YummY!
Jotaro's Food Review
JAPANESE BUFFET @ MAIU
Damansara Perdana, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysa - September 2015.
Looking for good Japanese food at a bargain, look no further there's a good deal offered at Maiu Japanese Restaurant which have several outlets in the Klang Valley.
We went to the outlet at Damansara Perdana which like most Japanese places have a spartan but nice cozy interior. Here they offered that good deal, Japanese Buffet at RM48/= per pax.
Surprised that there is no buffet counter like most buffets? Well this is a "comfortable" buffet - take your seats, and the waiters will bring a large sheet of tick-off menu; tick off whatever you want from there (this can be in multiple servings). Most of the items on this menu are from their ala carte menu. Service is fast too, within minutes your buffet order will be brought to your table.
But don't be greedy and over order, as there will be a surprise for the gluttonous ones! We will come to that later, let's have a look at the YummY food first.
We ticked off our orders and first to come was this simple Jellyfish, seasoned and served with a garnishing of sesame seeds.
A simple dish, light in taste to work up our palate.
Next, my favourite - Salmon Sashimi, looking very appetizing on a simple bed of vegetables.
No stingeing here as the cuts were adequately thick to give that good creamy and sweet fresh taste.
A simple Green Salad topped with crab sticks slices to clear our palate before more "heavy" dishes.
A more interesting salad - the Deep-fried Salmon Skin Salad with Goma Dare (sesame sauce). The fish skin was crunchily nice to bite on and slightly salted too.
We like this dish very much and ordered another round of it; that's the good thing about the buffet here, you can order as much as you want. The best way to go about it is to make one order first and if that is to your liking make further orders, but make sure that there is no wasted food left over as there is a penalty for unfinished food.
A Tempura set of prawns, eggplant, lady-fingers and sweet potatoes.
A simple Miso soup to clear our palate as we ate on.
Another favourite that we made double orders - Soft Shelled-crab Maki Rolls. Nice crunchy soft-shelled crabs wrapped in cold rice and garnished with Tobiko (flying fish roe). The Tobiko brought back memories of the flying fish (Dibang) that we had while on a cycling tour of the Batanes in the Philippines.
Another round of sashimi - a mixed platter of Salmon, Tuna and Butter-fish. The salmon was great, the butter fish tender and sweet. The tuna was okay only; somehow I have never got the hang of tuna sashimi eventhough it's a favourite among the Japanese. Perhaps I have not had really great tuna yet.
Oh my! Look at these salmon.... my favourite... again!
The Cawan Sushi came piping hot and slurpingly soft.
Deep-fried Shishamo Fish. This would have been perfect if they had been deep-fried a bit longer, making the eggs have that powdery feel as one swirl them in the mouth and slow bite in to exude a nice fried fishy smell.
Taking a quick break, I had a look around the shop; a Japanese split-curtain with a painting of Geisha girls hung from a door-way to the staircase leading to the first floor...
On a display shelf were displayed ornamental knick-knacks and huge bottles of sake. Too bad those sake were not included in the package.
And in the kitchen, a chef was happily preparing sashimi from a large cut of salmon.
We continued our bash with some soft-shelled crab California Rolls. Okay, okay... I know we should have tried some other but the soft shell-crabs were nice!
Fried Mackerel (Saba).
"Holy Mackerel! They served us half-eaten fish!"
Nope.... these are the pit-falls of being a blogger... can't just take photos fast enough before the rest of the party zap in and take a bite. Anyway it does show how fresh the fish is - firm, fresh and tasty meat.
The seasoned baby octopus (Itako Kyuli) was munching good with just the right amount of seasoning.
Shiitake Mushrooms grilled lightly so that they are still juicy.
Japanese green pea (Edamame).
The Garlic Fried Rice was fairly good but could do with a bit more garlic to give it a more garlic bite.
Saba (Mackerel), good cuts of mackerel deep-fried with diagonal cuts to give it more crispiness.
Salmon Shioyaki - pan-fried salmon, not too bad, tasty and juicy.
Chicken Teppanyaki Rice (Tori Katsu Don).
At first look at this, I was asking myself where is the rice?
This dish came in a large bowl with a sort of scrambled omelet filled with chunks of teppan chicken and a sprinkling of dried seaweed above. Dig up below and the white rice is there.
I must add that we did not realised that this would be such a large helping (actually enough to feed two if having other dishes); we ordered two helpings of this. Bearing in mind that at Maiu's buffet all food had to be finished, we slowly gorge ourselves... fortunately we had the time to slowly eat. The dish was nice, uniquely presented and tasted good.
For desserts:
Green Tea ice-cream topped with some red bean paste. Creamy with a strong taste of green tea.
Wasabe Ice-ceam... a friend had this, and at first I thought this was vanilla and took a scoop. I was unprepared for the sudden burning sensation. Getting used to that, I found this ice-cream to be nice and ordered a scoop for myself!
The Buffet Menus (Note this is different from the Ala Carte Menu) :
Appetisers, Tofu & Salad Menu.
Sashimi & Hand-rolls Menu.
Nigiri Sushi (hand-press squarish sushi) Menu.
Maki Mono (cylindrical shaped sushi) Menu.
Yaki Mono (Grilled or Pan-fried dishes) Menu.
Age Mono (Deep-fried dishes) Menu.
Teppanyaki (Hot-plate grilled) Menu. Donburi are rice dishes.
Within the menu booklet is stated the business hours AND the penalty of RM10-00 per hundred gram of left-over food... now you see why we had to finish all the food.
MAIU JAPANESE RESTAURANT, DAMANSARA PERDANA
18-1 Jalan PJU8/5e, Damansara Perdana, 47820 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.
Tel: +603-77290015
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Maiu-Japanese-Restaurant | Website: http://www.maiu2u.com
Hours: Lunch: 11:30am-2:30pm | Dinner: 6:00pm-10:30pm (Opens everyday)
GPS: 3.166023, 101.606254
(Click here for Google Street View)
Other outlets:
Bandar Seri Petaling: 39-1 Jalian Radin Anum 2, Bandar Baru Seri Petaling, 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel: +603-90575017 / 018-228 9878
Bandar Mahkota Cheras: 41, Jalan Temenggong 21/9, Bandar Mahkota Cheras, 43200 Cheras, Selangor, Malaysia.
