My unwritten policy on food review is that I usually don’t review the same place twice, but when Elegant Inn came calling, there was no doubt that an exception had to be made.
The experience I had at Elegant Inn on the last review was so good I couldn’t possibly pass up another chance. Thank you Meena!
Elegant Inn’s chef Wesley Ng & Timothy Johnson of Standard Chartered
As with the previous two posts, this review is about the Extravagant 8 menu with Standard Chartered. Basically credit card member from the bank can enjoy this 8 course dinner for 8 person at the price of RM 888++ during the duration of the promotion that runs from 20th Jan till 17th Feb, 2011.
fresh yee sang to welcome the year of Rabbit
We started off with yee sang.
While Gu Yue Tien‘s version with its strawberry sauce is pretty new age and Li Yen’s prototypically traditional, Elegant Inn’s yee sang’s philosophy is something in the middle. Every ingredient is freshly prepared on the same day, there’s crushed nuts, plum sauce, oil, and also fresh raw salmon and jelly fish too.
The taste is a little more subtle, but you can feel the freshness. I like it.
double boiled village chicken soup w cordyceps flowers & US top shell
Then came the double boiled village chicken soup, A whole kampung chicken double boiled with cordyceps flower, US top shell, dried scallops, oysters, cutter fish, and a few other ingredients.
The owner Jeanette leave no secrets as to what goes into the soup for the effort of making one yourself would worth way more trouble (and cost in ingredients flown from HK & other places) than simply going to Elegant Inn and order a bowl (even if it costs RM 128 on the menu).
The soup of course, was superb. The server separates the ingredients and then presents us the soup as is. I of course, still picks up the chicken, scallops and such and send them to my mouth while enjoying the liquid. No wastage ok.
golden fried estuary grouper with chinese leeks
crystal prawns – signature salted egg yolk style
Next up was a big slice of “long dan”, or estuary grouper (giant grouper). The difference between deep fried and “golden fried” is that the fish is prepared by pouring hot oil over and over again until cooked. This method ensures that minimal amount of oil absorbed by the fish, thus the natural flavor is sealed in.
A deceptively simple looking dish that is really yummy. I’m still dreaming of the grouper’s skin.
Then it was the crystal prawns with signature salted egg yolk style. “Signature egg yolk” style because the chef painstakingly prepare and melt the egg yolks into the prawns instead of leaving them on the shells. This way you don’t have to lick the prawn’s shell for egg yolk and then eat the prawn meat pretty much separately afterwards.
The extra effort obviously paid off, it was delicious.
Haze, golden boneless stuffed chicken with chicken tomato salad
Then there’s this golden boneless stuffed chicken, a dish that is so unique I couldn’t have imagined it in a thousand years.
The chicken is basically stripped completely, leaving only the skin. A layer of prawn is then “stuffed” under the skin, and everything is roasted till it looks almost like the skin of suckling pig. The end result? It tasted as good as it is fancy. Crispy chicken skin with succulent prawns makes a very good combination, who would have thought?
The left over chicken meat is served on top of little slices of tomato at the side.
braised sea cucumber with dried oyster, fatt choy & mushroom, KY
We had braised sea cucumber with dried oyster next, a classic Chinese dish for CNY. The dried oyster’s imported from Hong Kong, fat and juicy. I’ve always enjoyed sea cucumber, and this one did not disappoint at all.
braised seafood rice w australian scallop, desserts
Instead of fried rice, we had braised seafood rice instead. The rice is wrapped with lotus leaf and cooked with Australian scallop, fresh crab meat, and abalone sauce. At Elegant Inn, abalone sauce really does mean that they made the sauce with real abalone.
I’m usually not a big fan with the rice at the end of an 8 course meal, but I couldn’t help it, I finished my portion this time despite being pretty much full to the brim already.
We wind things down with some desserts – pan fried traditional rice cake & hazelnut cookie and chilled Japanese pumpkin sago with green bean. The two desserts, just like everything we had at Elegant Inn, were pretty good too, but by then I was pretty much deep in food coma already.
Address:
2.01, 2nd Floor, Podium Block,
Menara Hap Seng,
Jalan P.Ramlee,
50250 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.153034,101.70752
Tel: 03-2070 9399
One of the questions I often get is “is there anything you not eat?”
My answer would be “everything a normal person would eat, except for kiwi and endangered species”.
Kiwi cos I had allergic reactions to it a couple times in my life, and endangered species, well, it’s nice to have bio-diversity and save some for the future generations.
I’d eat a dog before I eat a pangolin, basically.
A few days ago I put up this simple survey (utilizing Nuffnang’s poll function, poll now closed) in order to gauge some of your thoughts with regards to sharks fin. There were close to 100 of you who responded (thank you!), and I must say the results are a bit surprising.
a graceful reef shark, photo taken on my trip to Sipadan
As a matter of principle, I have already stopped eating shark’s fin soup even when it’s served over wedding dinners.
I’ll let you read about the damage shark finning can do to the environment and how completely nutrition-less and potentially poisonous mercury laden these fins are on your own leisure. However, for the sake of environmental preservation, we as consumer should stop demanding for these soup.
After all, it’ll be crazy to demand for tiger meat for your wedding, right?
Tropicana City Mall is fast becoming one of the favorite places for the gang to hangout during those lazy weekend afternoons. The smallish mall is conveniently located at a pretty central location at the junction of SS2 and Uptown, with ample parking, reasonable crowd volume, and most importantly, good coffee!
