La Lot, Pavilion KL

Its the 3rd day into the year 2010, if you checked your Facebook you'll realized that everyone seems so optimistic about the year 2010! I don't know, I don't think you can predict what the year lies ahead for you but you can definitely steer your goals towards the direction you want it to be... in the end of the day, how the year turns out to be ultimately is in the power of your own hand!

On this note, I would like to wish all of you "Happy new year once again, welcome to 2010 "! Whatever the year holds for you, brave through the storm and enjoy the journey!

Time flies indeed! As the weekend is coming to an end, I am approaching another hectic week of work. However, my new years resolution does include "seeing every challenges and difficulties as an opportunity". Last week when I was back for a short trip to KL for Christmas, I headed to pavilion to have lunch. Looking at the list of restaurants on the directory board, took a stab and decided to give "LA LOT" a try. Basically LA LOT is a Vietnamese restaurant.

The interior of the place was pretty pleasant with nice quirky decor. Love anything that looks almost lantern like, feels like I am back in Shanghai! Not like I have been to Shanghai, but you know the feel! =) The walls were decorated with bamboo bowls! Which i think its a great idea! Unfortunately, I was busy admiring the bowls on the wall and forgot to take any pictures of the wall.

The ambiance of the place was nice and cosy, albeit the space being small, we did not feel the claustrophobic feeling (maybe cause the restaurant was not full). We had an option to eat at the food court (Food republic , basement level) but did not want to rush with the public holiday and weekend crowd! It can get quite catty when you are eye-ing for a table and you know that one table has 5 pairs of eyes waiting for it! Why not just pay a little more for comfort?!

They had pretty interesting drinks in their menu with a lots of asian influence herbs and spices such as the lemon grass ginger tea which i had and it tasted good!

You can do this at home most definitely by boiling some ginger with lemon grass and perhaps gula melaka or you can use sugar syrup or honey to sweeten your tea.

Before i go on talking about the rest of the food let me enlighten you on the benefits of lemongrass. Basically it acts as a cleanser by detoxifying the liver, pancreas, kidney, bladder and the digestive tract. (Diuretic like) Basically it helps in cutting down uric acid, cholesterol, and excess fat in our body which ultimately helps to stimulate our digestive system and blood circulation.

Ginger on the other hand is good for removing air in our body. But to be more specific, it is good in every aspect from antiseptic, stimulating, digestive, expectorant, aphrodisiac, carminative, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties, that can be used to treat a wide range of ailments and illnesses.

There is also the ice honey lemon tea which is soothing for the throat and the ice green mint tea. Green mint tea is good for healing the stomach cramps, diarrhea,constipation and gallstone problems. It also promotes digestion and reduces heart burns.

Okay now lets move on to the food that we ordered. For startes, we had the vietnames rice paper beef roll which came with a peanut dipping sauce! Normally rice paper rolls are served in rolls like a popiah but this one came nicely cut in bite size pieces. Perhaps less trouble in having to bite into a mouthful of paper roll with the ingredients falling apart.

I think having the peanut sauce to dip the rolls in was perfect! I am a sucker for peanuts so this was good! This dish was good. You can also try other versions of it, like the deep fried version, the steam version etc but i like it this way.

The next dish was the grilled lemongrass beef noodle salad. Yah everything seems so beefy but we felt like beef that day so it was all good.

Well when you mix the peanut sauce and the sweet chilli sauce together into the bowl. The whole dish blended well together and had a very light clean simple taste to it. Although I must say I have tasted way better version of this in Footscray the vietnamese town on Melbourne.

The next dish was the beef salad which i didnt expect it to be like that. I thought it will be like thin beef strips with sweet and sour sauce almost vietnames thai style but it came looking like this. It tasted good but didnt really stand out for me. However, i requested for extra peanut sauce. Poured the peanut sauce all over the salad and it tasted much better after =) Genius indeed !

The chunky beef

This is the lamb chop and chicken chop rice. I think it is nothing to shout about but it was well made. Could have been better =)

Okay now the dessert part! This one I LOVE! I love the durian pancake. If you like durian! This will do it for you. It is basically pancake with durian and cream in it! Ahhh taste fantastic cold! Nyom Nyom Nyom !

See can you see? Can you see the sinfully wrapped durian and cream? =)

Okay on a serious note, my overall dining experience here was good. The service was alright, improvement needed because staff alertness and attentiveness was not good enough considering the restaurant wasnt packed at that time. Food wise, the standard is there but yet to try the other dishes which could possibly taste good. The overall bill came up to RM136. A bit pricey but what do you expect when you dine at the six level of pavilion?! =)