Jaya

After watching Boy Gets Girl with a few friends (and it was fantastic, totally scared me off the dating thing for the rest of my life, Kate Dulcich was phenomenal!), TC and I headed over to Chinatown to grab a late dinner before going home.  We wandered around for a bit looking for an open Vietnamese restaurant but finally gave up and went to Jaya, which was almost entirely empty – but it was pretty late so we didn’t think too much of it. 

First up, beef satay, which I love ordering at Malaysian restaurants (especially the first time I visit), came quicker than I expected.  And way more… charred… Some pieces were pretty burnt.  There were cubes of white stuff on the plate that we weren’t sure what it was – like rice cake, with a soft texture, very interesting.  The beef was OK – the parts that weren’t burnt – but nothing I’d order again, especially given that after a few minutes, I realized the peanut sauce must’ve been made with coconut milk.  I’ve encountered this in the past, and just soldier on – some places add it for some extra creaminess I guess? – but my mouth was displeased.  No big deal as the beef satay wasn’t that good anyway, but it definitely needed sauce to make it sort of edible. 

TC ordered the char kway teow, a stir fried rice noodle dish that is generally filled with a variety of seafood and slightly spicy.  He added chili sauce to it though, because it wasn’t spicy at all… and had an interested assortment of proteins, including Chinese sausage, fishballs… no scallops, no squid… hmmm.  I think he thought it was OK… but I’m sure he’ll pipe in with his own comments. 

After waiting… and waiting… and waiting… my Hainanese chicken finally arrived.  I’d asked for white meat only because I am lazy, it was late at night, and I didn’t feel like dealing with bones.  I like the plate they used. 

But what’s that… it’s not white meat.  I think they gave me the back or something because there was very little meat and tons of bones.  Eek!  I struggled to get through it – I wasn’t even that hungry to begin with, honestly – but was really annoyed.  When it was served, the guy had said something to me about not having white meat so they gave me half/half or something… nope.  There was no half/half.  Not even a single piece of white meat.  And the chicken itself was only OK… nothing special.  Blegh.

Yvo says: It was open late, which was nice since we wanted food and every place on that block was closed, but otherwise, the dishes we had were big fat fails.  I don’t even know what to tell you because we ordered pretty standard Malaysian dishes, nothing crazy or unusual… stuff that they should just know how to make properly.  Not having white meat could be forgiven, but the odd array of stuff in the char kway teow and the over-charred satay just don’t sit well with me.  Oh well.  Next time, I’ll look for another place.
not recommended