Last month it was the Vietnamese cooking demo and Vietnamese promotion at Latest Recipe, Le Meridien. Now the very same hotel runs the Taste of Italy” culinary event featuring guest Chef Fabrizio from Westin Bejing Financial Street.
Together with a bunch of bloggers & members of media, we were treated to a cooking demonstration by the good chef, and here’s one of his recipe.
Now even I think I can properly cook a meal with lobster that will do the shell fish justice. Here’s the recipe.
glorious Maine lobster in frying pan with olive oil, herbs & cherry tomato
Ingredients:
For the pesto
here’s the spaghetti with lobster
The preparation method is pretty straight forward, and let me just copy verbatim from Chef Fabrizio’s text.
Roast garlic in large pan with olive oil. Add lobster, cherry tomato and cook with some water, add seasoning. Boil pasta in a large pot with salted water until the favorite cooking. Blend herbs with the olive oil for pesto. Take“` lobster out of the sauce, clean the tongs and half the tail. Arrange halved tail in a plate. Strain spaghetti and add sauce with herb pesto and butter. Arrange spaghetti beside the lobster, add lobster meat. Decorate with some herb leaves and serve.
fresh spring herb pesto, prepared with a blender
It’s pretty simple isn’t it?
Chef Fabrizio has a bit of flair and the lack of “seriousness” when it comes to preparation of his dishes. As he proudly said “I am not a pastry chef”, and cooking should involves a sense of flexibility and creativity. I like this style.
In fact, in a short span of 1 hour or so, the good chef prepared three dishes right in front of us, including the eggplant millefeuille recipe shared by Kim.
and we were served a very good buffet spread too, Chef Fabrizio & Chef Antoine
To get a taste of Chef Fabrizio’s creations, you can head to Favola at Le Meridien KL from June 4 to June 12, 2011. Ala carte goes for RM 25++ to RM 130++. Don’t miss out especially if you’re a fan of authentic Italian cuisine.
KY with Chef Fabrizio, Jon & Ciki, Cindy & Kim & Haze, Kim & Gareth
We were also fed an awesome spread of Italian dishes after the event (and after we sampled all three dishes prepared by Chef Fabrizio). There were cold cuts, clams, pizza, bruschetta, smoked salmon, salad, and more. It was a fantastic and certainly gastronomically satisfied session.
Address:
Favola
2 Jalan Stesen Sentral,
Kuala Lumpur 50470
GPS: 3.135631,101.686476
Tel: 03-2263 7888
A week or so ago I was invited to the launch of Weissbrau’s new menu at Pavilion KL, the German restaurant that is partly owned by a friend whom we used to play badminton with in like, 2006.
Five years later he runs this German restaurant that serves a variety of beer and pork, while the rest of us.. well..
Good food, awesome beer, and one lousy band
The launch of new menu was a pretty rowdy affair, there were the usual suspects – Reta, Elfie, Gareth and Kim, Michael, Cumi & Ciki, BangsarBabe, and more. Heck, there were even some Russian models.. who were probably just there for some free noms & booze, but did contribute to the overall almost-European ambiance.
it’s all about the beer – Carlsberg, Erdinger, Leffe
There were plenty of good beer to go around, there’s Erdinger, Leffe, Franziskaner, Hoegaarden, and more. For those who prefer local stuff perhaps due to budgetary constraints, there do have Carlsberg and Tuborg too.
plenty of good German food to go around
And yes, food. We were served buffet style so the presentation here isn’t exactly the best. There were the usual suspects – classic Frankfurter, meatloaf, pork burger, and even pork neck. The salads were pretty awesome too.
The new menu can be found on their facebook page, including prices.
fun time is what we had!
The kitchen is headed by a Swiss German chef, and has been pretty good on my previous few visits there.
As for this launch, we had a great time, and could have been better if the band was any good. They call themselves Mad Sally, a word play of sort since the members are all whites, or almost white, I think.
