Eat what, Eat where?: The Limestone @ Regalodge Hotel Ipoh

Wednesday 5 February 2014

The Limestone @ Regalodge Hotel Ipoh

Whilst staying at the Regalodge Hotel, over the Chinese New Year (CNY) period, we decided to dine at The Limestone's Fine Dining Restaurant @ Ipoh (which is their in-house restaurant) for dinner after reading Agoda's customers' positive reviews of their restaurant.

The restaurant is quite small (probably seats about 50 people) but the ambience and décor is charming, sweet and rather romantic-like. If you're into a nice, quiet, romantic dinner....this is the place to be!

Although their Limestone restaurant is listed as a French fine dining restaurant, the food and the prices are not quite fine dining like the ones in Kuala Lumpur (KL). Price wise, it is not as steep as the fine dining restaurants (in KL) but still pricey (by Ipoh standards). I would say rather similar to the prices of a steakhouse in KL.

We were served their in-house bread with herbed butter before our appetisers arrived. The bread (which looked pretty as well) was warm and soft and, when eaten with the creamy herbed butter, was indeed a good start to our meal.

We started with a hot appetiser of Escargots A La Bourguignon @ RM28 which are burgundy baked escargots (French for snails) in a garlic parsley butter and wine and served with an onion baguette.

A bourguignon is a French sauce made with a base of red wine and shallots (or onions). The snails were quite plump (in size) and juicy while the wine flavour was very subtle as the sauce tasted slightly garlicky....quite pleased with this dish!

The next appetiser was a soup, the Soupe A L'oignon @ RM13 which is a traditional French onion soup sautéed with butter and fresh herbs and served with a baguette on top.

This starter was not as good as the Baked Escargots for the onions were sliced rather thick and not cooked down enough, thus, did not bring much sweetness to the soup.

Our first main course was the Spaghetti Scallopine Di Pollo @ RM23. The menu listed this as grilled chicken thigh marinated with spicy sweet sour sauce and herbs and served with pan-fried Italian spaghetti and grated cheese but what we got was not grilled chicken thigh but deep fried chicken breast instead.

The spaghetti was cooked al dente and tasted alright but the deep fried chicken breast was a bit dry. This dish was 'value-for-money' as the portion was hefty.

The other main course was The Atlantis Trio @ RM78.90 which comprised of grilled grouper, baked cod and grilled salmon served with 3 different sauces. The grilled grouper was accompanied with a sweet and sour sauce that helped to mask the 'not-so-fresh' fish.

The baked cod which came with a slightly sweet teriyaki sauce, on the other hand, tasted very much like the sweetish bean sauce in your "chee cheong fun" (rice noodle rolls). The cod fish was fresh, sweet and flaky.

The salmon, on the other hand, was seared well with the outside slightly crisp (but a tad overcooked) and was served with some herbed cheese sauce.

This dish would have been better if they had served the fish, with the 3 types of sauces, separately, without it mingling with the sauce next to it.

I rounded my meal with a glass of Iced Latte @ RM8 which was not good as it was rather diluted.

[#Tip: All prices in the restaurant are subject to 6% government tax only, which was a welcome surprise!! And, if you happen to be a guest of the hotel, you get a 10% discount....yay!]

My Personal Opinion

The dinner was somewhat satisfying (especially after too much Chinese food over the CNY period) although some parts of the menu could be better.

Price wise, it's pretty pricey (by Ipoh standards) and can even rival the prices of some of the steakhouses in KL!

As a western dining option in Ipoh, this is probably acceptable but, if compared with KL western dining establishments, I can find a lot better ones here in KL at around the same prices.