2 dinners and a winner

Monday night, darling and I decided to go out for our usual date. It had been postponed from the week before because of my stomachache. Izzi's Restaurant @ Damansara Utama was having a fantastic promotion - 75% discount off food for HSBC credit card holders. Being the kiasu people that we are, we decided to dine there. We arrived there at about 7.30pm and was shocked to find a big crowd waiting outside. Not wanting to wait, we eventually ended up at Champ's in Centerpoint Bandar Utama.

I tried the much-talked-about 'Damn Shiok Hokkien Mee' (RM18.90) while darling had the Ipoh Sar Hor Fun (RM16.90). The hokkien mee did live up to it's name. The soup was really damn shiok - sweet, tasty and slightly spicy. The pork ribs were very tender and the meat easily fell off the bone. Prawns were huge and other ingredients were generous.

The Ipoh Sar Hor Fun however was not what we expected. Sar Hor Fun, as we know it, is like the local Wah Tan Hor. This was more like Kuay Teow Theng. Nevertheless, darling thought it was really good. Tasty soup, smooth chicken, naked prawns (that's what it says on the menu) and very smooth hor fun.

The next day, darling had a pleasant surprise when he was announced the winner of this year's Monash University Pro-Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research.

The prize is a RM10 000.00 research grant. Yeah, it's only for his research. Not for my shopping pleasure.

my winner!

Feeling in a celebrative mood, we decided to try Izzi's again. It was also the last day of their fantastic promotion. So this time, we arrived there at about 6pm. No crowd outside, but inside was already full house. The waitress took down my name and told me we'd have to wait about 30minutes.

Just before 6.30pm, they called for us. With rumbling tummies, we (darling, me, my mother and Joe) made our way inside, sat down and quickly placed our order : Izzi Dough Ball (RM6..80), Izzi's Chicken Wings in teriyaki sauce(RM11.80), Caesar Salad with chicken (RM22.60), 2 orders of Spaghetti Carbonara (RM15.80), Pollo Tropicale pizza (RM24.80) and Tofu in Ginger Sauce (RM10.80).

The service was pretty efficient and the food came quickly. The Izzi Dough Ball arrived first. It was soft, fluffly and warm, served with garlic butter.

Next came the Izzi's Chicken wings. Juicy and tender enough. Caesar Salad was also pretty good.

Then came the Spaghetti Carbonara which is our all-time favourite. Joe also liked it very much. He enjoyed feeding himself.

The pizza was so-so. I prefer the crispy thin-crust ones from Domino's. In our excitement, I forgot to take pictures of the food until we were half way thru eating.

clockwise from top right : spaghetti carbonara, Izzi's chicken wings, pizza pollo tropicale, another spaghetti carbonara, Caesar's salad.

The tofu arrived last and I remembered to take a picture of it. This was japanese tofu, fried and drenched in sweet sour ginger sauce. Pretty good.

I was thinking that we might have to tar pau whatever we couldn't finish. But we did finish everything! Yup, everything! And the most satisfying part.....we paid a grand total of only RM28.46 after the fantastic discount!