RESTAURANT REVIEW - RESTORAN SERI MALAYSIA (IN IPOH, MALAYSIA)

Here’s my stab at a restaurant review – Something I did for my high school newspaper and once or twice when I was a stringer writing for a couple of local newspapers in Northern California many years ago.

The Restoran Sri Lido (Malaysian spelling) is located in downtown Ipoh next to The Store across from the Pizza Hut.  The building the Lido is in used to be a movie theatre which is apparent from these photos.

During the day on Saturday, it is very quiet.  The dinner crowd is what keeps the place going.  It can also be rented out for events.

We’ve eaten here a few times before and always enjoyed the food and the service.  However, this time when we got our menu, we noticed the absence of pork dishes.  When we asked about this, we were informed by our waitress they had new management and had shifted to a halal menu to attract a bigger clientele (Muslims).  In keeping with that, our waitress was a Malay.

I am happy to report though that this made no difference to either the food or the service which were both great.

We had the following dishes – sweet and sour fish, lemon chicken, yam basket, long bean in garlic sauce.  A radish in chicken stock soup was also included as was rice.  Lido does not skimp on the rice unlike other Chinese restaurants.

The yam basket was also served with chicken and the result was just a wonderful blend of flavour with the yam being the foundation that tied it all together. The sweet and sour fish was a delicate balance of flavours.  The lemon chicken was the highlight of the meal-boneless and crunchy with a genius lemon glaze that was neither too sweet nor too sour-just perfect.  The soup was a great way to start the meal as the taste of the broth was muted enough to advance the pleasant flavor of the radish

All in all, a fantastic meal ata good price (rm44 including two drinks) and great service in an interesting looking building.  The problem with a lot of Chinese restaurants is the rudeness and poor service of the staff.  This sometimes borders on racism as Chinese will often serve Chinese customers before other races and also before foreigners.  I therefore think it’s a good thing to encourage 21st century thinking among Chinese restaurants and I will definitely be patronizing Restoran Seri Lido in the future.