Good Friends Restaurant in Genting Highlands, Kuala Lumpur
If there's one thing that I was truly thankful for about our trip to Kuala Lumpur, it would definitely be the fact that cousin J thought of renting a car. It just made moving around so much easier and safer too. For as long as I'm with Paul or with a more experienced left-hand driver, I'll make sure to rent a car next time I'm traveling too.
So, on our 1st day in KL, we decided to head up to Genting Highlands which is a quick 1-hour drive from the city center. Paul and I have never been to Genting Highlands so we really didn't know what to expect. All we heard was the famous theme park as well as the big Resorts World casinos. The drive up reminded us of our Baguio trips only it has less dangerous curves and the road was filled with directional signages and speed humps. Finally, we reached Genting Highlands and it was a good thing that cousin B reminded us to bring our jacket as it was cold and very windy!
With nothing else to do, we decided to just eat. The choices aren't much too. We saw fast food outlets scattered around and a few hotel coffee shops along the way. It took a while for us to find Restoran Good Friends and thought of giving it a try. It's Maxims Hotel's Chinese restaurant and since this a premium hotel, we felt that this was must pretty good.
We started our meal with the Tri-Roast Platter (RM52.50) which consists of Roasted Pork, BBQ Pork and Roast Duck. I love the crunchy roast pork and was only wishing they served this with mustard. The BBQ pork a.k.a. asado/char siu was sweet and tender. The duck was a bit too chewy to be enjoyed fully so you can guess which meat had the most leftover.
The Home Style Braised Streaky Pork with Preserved Vegetables (RM 32.50) was the traditional Hong Ma with Kiamchay (salted vegetables). The sauce was quite tasty and I happily drizzled this on top of my rice. My only complain was that the pork was too fatty. It was good and fatty, oh dear.
To counter that, we had two vegetables dishes. The first was the best-selling Stir Fried Long Bean with Brinjal (RM 18.50). I wasn't sure what brinjal was until the dish came and I saw slices of eggplant. Ohh! Isn't it nice to learn something new each day? We loved how this vegetable was cooked as the long beans stayed crisp and the Chinese spices and garlic made it so addicting. Even I ended up eating a lot of this together with the eggplant. That's something new as I never liked eggplants.
The second vegetable dish was the Stir-Fried Salted Egg Pumpkin (RM 18.50). I ordered this simply because it looked so good on the photo and I am a fan of anything with salted egg. Little did I know that this would be the highlight of our meal. The combination of salted egg and pumpkin came out perfectly well and the deep-fried coating gave it an interesting crunch. The only thing missing was a unique sauce to go with this.
Lastly, we had the Good Friends Fried Rice (RM 21) which went so well with all the dishes that we ordered that day.
I'll be honest in saying that if you're not going for the casinos... there is nothing to do in Genting Highlands. Sadly, the famous theme park no longer exists to make way for the upcoming Twentieth Century Fox World that's opening in 2016. The indoor theme park was kinda sad and looked really old that if I had kids, I wouldn't dare let them go on any ride there. We walked around from one end to another, even checking out some of the stores but nothing new or different from the ones that we would see in the malls.
What a delicious lunch and should you find yourself in Genting Highland, be sure to dine here. However, if you're also not into casinos then save that time in Kuala Lumpur to explore the city instead. Perhaps, the next time I'll go back would be in 2016 for the opening for the Twentieth Century Fox Theme Park.
Good Friends Restaurant is located at Level 2, Maxims Hotel, Genting Highlands, Malaysia.
