Juniper
The 4th and latest Serai outlet opened for business in September 2012 is located at Life Centre, the other 3 being at Empire, Paradigm and Cyberjaya. I’ve been to their Empire outlet twice and tried the nasi dagang and spaghetti carbonara on respective occasions. The nasi dagang was quite filling while the carbonara was memorable only because it was too salty and I had to keep requesting for my glass of water to be topped up.
Serai @ Life Centre is spacious and that is an understatement since they occupy 4,000 square feet. That’s a lot of space and I was thinking this would be a nice venue for events/product launches. Even if you don’t need 4,000 square feet, they can easily cordon off a private area. It has a good view of Jalan Sultan Ismail if you like people and traffic watching. Serai serves local and Western fare so if you’re with a group of friends and some want local while some want Western cuisine, I’ll bet everyone will find what they want at Serai.
Crispy Skinned Salmon RM35
I love fish especially salmon and nothing beats grilled rainbow trout slathered with butter. Don’t know which restaurant serves rainbow trout any more but Eden used to have it back in the 80s/90s. Serai’s crispy skinned salmon comes with a piece of potato cake which is quite chunky and crispy, 4 sautéed asparagus spears, crisp bread with roasted capsicum dip (I could have done with another slice of that bread to mop up the dip) and of course a reasonably generous piece of salmon with skin so crispy that I could hear the “crunch, scrunch” sound as I bit into it. It was perfection, not at all dry and done just right.
Nasi Ambang RM20
If you want a dish that will really fill you up, go for Nasi Ambang as it has a bit of everything. It’s white rice served with portions of prawn sambal, beef rendang tok, ikan kering, mixed vegetables, fried noodles and tempe. The prawn was big enough and fresh, beef rendang tok was moist and everything else complemented the white rice. It’s like a smorgasbord of Malay cuisine.
Cendol RM8
I have tried their thab thim krop or Red Ruby dessert before at their Empire outlet and thought it was just average. So is the cendol but then again my taste buds have been spoilt by the marvellous cendol of Melaka.