The good coffee of course, is the Hawaiian chain – Bad Ass Coffee
Bad Ass Coffee is located at the end of the Mall closest to the office tower
Bad Ass Coffee is probably one of the very few places that serves Kona coffee – a type of coffee beans cultivated all the way from Hawaii. It is one of the most sought after coffees in the world, but via some wonderful cosmic arrangement, the relatively unsophisticated coffee drinking crowd here in Malaysia gets a franchise.
100% Kona coffee, oxtail soup
The menu at Bad Ass Coffee is actually quite extensive, there are quite a variety of normal coffee, chocolate/vanilla drinks, and of course, the 100% Kona Coffee that is sold at a bit of a premium (RM 15.90 and up if I remember correctly). The 100% kona is very flavorful and rather kao, Terence once had it in the evening and couldn’t sleep till 5am. FHL
The best thing about iced coffee there is that ice cubes made of coffee is used, so your drinks will never ever gets diluted. That alone is a very good reason to choose Bad Ass over the more famous chain that spots the green and white logo of Medusa.
KY, Kerol, Suan, Kim, FA, Terence
While I haven’t had many meals at Bad Ass, I can vouch that the oxtail soup is in fact, super awesome. At RM 9.90, you get a bowl of really kick ass oxtail soup with quite a few chunks of, well, oxtail. There’re three slices of garlic bread too.
Seatings are available both indoor and al fresco. There’s even a smoking section with really comfortable sofa and power outlets for those who likes to bring their laptops too.
When you find yourself at TCM in search for a good cup of coffee, look no further than Bad Ass!
Address:
Bad Ass Coffee
G-37/38A, 1st Floor
Tropicana City Mall
3, Jalan SS20/27
47400 Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.130757,101.626421
Tel:03-7728 2622
A few days ago, I decided to head up to Bandar Seri Damansara to join Kim and Gareth for dinner. I usually avoid going there in the evening, but since Kim tempted me with the promise of “very good pork tripe soup“, I made an exception that ultimately proved to be the correct decision.
UPDATE 18/10/2010: unfortunately the uncle’s retired…
Kedai Kopi Matahari with pork innards soup at night!
Kedai Kopi Matahari is arguably the biggest and busiest kopitiam this side of Bandar Seri Damansara, there’s about a dozen different hawker stalls with most of them serving different foods in morning/afternoon and evening/night sessions.
As fate would have it, our table happened to be situated right next to the stall I was most interested – “lou yau kei” (老友记) - serving braised or soup version of pork innards + meat + yam rice.
braised or boiled, pork innards for your picking, yam rice too
I went to the cheerful uncle at the stall and ordered a bowl of soup with everything in. 10 minutes later what I got in front of me, for mere RM 9, was a bowl of very fragrant and peppery soup with plenty of coagulated blood, 3-layer pork, tripes, intestine, and something that looked & tasted like pork tongue. It was delicious!
The accompanying yam rice was very good too, with plenty of yam cubes to chew. The dinner turned out to be much better than I had anticipated, the availability of coagulated blood really made my day.
Kim, KY, Gareth, and Kerol
Kim also swore by the curry mee at the same restaurant, Gareth and Kerol too were happy with their Hokkien mee and wantan mee. I should return to the same restaurant and try out other dishes, there’s even laksa sarawak in morning/afternoon session, intriguing.
this isn’t something I would order though – Cum for RM 1.60
I also spotted this interesting drinks at Kedai Kopi Matahari, Cum selling for RM 1.60. Don’t think I’ll be ordering that. :S
Address:
Restaurant Matahari,
Jalan Tanjung SD 13/1
Bandar Seri Damansara
Selangor
GPS: 3.186665, 101.605843
Taman Paramount is one of my favorite locations for dinner for the simple fact that it is pretty close to where I stay, and it doesn’t hurt that the area (including seapark and ss2) is littered with a lot of good old fashion eateries.
One one of our routine “what should we eat for dinner, how about just drive around till we find something?” exercise, we spotted this newly opened clay pot rice place that looked pretty decent, and thus decided to check it out.
Restaurant Gafan – the clay pot rice specialist
As it turned out, this Restaurant Gafan is a branch of the much reviewed clay pot chicken rice with the same name in Taman Connaught. If it’s good enough for masak-masak , it’s good enough for me.
The restaurant has a pretty basic kopitiam style set up, with plastic tables and chairs under plenty of ceiling fans.
clay pot chicken rice with lap cheong & salted fish, or fermented tofu
There’s 10 types of clay pot rice on the menu, 6 of them with chicken, remaining four with lamb, prawn, beef, and fish. They also offer a few types of vegetable, soup, and tofu to go with the main course.
I tried the basic clay pot chicken rice with lap cheong (with addition of salted fish) and also chicken with fermented tofu at this place, and so far both versions came out rather good (RM 7-10 per serving). I also like the fact that they give you a tower towel to hold the super hot clay pot.
Kerol’s enjoying her clay pot chicken rice, and so was I!
Do try the steamed soup (RM 4) here too. They are quite delicious, and sipping soup makes waiting for the freshly cooked clay pot rice a lot less boring.
Business is still pretty slow (at least at dinner time) but I do hope this place stays. Other clay pot chicken rice worth checking out includes Hong Kee at Petaling Street, Busy Corner and Khoon Kee at DJ, and Veng Soon at Old Town.
Address:
Restaurant Gafan
No. 11, Jalan 20/13
Paramount Garden,
46300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.106096, 101.625338
Tel: 017-608 3228
