Ruyi & Lyn @ Bangsar Shopping Center KL - Worth It Or Not?

"Red carpet entrance. Not bad." I whispered to my friend while taking a step down from the supposed runway.

Despite the grand entrance, I wasn't huge on the interior. It had two-storey high ceilings and table spotlights which made me feel slightly uneasy, over-exposed even. After all, the place was designed to be transformed into an event hall for private ocassions, hence the added space.

Personal prefence aside, service was attentive though I thought that there were way too many servers and waiters hanging around, which didn't do us much favor however. We were casually charged with portions of finger food that was forgotten about in the earlier parts of our meal. Remember to check your receipts.

Clearly not impressed just yet - at least the servers had my napkin done right and pulled out an additional chair for my bag.

On that note, Ruyi & Lyn serves modern Chineses cuisine.

Most cocktails here are priced at Rm38/glass. We had the LYN's Basil-licious (Rm38), Ellen's Expressive (Rm38) and Twisted Whiskey (Rm38) [not in picture].

Possibly one of the most social-media-famous dish around! Ruyi's Sushi (Rm43) came with 3 quintessential Malaysian favorites - Hainanese chicken rice, Nasi lemak and Mango sticky rice.

Yes, all of it tasted exactly like how I'd expected it to be - the Hainanese rice tasted just like Hainanese rice, likewise the Nasi lemak and the Mango sticky rice. Huge thumbs up on creativity and taste but for 43 bucks? This dish is probably only worth trying once.  

I love soft shell crabs and the Bikini Island Crab (Rm58) did not disappoint. The dish had three prefectly crisp soft shell crab, deep fried to an addictive golden brown color, and served with mint sauce at the side.

Aren't Pokemon yellow? The dim-sum bags of Pokemon's Prawn (Rm63) had bouncy prawns hidden inside, topped with sprinkles of ebiko, seaweed and mango, and sitting on a dollop of wasabi mayo beneath.

Next, Smoky Chicken (Rm38). The plate came with two portions of tender chicken strips stacked high, drenched in sweet sauce. I'm not entirely sure on the smoky part however - it was roasted.

Overall Rating: 7/10. While my dinner was delicious and creativity top notch, it'd didn't exactly impressed. For that price, I was seriously expecting premium quality ingredients and perhaps a little more oomph in terms of flavors, which was not entirely there yet.

To note: I read in a couple of blogs that the venue will be turned into a club after 10pm. False alarm. There were no disco ball in sight nor dance floor, but the music volume was turned up, which prove to be slightly distracting, considering I had to raise my voice up a notch too.

Obviously we didn't have enough to eat for dinner, we drove to Bangsar for dessert at Inside Scoop and then Dip & Dip after that. So much for a sweet ending.

Ruyi & Lyn is located at:

Address: 4th Floor, Bangsar Shopping Centre, Jalan Maarof, 59100 Kuala Lumpur.

Phone: +603-2083 0288

Opening Hours: Lunch (12-3pm) Dinner (6pm-2am). Daily.