Restoran Puteri @ Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur

Restoran Puteri is one of those very established Malay restaurants in the country. They started this very first outlet in Brickfields in the year 1984 and have since been a very strong player in the sub category. In 2006, they opened their flagship restaurant in Penchala overlooking Taman Tun Dr. Ismail. That flagship restaurant has a very grand ambiance, can seat up to 350 people at any one time and has been used a lot for private functions and cater's mainly for the upper markets. Having said that, it had been a long time since I had some good Malay food and since I was in Brickfields, I decided on dropping by for lunch. 

Where It All Started For The Group

Not Too Far From BSN

Simple Looking Restaurant

Not Too Crowded At This Hour

I was here to have a rather late lunch. It was already 3.30 pm and the usual lunch crowd had already left. These that you see is their usual tea time crowd. The restaurant is located along Jalan Tun Sambanthan, not too far from the BSN outlet in Brickfields. In fact, it is very close to NU Sentral Mall. This restaurant is where it all started for the group and is a very humble set up when comparing the two. Most of the people seen here at this hour were staffs of MRCB who work just across the street. I know that this place gets very crowded during lunch hours and despite being hungry, I was somewhat glad that I came post lunch hour.

Teh O Ice @ RM 1.50

Instead of going to the counter to select my food, I took my seat and ordered a drink first. It was a rather hot day and this was something that I needed even more. Service was quick and my Teh O Ice arrived pretty fast. This was priced at RM 1.50 per glass which is the norms around Brickfields. The drink was good and I would rate it at 8.5/10 . It was not too sweet and everything was just nice.

Authentic Malay Dishes

Good Variety

Ulam and Grilled Fish

Having had a few sips of my drink, I then walked over to the food counter. They definitely had a very good selection of authentic Malay dishes. They all looked quite good and the spread was amazing. I can generally visualise the kind of crowd that they would usually have as they had four people manning this counter alone. Service was very quick but just like those Nasi Kandar places, we were not allowed to scoop the curries by ourselves and these were done by their staffs. I didn't quite like this simply because they weren't 100% listening to what I was saying. For example, when I asked for just a little, they played a deaf ear and put a whole portion for me. I later asked the staff why they did that. Apparently, there's no such thing as tasting here or just a small portion. If you want to take something, then it has got to be a full portion. That's the instructions that has been given to them and that has been their practice all these years. Well, being established, they can afford to be like that but it would have been better for them to be fair to customers' as well and enable customer's like me to take whatever I want in the quantity preferred. After all, I am going to pay for everything that I take. Anyway, if it's their practice, then there's nothing that I can do about it. With that, I returned to my table. 

My Mega Expensive Lunch

The Cost Of My Lunch

Wow! RM 17.70 is the cost of my lunch. This was written by the supervisor once I was back to my table. He then came over, checked my plate and then slid this small piece of paper under my drink. Seriously, this is probably the most expensive lunch that I have had in Brickfields.  Must be the price to pay for their fame!

Asam Pedas Gravy

As I took their Asam Pedas Fish, I had asked the staff to pour some gravy onto the rice. Honestly, I have tasted very much better Asam Pedas in the Klang Valley. This was very ordinary tasting. I would not even consider this to be nice. It tasted like some watered down chili paste. Nothing else. I would only rate this at 3/10 .Not good!

Asam Pedas Fish @ RM 6.00

I took a slice of Ikan Merah from the Asam Pedas preparation and this cost me a whopping RM 6.00 . A full banana leaf meal next door would have cost me less than that. Coming back to this fish, it tasted just okay. The fish itself was decent and that's simply because it is a good fish by general standards but the gravy killed the dish. As the preparation was really bad, I would only rate this at 3/10 . Not recommended!

Sambal Belacan @ RM 1.70

Like really?!!! A dash of Sambal Belacan is RM 1.70? This was a bigger surprise than the price of the fish earlier. Whenever I go to any Tomyam Restaurants, they would provide this for free and that would taste anytime better than this. This was not at all spicy and it lacked Belacan. I would say that this was just average and RM 1.70 for this is something that I just can't digest. Taste wise, I would rate this at 5/10.

Sambal Udang with Petai @ RM 4.00

This was just a scoop of six small Prawns and one piece of Petai and for this, I was charged RM 4.00 . Was it good? Not really! The 'Sambal' was good but the prawns weren't fresh. They would have been refrigerated for at least over a week. And that too with just one small piece of Petai. A very stingy portion for sky high prices. I would rate this at 6.5/10 . Nothing great at all!

Clams (Lala) @ RM 4.50

Clams (Lala) @ RM 4.50

Among all the items that I had tried today, this was the best and when I say 'best', I meant the best among the lot. Not that it was amazingly good. The preparation was nice though. For a small bowl of these, I was charged RM 4.50 which once again is expensive. This at least I could accept as it tasted nice. Seriously, I don't mind paying for quality. If you check my older blog entries, I do dine at high end restaurants and have had no issues paying for quality. It's just when the taste does not match the price tag, I get very annoyed. Coming back to this dish, I would rate it at 8/10 .

I would not want to recap the entire comments here once again but would like to just say that this place is overrated. I am not sure about the other outlet in Penchala and this statement is solely referring to this particular outlet in Brickfields. In short, it's an over priced place and the food does not match the price tag. 

Address: No. 146, Jalan Tun Sambanthan, Brickfields, 

                50470 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Opening Hours: Mon - Fri  0730 - 2200

                             Saturday   0730 - 1700

                             Sunday Closed

Website: http://restoranputeri.com.my/