restaurants:p

So, we ordered the Claypot Tofu....hehee....they have this (usually only found in Chinese restaurants:p )

Another item we ordered was the Sup Cendawan ala Thai which sounded pretty interesting as well.

Then we gave the Nasi Udang Paprik a try as well.

Our drinks; watermelon and starfruit juice - costs RM2.50 each. A little pricey I think for fruit juices:p

But watermelon was indeed refreshing after being cooped up in the car for some time:p

Our Claypot tofu was the first to arrive. One thing I noticed about Malays; as I mentioned earlier; they really placed a lot of importance in presentation. This claypot was on the counter and the server actually took this claypot to the buffet section, grabbed a plate and a basket along with spoon and put them all together before serving us. Wowww...that's like so nice....I think Chinese restaurants just serve you right from the kitchen....after all, it already came in a claypot/plate:p Of course, we see the presentation thingy when we go to classy Chinese restaurants like Tai Thong, Six Happiness...you know, those that fall in that category of expensive or Chinese fine dining...haha:p

Okay....this Claypot tofu was so-so.....smells too strong and the tofu was too dried up.
Also, i thought I saw some beef; which my friend claimed was chicken meat and it was too hard. I told him that it was due to the breast portion which Malay typically use in their cooking compared to the thigh area as usually demanded by people.

The good thing about Malay food is they are always generous with the vegetables serving....and this contains loads of celery, carrots, mini maize and onions if you stir it.

Next was the Nasi Udang Paprik...nothing special...just looked normal:)

Then the Sup Cendawan....wooo, this (according to my friend) tasted like Sar Hor Fun's gravy. And I was pretty impressed by the way they cut those oyster mushrooms into strips and cooked them with loads and loads of vegetables.....hmmmm, this was not bad:)

Look....I requested my friend to make a little stirring effect and present them for the purpose of photography:p Otherwise, it will look weird and just a typical claypot...hehe

So, if you are interested, you can hop over to the northern state and try it out....no money back gurantee....as this is purely based on my personal taste buds and as they always say, one man's meat is another man's poison...hehe.....