Kissaten @ Jaya 1

Looks like my new favorite eating place is in Jaya 1. Lol. I must admit there are a myriad of choices here for both local and foreign food plus the location is not too bad. Mashi and i decided to have dinner before she goes back to her classes after a long break. Our initial choice was the famous Duck King. However, we don't think it is very famous in our book. That was our original makan destination. .. The waitress told us they only had 2 tables to seat people of 4 and we had to wait. How long to wait - she didn't know nor did she really care at the way she answered us. Hmm. Is this how you treat customers? So only if you have 8 persons then you are willing to consider us customers?


We decided to give them a miss and ambled around Jaya 1 to look for more makan places ... and decided on Kissaten! Good ole' japanese food is always the safe choice for us. When in doubt go japanese. I find Kissaten curious. Firstly you have to climb a flight of stairs up to the restaurant, one up higher you will get to the beer garden. And the deco, definitely looks more swedish than japanese. Kinda like if Ikea had a chance to decorate a restaurant, this is how it would look like.

It was initially quite quiet. For the first time, we ... well i was early for dinner -hehehe. Anyway drinks were ordered first, Mashi went for the Grapefruit Perrier while me... went crazy when i saw avocado smoothie!! ( think bali - apokat drink!). Think Mashi was not expecting to work for her drink because it came with the below. Both of us went... "huh?" - the waiter patiently explained that you need to juice it and he can help juice it if she liked... er no thanks - sendiri buat. After some squeezing, she finally got her grapefruit juice - which was pronouced - sour. Hmm.. i am never a fan of this fruit as it is way too sour for me dispute the high vitamin C. Give me oranges any day.
My awesome avocado smoothie, good if not better than the one in bali. I don't like mine with chocolate as it kills the taste and this was excellent. Who would have thought that green fruit can make an awesome drink! Even becks thought it good! By the way, it's RM11.50 for this drink. Kinda my most expensive drink ever.


Both Mashi and i have varied taste in japanese food - she the raw fan, me the not so raw fan (except salmon. And hey, i learned to eat baby octopus already thanks to Hajime). For Kissaten- they don't really serve alot of that. Food tends to be more fusion rather than pure japanese but they have those that are real japanese favourites of ours.. First up- potato salad.... simple yet this dish packs a a punch. I find it amazing the japanese adapt a western dish to their own yet come up with something so great, one thinks it is actually originally japanese!


Next up-kakiage - fried oysters. Ok, this. I must admit, oysters are not my favorite. Scallop without wings- i am more happy but oysters takes some getting used to. But... i take photo anyway - cause they are rather.. pretty. Mashi's verdict that this is tasty but the batter is way too thick. Oyster was smallish as well. ( must be from the oh-chien one )
Our definite favorite for the night was this fusion pasta dish of onsen tamago and cured pork and olives added. You might think the combo is weird but.. no way, totally awesome. You must break the egg and toss it with the noodle when it is hot so you get like a carbonara feel to it without being jelakky like cream.

We had another main, which is the wafu burger made of pork ( top picture ) with a dash of daikon freshly grated. This is a mix mix dish for me. At one hand, it tasted quite nice. On the other hand - that crunchy thing in the meat pattie had me stumped. To be honest, i thought it was cartilage. So, you'd be crunching as well as eating the pork burger- in my opinion if they removed that, wud be much better.

An order of gyoza which was pretty good. Only that i took a bit of a lousy picture in that one lol!

We went for the not so normal that day and had an order of Gyoza Stuffed wings. Basically, they removed the meaty bit of the chicken wings and drummets and stuffed the skin with meat mixed and of course deep fried it. Quite nice and they added a dash of thai chilli sauce as dipping. I thought it tasted pretty ok without the sauce.

We still had some space for dessert, so we ordered 2 dishes to share. One was the pumpkin and vanilla ice cream the other their rich chocolate pudding. I must say the word rich is an understatement- it socks you a punch of thick chocolate! Plus the choco pudding comes dripped with hunny, i mean honey. If one feels a need for a pick me up, take this. Instant uplift.

Our final dessert for the day ( which is lucky is the final one because after all the desserts- it was .... freaking cold .... ) was the vanilla ice cream and pumpkin sauce. I don't really detect the pumpkin taste here though. It's quite a big bowl as well and luckly there were 3 of us.
I must say i am impressed with Kissaten - so much so, the next cousin gathering is planned for here. There are some nice items in the menu and no so great ones but overall it is worthy for a second retry. Ambience is great -only that if you plan to chit chat, you might be better off sitting outside at the terrace - as the sound in Kissaten bounces off. I am game to try their rest of the pasta dishes ( as well as their pizzas ).

KISSATEN Coffee and Restaurant
L12A-1-1, Palm Square
JAYA ONE
72A Jalan Universiti
46200 PJ
Selangor ( Closed Monday )

P/S: Big thanks to becks - was his treat that night. hehehe.