In any case, they play pretty good music, but both the vocalists can’t sing for nuts. It was only on the 3rd hour onwards that we started to enjoy the music, when there were enough alcohol in our system to render a much greater tolerance in acoustic quality.
But hey, it was still an awesome party!
Last Monday I took a day off to take advantage of the Tuesday holiday for a pro-longed weekends (man I can get used of that 3 day work week) and attended a cooking demo at Le Meridien KL.
It was part of the “Experience Vietnam” promotion at Latest Recipe that runs from 16-22 May, 2011. Three chefs from Sheraton Saigon - Chef Tran Cong Tien, Chef Nguyen Thi Duy and Chef Bui Van Tien Dong flew all the way here to KL to infuse the restaurant with some true blue (or red?) Vietnamese cuisine, and of course, to share a few recipe with us.
yes, these are real Vietnamese ladies too.
I’ve always been a fan of Vietnamese food ever since the university days in the States, and having traveled to Saigon for 9 times over the last 7-8 years or so, this brand of South East Asian cuisine isn’t exactly very foreign for me.
Yet, this is the first time I learn how to make a real Vietnamese Sping roll. It turned out to be really simple, you can source all the ingredients locally and make yourself some authentic Vietnamese spring rolls too!
making a vietnamese spring roll
Here’s the ingredients to make 20 spring rolls:
Then the ingredients for dipping sauce
Kim and I got our hands dirty, and our cooking skills upgraded 
The steps in making the Vietnamese spring roll is surprisingly easy:
The last step separated out for mainly aesthetic purposes, so you can clearly see the shrimps through the translucent rice paper. Brilliant, I always wonder how they made it that way. Now I know.
chef Tran Cong Tien and team making Bo La Lot (beef in fragrant leaves)
While you can consume the spring roll as is, they are best served with the soya bean dipping sauce, and here’s how you make them:
Cheo Troai Noouc (the dessert), Haze, Chef Antoine, Ciki
The good chefs from Vietnam also taught us how to make one of the most iconic Vietnamese food – Bo La Lot (grilled beef in fragrant leaves), and the dessert by the name of Cheo Troai Noouc (sticky rice dumpling with green bean filling and ginger syrup). I didn’t get a chance to try how to make those, but perhaps one day!
Address:
Le Meridien
2 Jalan Stesen Sentral,
Kuala Lumpur 50470
GPS: 3.135631,101.686476
Tel: 03-2263 7888
On an unrelated note, there’s a great deal over at MilkADeal that shouldn’t be missed! Xiao Fei Yang steamboat for RM 40 instead of RM 107.80 and good for 4 pax to enjoy!
The deal includes a dry pot of fish ball, pork intestines, deep fried pig skin, pig stomach, fried fish maw, foo chuk, vegetables + 4 boiled rice. You can check out my review of Xiao Fei Yang at the Pudu branch. This deal is for their newer Damansara Utama branch. Head over to check out the deal and grab it before it expires on midnight of 25 May, 2011!
Address:
No:40G & 42G, Jalan SS21/62,
Damansara Utama, Kuala Lumpur
Last weekend I was lucky enough to score a couple tickets to Deadmau5 LED Concert at Sunway Lagoon. To be honest, I was almost giving up the passes for someone else initially, then I went on youtube to check out Deadmau5.
5 minutes later I knew that this is a party I couldn’t miss! Thank you BRANDTHINK and Carlsberg Malaysia for the passes!
KY & Haze at Deadmau5, Sunway Lagoon 2011
Here’s a photo to .. well, document the fact that we were really there!
There were a couple DJs on stage prior to Deadmau5, and luckily there were pretty good bringing up the crowd to the raving mood too. However, I do kinda feel a bit bad for the DJ prior to Deadmau5 when people started chanting “We want Deadmau5, we want Deadmau5!”.
