Chinese New Year Preparations

The Year of the Rabbit is exactly 10 days' away!
For those of you who will be celebrating the Chinese New Year, how are your preparations coming along?  Bought your new (red) clothes?  Cleaned the house? Changed the curtains? Bought the CNY deco items?  Baked the cookies, or ordered them?



Well, I have done some of the above... still some baking to do this coming weekend.  Not that I'm baking a whole lot of stuff - just that a couple of friends have asked me to bake some cookies for them... the rest are just for family and as gifts when we go visiting during the Chinese New Year.  I always think bringing along some home-baked stuff to friends' and relatives' homes sure beat store-bought snacks, don't you agree?

Chynna @ Hilton KL - Standard Chartered Bank Extravagant 8 Menu

Chynna at The Hilton Kuala Lumpur is yet another top Chinese restaurant in the Klang Valley selected to offer the Standard Chartered  Bank Extravagant 8 menu to their credit card holders.  A customised menu priced at RM888++ per table for 8 pax, Standard Chartered Bank credit card holders will not only be taken on a gastronomical journey, they will also be treated to complimentary fortune cookies.



Let's see what Chynna has in store for this Extravagant 8 Menu... which, by the way, is only available from 20 January till 17 February 2011.



As customary, a Lunar New Year festive meal will not be "festive" without starting off with a Lo Sang - a concoction of shredded vegetables and fruits, fried crispies, crushed peanuts and tossed with a special sauce.



Organic Melon, Gold Pumpkin & Fruits Lo Sang
This traditional dish has all the usual colourful shredded vegetables and lots of crispies & crushed peanuts - will definitely appeal to those who love lots of crunch & nuts in their Lo Sang!



Hot & Sour Soup with Kimchi, Fish Maw & Bamboo Piths
The regular Hot & Sour Szechuan-style soup given an extra "oomph" from the dollop of Kimchi added.



Steamed Canadian Cod in Fisherman Sauce



Stewed Sun-dried Oysters with Fatt Choy, Braised Peanuts & Chicken
Very "home-cooked" feel to this dish, as the cooking style and ingredients used bring on the "comfort food" nuance - a tad too heavy on the sodium though... perhaps some white rice accompanying this would not be a bad idea?



Wok-fried Nian Gao with Chinese Cabbage & Mushrooms
Slices of white smooth slippery rice cakes lightly cooked with perhaps just a dash of hoisin sauce?



And dessert...



Chynna is helmed by the affable Chef HH Lam...



... who hails from Port Dickson and has cooked for delegates of the APEC and ASEAN Summit Meetings.  Chef Lam has been with the Hilton Group since 2000.



Special thanks to Mr Timothy Johnson for this invitation sent via Meena of A Whiff of Lemongrass to try out this menu.  If you are a Standard Chartered Bank credit card holder, make your way to any of the 8 top restaurants participating in this campaign for a special meal to usher in the Year of the Rabbit!  Just to recap, the other 7 restaurants are:

1.  Li Yen, The Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur
2.  Shanghai, JW Marriott Kuala Lumpur
3.  Celestial Court, Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur
4.  Tai Zi Heen, Prince Hotel & Residences, Kuala Lumpur
5.  Zing, Grand Millennium Kuala Lumpur
6.  Gu Yu Tien
7.  Elegant Inn

Chynna @ Hilton Kuala Lumpur
3 Jalan Stesen Sentral
50470 Kuala Lumpur
Tel:  03-2264-2264  Fax: 03-2264-2266

Elegant Inn - Taman Connaught

With the Chinese New Year barely 2 weeks away and since we're talking about one of my favourite Chinese restaurants - Elegant Inn - I think it's quite timely that I share some of their other great offerings.  The few posts I have put up here so far were about their Menara Hap Seng restaurant.

Now, let's take a yummy look at their Taman Connaught restaurant.  Oh before that, did I mention that Elegant Inn is listed in The Miele Guide as 1 of Asia's Finest Restaurant for 2010/2011? 

