Kim Gary

The thing about Kim Gary is that their menu is so diversified that one can be at a lost for word. However, there's a trick to it. Decided on what carb you want (rice or noodle?) or protein only (chicken, beef, mix) and cuisine type (Western or Asian). I recall when they first opened up, their order sheet came with all their menu items that it was almost 2 A4 paper long. Luckily, they've wizened up and now give you an almost blank paper for you to write down the item code.

I usually visit either the Curve or One Utama outlet, mainly due to proximity but the Sunway one is not too bad either except for the noise. For the longest of times, my defacto order would be their cheese baked rice set.

The set consists of a soup (cream or borsch), drink and main. They used to provide dessert too but that's gone and yet the price has gone up as well. Oh inflation.
I don't know why but I've only ever tried their cream soup, never the borsch. It's almost like a mushroom soup except there's not a hint of it here. At a point of time, it did dawn on me to try and cook it at home. If you have the recipe, I would be most obliged 😍

They have few types of cheese baked rice. Chicken, beef or pork. White or red sauce. If you're the kind who don't like to answer so many things, this is probably your nightmare order. But I do like that they offer you that customization. The white sauce is also my default sauce. However, few months ago, I decided to give their red sauce a go and to my surprise, it isn't too bad. While the cream sauce offers a more savory/creamy flavor, the red sauce is like a mild tomato sauce minus the sourness.

I like the beef rice because they'll usually cut it up into bite sizes for easier biting. The chicken wing and pork chop require more effort. Not very date friendly.

 There's also the Western set but I honestly feel this is quite a ripoff. You get sausages (not the gourmet kind), chicken wing that's quite skinny and piece of meat (fish/chicken, I can't recall) alongside corn and some sad excuse of a salad. The only redeeming value on this plate is their French fries which are usually freshly fried.

 Red sauce cheese baked rice with seafood. Kim Gary is perhaps my only exception when it comes to my no-rice rule because they do pretty good rice dishes as compared to some sloppily assembled Western platters. Whenever eating out, I try to order things that I can't make myself at home. And I most certainly don't have a cast iron pan to bake my cheese rice. They baked it long enough for the cheese to have a nice brown crust on top. Chili flakes brings a different dimension of heat. You may say that this is quite a ripoff but it's one I'm happy to pay for.

 Baked seafood curry with rice. Don't be fooled by the height because it's mainly cabbage tucked under to give the illusion of generosity. However, they did give quite a bit of squid, prawn, crabstick. This was so spicy that I had difficulty finishing it. There is no way to finish it without rice as it was too spicy and hot without it.

 Stone grilled pork chop rice. This is one of their newer additions. By newer, I mean that they weren't in the menu when Kim Gary first opened 😂After all, there's only so much of Hong Kong style rice and noodle anyone can take before calling it quits.

 The amazing thing about this is how the stone remains hot right from the start until the end. Like really hot. Which is why it is wise to immediate mix the rice about to prevent them from sticking at the bottom. I do like this but it's pricier and not very friendly in our weather.

 Cheese baked tuna in tomato sauce with fries.They have a section in their menu dedicated to snacks such as this. I have to say that they were generous with the tuna but the fries were a bit too chunky so ended up being not crunchy enough.

Although I haven't been their member in 2years now, occasionally I do miss the monthly freebie. Here are some of them:

 Roselle drink. Similar to Ribena but not as sweet or tangy. It comes with bouncy Nata de Coco, one of my childhood favorites.

 Fried spring rolls with carrot sticks. This one is quite a ripoff even as a freebie because apart from the deep frying, everything else is easy peasy. Heck, even the spring roll has no filling, it's just deep fried skin.

 Mango shaved ice.

 Hard to believe but yes, this is one of their freebies. Harder to believe would be I made the trip just to claim it 😄What can I say, got free, don't waste.

 Since it wasn't possibly for me to finish it myself, I did call for reinforcement to help me out. We found that it was a bit too sweet, tasted almost artificial but at least the texture of the ice was really fine so it just melts in your mouth.

 Chocolate toast. It's more like a toast topped with Milo powder, chopped nuts and drizzled with condensed milk. Again, something that you can make at home but nobody got time for that.

Actually, it's not time but the potential wastage. To cook for one time, you have to buy ingredients at a minimum for 5times. In the end, it makes more sense to just pay someone else to do it.