The Food Site

For the longest time, I keep hearing raving great reviews of Kirishima Japanese Restaurant over at Cititel Penang but never did get a chance to try it out. Until recently. Well, we could hardly stay out of Japanese food anyway so it is a matter of time before we tried it out!

So, let’s take a look:

Ambiance is nice enough. Very Japanese and very comfortable. Now, on to the food…

Chawanmunshi has to be one of Mr Picky’s favourite Japanese food so we had to order one for him and surprisingly, Kirishima has a list of different flavoured chawanmunshi. Talk about dressing up your steamed egg! We ordered the one with Salmon roe and though I am not one to go for fish roes much, this is really good.

Yummy, soft shell crabs in a roll….

Okay, so I had to order something different and decided to try the cold green tea noodles. And it is really, really cold. Brrrr….Much as I am used to food hot from the stove, this is a refreshing cool change. And it goes very well with the sauce although for the life of me, I don’t even know how I am supposed to eat it with the raw bird egg so I gave the egg a miss. Heck I don’t even know how I am supposed to eat the noodles. Do I dip it in the sauce? Pour the sauce over it? How? I dipped it in the sauce anyway and it tasted good enough. Strangely cold but it’s okay.

We ordered one of the large sets of stone-grilled chicken with loads of other side dishes. I have to say, the chicken has been marinated to within an inch of its skin so it is full of flavours and worth burning your lips on…err..that is if you forgot that it’s burning hot and gobble a piece without testing it…From icy cold to burning hot, this meal is getting interesting.

Yes, despite the huge big set, we ordered more food. Don’t you dare judge me. I can’t go to a Japanese restaurant with soft shell crabs staring at me from the menu daring me to order them and then NOT order them, can I?  I mean, you can’t expect me to survive only on icy cold green noodles, right? I know these soft shell crabs look disturbingly like deep fried tarantulas but heck, they are damn good and I’d swallow every single bite even if these are really tarantulas in which they are not, of course. This is a Japanese restaurant, not Fear Factor.

These are actually upon Mr Picky’s insistent request that he wants ‘balls’ so he gets ‘balls’. Oh, they are chicken meatballs on a stick and also marinated to within an inch of their..err…balls…heheh…So, naturally, they are full of flavours and very, very tasty.

I swear, this is the last thing we ordered. I was tempted about ordering some macha ice cream for dessert but these chewy octopus made me change my mind. Yes, these are octopus tempura. Mr Picky had wanted octopus and we forgot to check whether this dish is baby octopus or big, huge chewy, rubbery octopus and so we got the latter. Naturally, Mr Picky refused to even touch it. He wanted baby octopus with the tiny tentacles (simply because it looks like aliens and he so want to eat aliens…boys..) not this chewy, rubbery thing coated in deep fried flour. Needless to say, we regretted ordering this but choke it down we must since we will be paying for it!

Verdict: We went with not so high expectations thinking all those hype about this place are just that – hype. However, I am quite pleasantly surprised that the food is quite good (except for the chewy rubbery octopus). The menu has a wide selection too.

Rating: 7/10

Price: $$$$

Kirishima Japanese Restaurant

Ground Floor

Cititel Penang

Penang Road

Tel: 04- 3701188

Opening hours: 11am – 2.30pm, 6pm – 10.30pm.

For the longest time, I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Mizi Bistro at New World Park. In fact, I’ve  walked pass that little restaurant many times and wondered at the crowds there. And yes, there are so many great rave reviews on so many food blogs I know that the food must have been pretty impressive.

So, we gave in to our curiousity and plunge right in to give it a try. Since there are so many food reviews about this place, I think I will just post up the pictures of what we ate and give a brief review of it all. No point writing a 1000-word review when so many others have waxed lyrical about the food there. Okay, I admit, I was just being lazy but well…it’s not like I cooked these food. I tend to feel less passionate about outside food nowadays compared to my own *ahem* delicious cooking.

A Review of Mizi Bistro, New World Park

Something to take the edge off your hunger as you wait for the food to be served…

Over at Mizi’s, they have this wonderful selection of value-for-money set meals that comes with drinks, soup, main course and free-flow of ice cream for dessert. All for RM19.90 only. And when I say wonderful selection, I meant the whole menu. As in you can choose any main course in the menu. A word of caution though, some of the main course may mean you need to add RM6 to the original price.

The above is the soup of the day, pumpkin soup. I am not really a pumpkin person but surprisingly, I do like the soup. Not too cloying or sweet as I’d thought it would be.

This is what I ordered, roast chicken breast with apples. Yes, they did this quite perfectly too, balancing the sweet flavours of cooked apples with the savoury sauces.

I can’t remember what The Food Critic’s dish is called but it’s basically roast chicken in a tomato-based sauce that complements the chicken pretty well. Nothing really to shout about but it still do have loads of great flavors. Like roast chicken in tomato-based pasta sauce.

Finally, there’s the free-flow of ice cream. I LOVE ice cream especially on hot humid days so I helped myself to three scoops and topped it up with chocolate rice and chocolate sauce. I even went for a second helping…mmmm…..

Final note: Food is reasonably good and it is worth the price. They have a nice relaxed ambiance and yes, this is a great place for some casual lunch or dinner. And by the way, if you can’t have enough of their food, you can try the original restaurant, JL Gourmet Corner at Prangin Mall, which was opened years before they open Mizi as a sort of branch.

Rating: 7/10

Price: $$

Mizi Bistro

New World Park

Burmah Road

04-2272921

tarmeezee15@gmail.com

Opening hours: 11am – midnight daily