U know, Mashi and i like to tease each other with food - sometimes when i see hotate in isetan or found a place to eat oh-chien - i will sms her with the details to set her palate a waggin'. For me, it's normally pork that does the trick and especially when someone mentions beer in sausages, that got my curiosity peaked. So where is this sinful place that has beer / sausages together - Cristang to be exact .... and ... i didn't know that there is a new place called Avenue 8 popping up here - behind the KFC in PJ. It looks like mini version of Jaya 1 but not as populated as Jaya 1 yet with a few restaurants as well as office buildings around.
It was a day before 1st of May and despite being a public holiday the next day, the place was a bit quite that night. After settling down, we decided to place orders for the one reason we came here. Beer Sausages. Gleefully placed i should say. ( If we were wolves or somethin' our tails be a waggin' ) ... However, we were sorely upset or rather let down when the waiter came back to tell is "NO BEER Sausage".... how can like that?? Very let down ( just like a man u fan when Liverpool walloped them ) we still decided to stay on to try out the food here. ( Hello, don't whack me if you are a man u fan ok ).
Anyway, Cristang is actually a Portuguese restaurant. They even have a facebook group for people to be fans if you enjoy their food. Calling themselves a fusion of asian and western, the menu is actually pretty interesting with a mix of local favorites such as Ayam Pong teh ( so distinctively melaka ) to western like Carbonara or Grilled Ribs.
Here is something i discovered while eating portuguese food. To be really honest, it's my first time trying Portuegese food and i found out that after eating in this place and about Cristang
1) Damn, it's spicy it could rocket me to deep space nine! Maybe my recent recovery from my flu sent my taste buds a tingling but really without rice, i would have blown my lips to pieces. Don't get me wrong, it was tasty but i prefer less spicyness to truly enjoy the food.
2) Hmm, every local culture in malaysia has "chap-choy" hehehe.
3) This is by far the best pork burger around town - P3 rocks.
4) Waiters don't really speak good english here so please ensure you point to the numbers correctly and hope it comes out correct
5) Cristang is not any other name from the sky but it is actually Kristang - a word to describe people of mix Portuegese and Malaccan descent. Here -
wiki it. Hence, probably the spiceness in the food. Did you also know their influence in the malay language - like meja, keju and sekolah were actually portugese words? - I wikied it :) That enough - i think i am ready to hit Portugal this year end.
Back to the food, anyway for the 5 of us, we ordered kari pimenta, baked bacon ambrilla, some ribs of which i cannot remember the name, Chap choy and ... Pork burger p3. Pictures! To follow next.
I think this the bacon rib ambila - for some reason i thought this was a western dish but actually no, this is a curry to be exact. The meat, tender and tasty. And yes spicy. Needs to be eaten with rice, otherwise it might be a bit too much but goes very well with rice. Sauce pot me needs rice to enjoy food like that.
Since we are so meaty, i insisted on a vegetable, so we had mixed veg. Actually, it looks like lor hon chai and tastes pretty clear. Veggie, being veg this was so so, felt my mom's version is more towards my liking. However, i will still eat - since i have a preference for vegetables. (except bitter gourd)
Another hottie, the kari pimenta with tenggiri fish. Bro says it was spicy. I don't remember trying this as my taste buds after the first dish was fried. I will remember to try this again once the beer sausages are back. How weird the flu sometimes skew your taste, my senses seems to be on the overload, every thing tastes 4-5 times more than it usually is. I better come back to try it once my taste buds have settled down.
OoOh i really like the next one, and pity it cannot be any larger. Should have ordered another helping of this. Out focus picture really, but this is one of the best pork burgers in town. The patty is definitely not those refrigerated kind, but real home made kind of ground pork patty. Juicy and succulent, it goes well with the chilli con carne + salad of lettuce, onions (! my fav with burger ! )
I don't believe this was on the menu but rather on their "specials" on the board - grilled ribs with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Pretty good in my books ( since it is not spicy ) but Mashi if i recalled thought it was ok. You must try their mash potatoes - it is much nicer than the ones in Chilli or TGIF.
For 5 persons i think the serving size is so so. The western food seems smaller, but the asian cuisines is much larger in size. While we were eating the owner popped by to check if we were ok, and Becks, informed them we were really here all the way ( actually no only plaza sentral and KLCC ) for beer sausages. Seems 4 days ago, he ran out of stock and his supplier has not been able to provide the stock to him. Since then, daily people came in to ask for beer sausages - lol, Murphy's law came to bite him. Anyway, if you are planning to go there soon, the owner requests you buzz him to check if beer sausages in stock. Otherwise, it is good to sample their other food choices as well. Oh, and since i don't drink, beer lovers, the beer is good here. But yes, i know it is odd, i like beer sausages. Actually i like alcohol infused food but not alcohol on it's own.
