Friday, December 21, 2007

Soho @ 1U

Soho by Jun
G218 Ground Floor
One Utama Shopping Centre
Tel: 03-77222155
Not many people know about this restaurant, probably because it’s tucked away in an obscure location. It's located in the corner under the escalator on the Jusco supermarket floor. Although there are a few posters pointing the way, not many people bother to follow the arrows, which is quite a pity – because Soho is a gem.

When you walk into the restaurant, you’ll get almost blinded by the glaring light pouring in from the huge glass windows framing one entire wall, looking out into the LDP facing 1U. The theme is black & white – stark, by any standards. The backs and seats of some of their white fabric chairs are painted with black caricatures of faces – different faces. These face paintings are replicated in the aprons worn by their service staff.
The other thing which I like about Soho is their elegant tableware. Their white plates are flower-shaped, even their sauce plates. Their black chopsticks have elegant metal tips. It's so prettily black & white here!

Service is fast. Once you have been ushered to your table, the crew is ready to take your orders.
I always have my favourite Rose Tea (RM6) here which they serve in a pretty glass teapot and small glass Chinese teacups.

I never fail to order their Xiao Loong Pau which is very good value at RM7 for 6 pieces. The only “complaint” I have about it is that the pastry skin is a tad too thick. The soup and meat filling inside is excellent.

The Dumpling in Spicy Sauce – 6 dumplings served in not-so-spicy sauce (RM12). The meat filling was identical to the filling of the Xiao Loong Pau.


La Mian with Garlic Pork Rib (RM14) was actually “pork fillet” (3 pcs). The pork was well-marinated and tender, fried just nice. The la mian was ordinary. It was the pork fillet which lifted it.

Seafood Fried Rice with XO Sauce (RM16) was spicy. There were cubes of prawns, squids, chicken, carrots in the rice, fried with eggs and bean sprouts! It was tasty but a bit too spicy and a tad too oily.


Soho does exellent Rice Rolls (cheong fun) and they have a few varieties. Not the usual “prawns” or “cha siew” like in most restaurants – they have stuff like “prawn & beancurd skin”, “prawn & kalian”, “beef with spring onions” – just to name a few. We tried their Prawn & Beancurd Skin Rice Rolls (RM14). It was served in an elegant crescent-shaped plate. The very-fresh prawns was rolled in crispy fried beancurd skin which in turn was wrapped by the smooth Rice Rolls. Imagine – a myriad of textures – succulent springy prawns, the beancurd skin was still crispy despite being rolled in the steamed smooth rice rolls! Heavenly!

Prawn & Beancurd Skin Rice Rolls

The 1st dish of rice rolls was so good that we just had to have another one. So we ordered the Prawns & Kailan version (RM14). This time, again the super-fresh prawns together with crunchy kalian stalks were rolled in the cheong fun. Excellent! We vowed to try ALL the other cheong funs in our future visits!

Prawns & Kailan Rice Rolls

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