CNY Dining at Alexis Bistro Gardens

Trying to eat Chinese food at the mall is really a challenge during CNY. The lines are impossible. So I ended up at Alexis Bistro Gardens, a restaurant that has established a reputation with the expats and the atas crowd since the 90s. The former can have a taste of local food in a desirable setting while the latter can eat chicken rice and finish off their meals with a piece of Alexis's cake. To which a sizable selection is available. This certainly gives new meaning to have your cake and eat it too.

Pretending to blend into the crowd, I ordered the following items:
1. Grilled Squid with Marinated Pepper, Garbanzo Beans (chickpeas) & Wilted Spinach
With a name like that, I was expecting the dish to be busy. It however arrived structured and organized. The sotong was resting on top of those beans with the wilted spinach as the cushion in the middle. The grilled sotong was tasty but much can't be said of the wilted spinach and the beans. Just bland.

2. Nasi Lemak with Beef Rendang and Sambal Cuttlefish
The nasi lemak was made from basmati rice. Not my fave kind of rice for lemaking. To me there wasn't enough lemak taste to the rice. The beef rendang is flavorful and tasty. If you like your sambal very spicy, the sambal cuttlefish delivers. It was too spicy for me although the taste was good.

3. Bucatini Carbonara
I do like this dish. The creamy egg beef sauce is not heavy but do lean towards the blander side in taste. The pasta is of the spaghetti-like type but thicker. The thickness is similar to the thick yellow Mee that is used in Hokkien Mee. Rounding out the dish was pieces of beef bacon and mushrooms. My mother found it a bit bland but I do like the consistency and the texture of the pasta with the cream sauce that is surprisingly light.

4. Peach and Banana Crumble
I gotta finish off my Asian meal with some desserts to blend in, like I said earlier. This piece of crumble came in a pool of cream sauce. The crumble on top delicately protects the layer of bananas and peaches underneath. I didn't like this dessert as 60% of it is made up of bananas that are not sweet. I suspect the same kind that you use for Goreng Pisang. Unripened. There were just a few cut pieces of peach so they might as well not include it into the recipe at all as this inclusion made no difference to the taste.

By the time I left Alexis Bistro Gardens, a long line had already formed at the entrance. I left partially satisfied and that meant supper will have to do the job.