Haze and I decided to squeeze to the front of the stage for some hardcore raving when Deadmau5 came out, and it was intense! The video above was taken using my newly acquired Sony Ericsson Arc, I hope the short video at least conveys the mood of the party. (sound was a bit broken cos I guess it was too loud for the phone’s mic to handle)
The full LED stage was impressive! It was literally like if have a giant LCD screen and drap it all over the stage in 3D. Something you have to be there to appreciate.
Deadmau5 himself also worked the crowd very well, and of course, we had a great time and a good session of sweating of course.
Remember the previous post on ESPN Castrol Football Crazy’s Longest Pass launch that I went to? Here’s the “official” video of my longest pass attempt.
This was done in only one take, of course I did it conservatively with no fancy moves. After all I was wearing the Malaysian jersey and one should not embarrass the national symbol, right? hehe
Remember to participate and be on TV! Your video will be featured on TV as well as Castrol Football Crazy Facebook page too. Make it happen!
Whenever Brussels Beer Cafe is mentioned, most people immediately think of groups of people drinking a variety of mostly imported beer. The name “beer cafe” certainly contributes to that impression.
However, Brussels is more than just a place beer, as I found out on this invited food review session organized Michael, the dude who is known for his alcoholic beverages review column.
Brussels Beer Cafe, at Solaris Mont Kiara
While waiting for the others to come, I noticed this little gadget they have at the bar – instant glass chiller (or whatever you call that).
This thing spews out really cold water and instantly chills beer glass to almost freezing temperature. Very nifty, there is no need to have tonnes of beer mugs kept in fridge all the time.
Brussels summer fruit salad, moules Hoegaarden / mariniere
The first dish was Brussels Summer Fruit Salad, fresh tasting but otherwise not particularly special. It is a salad dish for those who really want a low calorie meal (sans the cheese, of course.)
Then came moules Hoegaarden / mariniere (mussels marinated with Hoegaarden). I thought it is a bit of an overkill to imported beer for marinate, but the mussels really does taste very good. The serving isn’t exactly big though, and the dish came across a bit pricey (close to RM 50 if I remember correctly, well, did I say imported beer?)
prawn bisque, potatoe skin, blind finches, chicken waterzooi
I thought prawn bisque is like the poor man’s lobster bisque, but it turned out to be pretty much a thicker, cream version of Penang prawn noodle soup. It’s pretty interesting to be honest, but I reckon not everyone’s taste.
Potato skin goes well as beer food, I thought blind finches (beef with ham all rolled up, Dutch dish) was pretty good too, if not just a little bit too strong a taste in the beer gravy.
The chicken waterzooi, a traditional Belgium dish, did not click with me. I thought it was just buttery breast meat without much kick in it. Your mileage might vary.
roast pork – one of my favorites!
The roast pork at Brussels has got to be my favorite dish. The style differs from traditional hawker version (ala Wong Kee), the skin is a lot less crispy but instead the overall texture much softer. Flavor is quite intense and I love it with mustard, very lovely actually!
pork knuckle – fit for a group!
The pork knuckle, ironically, tastes pretty close to traditional roast pork instead of what you’d expect from normal pork knuckle ala German style. It was pretty good! Though I think the gravy could be improved a bit, perhaps chicken rice style chili paste?
brussels style pork bacon cheese burger, grilled baby beef ribs, the big one
I didn’t try the pork bacon cheese burger, but those who did liked it. The grilled baby beef ribs was juicy and sumptuous, and the big one brought really did make a big impact on its size, but I think you’ll need about 4 hungry souls to finish one serving.
we were obviously having tonnes of fun at Brussels
As for beverages, Brussels of course never disappoint. We had Hoegaarden, Blackthorn cider, and Paulaner Konig Ludwig and Franzkainer too.
It was overall a very enjoyable session, chef Pele (what a name, right?) and Mike Chang the manager were very friendly chaps whom I’d hope to meet again.
Address:
Brussels Beer Café, Solaris
Lot K-OG 13 & 14, SoHo KL,
No. 2, Jalan Solaris, Mon’t Kiara
50480 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.174689, 101.659595
Tel: 03-6205 2999
