Maria's SteakCafe @ Bangsar

For my Christmas get-together with my friends, we decided to have our Christmas dinner at a place well-known for its steaks, Maria's Steak Cafe @ Bangsar.

Maria's steakhouses first opened in Ipoh about 15 years ago before venturing into KL with a branch in Damansara Perdana.  Their latest outlet in Bangsar was opened about 8 months ago.

As we had plans to proceed to another venue for desserts, we didn't want to overstuff ourselves here to make sure we still have room to 'stomach' our desserts later.
 

With that in mind, we decided to share our starters starting with the Oxtail Soup @ RM20.  Although this is the most expensive soup on their menu, it turned out really good.  The oxtail was really tender and the soup...thick and delicious.  

 

This was served with 2 slices of toasted garlic baguette.  It was nice and well needed to mop up the very last drop of soup.

 

The other soup we ordered was the Mushroom Soup @ RM9.50.  We actually had 2 orders of this as it's a crowd pleaser with the kids.  The soup was creamy with a nice dose of mushroom flavour...no complaints on this heart warming soup.

This was accompanied by an extra order of Garlic Bread (5 pcs) @ RM7.50.

For our main courses, we started off with none other than what they're famous for....steaks, of course, and my choice was a 200g slab of Australian Chilled Black Angus @ RM96 (RM48/100g).  [#Note: For those on a budget, there are lower priced steaks of Australian Chilled Rib Eye (@ RM52) and Fillet (@ RM59) or, if you have a 'bigger' wallet, go for their Australian Wagyu 5 (@ RM80/100g) or Wagyu 7 (@ RM95/100g) with sizes of around 200g.]

The Black Angus was perfectly executed to medium rare as requested (in fact, they recommend that you have it cooked to medium done at most and nothing beyond that).  [#Tip: Rare or medium rare is the best way to eat a good piece of steak but many of us would probably not be so comfortable with rare.]  One bite into the meat and you'll go....this is an honestly good slab of meat.  The meat itself was really tasty and juicy and the beautiful sear on the meat and char on the edges added a tremendous smoky flavour to the meat.

The only thing that I didn't appreciate was the cuts in the meat (as if they were used to check the doneness of the meat) as it wasn't aesthetically pleasant looking (plus the cuts could have caused some juices to leak out from the meat).  They do provide a sauce (on the side) but I strongly suggest that you eat it on its own to savour every bite of the oh-so-flavourful steak.  [#Tip: I don't know what sauce that was but it was very pungent and pretty horrible (I suspect it's mustard)...so, I'd stay the hell away from it!]

The steak is served with sautéed vegetables of potatoes, French beans, Japanese cucumber, carrots, cherry tomatoes and button mushrooms.

Our next main was the NZ Roast Leg of Lamb @ RM35 served with their traditional brown sauce and sautéed vegetables.

This came with a pretty generous amount of lamb slices which were tender with just a slight tinge of gaminess (but that's just me as I'm not that into lamb).  The well cooked brown sauce was what I liked most about this dish.

The Grilled Salmon Fillet @ RM45 was next.  The salmon was fresh but a tad overdone for my liking.  What made it all better was the tangy and refreshing tangerine sauce that came with the salmon.  It was also served with the same sautéed vegetables.

The salmon was decent, just that I had better salmon elsewhere (like at Fisherman's Cove and The Pressroom).  It was missing the crispy skin and the pinkish centre that I liked.

The Grilled Chicken @ RM20 was the choice of another in my dining party.  It comes with sautéed vegetables (again) and a choice of honey mustard or mushroom sauce.  This is the one with honey mustard sauce which was good.

There's nothing to complain about this dish, it's chicken (but, thankfully, it's not breast meat).  It's a value-for-money dish and (probably) the cheapest main on the menu.

The last main was the Chicken Parmigiana @ RM26.50 which is a bread-crumbed pc of chicken topped with a tomato salsa sauce and cheese.  This was the least successful dish as I found the chicken to be on the dry side but something kids will probably enjoy coz it's crumbed and fried and topped with melted cheese.

We refrained from ordering any drinks here as we knew we'd be drinking at the dessert place.  But we did end our dinner with a dessert 'teaser' first!! ;)  I brought the Godiva chocolates (that I got from a neighbour earlier on) and shared it with my friends.

This one is from their Truffle Flight series (there are 6 in the series from what I gather from the little brochure inside)...a very good way to tempt you further:

1)  Nut Lovers Truffle Flight Tasting Experience

2)  Dark Decadence Truffle Flight Tasting Experience

3)  Milk Chocolate Lovers Truffle Flight Tasting Experience

4)  Cake Flight Tasting Experience

5)  Heavenly Mousse Truffle Flight Tasting Experience

6)  Ultimate Dessert Truffle Flight Tasting Experience
 

The one we had is from the "Heavenly Mousse Truffle Flight Tasting Experience" series.  Inside, the mousse was made up of dark chocolate vanilla, milk chocolate, strawberry, lemon, peach and cafe au lait.  These are darn good chocolates I must say....and it was 'heaven in a bite' as the name suggests! =)

 

P/S: And then, I received even more chocolates from my neighbours (many thanks)....the Godiva milk chocolate is absolutely divine!

 

Last, but not least, we had our gift exchange....the perfect ending to our meal.  With that done, we moved on to our next anticipated venue for our sweet indulgence ;-)

 

My Personal Opinion

Maria's is definitely up there among the many good steak places....but their prices tip the higher end of the scale.  Their other more budget-value dishes (though still pleasant in taste) are not as enticing compared to their steaks.  If someone in your eating party doesn't eat beef (however), lamb would be the next logical choice.

So, is this place worth another visit?  Of course, but I would stick to what they do best (and taste best) here.....and that's their steaks!!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Maria's SteakCafé

58 Jalan Maarof
Bangsar Baru

59100 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2282 2220