Tasco, Rua do Almada, Porto

Ola! BagnallEats is now in Western Europe--Oporto, Portugal, to be exact. It's a land of cheese, custard tarts, wine, and a worrisome combination of potatoes and rice with every dish. It's a place where the lack of dumplings and curries is compensated by the quality and ubiquity of all things pork.

Arriving jetlagged and a bit sad, we spent our first two days in Porto making poor food-related choices. It took a while to come to terms with the fact that, unlike Malaysia, everyone in Portugal expects you to at least make a basic effort to speak their language, and all the Portuguese we had learnt beforehand was completely irrelevant for any real-life situation.

This resulted in some lovely views, but completely, sometimes almost comically, awful food. We finally came to our senses, started acting like the tourists we actually are, and went on TripAdvisor, which led us to this lovely gem.

Tasco is on a quiet street off the main tourist drag, a few minutes away from our future apartment on the Rua do Almada. 

When we arrived, shortly after its opening at 7:15, every table was already booked. After assuring our waitress we would finish within the 2 hours available before the reservation actually turned up, we were sat in the back.  We were quickly charmed by its casual and slightly funky decor.

We were even more charmed by the selection of bread and olives immediately placed on our table.

The bread was a combination of crispy carraway seed-studded sticks, uncomfortably dense brown loaves, and slices of satisfying, hearty white bread

The olives were to die for. Marinated in olive oil, garlic and oregano, their quality really made it hit home that we weren't in Asia anymore.

 For drinks, Charlie went for one of the local craft beers, which were mysteriously named 'Craftbeer A, B, C, D' etc. He chose A, presumably the lightest beer, which turned out to be a good choice. It was fruity, smooth, and not hops-y tasting, which gives it an A in my book anyways.

In the background you can see my vinho verde, the local specialty in Portugal. It's sweet and fruity, but just dry and clean-flavoured enough to avoid becoming cloying. Very tasty stuff, and for 2 Euros it again emphasized how different things are here compared to Asia.

Tasco is a tapas bar, so we decided to each choose one dish and a side. I uncharacteristically chose an octopus dish, but only because of its name on the menu: 'Octopus Traditional Wonder' (4.75 Euros). How could I not? This turned out to be the traditional wonder:

I'm not sure the appearance lives up to the name, but the taste surely did. It was parsley-speckled fried dough with bits of octopus, but the taste was so much more (and this is coming from someone who is fairly anti-octopus). The octopus was neither fishy or rubbery, which are my basic arguments against octopus, and it was complimented nicely by the mildly salty dough. Our main complaint was there could have been more octopus, which is a complaint I'd never thought I'd make.

Alone this octopus pancake would have been a bit dry if it hadn't been for the 'Tomato Breathtaking Rice' (2.5 Euros).

The excellence of the name was only outdone by the excellence of our waitress for recommending it. Slightly sweet from the tomatoes but with the strong taste of bay leaves, its simple flavours complemented the octopus nicely, turning it into a very satisfying fork of food.

 3.5/5 without rice. The rice made it a more 'breathtaking' at 4/5

Charlie went for 'Mix Meat Lovers with beef, sausage, spicy sausage, pickles, and cheese'(8 Euros), which basically was exactly as described, although with bits of pork added in for good measure. We certainly didn't mind.

Again, looks might deceive, as this was super tasty. The meats all complemented each other in a white wine sauce, and all the richness was cut by the extremely (but pleasantly) sour and crunchy vegetables. And then there's cheese, because why not ?! 4/5

 To clog our arteries and please our palates a bit more, we had homemade chips on the side.

Crisp and flavoursome, these were a welcome, although not entirely necessary, addition. 3/5

We finished dinner with my new favourite thing about Porto: the coffee. Specifically the 'pingu'.

Translated as 'small latte', this is a shot of Portuguese coffee with just a dash of milk. It's as creamy as an expensive hot chocolate, but with a deep, bold coffee taste that isn't bitter at all.  

Tasco was our first truly good meal in Porto, and is definitely a place we will return to in the future...mainly because we didn't have dessert...and look at this menu...oh my.... 

P.S. there are supposed to be umlauts over the o in 'Tasco', but I refused to type it out of principle

Opium, Changkat Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur

The latest restaurant / bar on the Changkat strip is Opium, complete with sub-heading - Drink-Man-Woman. Instead of judging this book by it's cover, I'll ignore this caveman-like discourse and move on..

First of all, Opium is a beautifully-decorated place, evoking a 1930s Shanghai theme from its hanging lanterns, red velvet curtains to portraits of sultry Chinese women. Without being too ostentatious it all works very well, making Opium a much welcome oddball amongst the rather humdrum collection of offerings on the street outside.

