Betty's Midwest Kitchen

I recognise that I haven't updated this site for a long, long time. In your defense, yeah, one month is a bit too long. In my defense, I've suddenly found myself indispensable to Lord and land. So there.

Usually, when someone mentions the word/name "Betty", I think two things. Betty Cooper from the Archieverse and Betty Draper from Mad Men. In the spirit of Betty, I shall provide a twist on this review. Yes, that's a deliberate attempt to keep you reading for at least a little bit.

For the record, I'm clearly biased about my Betty's, as you will surely figure out.

So, firstly location. Betty's is located at Jalan PJU 1/43, Aman Suria, Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Basically, head towards Tropicana from Bandar Utama, but before that short short tunnel just before Tropicana, hit a left and it's on the row of shop houses on your left. It's pretty simple to find. Rating: 6/10 Betty Coopers.

Next, service. Apparently, on weekends, you can't make reservations which is fair, but you can on weekdays. I have, in the spirit of human-hood, generously provided the phone number for the place:- (603) 7880-0196, should you want to go on weekdays. Anyway, we went there for He Xiang's belated birthday dinner. It was meant to be a surprise, but as per usual, our most reliable friend, Cheap Shit Chew wrecked the whole operation. Anyway, there were 10 of us, which meant a really long wait for a table given that the place is pretty popular. As I remember, we waited for about an hour, which you know, just isn't really that awesome. So, I'll have to give this 7/10 Betty Drapers.

Ambience. See, I love all things classic Americana. Malt shops, diners, Elvis, the 'idea' of baseball, Archie comics etc. So, it's nice that they try to decorate the place Americana style. But, if you really think about it, a 'real' Americana feeling wouldn't try too hard to be Americana. While I have to give them props for effort, I'm taking some Betty Coopers away for trying too hard. 4/10 Betty Coopers.



Eventality. This is a word I just made up to mean "Event Versatility". Basically, what this is is a measure of what sort of event would be appropriate to have at this place. So, I really like that it's a very family-and-friends sort of feel, but it's probably not somewhere you want to bring a date, unless of course, you're like my college roommate. Overall, 8/10 Betty Coopers.

Of course, I realise I've made you read something like 500 words without mentioning anything about food, which would be fine, except this is a food blog. Now, we'll go through this in ascending order.



Meatloaf. I didn't have this so I can't really say too much about it but word from my Asian correspondents (we're all Asian, so I guess the Asian there was redundant but still) was, "We should've got something else." Fair enough. Just like how Don Draper should've gotten someone else, I'll give this 7/10 Betty Drapers.



Country-Fried Chicken. Okay, this I had. And it was a particularly facepalm moment. See, I thought I was ordering Country-Fried Steak which I hadn't had in some time. But well, I guess I've wired my brain to see everything as steak. So when I realised that, "Oh, crap, I'm having Country-Fried Chicken instead of Country-Fried Steak", it was way too late. Anyway, the Fried Chicken itself wasn't too bad. It was just average. Granted, I'm clearly biased towards KFC so it was never going to be a winner here. The mashed potatoes were fricking awesome, texture and gravy just perfect but y'know, you don't go to a Laker game to see Derek Fisher do well. So, I'll give this 4/10 Betty Drapers, only b'cos the mashed potatoes redeemed it somewhat.



So, apparently this place is famous for its ribs. Natcherly, we had to try it out. We ordered 2 sets of ribs to share between us. And I'd say the ribs are fairly decent. But that's just it, it's only fairly decent to the point there's not much to say about it. It's like the Steve Finnan of ribs (In fairness, I love Steve Finnan, but let's just say I had to learn to love him). So, this gets 2/10 Betty Coopers.



Now, I'm not the best judge of this one since it's called "Dogfood" on the menu. It really is just cheese fries, but given its moniker on the menu, the final ranking can only be appropriately given by my buddy CCW. Nevertheless, I thought this was brilliant stuff. I miss good ol' cheese fries. Sure, it probably shortened my life by half a year, and increase the probability of me having heart problems in the future, but hey, it was worth it. As much as I would like to give this 10/10 Betty Coopers, Betty Cooper wouldn't shorten my life by half a year and increase the chances of me having heart problems. So, this gets a 8/10 Betty Coopers on the Betty Cooper scale.



This last one is pretty much the bomb. Pigs in a blanket. So unhealthy, but so damn good. It's basically a sausage (pig) wrapped in a slice of bacon (blanket). This in itself makes it worth going to Betty's. It really is an explosion of everything that's good in this world when it enters your mouth. You know that speech the Sam Gamgee made at the end of the Two Towers about how...ah, screw it. I'm typing it out. Chokes me up. Every single time.

