Hot MAMA!!!!

I just got guest blogging rights!! Now to run wild hahaha... Ok not really. Lunch Buddy (LB) and I wanted something quick and nice in Sungei Wang Plaza so we ventured up to what was formerly the food court of this shopping centre. The front portion is now taken up by this restaurant known as "Hot Mama". Its on the upper most floor and accessible by escalator from the bottom directly into the restaurant, or by stairs and a convoluted maze if accessing it from the rooftop.

The restaurant is done up in a 70s retro style with orange bead curtains around round central columns and yellow and orange plastic chairs and geometrical designs on the walls. Yeah Baby!!! Air conditioning can be cold so try not to sit in the direct path of the blowers or you'd freeze.

Onto the food. Hot Mama serves a fusion style menu with Vietnamese food taking top billing. Prices are fair and start from RM8.90 for mains. Appetizers are few but interesting like Deep fried prawn and banana rolls. They have a set menu available for RM9.90 consisting of a main and an ice lemon tea. That was what I and LB opted for this time.


I had the Special Beef Noodle Soup which is Hot Mama's take on the vietnamese favourite Pho. The soup was tasty with a subtle flavour of beef broth and had a mixture of slices of beef meat, beef brisket, tendon and 2 beef balls. The noodle is kuey teow and there were generous helpings of tauge and fresh mint and red chilli, onions various other herbs. It is usually RM8.90 but for RM9.90 I got all that with an ice cold ice lemon tea drink.

I had tried this the last time and enjoyed it. Today however, whilst everything else was fine and delicious, the beef ball tasted off. When we told the waiter, he went to check with the kitchen and confirmed that the beef balls which were supposed to be kept in a cold area were not, and so they were off! He was nice enough to offer to replace the bowl even though I had nearly finished it by then! But I declined as I couldn't see myself eating another giant bowl of noodles, and so he nicely offered instead NOT to charge for my set meal! Thats customer service for you!!

LB on the other hand, opted for the Lemongrass chicken set meal. Its a chicken chop marinated in lemongrass (serai) and served very prettily with rice shaped into a block, and a poached egg (the white blob in the picture) I felt the meat was rather small even if it was delicious. For a meat eater like me, it would be quite insufficient. The poached egg was also over cooked as the yolk was hard. So overall, I'd say whilst it is nice and satisfactory, it is not something I'd recommend due to the portion size.

For dessert, we had ice cream with lotus seed paste pancake. The lotus seed pancake was rather bland but played good counterpoint to the vanilla ice cream which was sweet. The lotus seed paste was wrapped in crispy flaky pastry and served hot with 2 slices of orange on top of it. There was another more interesting dessert which was steamed tapioca which you just don't get anymore in restaurants, but they serve it here at Hot Mama. Maybe next time.

So all in all, I'd say it was a good dining experience (bar the balls) and the prices are reasonable for the portions you get. Ambiance is good but the hard chairs/benches do not encourage you to linger. Food presentation gets the thumbs up as does the taste. Give Hot Mama a shot the next time you are in Sungei Wang and don't know what to eat.