We are frequent visitors to Midvalley Megamall as it offers convenient parking at lunchtime when we’re not in the mood to walk the distance to Petaling Street only to sweat it out in the unbearable heat over a hot bowl of wantan noodles. When you’re in corporate clothing, airconditioning is a premium, and so it made sense for us to look out for airconditioned restaurants whenever we went out.
We had noticed Tu-Long a long time ago. We called it the Red restaurant, primarily because the entire facade was red! I must admit that I am attracted to anything shiny, so the long row of chandeliers lining up the centre aisle of the restaurant felt very welcoming. Tu-Long is located in the Boulevard Offices directly across from Starbucks.
The first thing that caught our eyes was the shanghai steamed meat dumpling (siu long bao). The two young men in the glass cage skilfully and intently produced the dumplings like a factory line, unperturbed by the nosy glances of the curious patrons. We were pleased with the dumplings (RM8 for 4 pieces). Despite the rather salty broth enveloped in the prettily wrapped dumpling, it was full of flavour and passed all tests. The skin wasn’t too thick either.
The other “performance” which I thoroughly enjoyed was the solo la mian (noodles) puller. I also found out that the Master Chef got his name in the Guiness Book of Records when he made 8192 Noodle Strings from a single piece of dough in 59.29 seconds! Well, naturally, if they were promoting la mian, I was going to try it. My order of la mian in hot & sour soup (RM12) was nice, hot and sour (but of course!) and I certainly have no complaints about it. Perhaps, at RM12, I was expecting something extra, but it felt very ordinary.
If you have lost all your tastebuds due to a recent illness, then the la mian with dried scallops and chicken soup (RM14) is perfect for you. The noodles were nice, but the soup in which it came was so plain, it made hot water look good. One would have thought that the accompanying bowl of dried scallops and chicken soup would be some compensation, but try as she might, Bouncing Barbie was unable to recognise any taste of scallops in her soup. Digging all the way in, she found a few slivers of scallops, but that didn’t improve her mood. She ended up drowning her noodles in FOC chilli paste which she said tasted a whole lot better than the RM14 she paid.
Pretty Pui’s shanghai fried rice flour cake (RM14) was the best tasting dish among all that we picked. The rice flour cake was sufficiently cooked with a soft bite to it and the sauce complemented it well.
Our order of deep fried durian pancakes (RM12) arrived early. Like Christmas morning, we wore wide grins on our faces at the anticipation of biting into the durian pancakes. Pretty Pui took the first bite, and said nothing. I was curious, and took a bite. My expression changed. Barbie looked at us, concerned. “That bad?”, she asked. Barbie took a bite. The decision was unanimous. It was horrid and absolutely TASTELESS. Every tourist’s dream….smell-less durians. My worst nightmare. I wished Nigel would appear at that moment with his lovely chocolate durian cake. Service was good. They apologised and took it away. I was more concerned about the fact that the chef didn’t recognise that the durians were tasteless. What happened to quality control anyway?
As a replacement, we ordered the souffle egg white ball with red bean paste and banana (RM9 for 3 pieces). This was a lot better. The white dust that you see on top of the balls is icing sugar. Biting into the marshmallow-like texture, I found a very small quantity of red bean paste and a small slice of banana. Despite the rather measly ingredients, the entire dish tasted lovely.
Also check out Pasankia‘s review.
Tu-Long
25G, 25-1, 27-1, The Boulevard Office, Midvalley, KL.
Tel: 03-2283 3115
This is totally unrelated, but I felt that after such a negative review of food, I should feed you with something better. Photo taken at the Attic last Thursday.
Introducing the conjoined twins of KayEll.
Bald is the new black, folks.
