French Vietnamese Food @ Bongsen, Suria KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

It has been quite a while since I dined at Bongsen. There's quite a few changes including a new menu which was pretty good. The plan was to meet up at Suria KLCC since it was near Splashie Boy and Ms. P's office. Unfortunately, Ms. P wasn't in the office so she ended up being one hour late for dinner. While waiting for her, we ordered appetizers from the menu. I won't have much descriptions for the food this time as I didn't do any of the ordering as I left it to my friends to select what we ate that night. I did picked this one - the dragonfruit and lime salad. Really good stuff and I reckon it's pretty simple to recreate at home. Tossed in lime juice, the dragonfruit cubes is topped with shredded mint leaf, crispy cuttlefish and toasted peanuts. Continuing the dragonfruit theme, I also ordered the dragonfruit and lime juice. Really refreshing and who knew lime would add so much flavour to the usually bland taste of dragonfruit.



My friend, MY ordered this - fried calamari and prawn salad. You drizzle a sweetish dressing over the salad which we didn't really like. The calamari came with a breadcrumb coating which tend to be quite hard signifying overfrying. Even though we all didn't like the salad so much, we finished it everything down to the last frisee leaf. You can't really tell from the picture by the salad also has quail eggs nestled with the frisee leaves.



We had the assorted platter of appetizers which came in two big plates for us to share. I snapped two pictures of the long platter - their chee cheong fun roll tasted kinda funny but I liked the meatballs served with the sweetish tomato sauce. Not too sure what was the item in between the meatballs and chee cheong fun rolls but I didn't like it as it was slightly chewy and a bit oily.



The fresh rice paper rolls and the tiny spring rolls were not too bad. There was also the sugarcane prawn which you eat the paste and chew on the piece of sugarcane to taste its sweet juices.



After an hour of waiting for Ms. P, she finally arrived hence we ordered the main meals to share. First was a portion of grilled lemongrass chicken. This was pretty good as it came with a brownish paste made with lemongrass that was so fragrant. The grilled chicken breast was quite juicy and went so well with the lemongrass paste.



We had to have the Beef Pho which came with tender sliced beef, beef tendons and cow's stomach. I love the rich broth and we slurped all the soup till the last drop.



Not too sure what's the name of this but it's a tomato based soup with noodles that resemble spaghetti strands. It's the ever favourite of Ms. P who must have it whenever she eats here for lunch or dinner. There's prawns, tomatoes and I think a type of beancurd in the soup. It's not spicy but quite moreish especially the broth.

Although prices here tend to be quite on the high side - dinner was approximately RM60 per pax for the food and drinks we ordered, the company made up it all. As usual, we had strange discussions like why Hong Kong men are supposedly better as boyfriends. We finally concluded they weren't ideal boyfriend or husband material since they have a tendency to acquire a second wife in China.

Bongsen
Level 4
Suria KLCC
Kuala Lumpur

(Halal. The restaurant is next to Spice of India and on the top floor of the mall.)

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here is entirely based on my personal tastebuds and may vary for others. The reviewer also declares that she has not received any monetary or non-monetary compensation from the restaurant for writing this review.

Tagged with: Vietnamese Food + Beef Pho + Dragonfruit Salad

Other reviews:

• Lots of Cravings
• Da Wheel of Life and Happiness