Sao Nam @ Empire Subang

Was walking along Empire mall at Subang and chanced upon this Vietnamese Fine Dining Restaurant (or so they say)... It boasted an award winning chef and a pretty interesting menu...

I started the meal with a traditional vietnamese tea... It was a combination of a variety of spices which somewhat felt familiar to me but yet I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It started off quite pungent but as you drank it more it became quite pleasant.

As for the food, we started off with a combo platter... Overall each item felt under seasoned and the usual sugarcane prawn paste was replaced by lemongrass instead... Although I do quite like the taste of lemongrass so I wasn't complaining but I think it does reduce the sweetness it could have had if the sugarcane was used... The manager of the restaurant was nice enough to explain to us how we should eat the dish with the condiments that came with it but I really dislike the taste of basil and it just made things taste worse. I just feel that when you put certain herbs which have a pungent flavour to it, it makes the dish lose the rest of it's flavour. We then ordered a fish cooked with dill in claypot which was served with noodles... (can't quite remember the dish's name). The fish wasn't entirely the freshest fish around and the tonne of basil thrown in did not help the taste... It just made every mouthful basil-ey.... Eww.... Yes it was supposed to be cooked with dill and there was a lot of dill too but when compared, the basil won hands down...

Then came the recommended beef in bamboo which looked promising... Until you look closer and it was once again filled with basil... Uuurrgghh... the entire meal was feeling like a one note.... :( It the chef did not get his basil delivery for the day, he might not be able to cook anything... Although I do understand that basil is quite a staple in the vietnamese diet but it cant be in everything right? If we were to just extract the taste of basil out of these dishes, the flavours are actually not too bad....

The final dish of the day was the red noodle served with a soup... it came with crushed prawn crackers and nuts... This was the only dish without the basil. This was definitely the redeeming dish for this restaurant. I really like this noodle. Not sure whether it is because of the basil overload so anything without taste good or it really was good...

Oh well, don't think I will try it again anytime soon but I think if you really like basil then this is definitely the place for you.

Sao Nam
Empire Shopping Gallery
Imperial Vietnamese Cuisine
Jalan 16/1, SS16,
47500 Subang Jaya,
Selangor

Du Viet Restaurant and Cafe

Wanted a light dinner the other day with my sister so we decided to try out the Vietnamese restaurant in KLCC. We started the meal off a Mixed Grill Platter which was essentially a combo plate of Sugarcane Shrimp, Fried Springrolls, Grilled Beef and Chicken served with some fresh vege and rice vermicelli. It came with 4 pieces of rice paper to wrap the goodies with.  The whole platter was better than expected. The grilled beef and chicken had a slight charred and lemon grassy taste to it which I liked. The springrolls and sugarcane shrimp were pretty run off the mill but it still tasted good. What I liked best was wrapping the rolls since I like interactive food. :)

Then we ordered another appetiser which was the Steamed Rice Wrapped Rolls which was similar to a chee cheong fun with chicken, shrimp and mushroom. The fish sauce which the rolls were served in was a tad too salty but it tasted real good. The rice wraps were nice and thin and the filling was tasty.After that we decided to share one main just to keep it light so we ordered the Hue Style Beef Noodles which was beef fillet and brisket served with rice noodles in a mildly spicy broth... It came with some raw bean sprouts and lime which I didn't bother to put in since I didn't like my bean sprouts raw but it definitely tasted as advertised. Mildly spicy the broth had a nice body and depth that you could taste that it was made from a pretty good stock. if I had one complaint it would be that the chilli sauce could have been better but then again that was not the main component of the dish.

Overall a very satisfying meal.. Wasn't expecting much when I stepped into this restaurant but I was pleasantly surprised. Will definitely come back to try what else they have to offer.

Du Viet Restaurant and Cafe

Lot 416, Level 4,

Suria KLCC

Tel: 603-2166 3630