Nagaria Steak House at Taiping (龙城餐厅)

Taiping, a.k.a. "The Town of Rain", has its fair share of local traditional cuisines, Malay, Chinese, Indian, you name it. However, today we take a detour from the ordinary meal, to take on one of the historical steak house in Taiping - Nagaria. This is the first post captured by my newly acquired Fujifilm Finepix X100, a lovely little gem!

1). Located at the intersection between Jalan Pasar and Jalan Ong Paik. (This photo was taken using the built-in ND filter, which reduces my ISO by 3 stops)

2). As with any other traditional Western restaurants, the Set Lunch menu is displayed on the outside of the restaurant. So, what do we have today?

3). This restaurant occupies a corner shop lot, and houses 20 odds tables for dine-in customers. The decoration is pretty simple yet classical as with any other traditional Western restaurants.

4). For the starter, two slices of Buttered Toasted Bread are served promptly after we ordered lunches.

5). Quickly followed by a bowl of Cream of Mushroom. Glad to find that the cream of mushroom doesn't taste like average canned soup. Unfortunately, I accidentally spread too much of pepper on it, ouch..

6). The bread tasted evenly good with the soup or even on its own. Compliment has to be given for the bread, as it is very crunchy and strong taste of butter in it. Simply just nice!

7). For the main course, we are given a choice of Sesame Seed Chicken, Piri-piri Fish or Sweet & Sour Fish Rice for the set lunch. Guess which we choose? The Sesame Seed Chicken, of course.

8). Never tried a chicken chop, which is served thin as paper, and dry like a hay. Sesame seeds are sprinkled all over the chicken chop and deep fried into golden crispy finish. The aroma given by the sesame seeds did make the taste more appetizing, however the portion is just too small for me. With the aid of my favourite sauce, Tomato Sauce, I am able to finish it in minutes.

9). After main course, we are given a choice for the dessert, either a cup of tea / coffee and a scoop of ice-cream OR 2 scoops of ice-creams. Why not take the best deal of both?! A cup of tea for me, please! Two sachets of Coffeemate creamer and White Sugar each are given. 

10). As for the ice-cream, too bad we weren't given a choice for the scoops of ice-cream. Otherwise, we will take all the yam flavours they have.

11). For the price of RM9.50 without any taxes, the set lunch offers rather irresistible price, as compared with other ala carte dishes on the menu. However, a rather disappointing subsequent visit to the restaurant, after the first visit last year. Ought to come back to try other ala carte dishes to test real culinary skills of the chef, who acquired numerous certificates as displayed over the cashier.

Nagaria Steak House Restaurant (龙城餐厅)

Address : 61, Jalan Pasar, 34000 Taiping, Perak, Malaysia.

Business hours : 12.00pm - 11.00pm daily

Tel. : 05-8069032 / 019-5417948

View Larger Map

Christmas at San Francisco Steak House

Although Chinese New Year is still around the corner, Christmas spirit still lingering in my mind, which is my favourite season of the year! In searching for a place to celebrate the festivity, I decided to give this new hang-out place a try, which opened their first franchise in Ipoh in early 2010.

1). This is the entrance to the steak house. As you can see, there wasn't a table to spare on Christmas Eve! Luckily I got my table reserved as early bird at this time of year..

2). The interior was nicely decorated, filled with Christmas atmosphere. 

3). Simple and spacious table arrangement allowed to fit in nearly a hundred of diners easily.

4). This is the best seats in the house to watch live coverage with a bottle or two.

5). Speaking of which, the Christmas meal is incomplete without a glass of wine. I ordered a glass of Tocornal Cabernet Sauvignon, all the way from Chile. Easy on the mouth, tasted even better with food..

6). A very special drink on the menu, Red Christmas cocktail, well suited for the occasion. However, it's not my cup of drink, better off sipping my own wine while we patiently waiting for a feast.

7). Slices of bread were served with a fragrant creamy butter chunk as appetizer.  

8). A dozen of Baked Escargots with garlic cream sauce was promptly served on the table. Nice and creamy, just the way I liked it! (RM15.90 for half a dozen)

9). More to come as the Red Sea Prawn Salad was served as starter. Salad was not the first thing on my mind when eating out, especially without any salad dressing.

 10). A Christmas dinner is not complete without the Traditional Roasted Turkey. Out of all the turkey I had tasted all these years, this is a real disappointment! The portion was too small, coldly served and too little gravy, etc. Anyhow, turkey was not my favourite meat.

11). On the other hand, their US Rib-eye steak was a different story. They were not called a steak house for nothing. Cooked medium raw and nicely grilled. Tasted tender and juicy, better with every bite, with or without the special sauce.

12). Here comes a Traditional Christmas Pudding for dessert, as part of the Christmas Set Menu. I am not the biggest fan of pudding either. This was the only dish that we reluctant to take a second bite, as was sent back to where it belonged, dumpster..

13). A dinner is considered disastrous without a mouth-watering dessert. Luckily, the second one didn't disappoint us. A slice of Dream Chocolate Cake was enough to allow us dreaming of Santa Claus!

14). The dinner left us with mixed feelings. However, this place is worth the try though the money is better spent on their regular menu. Dine-in customer can enjoy a complementary waive of the parking ticket, which costs RM2 flat per entry into the multi-storey car park inside this Coliseum Square. Last but not least, I would like to wish everyone a "belated" Merry Christmas, better late than never!

SAN FRANCISCO STEAKHOUSE
No 8, Ground Floor,
Coliseum Square,
Jalan Raja Dr Nazrin Shah,
Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia.

(Next to Impiana Hotel, formerly known as Casuarina Hotel)
Telephone : 05-255 5798

Business hours : 11am - 1am daily