Expand…

Well, they are expanding all right. First, there was this place, still going strong and doing really well and then, they opened this one, a gelato place basically and that too was doing so well that they extended upwards to the first floor and now, before Chinese New Year, they opened this new outlet…

…but unlike the other one, there are more food choices here and that was why I wanted to drop by…

…and see what they had on their menu.

My girl wanted the dumplings but they were out of chicken so we had to go for the beef (RM14.50)…

…and even though they turned out completely different from the usual, she said they were all right. I did taste one and yes, they had their own recipe for the filling – I spotted some teeny weeny bits of carrot or whatever, quite different from the usual very-strong-on-the-ginger xiao lung pao kind of filling, be it pork or chicken. Ah well, I am never a fan of these dumplings, anyway.

She also had the smoked Borneo satay (RM10.90)…

…which came with a bit of pulut panggang by the side. I did not get to sample these but she said they were nice.

Knowing how much she loves sotong (squid), I asked for their crispy squid ring (RM13.50)…

…which we all enjoyed even though the batter was quite different from the usual, hence its pale colour.

I had the nasi biryani with chicken curry and rendang beef (RM16.90)…

…and while both the curry and the rendang were fine by me, I particularly liked their rice because unlike those that I had at their sister restaurant, this one had a clear hint of the Indian spices that went into the cooking, not as strong as the nice Hyderabadi vegetable biryani from the airline but I could detect a hint of it (and see some seeds, probably cumin, in the rice) and I loved it. If you go for the ones from the Malay stalls and shops, it will be more or less the same as their nasi kuning or nasi minyak or whatever you call it, nothing more than just the colour and they call it nasi biryani.

My missus had their spicy zao cai chicken ramen (RM14.50)…

…and she did enjoy that. I did not get to try it but I could catch the whiff of the zao cai as it was served and it did smell really good.

Once we were done, I proceeded to the counter to settle the bill and the sweet and friendly girl told me that it had been paid for…by the boss. The boss? But I did not see him anywhere and I did not know that he knew I was there. Probably he was there in his office watching me on CCTV! LOL!!! Never mind! Thank you so much, Anthony, for the treat, so kind and generous of you – we certainly enjoyed the lunch and sorry, we had to turn down to invitation to free gelatos – we were way too full to do them justice. Another time, perhaps!

NICA+ or NICA PLUS (2.296883,111.825859) as it is called, is located on the ground floor of the block of shops to the right of the Old Sing Kwong Supermarket (Kin Orient Plaza) along Jalan Tun Abang Hj Openg, directly below the KIMCHEE KOREAN BAR.BQ restaurant on the first floor.