Ploy With Your Food

Venue: Ploy @ Damansara Heights
Occasion: Lunch with colleagues
Overall comment: Delectable food, but portion is rather small for the price paid. Some colleagues just couldn't accept this "depressing" truth - price + portion are just unfavourable.
Halal: Pork free (alcohol is served)

I've been working at Damansara Heights for almost a year now & have not been really exploring the food options available in this area. To put it very bluntly, I have almost given up hope on coming across any good food at affordable prices. This time around, I just thought of gathering a few colleagues to try out this rather new restaurant in the building next door to our office.

The word "Ploy" simply means "gem" in Thai. Inspired by the true gems of Thai & Japanese cuisine, the owner of this restaurant, Jared Lim, started this restaurant some time in the middle of this year. The restaurant serves interesting fusion food, blending in the goodness of Thai & Japanese food to give Ploy a niche of its own.

The restaurant's interior was quite interesting & nicely done up. The restaurant comprises of various 'segments' to cater for the various needs of its patrons. As you walk into the restaurant, you'll be greeted by the large restaurant logo & personally, it felt like walking into a spa (where the reception counter is in front & the main areas are at the sides)...hahaha....you'll also notice a nicely lit shelf of liquor on your right before you enter the main dining area.

There, you'll find the bar & 2 semi-enclosed rooms that could seat up to 10 persons apart from the open dining area. The interesting thing is that these semi-enclosed rooms do not have solid walls, but the unique steel dividers (as seen in photo below) are the walls & curtains can be drawn to give your little group the extra privacy needed. Nice :) In fact, after our lunch, we were given a short tour of the place where we discovered 2 more "hidden" rooms cosy enough for private functions (as seen in photo above)! One of the rooms have a ceiling covered with lightbulbs, which was VERY fascinating! To add to the excitement, Ploy is currently running a contest on "Guess the number of lightbulbs" - more information can be obtained from their Facebook page.

Guess how many lightbulbs hang on the ceiling at Ploy

Interesting Concept

Check out the staffs' t-shirts! How fun :D

As first timers, we decided to try out their set lunch of the day (available Mondays - Saturdays). Everyday, Ploy will offer a different set lunch menu comprising of a glass of ice lemon tea, salad, & a main dish to give their patrons a variety & excitement to drop by on different days. It was a Thursday when we had lunch at Ploy, so their set lunch for the day was the Pasta with Nori & Fresh Cream.

Thursday's Set Lunch: Linguini Mentaiko - Pasta with Seaweed & Fresh Cream (RM19.90+/set)

The salad had a very Asian touch - vinegar-sour, ginger-spicy, & slightly sweet dressing on a common garden salad mixture of greens & tomatoes. It's probably an acquired taste as my friend didn't really like the ginger taste in the dressing. The pasta on the other hand is a pasta dish without meat, but you'll get some pollack roe instead. It's rather Japanese, but the cream gave the dish a twist of east meets west. Taste-wise, the pasta is quite delicious - not too heavy on the cream, but we found it slightly heavy on the salt & the portion was quite small for 1 person. It's probably suitable for small eaters/women, but men will find it too small to fill up their huge appetites. I'm not a big-eater (I'm just a ruthless eater...haha), but I could actually have 1 1/2 - 2 portions of this set when I'm hungry! Hahaha.

Sushi, pasta, & pizza

DC & I shared the set lunch, which was obviously not enough. We ordered another sushi roll, Pink Lady, thinking that it'll be sufficient to satisfy our moderately large appetites. The sushi roll was presented really nicely, with a slice of strawberry topping the rice roll with crispy soft shell crabs. I find it an interesting combination to have strawberry on a sushi roll - gives a slightly sour & sweet taste to the rice roll. The only set back - it was MINI and it costs RM16.00/4 pieces or RM30.00/8 pieces :( Each piece is the diameter of a RM0.50 coin only *sobs* Taste was nice, but for the price paid, it was really expensive.

BK ordered the Spaghetti Thai Anchovies (RM21.00/serving), which was another pasta dish that was quite appetizing. The pasta had a slightly spicy & sour taste on top of the salty anchovies, & the fresh black peppers gave the dish an extra punch. I'm quite "kampung" & it's my 1st time trying out how fresh black pepper tastes (I usually see the dried ones) - interesting!

Ok, thank goodness our wallets were sufficiently loaded that day. One set meal + 1 sushi roll wasn't enough for DC & I! We ended up ordering a Spicy Salmon Pizza (RM25.00/pizza) for sharing. Gluttony? Erm, not really. Portion was just insufficient for Malaysians like us :P The Spicy Salmon Pizza isn't the traditional pizza that you have at Italian restaurants, Pizza Hut/Dominoes Pizza. The base is a very thin, crispy pastry, with puréed avocados & spring onions as the base sauce. Pan-seared salmon, oyster mushrooms, & fish roe topped the pizza, along with 1 mint leaf on each slice - gives the palette a different dimension of taste.

The other pizza ordered was the Popcorn Chicken Pizza (RM22.00/pizza). According to those who had that, it's more favourable compared to the Spicy Salmon Pizza although the salmon variant was recommended by their chef, Daniel. The salmon pizza is one of the best sellers, but I guess this is all up to the individual preference. The Popcorn Chicken Pizza is probably very similar to KFC. I can't comment much since I didn't try that pizza :)

Will I go to Ploy for lunch again? 

Well, if I'm not very hungry or if someone picks the bill, I won't mind dining at Ploy. It's a nice restaurant with decent-tasting food - not forgetting good customer service as well! The only set back personally, is the portion & price. These are actually factors that are of great priority when I pick a place to dine. Treat this place as a fine-dining/high-class restaurant with good ambiance & you'll find yourself more contented ;)

"Ploy with your food - with caution & care on your wallet & stomach"

Map to Ploy

Ploy Restaurant & Bar
G-02, WORK@Clearwater
Jalan Changkat Semantan
Damansara Heights
50490 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Tel: (+603) 2095 0999
Fax: (+603) 2095 9181
URL: www.ploywithyourfood.com
Facebook: Ploy's Facebook Page



Ratings:
Presentation: * * *
Price: * *
Environment: * * *
Taste: * * 1/2
Service: * * *


Overall





If only the price was lower & portion was more generous,