"I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something."


Sam Gamgee.

Anyway, I think it's fair to say that when Frodo asks him, "What are we holding on to, Sam?", one of the appropriate answers to this question is "Pigs in a blanket from Betty's Midwest Kitchen." So, while this is superbly unhealthy, but it's probably illegal to give this anything but 10/10 Betty Coopers.

Deserves a second picture tbf.



Look at the cute little piggies, about to be devoured by the big bad wolf.

So, aggregating it all up (leave the Math to me, unless, y'know, you do macroeconomic modeling for a living - yes, I'm smirking at you now), this gets a very nice 8.5/10 on my scale (we've left the Betty Draper and Betty Cooper scale behind now). It's let down by the Betty Drapers, but as usual Betty Cooper saves the day. Price wise, it's a Mid-Level Exception, about 20 bucks per person (we did split the check though). Also, I'd suggest that if you come here, you're better off ordering the sides and sharing them rather than ordering individual dishes. It's just more fun this way and the sides are better anyway as shown by Dogfood and Pigs in a Blanket.

Moussandra - Spanish cuisine and tapas

I love the Spanish. Seriously. I mean, ever since Fernando Torres joined Liverpool, I've been all about the Spanish. I even learned a song in Spanish:-

Su brazalete demostró que era un Rojo, Torres Torres
Nunca caminarás solo, Torres Torres
Compramos al chico en la España
El coge el balón, marcará otra vez
Fernando Torres, el número nueve del Liverpool

I had my first taste of Spanish food in Boston, and I got hooked on paella. That stuff is awesome. So when I found out about this place in KL Plaza, Jalan Bukit Bintang, I had to go try it. And so, I went with He Xiang and her boyfriend, Eugene (a little awkward considering I hate being the third wheel. Which reminds me, we're recruiting a 4th! Non-vegetarians, please enquire.) to check out this place. Its location is rather shady, considering KL Plaza isn't really that popular anymore. It's kind of like the exiled cousin of the shopping centers along Jalan Bukit Bintang.



I made reservations earlier in the day, but really, there's no real need to. Then again, I went during CNY week where traffic in KL on a weekday was really smooth. There was one other couple who was there (NB: That girl wore one of the shortest dresses I've ever seen). I like the setup of the place. It's got a pretty neat ambience for both a nice couple-y dinner or dinner with friends (or dinner with a couple where you're the third wheel).



Anyway, the food is pretty pricey. I mean, it is downtown KL and it is supposedly exotic, so you kind of expect it that way. Here are the menus - tapas and main courses.





As you can see, they have a good variety of tapas, even when we disregard the vegetarian tapas. We settled on Datiles Con Bacon, and Albondigias St Climient and some other vegetarian thing I don't remember. He Xiang, if you could kindly remind me what I did not eat, that'd be great.





The balls of the lamb. Pretty good, but nothing that special. It's a workable appetiser, but not something you HAVE to get.



Now, this Bacon thing was amazing. Seriously. Even its smell was phenomenal. If you do go, and you do get this, make sure you smell it before eating it. We unanimously agreed that this was the best thing we had that day.

For our mains, we decided to order 2 things and share 'em. We chose the Paella (with no vegetables) and the Mixed Souvlaki.



The Paella was very good, imo, fit for a meal for 2 people. Since it's very good, I gave it the nickname Paella ala Xabi Alonso since Xabi is a very good player. If it was phenomenal, I'd call it Paella ala Fernando Torres. Clearly, I've run out of jokes and am making stupid ones just to pretend that I'm funny. Anyway, they were generous with the meat in the Paella, which is, naturally, a good thing. The rice was done well, sticky enough and meshed well with the meat.



Going along with my footballers analogies, the meat skewer is kinda like Luis Garcia. (Btw, for those of you who know football, this is a fantastic analogy). The meat is really, really good (i.e. very, very talented), though if I were picking at nits, the beef was a little tough. The chicken and the lamb portions were very well done, very tender. Problem is, the portion is a little on the small side(i.e. We don't see his talent enough b'cos he's so inconsistent). Although we were sharing for 3 people, it still seemed as if the meat wasn't enough.

All in all though, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal. The tapas, Xabi Alonso Paella and Luis Garcia Souvlaki were overall, very good. Definitely a place I'd go to again without hesitation. Hopefully without having to be a lamp post. And hopefully, being able to come up with better jokes in the future. My overall score for it is 8.5/10.