Kuantan journey of meals

Places to Eat

Top Tier:

1. Def Leopard: Best steaks in town!  Cooked to perfection!  Need to visit again to see if consistency is there.
   UPDATE: 2^nd visit and we all had the tenderloin which again was cooked to perfection and delicious.  A must place to visit for steak – best steak in Kuantan.  Only negative is you won’t want to try and of their other menu items.
   UPDATE: One year later and it's still the best. Check out our review from other blog entry.
2. Hyperbole: Cheese Kulcha to die for! (Owner’s wife often present which really makes this place – top tier!).  Fuzzy is friendly host!  Good Chicken Tika and Mango Lassi! UPDATE: Fuzzy and his brother and his brother's wife are no longer involved with this place. Still Top Tier though!

         3. La Casa: German influence is always a plus!  Thomas (owner) does a good job and has a nice looking spouse which doesn’t hurt when she is working.  Nice setting – prefer to sit outdoors but there is inside dining as well
UPDATE: We had poor service and the meatballs weren't great, but Thomas made up for it by comping us dessert because of the issues.

• Cool-A- Cakes: Fun place for dessert – many good things to try and nice places to sit outside and enjoy. UPDATE: Kula Cakes moved up to Top Tier after an excellent showing in both taste and service

Close to Top Tier:

• Hazuki Mikada: Farman rules! Good food; not quite top tier. You may consider leaving Farman a tip.
• Nando’s: Corn on the Cob is heaven – Malaysians must learn the proper way to eat it – with butter and salt!  A stable standard when eating at East Coast Mall – provided you want Chicken.  

UPDATE: We went there for lunch again and Nando's offers a new flavor Mango Lime. CJ and the Elder enjoyed in very much

• Breeze Bar: Best French Fries in Kuantan!  Stay away from ‘pretzel bread’ substitutions.  View is nice.  Fridays they have hot meal of the week; other days is limited menu of mainly hot dogs and Cochilee Monster.

• Manhattan Fish Market: Good seafood. Stay clear of flaming mango dessert. Fried banana fritters were great! Great alternative to Nando’s (but no corn on the cob here)
  UPDATE: We went back this trip (12-2017) and the meal was not very good. Not somewhere we will return to.

• Kitchen 7: Some may feel it should be in top tier as their steak was very good and close to Def Leopard’s. However, the smoky atmosphere and the fact there is only 1 kitchen, not 7, keeps this place out of the top tier.
  UPDATE: We should know better than to try something that is not the specialty of the house. The Elder had a Chicken Caesar salad and the Frenchman a pizza. Both were horrible! The chicken was undercooked and the pizza was soggy. If you eat there, stick with the steaks!
• Crocodile Bar & Grill: Okay place but name is misrepresentation as there are no reptiles at the bar. Pizza so-so as was burger. Shakes not that good. Tries to emulate ‘La Casa’ but fails.
• E La Wadi: Ikea it is not! Avoid the Swedish meatballs. Burger looked good but didn’t sit well later. Famous for Mango Cheese Cake but not sure why? It was frozen and so-so. Looking forward to compare it to MY NY
  
  
  

• Umbok: But long ways to drive to.  Cat (Nutella aka Sir Lancelot) is fun and friendly.  Decent food. Fires the host was friendly.