Opium had certainly caught our attention, but was it actually any good?

The menu (no pork) presented a collection of all things Asian without settling on a specific theme. It's an eclectic mix so we ordered some beers while we mulled things over.

When they arrived they looked like this:

Not what we were expecting....In fact, they appeared to come in all shapes and sizes.

This is how it is drunk:

There's something charmingly absurd about drinking tiger beer in a manner befitting of a much more refined beverage. In practical terms, the beer was kept nice and cool, was drunk at a much slower pace than it would be out of a more sensible receptacle. The only real negative was it seemed to be less than a pint in measure for RM22.

In terms of food we started off by ordering some dumplings. 

These were chicken and coriander flavoured, and were tasty although perhaps slightly stingy for RM12.

Next up was the peppery lamb soup - RM15

This somewhat watery-looking soup had a deep, peppery flavour in spite of its appearance, and had nice firm cubes of carrot and potato. Perhaps most important though was that the lamb was tender and well cooked. Our only criticism at this stage was that without any rice or bread to accompany the soup, we were left still feeling peckish. 

Next up were the Opium Wanton Noodles, RM28.

These noodles came with crispy spinach, battered oyster mushrooms, minced chicken and thai style noodles - definitely a winner. There was enough 'special soya sauce' to keep everything nice and moist and the spinach and mushrooms were great additions. We would definitely order it again.

Our friends ordered the five spice duck RM35

...and the Wagyu Rendang RM38

Although I didn't try enough of these myself to give an accurate review, the feedback was definitely positive from the other side of the table and both bowls of food were empty in no time.

A nice touch were the Chinese style pancakes designed to mop up the sauce:

After all the main courses were finished, we were still slightly hungry which perhaps highlighted the fact that the portion sizes were on the small size; either that or we were just very hungry. 

Anyway, we decided to round things off with some banana fritters topped with aged cheddar cheese and banana ice-cream RM18.

There wouldn't appear to be anything wrong at all with mixing bananas, cheese and ice-cream - these were really quite good, causing rather animated divisions of the two portions ordered between four. We would definitely order these again too.

Overall - I haven't given Opium's dishes individual ratings yet, as we went there on their first day and I'm sure kinks are still being ironed out. What I will say though is that it is certainly a welcome addition to the Changkat strip and the imagination and creativity behind it warrants a lot of credit. The decor is inviting, the service was friendly and most of all, the food was good. 

We'll be back not least to try the cocktails which we were promised were special!

La Mexicana, Ampang, Kuala Lumpur

I am by no means an expert of Mexican food, but being married to an American has helped my education. The best Mexican food I've eaten was probably in Seoul's Itaewon district, an area catering for the soldiers stationed nearby. Since moving to KL, we've eaten the usual fajitas and burritos offered in the many family-style restaurants, however nothing has been truly authentic or overly impressive so far.

La Mexicana is probably the most authentic Mexican food you'll find in KL; the kitchen is run by a Mexican lady called Carmen.

La Mexicana can be found at the end of a pretty nondescript alley next to Hok Choon supermarket. It's a brightly decorated, inviting place with seating outside.

The first thing we ordered was Burritos de Chilorio RM28 (approx$9).

Chilorio is slow-simmered pork cooked in chilli and seasoned with cumin and garlic. This version came in flour tortillas which had been fried until crispy. 

As you can see from the picture above, these weren't the biggest tortillas, but boy were they good!

The main reason for this was the shredded pork, which was absolutely delicious, and prompted Erin to obsessively learn how to re-create it home, much to my benefit.

Overall - small for the price but an absolute pleasure to eat 4.5 / 5

Next up were the Tacos de Bistec Con Chorizo RM22 (approx $7).

These little beauties came stuffed with chopped pieces of tender beef mixed with chorizo, coriander and onion. Again, these weren't particularly big, but the beef was very tender and very well spiced.

Overall - Little bundles of beefy joy 4 / 5

Last up were the Enchiladas Verdes RM22 (approx $7).

These came in this cool bowl and were covered in cheese. On closer inspection, they looked like this:

As you can see from the picture above, the chicken was succulent and fell apart easily. The green salsa gave the meat a lot of flavour, and the cheese was good stuff.

Overall - Much better than your usual tex-mex fare - 4 / 5

La Mexicana certainly isn't cheap by KL standards, and the portions are small. The food however is really excellent, and its a friendly little place to eat in. 

Is it the best Mexican restaurant in KL? 

By an absolute mile...

