Kyspeaks.com

I usually avoid doing food review sessions on my regular sports day, but when Jack from Superdining insisted that I should go to Kura Japanese Restaurant at One World Hotel on a Monday, I couldn’t help but agreeing to it. This was mainly due to the excellent experience I had at Rakuzen Chulan Square and Japanese food being one of my favorite cuisines.

Jack later told me the real reason he wanted me to go on that particular day was due to the fact that they have fresh seafood imported from Japan on that very day. The company usually imports seafood product from Japan twice a week.

Kura restaurant and the square watermelon

Due to certain circumstances, YC the penumpang glamor who first appeared on this blog in the Guinness Gastronomic Workshop joined Cheesie and myself and reached One World Hotel after spending the better part of Monday’s sunset stuck in the traffic.

The interior decoration and design of the restaurant was unique enough to confuse anyone who couldn’t exactly understand Picaso’s paintings. It usually takes 2-3 wrong turns to find your table after a bathroom break. However, I must say it is very tastefully done.

appetizers, California hand rolls, crab meat chawanmushi, gingko nuts

The restaurant is headed by the very experience chef Hideaki Nakashima who is most skilled in preparing wide range of some very creative Japanese dishes. The six appetizer dishes Nakashima-san served us certainly reflects his ability.

They were oshitashi (Japanese spinach) with fish sauce, tomato and hotate (scallop) with vinegar, ikura (salmon roe) with yam, tako (octopus) with plum sauce, and hotate with enoki and other mushroom. There’s also grilled and slightly salted Japanese gingko nuts.

The appetizers were pretty intricate in presentation and certainly did not lack at all in the tasting department. Each has its individual character and overall they introduced a different dimension in Japanese cuisine to me.

Sashimi (including Fugu!), and rainbow roll

Sashimi and sushi are always inescapable when it comes to doing a review at any Japanese restaurants. At Kura, we were served the freshest seafood that had just been flown in the very same day. Fugu (yes, the poisonous puffer fish!), kampachi (yellow tail), tai (sea bream), sake (salmon), tako (octopus), shima aji (yellow jack), amaebi (sweet shrimp), and maguro (tuna).

It was my first time having fugu sashimi, and unlike other raw fish, fugu is best consumed with a little bit of green onion and radish instead of wasabi in order to better appreciate the very subtle taste. It was actually pretty good. The other sashimi and the rainbow roll was as good as you could expect from a top notch Japanese restaurant. Super fresh and certainly of very good quality.

the good chef, RM 28 chicken teriyaki set, desserts

Since Cheesie speaks Japanese, chef Nakashima was overjoyed as they went into extended conversation only both of them understood. This certainly made the good chef very happy and soon we were served with extra Carlifornia roll and also the crab meat chawanmushi which were very delicious.

Though located within a 5 star hotel, Kura isn’t only for those who are willing to splurge on a good meal. The cheapest meal full meal, the chicken teriyaki set priced at RM 28, comes with a generous serving of very tasty chicken teriyaki, rice, a small appetizer, chawanmushi, miso soup, and fruits. Very affordable especially in this setting, with these type of quality.

YC (penumpang glamor), KY, Cheesie

When we were all pretty stuffed, they brought in some home made Japanese bean curd (with sliced strawberry on top) and several scoops of pretty unique imported ice cream for dessert. The melon and pumpkin ice cream were pretty unique and interesting, while the bean curd certainly different from the local variety in a good way.

Since this was a food review session, some of the dishes provided were actually not found on the menu. However, you could still order them via special request.

Address:
Kura Restaurant
One World Hotel
Bandar Utama
Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.147597,101.617817
Tel: 03-7681 1111

When I was young, GUINNESS® was always the drink of choice to go with a good meal for my late dad. The association of the world’s No. 1 international premium black beer with good food etched into my memory since a long time ago. However, it was only many years later that cooking with GUINNESS® caught on in Malaysia with the now classic GUINNESS® pork ribs.

ze chef in black Emmanuel Stroobant working his magic

Little did I know you can cook way more than just pork ribs with GUINNESS®, as demonstrated by the famous Chef in Black from Asian Food Channel, Emmanuel Stroobant. Cheesie, Kenny, and I attended the Guinness Gastronomic Workshop at Mandarin Oriental to find out just how the celebrity chef gets it done.

We even got our hands dirty busy and tried a little kitchen magic ourselves.

ze assistant Antoine Maillet preparing tuna

Chef Stroobant and his assistant Antoine Maillet get things kicking by demonstrating the preparation a starter, tuna tar-tar taco with GUINNESS®. This dish is pretty straight forward and you can try it at home without having a degree from kitchen academy.

my team and I making the tuna tar-tar

Why don’t I just tell you how to do it instead, very simple really.

The ingredients:

• Sashimi grade tuna, 1kg, diced
• small gherkin, 10
• shallot, 10, peeled and diced
• liliput caper, 4 tbps
• tacos, 1 gab
• Japanese mayonnaise, 300g
• ketchup, 5 tbsp
• Worcestershire sauce, 3 tbsp
• GUINNESS® Foreign Extra Stout (FES), 3 tbps (drink the rest!)
• Tabasco to taste

Just mix all ingredients and serve on taco!

cheesie grilling chicken

The two chefs then demonstrated a slightly more complicated dish – Kakuni style braised chicken with GUINNESS®, fresh herb risotto and GUINNESS® poached oyster.

It is a dish with a touch of Japanese style in preparing the chicken, having the skin crispy while not over cooking the meat. A pint of GUINNESS® Foreign Extra Stout is used, with other ingredients such as sugar, soy, garlic, ginger, and black pepper to complete the dish.

kenny with his risotto

The risotto is pretty straight forward, with risotto rice, olive oil, onion, parsley, chives, chervil, salt and pepper cooked in chicken stock and some white wine to perfection. It actually goes really well with the braised chicken.

After the good chef demonstrated to us the preparation of the dessert – GUINNESS® sorbet (it was actually very good!), it was time for us to get ourselves busy.

We were split into four teams of three and tried cooking the dishes above in front of at least 200 people! It was actually a little bit intimidating. My team did the taco tar-tar, Cheesie had to dodge some burning oil in preparing the chicken, while Kenny tried hard not to under cook the risotto. It was some experience, and lucky we didn’t burn down the kitchen (fire extinguisher was available)

parmesan crusted chicken, chicken liver parfait, Guinness sorbet

After the cooking demonstration, the good people at GUINNESS® treated us to a sumptuous dinner with GUINNESS® infused dishes inspired by the celebrity chef himself, Emmanual Stroobant (probably just in case we were not able to eat our own creation?).

We started out with chicken liver parfait with GUINNESS® jelly, aged balsamic with small brioche. I never really liked pate (chicken liver), but the combination with GUINNESS® jelly was actually pretty nice.

Next came the GUINNESS® sorbet to cool things off a bit before the main dish was served, Parmesan crusted chicken with GUINNESS® dough baked green asparagus and tomato nage.

fraindises, chocolate tart with Guinness cherries, olive oil ice cream

We ended the night with soft centered chocolate tart with GUINNESS® cherrie and the rather interesting olive oil ice cream. It was lots of fun and certain gastronomically satisfying! I think some of the Western food places should start looking to adopting the idea.