Elegant Inn had been making waves in the Chinese, particularly Hong Kong-style cuisine scene, in the Klang Valley for a number of years now... starting from their Taman Connaught restaurant.  Housed in a humble intermediate shoplot, this restaurant is only open on Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays and helmed by the gorgeous-looking Chef Wesley Ng.  On all the other days, you can catch Chef Wesley in their Menara Hap Seng outlet.  Yes - that's for the benefit of Chef Wesley's legion of fans... which is growing by the day, so I heard :-)

To usher in the Year of the Rabbit, Jeannette Han & her team have come up with 6 special Festive Menus, ranging from RM798++ to RM2,988++ for 10 persons.  The menus go by names like Auspicious, Happy, Blossom, Noble, Wealthy and Supreme ... all very appropriate for the Chinese New Year, wouldn't you say?

Some of the items on these menus are featured in the Standard Chartered Bank Extravagant 8 Menu.

Other special offerings you can find in Elegant Inn... my favourite among the trio below are those wicked Scallops rolled in Bacon - they are out of this world, believe me.



In my previous post, I talked about their signature Salted Egg Yolk style of cooking used for prawns.  Their usual offering for this style of cooking is actually their Crabs...



... and remember I mentioned how Chef Wesley would painstakingly and patiently spend 20-25 minutes just to cook up this dish?  I know, because I have seen him doing it...



Talking about signature dishes, do ask for their Pepper Pig Stomach Soup... double-boiled with all sorts of goodies like village chicken, pork ribs, dried scallops, chinese ham, pickled mustard...

Their signature Golden Boneless Stuffed Chicken... something not to be missed!

On one occasion when we had dinner there, we were served this rather plain looking plate of Noodles... which at first glance, looked rather boring. 



However, we learned a valuable lesson that night: Do Not Judge Noodles by Their Look! 

This was where the genius-ness (for lack of a better word) of Chef Wesley came into play.  One slurp of these noodles and we were sold... totally.  For all I could see, there were only mushrooms and Chinese chives used in this dish... so how did Chef Wesley make this one of the yummiest-ever noodles dish I had ever eaten?  This is a must-order item for us.

OK, if noodles aint your scene, then you must... you must really... try this...



That, is possibly the Best Lap Mei Fan (Rice with Waxed Meats) on this side of the planet.  Read how Masak-Masak describes this - she does a much better job than I ever could.  Jeannette personally goes to Hong Kong and scouts for the best waxed meats there and personally hand-carry them back.  Such is the pride and passion this lady has for the fare served in Elegant Inn.

The goose liver sausage used in this divine pot is from the famed Yung Kee in Hong Kong, no less... my favourite!



The Lap Mei Fan is featured in some of their festive CNY Menus... else, you can also order this a'la carte... until stocks last!  I'd advise that you call to book this in advance - it is, after all, the Best Lap Mei Fan around here :-))





Elegant Inn Restaurant
16 Jalan Waras 1
Taman Connaught, Cheras
56000 Kuala Lumpur
Tel:  03-9130-2626
Fax:  03-9132-6577

*Opens Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays only
Operation hours: Fridays:  12.00pm - 2.30pm & 6.00pm - 10.30pm
Saturdays & Sundays:
10.30am - 2.30pm & 6.00pm - 10.30pm

Elegant Inn - Standard Chartered Bank Extravagant 8 Menu

I was pretty excited when I was invited by Elegant Inn recently to try out one of their special menus which they have crafted in association with Standard Chartered Bank's promotion for their credit card holders for the coming Chinese New Year.  It's always a thrill for me to dine at Elegant Inn since I discovered this gem of a restaurant last year.  Since my very first visit, I had been bowled over by their fine HK-style Chinese cuisine and I have been back there several times with friends and family.

I'm so glad to see that Standard Chartered Bank has included Elegant Inn into their list of 8 Top Chinese restaurants in the Klang Valley.  Customised Extravagant 8 Menus have been specially prepared by their best chefs exclusively for Standard Chartered Bank credit card holders at a price of RM888+ per table of 8 pax from 20 January 2011 to 17 February 2011.

