Cafe Chidori @ Dana 1 & A GPS challenged Neko

I must admit. I suck @ GPS. I don't suck @ directions  or map reading but i suck at reading GPSes. Call me old fashion but i rather read a map. Though the beeping blink on the IPHONE was quite amusing to show you the route you are progressing, i was less impressed when i saw it veering off course! Now, why am i telling you this, cause... Mashi and i .. went for a drive a few days ago... This.. is a map of what we were trying to go to..... Start point Subang, Destination Bukit Jelutong

Can you all see the above? We were suppose to start of Subang Jaya and head towards H ( Bukit Jelutong ) to collect some stuff and then to Dana 1 to have lunch at Chidori-ya. The blue dots show the planned route. However.... instead of Bukit Jelutong ... we ended up at Setia Eco park... the red dots. And then followed by stream of darker blue dots to the original spot! All because i sorta read the GPS wrongly. -_______-.   Thank god for things known as U-TURNS etc... we finally manage to get back to Bukit Jelutong. ...Damn the houses there are fine!

Since we were out, we decided to try this new place i saw ( while visiting Symphony share registrar ) and found on someone's blog ( Cumi and Ciki's to be exact ). Actually, it is pretty easy to get here. It's behind Paws. It's a pretty new area with shops mostly in the business of electrical and one or two wine shops. Cafe Chidori really stands out here amongst the shops. For one... it's japanese where most of the shops deal with malay food and two, the name... reminds me of Uchiha Sasuke's move. Chidori means thousand birds to be exact.  And the deco.. nice... pleasant, simple, it's like looking into Japan Modern interior design book. I want house interior like that! And i love the little crane origami adorning the tables and places within the shop.

I am obsessed with Chandeliers at the moment. 

Simple white table deco. Minimalist style.

Chidori offers a set lunch range for people who want quick meals without the hassle of looking at the ala-carte menu, in fact, i thought they only offered Ala-carte. After probing the waiter for a ala-carte menu i promptly got one. Hmm. Why does he assume we all want set lunch. This is no run of the mill sakae sushi or Sushi Zanmai place. It serves a menu that is more seafood based which most of the menu covering fish and shellfish. The odd poultry and beef were there as well in the menu. 

A simple appetizer before the meal. Marinated mushrooms and cucumber. Love the mushroom, the cucumber was an eye opener for me. A bit sour. 0_o. But then it is pickles right? Don't you just love Japanese zen style? Plain white bowl, 2 different colored condiments make it look... unique.

Both of us picked something different to eat, Mashi picking Amberjack fish, me... i went for... Curry Katsu Don :D.  I can't say no to japanese curry!

Mashi's amberjack fish set. Comes with miso soup. Actually we were pretty stumped what amberjack really was. We were not helped with a waiter ( poor lone fella in the restaurant ) when we asked him how and amberjack looked like. After our vain attempts to cajole him to describe the fish, we were just left with an impression it is a fish. Of some sort. I came back and googled it and looks like... something we have in the local fish markets. The amberjack is done teriyaki style, comes with a side order of eggs ( interesting thing to serve here ) and salad. I actually mistook the eggs for Japanese potato salad!. Her feedback was this was good dish, but the portion was rather small.

My order of Japanese Curry ( which i discovered with Google's help, it is somewhat a national dish in japan! ) Despite my on, off sore throat i actually ordered katsu curry. Hmm didn't do wonders to my throat. I still had niggling effects of the sore throat! I love the taste of this curry sauce. Quite good actually. I could just eat curry and the rice on it's own! Katsu was nice and crunchy. I would have preferred this with beef though, with carrots and potatoes just like how Pasta Zanmai does it. My pile of rice was enormous though... I think the dish can be enhanced with a side salad and less rice to give it a balance.

We ordered an appetizer, luckily as Mashi's serving was small, a baked Mentaiko Cheese Hotate. Five scallops in the dish, topped with cheese and mentaiko. You can't see the mentaiko here as it is pale orange already, quite cooked but you can taste the spicyness of it. I think Mentaiko is the best thing ever invented. It's quite nice especially the sauce, without being jelakky.

Actually, by this time i was super full, but we could not resist the dessert. The choices are not alot, cake of the day, Ohagi ( japanese rice balls ) and macha ice cream. We decided on Opera cake. I haven't eaten this in ages since the last time i ordered it from BBO's. I quite like this cake for some reason.  Oh. The gold triangle? It's not edible. 10 points for this lovely cake.

This is not a place for a cheap lunch as both of us paid around RM100 for all the dishes above. But the ambiance and the good food in this place gets my thumbs up. This is more like if you want to have quiet conversations and relaxing slow lunches. Also, the set up makes it quite a nice place to have dinner as well. I am sure the menu items will increase as well as the owner is currently the cook. Parking is pleasantly easily available.

Oh to my new found ex malay colleague, yeah it's halal. If you are reading.  You know who u are :D and it's very near your office!

The location:

Cafe Chidori, 

D7-10-G (Grd Flr) Block D7.

Pusat Perdagangan Dana 1,

Jln PJU 1A/46,

47301, PJ