Sunway Pyramid isn’t somewhere I frequent due to the distance (and laziness, mostly to sit through the traffic), but the month of April is extra tempting with their World of Cravings campaign. During this month, there is a special promotion for different restaurant each day and diners get to join contests to win attractive prizes. One of these restaurants is Paradise Inn, which is a subsidiary of the Paradise Group founded in 2011.
The concept of Paradise Inn is simple and charming with authentic yet affordable food; as Inns are traditionally referring to teahouses. Here they serve a variety of double boiled soups, fruits and flowers tea and most importantly a lot of good pork dishes. Some dishes are given a new life with modern interpretations. Needless to say, this is a place suitable for all kinds of occasions. The interior is clearly Oriental with tailor made Chinese lanterns, rustic terracotta bricks with accents of Chinese Symbols.
I arrived in the restaurant with a hearty appetite after a long day of meetings and photoshoot (read: didn’t eat much during the day) and was happy to see the different pots of flower teas, good to relax my mind.
All the tea has Chrysanthemum and Dried Longan as the base and my favourite is between the one with Lavendar/Rosemary and the crowd favourite with Forget me not/Rose. Each comes with their own list of health benefits too.
Paradise Inn takes their Double-boiled Soups seriously and we got to try 2 of them. The Double-Boiled Black Chicken with Ginseng is something I would do at home during hectic gig period as it’s good for our respiratory system and at the same time rejuvenates the body. The soup is savoury with a touch of bitterness from the ginseng, very comforting.
The Water Goby with Fresh Apple soup on the other hand, is a rather unusual combination for me and I’m pleasantly surprised by the clean flavours and subtle sweetness. This is also good for the lungs and claims to re-energise the mind too.
With all that liquid in my stomach, I was happy to get started on their signature dishes. The first one, is their Stew Pork Belly served with Lotus Bun. The pork belly has absorbed all the flavours from the stewing and is amazingly tender. Love the mouth feel along with the soft bun. The serving is quite substantial though so one if definitely enough.
We tried their Crystal Prawns cooked in 2 ways and I fell in love with the Salted Egg Yolk version. Then again, nothing will taste bad with an Umami salted egg yolk coating. With the crispy exterior and juicy sweet prawns, this is definitely a winner.
The Wasabi Mayo version has a vibrant and alluring green hue, yet the wasabi taste is quite subtle and I was a little surprised by the sweetness of the sauce. It’s still delicious nonetheless.
I can’t resist a good chicken wing and here it’s marinated with Shrimp Paste and then fried to perfection. It has a lovely depth of flavour and a great mouth feel. Finger-licking good!
Almost every Cantonese themed restaurant offers a Chinese Spinach soup with 3 types of eggs and here they up the ante by adding some mince pork too. The greens are still crunchy and vibrant, and the broth is absolutely delicious with the usage of superior stock and the eggy flavours. In fact, I would be happy to indulge in this dish alone, no need for rice. Yum.
A traditional Chinese feast would not be complete with some carb dishes. And to my stomach’s dismay, I decided to try all of them.
The seafood fried rice gets its golden colour from egg yolk apparently and is topped with some crispy rice puffs, which is a creative touch. It’s incredibly aromatic and you get bits of fish roe in between bites too.
Even more tasty is this one with Chinese sausage and Mushrooms, full of umami flavours and a touch of sweetness too. I have to stop myself from having more to prevent a food coma.
But the ultimate winner of the night has to be this sinful Braised Vermicelli with Pork Trotters, presenting in all its glistening glory. The trotters are braised for hours, resulting in a wonderful gelatinous texture releasing all the collagen into the vermicelli. There is a slight char taste which means the dish even more addictive. So good!
I barely had any space for this but I did make sure I try the noodles with a couple pieces of crispy pork lard. Plenty of wok hei in this one, rivaling some of the best Hokkien Mees I’ve had in KL.
I was impressed with the standard of the food here and would not hesitate if anyone suggest to visit Paradise Inn again (or any of the restaurants within the Paradise Group, in fact). The service here is excellent too.
During this month, when customer spend above RM50 (RM40 for HSBC cardholders) , they’re entitled to join the contest and 10 lucky diners can stand a chance to win RM2,000 worth of Sunway Pals points each.
By spending RM150 (RM100 for HSBC cardholder) in a single receipt, diners will be rewarded with RM20 worth of Sunway Pals points.
Everyday in the month of April, 1 F&B tenant in Sunway Pyramid will be having a promotion. To be entitled for such promotion, diners have to download Sunway Pyramid mobile app and present it to the restaurants.
50% Off for Any of the 8 types of Double Boiled Soup on 27 April 2014.