Let's see what's in store at Elegant Inn for the Standard Chartered Bank Extravagant 8 Menu...

To usher in the Year of the Rabbit, what better way to start than to partake in the Bountiful Harvest Salmon Lo-Sang?



Freshly-shredded cucumber, carrots, radish, ginger, pomelo, snow pear were tossed together fresh salmon, pearl clam strips and jelly fish.  I like it that one of their service crew actually helped us to vocalise all the good fortune wishes as we tossed the Lo-Sang as high as possible (without messing up the table too much!)... it was pretty enlightening to learn all the correct Chinese phrases for prosperity, good health, great career, abundant luck etc etc.  The sauce used to bind the Lo-Sang was light and refreshing - in fact, the whole Lo-Sang dish was light and refreshing with none of the cloyingly sweet, oily or overly-crunchy textures (as in, too much of crispies used) that some restaurants favour.  Every mouthful was a wonderful mixture of gorgeous "mouthfeel" - fresh crunchy juicy vegetables + fruits, tender marine-fresh salmon, delicately chewy pearl clam strips and stringy bouncy jellyfish!



The soups served in Elegant Inn are mostly double-boiled as this is the best way to seal in the tastes and flavours of the ingredients.  In the double-boiling method, evaporation is minimised, thus reducing the loss of flavours, yet extracting the best from the ingredients used.



Double-boiled Village Chicken Soup with Cordyceps Flowers & US Top Shell subscribes perfectly to this, resulting in the sweetest naturally-flavoured soup.  Cordyceps Flower is a valuable Chinese herb believed to help build the body's immunity, particularly good for the lungs.  A huge platter of the ingredients used in this soup - village (free-range) chicken, pork ribs, dried scallops, chinese ham, US top shell were dished out and served... still flavourful from the double-boiling!

Golden Fried Estuary Garoupa with Chinese Leeks was served next...



A thick generous slice of the giant estuary garoupa, fried to a golden hue and topped with chinese leeks and "har-kon" (dried prawn strips from Hong Kong) served with a light sauce made from superior soyasauce.



This is one of the best way to serve "loong tann" - as this rendered the thick fish skin to be both crispy & slightly chewy.  A prized catch, this fish dish was a clear favourite (including mine) round our table that evening!

Crystal Prawns done in Elegant Inn's signature Salted Egg Yolk style was next...



I think the photo speaks for itself.  Unlike most restaurants, the buttery salted egg yolks had been cooked in such a way that the rich flavours had been totally infused into the prawns, not merely coating their shells.  I have personally watched their Head Chef, the dashing Wesley Ng, cooked this dish - how the salted egg yolks were meticulously & painstakingly cooked with butter and then skilfully immersed into the fresh succulent prawns, resulting into a decadently rich dish - they don't label this their "signature style" for nothing! The whole cooking process of their signature Eggyolk dishes (it goes very well with crabs, too) takes not less than 20-25 minutes by Chef Wesley Ng!

Prior to this dinner, I had actually tasted their Golden Boneless Stuffed Chicken with Chicken Tomato Salad and my family members couldn't stop raving about it.  It is rather an "old fashioned" dish, favoured in many traditional Chinese restaurants.  It is pretty labour-intensive as all the chicken meat had to be stripped off and usually a fish paste is then replaced on the chicken skin and fried.  Elegant Inn's version is one notch higher - prawn paste is used instead.  Imagine a layer of golden crispy chicken skin over a marine-sweet layer of tender, succulent prawn paste, fried to perfection.



At the sides, you will find freshly-cut tomato wedges, topped with shredded chicken meat and doused with a delightful orange balsamic dressing.  One word to describe this dish? Dropdeadyummy.

What's Chinese New Year without the requisite oysters, mushrooms and sea cucumbers?  I mean, it's an absolute "must" to have this and Elegant Inn did not disappoint... just look at their Braised Sea Cucumber with Dried Oyster, Fatt Choy & Mushroom dish...