• Black Canyon: Good Chinese food and fast and easy access from hotel.  Good option to Nando’s when you want something other than Chicken. 
• Hai Tian: Only time there was so-so. Not too interested in going back but to have chance to speak fluent Chinese to staff!
• Black Pearl: A recent find that is good! Beer drinkers delight. Nice atmosphere. Update: Last couple times they did not have all menu items nor all beer choices. Also, smoking is allowed (it is a bar) so it can be bad. Other than the draft Guiness, this place would fall to the lowest tier. 
• Zam Zam: Good Arabic food – but watch your back if your Westerner. Avoid wearing Orange so as not to give ‘them’ ideas. Shwarma is okay but terrible station on TV all the time disrupting meal.
  UPDATE: The owner must have read our blogs and the TVs were off this time. The food was great! and Cheap!
• Burger King: Always good burger and taste of Home. Place is nice especially considering it’s been around since the 50’s. Sometimes they don’t have whoppers – how can that be?
• Lemongrass TIE Café: Good Chinese food but waitresses don’t speak English – who knows what they speak!
• De Garden: Entrées and appetizers were good; atmosphere not very good.
  PROS:
  Decent food - pizza okay as was fish/chips; pasta not so good
  short walk from Zenith Hotel
  CONS:
  Smoky environment (it is a bar) and dark.
  Don’t know how to properly pour a Guinness draft (only Black Pearl achieves this criterion).
• MYNY:  “Best Pizza AND Cheesecake in Kuantan!”.  Recommend the Yankee Stadium pizza.  Avoid ‘sausage’ pizza as it is simply cut up hot dog.  Spaghetti was excellent as were the shakes. 
  CONS:  Atmosphere is very stale, save for the piped in music highlighting NY (enjoyed hearing Frank singing New York, New York).  Staff uninteresting.
  UPDATE: We went to a different location of MYNY in the area which was a much larger place and very nice. The pizza and spaghetti were again very good maintaining our consensus as the “best Pizza in Kuantan”.  We tried the mushroom soup and the fried cheesecake which were also good. UPDATE: MYNY no longer exist!

• Sherwoods: Same menu (and sister restaurant) to Cherating Steak house. Much smaller venue but same food quality. But service was bad – one order came out 20 minutes before the others.
  PROS: decent food and located immediately next to a Western Grocery!
  CONS: small place with poor service. 
• Cherating Steak House: Great atmosphere – Good music playing (Red FM) and has live band on weekends. Steak was good (but not quite the quality of Def Leopard). Duck appetizer was excellent as was the soup. Stay away from Risotto. Nice menu – a must try again spot for something other than steak. UPDATE: Had to drop to Close to Top Tier due to terrible service
• KRIM Ice Cream: Decent home made ice cream in a quaint corner storefront. Friendly staff. Flavors change daily. Krim is as good as Baskin Robbins, plus it's locally made and supports the Kuantan economy! The portion are tremendous! One scoop will fill you up easily.
  UPDATE: In our latest visit, music was played because of our previous visit's request.  The staff is the best, very welcoming staff.  A ‘free sample’ turned out to be a free dish thanks to the great staff!  A MUST VISIT!ANOTHER UPDATE: Krim no longer exist!
• Cheese Tart Kiosk: Excellent tarts and great marketing – you can just eat one you must buy and eat 6 (buy 5 get one free). 
• Baskin Robbins: Good ice cream and same as back home. Fattening though. The first girl I met in Malaysia works there – doesn’t say much and doesn’t move around but always has a smile for me!

• Coffee Places: Starbucks and Coffee Bean are right across from each other. Recommend Coffee Bean over Starbucks as the latter didn’t have coffee one day. Good desserts as well. But nothing really special at either …. They are just ‘in the way’ as you enter the mall.

• McDonald’s at Mega Mall: Good for typical and normal McDonald’s from back home. Also, home to the Mega Mac, because two patties is never enough. Stable eatery.

• Somebody named Wang Bakery: Great tarts of all kinds. Not easy to park near.

Stay Away Tier:

• Owl Café: One look at place/menu and we turned around and walked out
• GC Curry House: Once high on the ‘mid-tier’ listing; it dropped in our ranking. Only good thing are desserts (Laddu, candy)

Other places in East Coast Mall:

• Pizza Hut – not same as home - Soup was very watery, pizza lacking taste.
• Sushi King – Not

Other places not in East Coast Mall: Seoul Garden – just walked away.

UPDATE: We tried the Seoul Garden recently opened in the East Coast Mall and it ranks as a solid middle tier. See review in another post Another Day, Another Lunch

• Bar at Zenith Hotel: Band M and M is terrible! Singing is pathetic. Girls not cute to look at. Only plus is when Eddy’s cousin is working there.
  UPDATE 12-2017: The band is no longer there and there is a man with a guitar singing on the second floor.

• Bombay Indian: Not good. Won’t return. Hard to get to. No Gollum! 
• Alor Akar: Chinese seafood; food okay but open air place with cheap tables and chairs (again CJ?). Pros: Mayor Guiliani works there; Orange cutlery. Would not go back. No way it should be #1 on Trip Advisor.