The popular 姐妹饭馆 Mala Hotpot from Bukit Mertajam has now opened its second branch at D’Piazza Mall in Bayan Baru.
Known for their signature Mala Hotpot (actually my first time coming across this stir-fry Mala Hotpot in Malaysia), they opened their second outlet earlier this month and it has been drawing a good crowd on a daily basis.
I was there last weekend to try out this new restaurant in D’Piazza Mall in Bayan Baru and is truly impressed.
So how this restaurant work? First you take a big bowl – and start filling them up with your choices of vegetables and meat. They have one large refrigerator with assortment of vegetables and another large box freezer with the meat. There are also an assortment of noodles (or you can have rice too) that can be cooked with the meat and vegetables that you have chosen.
Then you have three options of how you want your food to be cooked – clear soup, dry or wet mala and they have four levels of spiciness – small spicy, medium spicy, large spicy and super spicy.
The cost of meal is based on the weight of food you take plus a little charge for the cooking.
We chose to have a bowl of clear soup, one wet small spicy and one dry medium spicy, since we were unclear of how spicy it can get.
Our verdict? The clear soup is nice, very tasty but you find this type of cooking in many places. I guess this is good option if you have kids who are totally not into spicy food but then if you are coming to a Mala Hotpot place, I guess you want something that is slightly spicier.
Our bowl of wet small spicy is not too bad – I would say most people would be able to handle this level of spiciness, as it is rather mild, so I strongly recommend this for those who cant really take spicy food as you get the mala fragrance but nothing overwhelming.
Our bowl of dry medium spicy is alright – I would say for those who can eat spicy, this is nothing, however I like this because the food has a stronger mala fragrance but yet it does not numb your tongue like some mala steamboat I have had before. You can still enjoy the taste of the ingredients while savoring the lovely fragrances of the szechuan peppercorn.
For those who enjoy numbing your tongue, i would probably recommend the super-spicy, although we did not try that .. but judging from the small and medium spicy, I believe the super spicy is still tolerable.
We had three huge bowls of hotpots, more than enough to feed probably eight persons and the bill for the hotpot comes up to about RM160 which I felt is totally acceptable. There is no minimum order, so you can pick and choose what you like although don’t go too little as it might be a little difficult for the chef to cook up your order.
As for dessert, there are some amazing Asian thongsui that we ordered and tried and my two favorites are the classic red bean and the unique sweet Japanese potato sago.
Overall, a new restaurant on the island that is worth trying out – good fresh food, fabulous taste and at an affordable price. Its perfect for Mala lovers young and old dto try it out.
姐妹饭馆 D’Piazza Mall Penang
70-1-19, D’Piazza Mall
Jalan Mahsuri
11900 Bayan Baru
Penang
Tel: +6018 778 0002