Thick slices of sea cucumber, fat juicy Japanese oysters, plump Chinese mushrooms - there is no stingeing on good quality ingredients here.  A very typical Chinese New Year dish and Elegant Inn's version was excellent, down to the very last drop of the delicious gravy!

Just when we thought we couldn't possibly eat another morsel, Braised Seafood Rice with Australian Scallops & Fresh Crabmeat was served, amidst "oooh's" and "aahh's" from the diners at our table.



Look at the photo and you'll understand where the "oooh's" and "aahh's" came from.  See those generous chunks of scallops and fresh crabmeat?  Is it any wonder that this entire plate was wolfed down, despite everyone being "so full" prior to this??!

No matter how full one is, there IS always room for dessert.  Try and challenge this, if you dare, haha!



Especially when the dessert comes as a twin:  Panfried Traditional Rice Cake & Hazelnut Cookies AND Chilled Japanese Pumpkin Sago with Green Beans.  Soft chewy slices of "niao gao" - rice cake lightly panfried in the nude with no coating whatsoever, paired with crunchy buttery hazelnut cookies... then wash all these down with some creamy pumpkin puree infused with gelatinuous sago and soft green beans
- a perfect end to a perfect meal.



To all you Standard Chartered credit card holders out there:  All I can say is, you are in for a great meal with this Extravagant 8 Menu in Elegant Inn - a meal extravagant only in the value and freshness of the ingredients used and the culinary skills employed; a meal well worth the RM888++ tag. 

Dining here is an art and an experience in itself.  I say this not because this was an invited review but because time and again when I dined in Elegant Inn, the experience has always been memorable, in a most delightful way.

Besides Elegant Inn, there are 7 other Chinese restaurants which are listed on the Standard Chartered Bank Extravagant 8 campaign: 

1.  Li Yen, The Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur
2.  Shanghai, JW Marriott Kuala Lumpur
3.  Celestial Court, Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur
4.  Tai Zi Heen, Prince Hotel & Residences Kuala Lumpur
5.  Zing, Grand Millennium Kuala Lumpur
6.  Gu Yu Tien Restaurant
7.  Chynna, Hilton Kuala Lumpur

Elegant Inn also has a variety of their own special Chinese New Year Menus to offer... and some of these dishes featured here are available in their other CNY menus as well as on their A La Carte menu.
* Reservations are strongly recommended!

Elegant Inn Hong Kong Cuisine
2.01  2nd Floor, Podium Floor
Menara Hap Seng
Jalan P Ramlee
50250 Kuala Lumpur
Tel:  03-2070-9399  Fax: 03-2070-9398
email:  ei_hs@streamyx.com

Tau Yew Bak

When someone mentions "comfort food", an immediate image that would come to my mind is "Tau Yew Bak" - Pork braised in Dark Soya Sauce.  When I run out of ideas on what to cook for dinner or when I have one of those insane urges to have something porky to go with rice, invariably this dish would be my choice.



So what makes a good Tau Yew Bak?  There are various versions to this popular dish.  My version would require a good cut of Belly Pork.  Some would prefer other cuts of pork, like shoulder loin, shank etc but I think nothing beats the belly cut. Make sure you get a cut with equal layers of fatty and lean meat.  You do need the fatty layer - that's what gives this dish it's flavourful lardy taste.

Get a good bottle of Dark Soya Sauce - one that's thick and sweetish with aromatic caramel nuances.  Make sure you use enough of this to give the gravy a dark luscious look.  I like it really dark - brownish hues just won't do.

You will also need a good measure of high quality Light Soya Sauce - this kinda binds the dark soya sauce and porky flavours really well.

So all you have to do is saute several whole pieces of garlic in some oil, add in the pork, stir well.  Add in the soya sauces (both light & dark), enough water to cover the meat and braise in low heat for 20-30 minutes until the pork softens to the right bite.  If you want a more sweetish tinge to the gravy, add in some sugar.  For a more substantial twist, add in some boiled eggs and serve this with some sambal belacan by the side.  I guarantee you will down tons of rice with this :-))

The good thing about this dish is that it keeps really well - in fact, it tastes better after 1-2 days!

