Sukishi @ The Starling — Restaurant in Petaling Jaya

NON-HALAL. Great value buffet hot pot. It's a good idea to come for a late weekday lunch/ early dinner - less people, lower pricing tier and the staff have more of a chance to serve you well. As an addition to the hot pot, we love to come for the Sukishi fried chicken wings. They are very crispy yet juicy and are a highlight on their own. The soup bases are good too, we like the Miso base most and the tomato soup is great for a very flavourful second option, especially if you enjoy lamb and beef. The tomato cooks down to something akin to a bolognaise sauce by the end and is delicious. Meat choices are pork, chicken, lamb and beef. We believe they have prawns, too. But we never ask for it as we don't like it in our soups. We love the salad bar choices - taro is excellent but you have to leave it to stew until the end for best texture, the beancurd skin (fu pei) is of a nice quality, and egg tofu, cheese tofu are our must haves. There are also mussels in shell, lots of greens, veggies and pork balls, too. The buffet also comes with some limited sushi choices. We don't really care for those but they're a quick feed option if you have arrived starving and can't wait for the soup to come to a boil. Dessert is basic. Matcha or Chocolate softserve ice cream with a small variety of toppings like cornflakes and peanuts. Beverages included are water, orange juice, and green tea. Soft drink is an additional cost, if you prefer. The restaurant air-conditioning is full blast and chilly but this creates an environment that is perfect hot pot weather. We love!

We like this affordable comfort food place that's good for a casual date or to gather with family. Sukishi is a place we return to for those lazy days when we want to cook - but don't want...

Quite good bargain for money spent. Meats were of fairly good quality, the goat? lamb? meat has a certain stink to it that some might find objectionable, but we quite enjoyed the stinkiness! We like the pork best as it's neutral taste absorbs the sukiyaki broth we had.

As expected, the shabushabu soup was a little bland, recommended for people who wanted to enjoy the original taste of the food offered.

The vegetable spread was quite good as well, the daikon radish appears authentic, firm, takes longer time to cook and has good texture. The pumpkin was amazingly delicious and was not over powered by the sukiyaki broth.

We stirred in some udon into the shabushabu broth because it has the least stuff in it and fished out all the noodles once it's firm enough. If you're not going to eat the noodles immediately, shake in a few pieces of ice to stop further cooking.

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to Sukiyaki, but we prefer to alternate plenty of vegetables (all fresh and blemish free) along with the meat.

Dessert was matcha ice cream. As a general rule, I'm quite prepared to hate all matcha related sweets but gave this one a chance. There is an initial sweetness followed by a gradual shift towards the distinctive bitterness of true matcha tea.

My only regret was that I am unable...

We Malaysian love shopping malls - even though we might not buy anything but we simply love the idea of shopping in a mall.. just to enjoy the air condition rather than basking under the sun out there. Therefore many restaurant thrives in a shopping mall if the place has steady stream of customers.

I'd found out about a steamboat place lately in The Starling Mall - I seldom go here despite being close to home. But this is one of the rare steamboat restaurants in a mall that serve pork. Imagine my excitement and I quickly planned a trip there. We were there on weekday and it was a non-peak hour at that time so we paid lesser than others would have paid. And it's all-you-can-eat (yes.. buffet style) steamboat.

◾take whatever you want from the buffet counter - greens, taufu, meatballs, sausages, mushrooms, corns, tomato, etc ◾They had clams and prawns too... Pretty fresh I'd say ◾Meat-wise you will have to order through the waitress who would bring out to you by tray. I ordered a lot of their thinly sliced pork belly that required minimal time in the boiling soup. I think that I might have ordered at least 6-8 trays of the meat alone. ◾the chilly sauce was passable.

Overall I like this place because the ingredients were...