Red Ginger @ Northpoint, Mid Valley City

I left office around 6.30pm, hurried to the bus stop to catch a bus. It was drizzling and the jam was kinda bad. Oh, great. I’m sure I will be late again, I said to myself.

That was last Thursday – the floggers and I were flocking to Mid Valley to meet up for dinner, organised by Tim and Ms. Elizabeth Chen, proprietor of Red Ginger Restaurant. Despite the usual jam, most of us made it on time include me! That is because the bus failed to appear after 45 minutes and I decided to take the cab instead. That’s why!

I was quite lucky as the cab stopped in front of Mid Valley Megamall’s North Court entrance and I can see the big Red Ginger sign board was just across the street. Surprisingly, our celebrity flogger, Jackson was late. I spotted Tim, Lyrical Lemongrass, Nigel, Lianne, Tummythoz, Phitoy, Fezzaboy and Joe were already there and busy themselves with their ‘duties’.

We were served with the refreshing Kasturi Pomelo Special drink, which is made of lime juice with pomelo flesh and nata de coco. I enjoy it very much as I like to munch on the nata de coco.

The Red Ginger Salad was served next. It consists of pomelos which were very fresh and juicy but I do expect it to be sourer. The crushed peanuts gave it a special crunchy sensation.

Red Ginger does halal food, so they uses chicken meat instead of pork for their Lobak (Chicken Lobak). It contains coarsely minced chicken meat, seasoned with Five Spice powder, wrapped in beancurd sheets and deep fried. I have no complaint on this dish as the chicken meat does its wonder in substituting the usual pork although some of them felt that the Five Spice powder is a bit strong.

Next, we were presented with Buah Rojak. Basically, it is fruits such as pineapple, raw mango, cucumber, raw turnip and prawn crackers mixed with thick, pungent rojak sauce and sprinkled with crushed peanuts. We adore this a lot as the rojak sauce is very good.

As we were busy digging the rojak, the waitress brought our next dish, Stuffed ‘Yau Char Kwai’ doused with mayonnaise. The ‘Yau Char Kwai’ (crullers) were stuffed with fish paste and coated with sesame seeds before being deep fried. Nice and special stuff.

Otak-Otak. Minced fish meat marinated with spices, curry powder, wrapped in banana leaf and grilled. According to Elizabeth, they uses Dory fish for this dish. Surprisingly, they managed to create the firm texture for this dish as dory fish tends to break easily when cut. I find it a tad too spicy for my liking.

Now, continue to our main dishes; Ipoh Hor Fun. The hor fun were very smooth in texture and just glide down the throat. If you are wondering whether they use any MSG, Elizabeth did admit that they use chicken stock for the broth.

Laksa Lemak with tofu puffs, shredded chciken meat, sliced fish cakes, beansprouts and cockles. The cockles were slightly stirred and covered with a reddish mixture (curry powder, I think) to get rid of the bloody liquid before served along with the noodle.

Steamed Chicken with Wine and Salt was pretty good too, full of Chinese herbal flavour.

I also like their Redginger Fried Rice with savoury raisins, three big shrimps and exotic salted fish bits.

Stir-fry Black Pepper Beef which is cooked to perfection. Not ‘rubbery’ at all and had the right balance of black pepper taste.

Now, this is something special you won’t find anywhere else, Fried Kam Heong Kuey Tiaw. Slightly spicy and sweetish, I personally would prefer it to be spicier while Teckiee prefer their mee hoon version.

And the last dish, Dry Curry Sang Har Meen which came with huge prawns. At this point, I feel extremely full with all the food we helped ourselves with earlier on, I felt that the buttons on my pants are going to burst! By the way, you can give their nyonya cakes and kuihs a try too.

Red Ginger (Mid Valley)
Block A, Mezzanine Floor,
Northpoint Offices Mid Valley City,
Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2287 0890

Red Ginger (Plaza Damansara)
Medan Setia 2,
Plaza Damansara Bukit Damansara,
Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2095 3118

See what the other floggers had to say:

• KL People KL Food
• 3 Meals
• Lots Of Cravings
• Eat First Think Later (Damansara branch)
• Eat First Think Later (Mid Valley)