So, what's your comfort food?

Dancing Fish!

Not even a week had passed since I got back from Bali and I jumped, without hesitation, when dear Masak-masak asked if I'd like to go try out Dancing Fish.  I mean, I had been gorging on Indon-Balinese food for 4 days prior to that and yet I couldn't wait to go and check out Dancing Fish, a new restaurant serving Malay-Indo cuisine located on the 3rd Floor of the spanking new refurbished wing of Bangsar Shopping CEntre.



The signature dish & namesake of the restaurant - Dancing Fish is a delightfully fried Red Tilapia so skillfully fried till the entire fish can be eaten, bones, head and all.  With accompanying ladies fingers, long beans and tomatoes and sitting prettily on a sweetish-sourish tangy sauce known as "Masam Kedondong Pedas", the only direction the cleverly-contorted fish danced was straight into our tummies.  By the time we were done with the fish, the plate was cleaned out - not a single bone was left!



Service was fast and courteous.  During the short lapses while waiting for the next dishes to be served, we were busy snacking on the Emping crackers which we dipped enthusiastically into the sambal terasi - it was pretty addictive!  The Indonesian crackers made from melinjo nuts, slightly bitterish, went so well with the sambal terasi, not unlike our sambal belacan but with crushed tomatoes added in.



I really love love their Kerabu Pucuk Paku!  Lightly blanched jungle ferns served with a coconut-based gravy with just the right combination of turmeric, shallots and daun salam - this dish won the "fastest disappearing" award for that meal.  I was so happy this was right in front of me and I made sure it didn't quite move away from me much, hehe!  I was so tempted to tilt the plate and pour all the gravy onto MY plate.  This is one vegetables dish I would order and order again!



I loved their Terung Sambal too.  Eggplant grilled and slathered with a thick sambal sauce and topped with crispy fried shallots, this was a winner in my books.  But my only grouch about this dish is that it will make you want to "tambah nasi" (add more rice!), such is its addictive sambal.



We had a whole Bebek Goreng Bali (Fried Duck) which was thoughtfully served in 2 plates.  The chefs at Dancing Fish must be master-fryers because the duck was fried to a crisp but had not lost any of its flavour plus the flavours of the marinade.  I had no need of the accompanying chilli dip - the pieces of crunchy ducky were scrumptious on their own.



The one not-so-on dish, for me, was the Tahu Telur.  It didn't do much for me in terms of taste and texture.



Cumi Cumi Bakar - yes, it tasted as good as it looked up there.  Squids are not exactly the easiest item to cook but the chefs here have done a marvelous job.  Smooth and tender (not chewy at all), the fresh squids were grilled to perfection.  I totally dig the sweet sticky sauce (I suspect it's made from "kicap manis") glistening on the smokey shiny plump squids.  Definitely a favourite round the table!



You can choose between plain white rice or yellow rice to go with your dishes.  Tasting a bit like our local "nasi minyak", the fragrant spicy yellow rice (a tad oily) went very well with all the dishes.  In fact, you can even just eat it on its own - it's tasty that way.



Desserts... Chendol with Durian Ice-cream... this is so decadent!  Thick coconut milk, soft pandan-flavoured chendol, red beans, thick gula melaka and best of all, that scoop of divine durian icecream.



If chendol is not your scene, go for something lighter in the form of Lemongrass Jelly served with some "pearls" of assam which give you a delightful sour experience when they burst in your mouth.  I have no idea how these were made - I'd surely love to learn its secret.



The jelly is served with fried rolls with either mango or durian filling.  Guess which was my choice?



The restaurant has lots of elegant wooden beams everywhere... criss-crossing cleverly for a gorgeous visual impact...



... and a beautiful "feature wall" on one side... assorted batik patchwork-like designs...






Dancing Fish Malay-Indo Cuisine
3rd Floor Bangsar Shopping Centre
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2095-6663