I will also next time, remember to keep a theme, the mix of asian and western at one go after some second thought seems to skew tastes a bit. However, i warrant a come back here. The Western food is up on my want-to-eat-again-more-than-once-list. Go try and oh, if you get beer sausages - pm me. I must go again.
The locale
B-G-19, Avenue 8,
Pusat Perniagaan Seksyen 8,
Jalan Sungai Jernih (8/1)
Google maps:
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Another hottie, the kari pimenta with tenggiri fish. Bro says it was spicy. I don't remember trying this as my taste buds after the first dish was fried. I will remember to try this again once the beer sausages are back. How weird the flu sometimes skew your taste, my senses seems to be on the overload, every thing tastes 4-5 times more than it usually is. I better come back to try it once my taste buds have settled down.
OoOh i really like the next one, and pity it cannot be any larger. Should have ordered another helping of this. Out focus picture really, but this is one of the best pork burgers in town. The patty is definitely not those refrigerated kind, but real home made kind of ground pork patty. Juicy and succulent, it goes well with the chilli con carne + salad of lettuce, onions (! my fav with burger ! )
I don't believe this was on the menu but rather on their "specials" on the board - grilled ribs with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Pretty good in my books ( since it is not spicy ) but Mashi if i recalled thought it was ok. You must try their mash potatoes - it is much nicer than the ones in Chilli or TGIF.
We stole some of the neigbhour's pepperoni pizza. Some how our table likes pizza - the others were ordering big mains on their end. No pics as they were quite far down the other end of the table. I prefer the first pizza though, i just thought spicy sausages were really not my thing.
One of my staff ( the mean eating machines ) ordered burger with fries? We had the chicken version which we think tasted like plastic. The beef version was pronounced ok from my staff's feedback but they have eaten better ones. Hey. They each had a burger while my table each SHARED a burger. See the trend in this restaurant? Some good dishes and then there are some not so good dishes. Eating in places like this sometimes can you a high and low at the same time.
Ah, another not so fabulous dish - the pesto. I found it drenched in oil :(. I had better pesto before than this and found this difficult to eat. By this time, i was actually full to the brim already. ... However i want to make sure i get my RM38 dollar worth, i ordered ginger ice cream. ...
I have to point out there were some dishes that did not make the picture here because i really did not think the taste lived up to my expectation - one was the duck in garlic confit. This dish put me off the most because it was so gamey and really we could not finish this dish. As much as i like duck but gameyness of it was just a really put off. Secondly the chicken burger plastic meat taste was something i cannot explain. Remember i told you that if you did not finish the food they charge you per extra, since the duck was so gamey we left it. When it comes to paying the waiter came with a mini weighing machine. I told the head waiter we could not finish it because the duck was just plain awful and in the end they did not charge us. I have mix feelings about this place, dessert- awesome mains - so so.
The famous pork knuckles that they had when in Middo. Not here any more. The seafood marinara my mom so liked - also not available here any more. The siew yoke fan - also not available. We quizzed the cook who was also the waiter, how come the menu was reduced. Apparently they just opened in Plaza Damas not long ago. Originally to be at Solaris, somehow or rather they opened here in Plaza Damas instead ( One suspects the price of rent has a lot to do with it ) and they were only opened a month or so ago. Even the menu looks like a temp menu not like a permanent menu. I didnt really feel like walking out and the poor guy looked so earnest, we stayed on.
Despite not having some of our favourites on the menu ( but they might have yours... ) i thought this place still has "it". I also spotted the table behind us having ordinary fried rice but with Bacon!! mMmMmM. And for some reason we got a free Illy coffee. Pretty awesome in my books - reminded me of the coffee i had i italy. 
Ordering was an issue for the 6 of us... so many choices left them all going @_@. I was like.... hmmmmmmmm.. Anyway, i told them since everyone wants to try everything, let's pick something each to try and we can all share. That went well, ... everyone selected one favorite and we were good to go. (Thank god, the portions turned out pretty huge )
It's lunch time but we had an order of english breakfast? Yes, some of us were still thinking of Cedele's of singapore and la bodega's breakfast ... *Grin* However, this seems to be a common favorite in a lot of my colleagues - breakfast at the strangest hours of the day. This is mind you halal version though. We were amused when after placing the order, the waiter proceeded to ask us how we want our eggs? Sunny side? Or poached or scrambled... [ way too many choices again -left this crowd confused - lol ]
Our final order for the day and possibly the largest- is the paella which we thought was actually small but turned out to be a size of a wok... All eyes popped when they saw this dish coming. Peppered with a lot of seafood and spices and rice, this was quite a refreshing dish. Btw, ....this is a really huge dish. It's shareable.
One of the ladies picked out the dessert which was a peach and banana crumble. I detect a slight use of wheatmeal here and despite the fact i do not like bananas, this tasted not bad. But the men in the team finished it off as usual. We were quite stuffed after the paella.
