A couple weeks ago I received and invitation from Yoke May of Westin to attend Kaesler Winemaker’s Dinner. To be honest, I am not exactly a wine connoisseur, but based on my previous experience at Westin’s EEST and Yoke May’s hospitality, I know this isn’t something I would want to miss.
Stephen Dew from Kaesler
A little background on Kaesler:
The original Kaesler vineyards were established in 1893 by the Kaesler Family, Silesian pioneers who came to the Barossa Valley, Australia in the 1840′s and who took up the 60 acre allotment in 1891. Winemaker Reid Bosward and his partners then bought the Kaesler vineyards in 1998.
Our dinner was hosted by one of the partners from Kaesler vineyards, Mr. Stephen Dew. The six course meal with half a dozen different wines to pair was priced at RM 180, a pretty good value. For myself, haze, cumi&ciki, and eiling, it was even better cos we freeloaded, hohoho.
Hokkaido Scallop crudo, green apple sorbet
Since I’m not exactly a wine expert, I’m gonna concentrate a bit more on food. First to come was the Hokkaido scallop crudo with green apple sorbet laying on a bed of thinly sliced cucumber. It was raw, cold, but subtle and sweet at the same time. The seafood was paired with Old Vine Semilon 2008 (RM 90), a wine with a bit of grapefruit and apple taste, a good compliment.
baby beetroot in flaky pastry; apricot & almond beignet
Second dish of the night was apricot and almond beignet with creamed wild mushrooms and creamed tarragon butter emulsion. We were served with Viognier 2008 (RM 110), a slightly stronger red wine chilled to 18C that went really well with the creamy dish.
Next up was this pastry with a flake of gold: baby beetroot with horseradish and chives. The flaky pastry and beetroot made an interesting if unlikely combination, to be honest I found it a little odd. We had Kaesler Stonehorse Shiraz Mourvedre 2007 (RM 90) to pair with. The wine was slightly spicy but not one that’s very strong, and by the way gold didn’t actually have any taste -_-
eiling and the excellent roast lamb neck with smoked bone marrow
Then came the best dish of the night, roast lamb neck, crisp ice fish, eggplant, tzaziki, smoked bone marrow, cherry puree. I like how they name their dish, you don’t even need to explain what’s in it, ultimate opposite from Chinese dishes where everything is in 4 letter and you have no idea what you’re about to eat.
It was the first time I properly had bone marrow in this fashion and it was heaven! It sits somewhere in between beef tendon and foie gras, the texture was superb, and the taste, very rich and yet subtle. The Stonehorse Shiraz 2006 (RM115) gave the bone marrow a sense of balance too, oh how I miss this.
licorice port glazed braised angus beef short rib, KY & Haze
The last main dish was licorice port glazed braised angus beef short rib, smoked potato puree paired with Bogan Shiraz 2006. The wine had strong oak aroma to it and rich flavor which I liked, but I do think that the licorice kinda overpowered the beef a little. I usually prefer my beef to be only very mildly seasoned, if any.
marshmallow, citrus salad; ciki & yoke may
Dessert was marshmallow and citrus salad with my favorite wine of the night. The sweet tasting Riestling – Rizza 2009, this wine’s perfect with the marshmallow or even just to drink by itself. The citrus though, was really super sour to the point where one bite will bring you to instant sobriety. I wonder where they got it from.
It was a wonderful dinner made better by the great company, thank you Yoke May for the invitation!
Address:
The Dining Room, Westin Hotel
199 Jalan Bukit Bintang,
Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.147758, 101.714591
Tel: 03-2731 8333
On the second day at Melbourne, Mellissa and I went to the very busy Centre Place during lunch hours for some good old fashion quick meal at a fish and chips place called BluFish. The restaurant is located between Flinders Lane and Collins in a quirky small lane packed with lunch crowd.
BluFish, serving fish, scallops, prawns, and calamari
The menu at BluFish is pretty simple, grilled fish, calamari, prawns, scallops, salmon, chips, salad, soup, and a few choices of burgers. Seats are pretty limited with only a handful of tables, a place designed for express meals or take-away, nothing more.
scallop pack and grilled fish salad
We met up with Singz and Greame, two of Mellissa’s friends at Melbourne. Singz, of course, is the daughter of Mama Wong who cooked excellent prawn mee and laksa for us in KL just a month plus ago.
For lunch, the others ordered grilled fish salad ($9.80 alternatively, with chips), while I just couldn’t resist myself with the scallop pack ($13.50).
look at the big fresh scallop!
I can’t really identify the fish used but the grilled fillet was pretty tasty and goes especially well with their special white sauce that is slightly sourish (not tartar sauce though). The potato salad and coleslaw too were quite good.
Scallop pack came with plenty of thick chips with 5 very good size deep fried scallops. The seafood were very juicy and fresh, with the sweetness of scallop sealed in the batter despite the rather straight forward method of cooking. Again, the white sauce fits perfectly. I had no complains.
BluFish is only open for lunch, close on Sundays.
Address:
BluFish
16, Centre Pl,
Melbourne VIC 3000,
Australia
GPS: -37.816624,144.96578
Tel: 03-9663 0738
The first time I went to d’italiane kitchen at Jaya 33 was actually more than half a year ago when I was still working in my previous company at PJ. I’ve since visited this place quite a few times but somehow haven’t gotten around to post about it.