Rils, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur

One of the best things about birthdays these days is the inevitable trip to the 'we can't afford this but it's a special occasion so sod it' restaurant. Last weekend saw my beautiful better half turn the big 3-0 which meant that I could enjoy the fine food whilst not worrying about my own ever-increasing life digits. The sod-it restaurant in question this year was Rils in Bangsar, winner of TimeOut KL's award for best meat; another advantage of it being Erin's birthday was that being host, I got to choose the cuisine....

The decor in Rils is best described as old-fashioned classy, with 1920s clarinet led jazz momentarily evoking prohibition-era New York, before my RM18 half pint of tiger transported me back to 21st century Telawi Street Bangsar.

Upstairs actually had a cool, ruby-velvet coloured cigar lounge but walking up the stairs, saying hi to the bow-tie clad waiters then turning around and going back downstairs was awkward enough without taking a photo in the process - next time!

As usual, we were given some bread to kick things off, the paltry one bun each was balanced out by the four butters on offer.

 From left to right - regular butter, tomato butter, herby butter, and garlic butter.

The bread bun was an onion roll and had been freshly baked.

For starters we ordered tuna tataki to share, RM28 (approx $9). Unfortunately the rather long plate caused a rather rubbish photographer a world of problems.

What you can see on this incredibly long plate is slices of seared tuna with a rich butter and soy reduction in the foreground, ginger chili jam in the middle and candied cinnamon apple with salad in the distance.

These were unmistakably good cuts of tuna with the seared edges bringing back memories of blow-torched maguro in Japan. The chilli jam and cinnamon apple gave the whole thing a subtle fruity kick. It was all quite delicious and whetted the appetite in anticipation for the meat fest to follow.

Overall - A delicately delicious starter - 4 / 5

Rils' specialty is its steak, with its most special steak being the Australian Wagyu Tomahawk Ribeye weighing in at 1.5Kg and coming served on the bone. This was of course my dish of preference, more than anything so I could pick it up like a caveman and then take some photos of it.

I fought a futile battle with the birthday girl, who had no interest in sharing a massive hunk of meat on her special day. A minor victory for me was the promise that on my birthday I would be allowed to order it.

In the end I settled for the not so shabby Australian 400g Ribeye RM 154 (approx $50).

The light in Ril's was causing havoc on my photos, here's another with flash,

This was still a sizeable hunk of meat.

What you get with a ribeye is juiciness and flavour but also quite a lot of marbling with fat. As with many ribeye steaks, unless you can afford to go to Japan and get a Kobe, you're going to have to deal with a bit of fat and gristle.

Fortunately for me, I have a high tolerance for fat and gristle, bordering on a preference; I had some delicious mouthfuls and some chewy mouthfuls but former definitely outnumbered the latter. I thoroughly enjoyed this steak, it's pretty much what I'd expect to get from a pricey establishment like Rils.

Overall - A very good steak but not quite top top quality 3.5 / 5

Erin ordered the sticky beef short rib RM72 (approx $24).

This beef rib was braised in soy and star anise with shitake mushrooms and ginger. It came served on a bed of pak choi and a bowl of creamy mash with gravy.

As any slow cooked beef rib should, this literally fell off the bone. The meat still retained it's juicy texture and the gravy was fantastic. Another plus for me, as I ending up eating half of it, was that it was a massive hunk of beef rib. No complaints at all...

Overall - Tender and interestingly flavoured - 4 / 5

Foolishly, we ordered three huge side dishes to go with our massive main courses. First up, sauteed French beans.

These were firm, and full of flavour, probably due to the fact they had been doused in oil.

We also ordered the crispy leeks, which were a chefs' recommendation - not bad but unspectacular.

Saving the absolute best for last, was the double-cooked truffled potato.

This was a huge potato.

With a thick layer of melted cheese, herbs, truffle and being double-cooked, this thing is not for the faint-hearted. It was however, absolutely delicious and left me with the opinion that all potatoes should be double-cooked and truffled. It gets a special side dish 4.5 / 5

For dessert we had the preposterously-named Eton Mess Royale RM20 (approx$6).

This was a concoction of hibiscus jam, frozen berries, meringue and enough cream to make Nigella Lawson proud...

I'm actually not a big cream-based dessert fan so this really wasn't for me, Erin however is a cream-based dessert fan and seemed satisfied without being overly impressed.

Overall - a solid 3 / 5

So what's the overall verdict on Rils? Good food, good atmosphere, good portions but expensive by KL standards. Back home this would be a reasonably priced and well-liked fine dining establishment, and for that Rils deserves credit. However, with Yeast down the road and Mezze nearby, it hasn't fully justified the near 50% price difference.

Nevertheless, we both thoroughly enjoyed our experience at Rils, it befitted the 30th birthday by providing a real sense of occasion. We will return at some point but will probably go with the standard mains as opposed to going for the uber-pricey steaks, unless Erin lets me order the Tomahawk.