A Whiff of Lemongrass

Salt baked Iberico ribs

The food at Gu Yue Tien is sexy.

Eat salt baked Iberico pork ribs with the fingers and tear away the tender, flavourful flesh with the teeth as the meat gently glides off the bone, leaving no prisoners.

Chew on the gelatinous skin of the steamed giant garoupa, and go weak in the knees.  Float away into ecstasy as you inhale the heady aroma of dried scallops, crab meat and prawns in the luscious seafood soup.

Pick up the biggest prawn and reach for its head where the soft, orange roe beckons.  Eat it like there’s no tomorrow.  Repeat with the next biggest prawn.  Monogamy is a dirty word.

And finally, there is something erotic about scooping out creamy egg yolk, liquid spilling over the edge of the egg shell as you lick up the sides, heart racing as the warm, almost congealed, rich pairing of egg yolk and foie gras brings you into a climax.

Gu Yue Tien deserves a standing ovation.

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Norwegian salmon yee sang – a twist on the traditional yee sang, this is a tangy salad made with coral lettuce, pear, pomelo, raisins, finely julienned kaffir lime leaves, and a strawberry sauce.

Gu Yue Tien soft boiled egg with foie gras – the key is to cook it without the egg white so that a richer product is achieved. Served with a sprinkling of black pepper.

A thick assorted seafood soup with crab roe

Salt baked Spanish Iberico pork ribs

Salt baked Spanish Iberico pork ribs

Steamed giant garoupa with minced ginger and yellow bean paste

Steamed glutinous rice with fresh water prawns and waxed meat

Prawn roe

Chilled mango cream with pomelo

Pan fried nian gao

In conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration this year, the best chefs from 8 top Chinese restaurants in the Klang Valley have customised special Extravagant 8 menus, priced at RM888++ for a table of 8 – 10 (in the case of Gu Yue Tien), exclusively for Standard Chartered credit card holders.  The menus are available from January 20 to February 17, 2011. More details on the restaurants, their offerings and T&Cs are available at the Standard Chartered website.

Thank you, Chef Frankie Woo Chee Way and Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia for this amazing meal.

Gu Yue Tien
Chulan Square
Jalan Raja Chulan
KL

Tel: 03-2148 0808

More reviews:
BabeinthecityKL
KYSpeaks
Iamthewitch
Haze (watch her beautiful video presentation)
Lionel
Aly

Note: This is the second of five reviews under the Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 campaign. The first review on Li Yen can be found HERE.

Hokkien Fried Rice – a melange of assorted seafood (prawns, scallop), chicken and mushrooms, cooked in a thick sauce, with rice

Last Monday, I took almost an hour and half to arrive at work.  The cause of the jam was an overturned cement truck somewhere in Cheras.  Now that wouldn’t seem so unbelievable except that the jam that I was caught in began at the Subang Jaya point of the Federal Highway.  Sometimes, I wish I could get on a helicopter and observe driving habits during peak hours.  I’ve spent enough time in traffic to mull over the meaning of life and traffic concerns and now I want to save the world from bad drivers.  I think I’ve finally found the reason for my existence and it’s wonderful to be able to share it with my readers.

Li Yen at the Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur (photograph courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton)

Peking duck served with steamed sesame pancakes – a specialty at Li Yen and faultless

The Christmas carols have barely begun to dissipate in my memory, but in the blink of an eye, that other orgiastic festival that brings with it an endless slew of lavish banquets assails me with the speed of an oncoming train. Everywhere I go, the ubiquitous jingle of Kongsi permeates the air, reminding me of a childhood gone by, happily spent in Penang and Klang, where the smell of gunpowder lingered in the air, as children with nary a care in the world played fireworks to usher in the New Lunar Year.  I can hear Tangechi telling me, “Oi, masuk Cina la”, his constant reminder to embrace the other half of my being.

Prosperity Salmon Yee Sang – contained thick slices of raw salmon

Steamed patin fish with superior soya sauce

I spent the end of 2010 and most of 2011 with the sniffles, and while I revelled in the sympathy in the beginning, I was mostly embarrassed about it in the third and fourth week of my illness.  My mother-in-law would make random calls to me asking me to take everything from Vitamin C to evening primrose oil while the rest of my well-meaning family members recommended other natural remedies ranging from a type of bitter leaf that can cure everything from the common cold to cancer, to manuka honey with lemon.  Friends googled articles online on the joys of consuming ginger and 10 ways to stop coughing in your mother-in-law’s face.  What made it worse was that I had all these food reviews to attend, courtesy of Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and the various restaurants participating in the Extravagant 8 Chinese New Year campaign, and I wanted to be able to taste everything.