Well, there is no better time than now.
The last time I visited this classy Italian restaurant at Jaya 33 was on the 11th January, a date that is rather significant for it was the first time Mellissa and I went out (I had used the excuse of needing her help in doing the U Mobile advertorial, and fortunately she was a very willing victim)
Mell studying the menu
d’italiane kitchen is located on the ground floor of Jaya 33, right next to Bruno’s, and a few shops away from the Nagomi Shabu Shabu. The restaurant has a pretty nice alfresco dining area over looking Jalan Semangat as well tastefully decorated indoor seatings.
Angel hair with Scallops, my favorite!
Angel hair with scallops has always been one of my favorite pasta dishes, if you recall, I’ve even cooked it before. I tend to order them whenever the chances arise, and did so on this particular occasion.
The dish come with four pieces of very good size scallops that is slightly cooked, just like the way scallops are meant to be served. The angel hair pasta has the right flavor and proper garnish, not something over the top but fresh and complimentary to the overall taste.
Spicy Crab Meat Linguine
The spicy crab meat linguine was equally tasty. Pine nuts and cherry tomatoes mixed with decent amount of spicy crab meat, a slightly unorthodox taste in pasta but a pretty good one. Mellissa gave it at thumb up.
Other than the two dishes here, I’ve also had their Agli Scampi (prawn pasta that is cooked similar to the angel hair scallop) and one of their chocolate cakes. The food quality held up pretty well over the few visits.
faster snap this picture so that I can have my scallop!
I find prices at this outfit pretty reasonable, pastas are priced from RM 18.90 (bolognaise, alio olio) to RM 25.90 (scallop, salmon), desserts from RM 12.90.
The menu is pretty big, you have some ten starters and half a dozen soups and salad to choose from as well. Give it a try!
Adress:
Jaya 33,
No. 3, Jalan Semangat,
Seksyen 13,
46200 PJ, Selangor
GPS: 3.110274, 101.637139
Tel: 03-7986 2330
It’s been a while since I did a recipe and cooking post. In fact, it’s been a while since I did any cooking at all. Not counting the insect meal we had back in May, I haven’t done any cooking since Chinese New Year (I usually cook the reunion dinner.)
angel hair pasta with scallops, slurps
While helping Cheesie out with grocery shopping, we somehow ended up at this seafood specialty shop at SS2 (the same row as restaurant Hoppy). They sell anything from frozen prawns to lobsters to live crab, and when I saw the huge frozen scallop in the fridge, it was love at first sight.
The 20 huge scallops in a bag costs a cool RM 37.50, so this wasn’t going to be a cheap meal, but temptation won at the end, and the rest is history. Anyway, lets get on to this whole recipe thing already.
just half a dozen ingredients and 4 steps, real easy!
Ingredients:
The steps:
tastes even better than it looks ok!
The pasta actually turned out very good. I always like angel hair as the finer strands of pasta tends to be able to soak up more sauce, plus it’s easier to chew as well. Scallop has always been one of my favorite seafood choices, I used to have fried rice with scallop back in States, and this is just a western style of the same thing.
This is something really simple to cook (as opposed to kung pao chicken or fried pomphret), and you can always replace scallops with prawns or even sausages (on a budget). So don’t always just rely on Maggie Mee, get busy already!
For some of you who follow this humble blog, you might know that I vouched not to ever spend a dime at Sushi King and Genki Sushi. Although both the restaurants serve inferior sushi on conveyor belt, it doesn’t mean that all conveyor belt sushi restaurants are bad, as my latest experiment at Sushi Zanmai (Sunway Pyramid) assured me.
conveyor belt sushi, with a lot of other items on the menu
I stumbled upon this place a couple of months ago when I visited Zen Sushi at their Pyramid branch. The menu enticed me (particularly the ikura chawamushi) to actually go there a few weeks ago when I had an appointment at Pyramid.
proper portion of fish over rice, nice
For the quick dinner, I picked 4 dishes of sushi (sake, maguro, amaebi, tofu skin) from the conveyor, and ordered a cup of the irresistible ikura chawamushi (salmon roe on top of steamed egg) and a plate of hotate sashimi (raw scallop).
The sushi dishes were actually very good, the portion of fish is generous, and if you look at the amaebi sushi (sweet shrimp), it is actually one big shrimp instead of the usual two tiny ones. They are plenty fresh and tasted very good too. I am one of those people who cannot say no to ikura, and the ikura chawamushi, albeit a bit small in portion, was actually very nice. It is a bit different from the usual roe over sushi rice though. Lastly, the succulent hotate sashimi (5 pieces of fresh scallop) was perfect to round up my dinner.
ikura chawamushi (salmon roe) and hotate sashimi (scallop)
The dinner cost Rm 35.42, with ikura chawamushi being the most expensive at RM 9.80, the sashimi was only RM 8, and sushi plates were between RM 1.60 (tofu skin) to RM 4.80 (shrimp). 10% service charge and the 5% tax is added. Still a pretty good value, and I am going there again.
Address:
Lt 0B2-F1, Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre
Bandar Sunway, Selangor
GPS: 3.073297, 101.607576
Tel: 03-7492 3080
