Kafe Yen

Sometime last week when I was still on vacation, TC and I made a trip out to PB...

Above is the original location of Rubio's, which is on Grand Ave in PB.

We were headed out to the edge of PB, right near the Crystal Pier...

Yazmin Malaysian

After the JANM and our mochi cake fix, we headed over to the city of Alhambra, just 10 minutes away by freeway. We were going to meet the lovely WC of the blog Wandering Chopsticks and have an early dinner! Prior to meeting, she and I exchanged a flurry of emails about restaurant recommendations. What cuisine would we prefer? Anything we hadn't tried yet? We were willing to try anything and when Malaysian came up, our minds were made up!

Dinner ended up being at Yazmin Malaysian.

Sorry for the wonky ass formatting. Blogger changed up how you edit photos and I am still getting used to this. So, the above photo is not centered anymore because I messed with something in the 'edit' mode and I am too lazy to figure it out.

As always, the Yelp reviews are a mixed bag ranging from people who praised how authentic this place was to those who totally hated it. Not having had Malaysian before (other than variations of certain dishes that were Indonesian), I have nothing to compare it to. The restaurant itself was pretty large with huge tables in the midddle and booth seating on each side.

Since we're talking about the interior, check out the purple neon lighting!

The 80's are back. With a killer vengeance.

In the upper left hand corner (photo below), you can see part of a garland. They had these garlands that had "Malaysia"photos on them. It looked like a travel agency threw up all over this place. But that wasn't a big deal to me. I'm used to tacky decorations in Asian restaurants. We got in  before it started to get crowded. We sat in one of the side booths...

This placard had their new new appetizer "specials" . There were a few things we wanted to try.  By the way, I should let you know that I pretty much had WC choose the items since she'd been here before (but hadn't blogged it). I'm sure her blog post about this place is forthcoming...

So this was one of our first appetizers, the Rempang Udang - "Grilled glutinous rice with spicy grounded shrimp and wrapped in a banana leaf. You have to eat this warm; if you let it go cold, the rice will get hard and it won't taste as good.
Next up was the Otak Otak - "Grilled fish paste with coconut milk, chili, spices, and lime leaf wrapped in banana leaves". It was also served with a Sambal which was pretty hot for me. I really like this one - it reminded me of fish cake but with a kick.

This was the Roti Canai - which was a thin flat bread that reminded me of a really really thin and flaky tortilla. ($1.50 each) WC also ordered a side of curry sauce in which you dip the roti canai...

We also had a side of coconut rice ($1.00) - rice flavored with coconut milk. The flavor was really subtle. They also had Hainanese rice (also $1.00) that I was curious about - it's chicken flavored, but maybe next time.

We wanted a rice dish, so we chose the Nyonya Nasi Goreng - "Nyonya fried rice served with shrimp, egg, and grounded dried shrimps, topped with shredded cucumber". I've never had fried rice with cucumber before.By the way,  I don't consider that "shredded" but more like "julienned".

After some deliberation, we chose the Beef Rendang, described in their menu as "tender chunks of beef simmered with coconut and lemongrass in a rich curry sauce". I've had this a few times before at Bali Thai/Indonesian in Mission Valley (see post here). The first time was awesome with the meat being so tender it was like a dream come true. The second and third time, the meat was kind of hard and didn't seem like it simmered long enough. This beef rendang had a combo of chunks and shredded chunks...

Next was a noodle dish - the Char Keui Teow - "Penang style stir fried flat rice noodles with bean sprouts, shrimps, chicken, eggs, and leeks". It can also be served "spicy" or "non spicy". We got it non spicy for TC's sake, but I kind of wish we ordered it spicy. I really like the texture of the rice noodles (so exotic for this Filipina chick) but the sauce was too mild.

Next up - Chinese dessert!