YummY!
Jotaro's Food Review
JAPANESE SOFT SHELL CRABS @ THE GOOD BATCH
Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia - July 2015
Fusion eats places seems to be sprouting, perhaps it's because the world has become more open. Or perhaps people now travel more and have acquired a taste for foreign food but somehow want something more. Fusion food gives a medley of tastes from different places blended nicely into a new flavour. Some eateries have done it rather well, such a place is the Good Batch.
A friend and me were looking for a place to chat and catch up on our lives after not having seen each other for months. The Good Batch seems like a nice place to do just that; cozy, quiet and with good that is good but not too overwhelming to get in the way of conversation.
We kicked off with a couple of drinks. The Ginger & Lemongrass Mojito packed a punch, one of a biting taste of ginger with the aromatic lemongrass. Fused together these two flavours is sure to wake up one's senses.
Wanting something subtle and cooling for the warm afternoon, I went for the Cucumber-Lime Soda. I thought it would be blended cucumber juice, but what came was mainly soda with a twist of lime juice added with hardly any taste of the cucumber; a bit of a disappointment this one. Let's hope the food will make up for it.
Yes! The food did more than make up for it, starting with this prawn bisque. Using prawns instead of lobsters is a good idea as prawns has... er ... more prawny taste than lobsters. It came out very well not overly sourish and just nicely sweet.
And they came with pieces of fairly large-sized prawns and not those minuscule shrimps.
The mushroom soup was also good, a concoction of blended mushrooms with half-slices of button mushrooms to give something to bite into.
Both soups came with two slices of toasted bread; there were rather large slices by the time we finished with them we were half full. The mushroom soup was a tad salty, drank part way and the dipped the bread into the rest to tone down the saltiness.
Ordering at the Good Batch is also easy, the names on the menu do give some idea of what one is getting; and a brief description clears any doubts.
My friend went for the Angmoh; literally meaning red-hair in Hokkien, a local way of calling Westerners. So he knew that he would be getting something British.
It was definitely British - a sausage and a slice of ham coming with scrambled eggs and a little bowl of baked beans! And of course there were the thick potato chips.
The scramble eggs were wonderful, still having that yolky wetness for an eggsy taste. The sautéed button mushrooms balanced of the dry chips, and pour in the baked beans onto the toast and all is perfect... almost; the beans could do with a bit of fried garlic-oil.
Now the Itadakamasu is as interesting a dish as it sounds. It came in layers of the world, starting with Japanese Tobiko roe at the top followed by a layer of British poached eggs lazily flopping down on some Malaysian deep-fried soft-shell crabs which sat on top of a carpet of salad. Right at the bottom was a piece of Mediterranean pita bread.
This is real fusion for you.
This is a perfect combo. As one cuts into the crabs, the egg breaks and the runny yolk flows down onto the crispy crabs inundating them with yolky flavours. The Tobiko is small buy yet breaks open to reveal the aroma of the sea.
THE GOOD BATCH
53 Jalan SS21/1A, Damansara Utama, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.
Phone: 603-77332303 | Email: info.thegoodbatchmy@gmail.com
Hours : Teusday-Friday 11am to 12am; Saturdays & Public Holidays 9am to 12am; Sundays 9am to 11pm; Closed on Mondays
GPS: 3.135270, 101.621020
(Click here for Google Street View)