Double-boiled assorted seafood soup – Standard Chartered does not support the consumption of sharks fin soup, a popular delicacy in Chinese restaurants, and has requested that none of the menus contain that ingredient. In this context, the various restaurants have come up with different types of soups, some more complex than others. The soup served at Li Yen contained prawns, grouper, crab, scallops, fish maw and bamboo piths which took 7 hours to boil.

Stir-fried assorted mushrooms and asparagus

Unfortunately, the pinnacle of my illness was at the food review of Li Yen, and I was burdened with a tongue that could not taste and a body that would rather be wrapped in a blanket instead of a thin black dress.  Thankfully, I could feel textures (the peking duck was very crispy, the steamed patin was fresh and firm to the touch, and the double-boiled seafood soup contained all the comforts for a sick person in a thin black dress).  The food at Li Yen is predominantly Cantonese, and will satisfy the health-conscious thanks to the use of less oil in the preparation, so I suppose I could call it a blessing that I was eating at Li Yen that night.

Braised dried scallops with dried oysters and sea moss – the dried oysters were sourced from Hong Kong while all other ingredients were brought in from Japan

In conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration this year, the best chefs from 8 top Chinese restaurants in the Klang Valley have customised special Extravagant 8 menus, priced at RM888++ for a table of 8, exclusively for Standard Chartered credit card holders.  The menus are available from January 20 to February 17, 2011.  More details on the restaurants, their offerings and T&Cs are available at the Standard Chartered website.

Deep-fried yam with lunar cake – a sure-win yam and nian gao combination

Chef Leung Kwai Hong (61), born in China, with experience in Hong Kong, Japan and Korea.  He also loves swimming and travelling, and his motto is “Whatever you do, you must be hardworking, then you will eventually succeed”.  Wise words indeed.

Thank you Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and Ritz Carlton for your kind invitation.  More reviews can be found here:-
Bangsar-Babe
Memoirs of a Chocoholic
Iamthewitch
Foodpoi
KYSpeaks

Li Yen
Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2142 8000

Note:  This is the first of five reviews under the Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 campaign.  Prepare for a visual feast!

Green chicken rendang

It’s a little too late by the Holiday Rulebook, but I turned off my Christmas lights today, and I shall probably stop listening to Christmas carols tomorrow.  With a flick of a switch, I am assailed by an overwhelming sense of wistfulness that the merriment’s come to an end and the reality of 2011 is setting in together with the multitude of deadlines and expectations.  I suppose I should embrace the challenges that will inevitably come my way, be prepared to whatever extent I can, and occasionally focus on the more pleasurable things in life.

The concept of secret supper clubs is relatively new to Malaysia although it has become increasingly popular in certain countries.  Huck’s Cafe is designed in such a fashion, where people gather around good food, not in a restaurant but at a residence.  Every night, different groups of people, approximately 15 to 20 in number, congregate at a particular house in Petaling Jaya to enjoy the lovingly cooked food prepared by Huck Seng, a self-trained cook.  He started off by cooking for his children and posting delectable pictures on Facebook, and soon, friends showed interest and asked if they could sample his cooking.  Eventually, with the steady stream of customers, Huck’s Cafe emerged.

While there are secret supper clubs where the location is kept a mystery until the very last minute, the location of Huck’s Cafe is publicly available on Facebook.  All one has to do is be a “fan” on Facebook, then leave the proprietor a message to find out if a particular date is available.

We ordered a variety of dishes for our group of 16 that night – a combination of local and Western dishes to suit our diverse palate.  The lemon roast chicken ala Jamie Oliver was a hit with everyone.   What initially looked like charred skin turned out to be some sort of caramelisation, and the flesh was flavourful and tender and juicy, literally falling off the bones.   Also good were the local dishes – sambal udang petai which was sufficiently spicy and sweet, green chicken curry and a fluffy and tasty kerabu rice with a beautiful herbaceous scent from the various types of ulam used to prepare this dish.  Desserts were equally enjoyable – the creme brulee was well prepared with a lovely crisp caramelised surface, the chocolate mud pie ice cream satisfied those who loved nuts, and the warm chocolate brownie’s soft texture contributed by the use of bananas and raisins was good enough to satisfy the chocolate lovers in our group.  With a large group such as ours, preferences are bound to be debatable.  I found the cottage lamb stew pie too sweet for my liking, the base flavour of the meat masked by too many other ingredients, but to another member of the group, it was her favourite dish.  Nevertheless, it didn’t matter as it didn’t detract from the meal’s overall worth.

It is simple, home cooked fare.  The one factor which gives Huck’s Cafe an edge over the mass of restaurants that proliferate in the Klang Valley is this – Huck Seng cooks from the heart.

It’s the same reason why when I cook and accidentally put too much salt in my curry, Bald Eagle still devours every little bit.  And asks for seconds.

Huck’s Cafe on Facebook.