Nippori, Damansara Perdana

102 (First Floor), Empire Damansara, 

Jalan PJU 8/8, 

Damansara Perdana, 

47820 Petaling Jaya 

Tel#03-7733 5973

https://www.facebook.com/Nippori102/

When Empire Damansara first opened, it was filled with many different food options, many of which are watering holes that the young want to be seen at. Over the years, the place declined in general. The most popular of which was Boat Noodle, that saw people queuing up hours just to eat tiny bowls of Thai noodle. That is still open today, just no more crowd.

It's strange as the theme (brick and open space) seemed like the ideal place. Somehow, Empire Damansara is a ghost of its glorious days.

Nippori is considered relatively new in this hood and seems to be doing well. We were there for dinner at 7pm and had to wait for 10mins for our table. Turned out that the space inside isn't that big, hence, they can't fit that many customers.

Their menu is rather extensive. Mainly Japanese as you could guess from the name, with a touch of Western. They also offer set menus that come with a salad, appetizers and dessert. Mostly around RM 38, up to RM 88 if you really wanna splurge.

 Salmon and ikura donburi RM 38.
I confess that I deviated from my original plan of udon after seeing a box of fjord trout outside the premise. Not-thin slices of salmon sashimi on top of mildly sweet Japanese rice. The fish was fresh while the ikura (salmon roe) were juicy and provided that saltiness to the meal. Most of the appetizers (pickled this and that) were few tiny morsels, the chawanmushi was few more tiny morsels. It had been a long time since I've had steamed egg as soft as that. Truly magnificent. The miso soup deserves a special mention as well for not being the usual, run-of-the-mill, straight out of a paste soup. Instead, they made it with mushroom, some tofu and very little seaweed, quite the opposite of what you get elsewhere.

Curry udon and chicken stick with cheese RM 38
True to form, the curry was thick and not spicy at all by Malaysian standard. It was a rather large bowl of noodles. The chicken stick is actually deep fried before the slice of cheese is melted on top. Drizzled with a curios sauce that was a bit spicy and reminded me of teriyaki (but isn't), the meat was good, just not sure about the sauce.