DECADENT CHINESE NEW YEAR DINING AT YUN HOUSE

Get the Lunar New Year celebration off to a decadent, impactful start with super-fresh Salmon Belly Yee Sang at Yun House this coming Year of the Rat.

Chef Jimmy Wong keeps his salad creation simple and fresh. The platter features 18 ingredients such as fresh magnolia petals, pomelo sacs, finely shredded carrot and radish. For colour, flavour and textural interest, dried yam strips, pickled radish, pickled onion, pickled ginger, walnuts, fried flour crisps and fried Norwegian salmon skin are included.

Topping the platter off with a distinctive flourish is a portion of crunchy deep-fried sang meen (wheat noodles). We like the novelty of breaking the crunchy noodles into smaller chunks during the lou hei (tossing) ritual as the gesture represents auspicious breakthrough for brand-new beginnings. To tantalise the palate further, Chef Jimmy proffers a tangy-sweet dressing concocted from plum sauce, white vinegar, apple jam and salt for the yee sang.

 

Thoughtfully curated, the festive menu integrates light and substantial fare, with a precursor of the Chef’s Special Dim Sum Platter. Delicately handcrafted, we enjoy every bite of the delicious Mushroom & Truffle Oil Dumpling. A dainty piece of Steamed Radish Cake with Dried Scallop whets the appetite before the delectable Spring Roll with Foie Gras & Seafood suffuses our tastebuds with its richer flavours.

 

Lush with hearty umami taste and differing textures, we feel richly rewarded when savouring the Braised Money Bag filled with Abalone. A befitting speciality to relish for the CNY celebration as both the dried oyster and abalone symbolise good things, abundant fortune and prosperity. 

 

The on-point selection continues with Braised Vermicelli with Fresh Crabmeat and Caviar. Pin-drop silence reigns around the table as we focus on slurping up the slippery smooth noodles imbued with the natural sweetness of hand-extracted crabmeat, interspersed with briny bursts of caviar.

 

My penchant for almond milk is fulfilled when the Dessert Duo of Doubled Boiled Superior Bird’s Nest with Almond Cream and Chef’s Special Fried Rice Cake is served. Every spoonful leaves me in gastronomic heaven, the creamy nuttiness melding nicely with generous amount of bird’s nest.

Even the simple nin koh or New Year rice cake comes up trumps, lightly sheathed in a crisp batter concocted from tempura flour, olive oil and water.

Chef Jimmy Wong’s specially curated Chinese New Year Set Menus (RM388-

688 per head) are available now until February 8. The repertoire of choice dishes is the chef’s personal favourites to pamper his loved ones; culled from his treasure trove of family recipes exclusively for this celebration.

Priced from RM148 nett onwards, Yee Sang variants at Yun House include Salmon Belly, Toro and Australian Lobster. Dim Sum is also served for lunch at RM10-45 nett per portion.

For reservations at Yun House, call Four Seasons Hotel Kuala Lumpur, tel: 03-2382 8888. Address: Four Seasons Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Ampang, KL. Visit: https://www.fourseasons.com/kualalumpur/dining/restaurants/yun-house/

FIVE SHADES OF MOONCAKE AT TAO CHINESE CUISINE

See yellow, blue, black, green and brown this Mid-Autumn Festival at Tao Chinese Cuisine. Three seductive snowskin creations, an inventive Shanghai-style savoury version and six classic baked variants by Dim Sum Chef Lo Tian Sion will be the siren’s call for mooncake enthusiasts this year until 24 September.

 

 

Now making the festive confection is no pie in the sky as Chef Lo demonstrated at the media preview. In his quest to up the ante and to fend off competition, Taiwan’s famed scallion pancake — a popular street snack — arises as the ingenious inspiration behind Chef Lo’s latest showstopper of Shanghai-inspired Baked Black Pepper Smoked Duck Meat with Yam (RM43 per piece).

 

We reckon it’s a dome-shaped pie in disguise; a savoury temptation with a come hither filling of crushed black pepper, smoked duck and yam mash. Just a mere bite of that feisty black pepper flecked bombshell and you’d be turned on your head by the zingy hot accent and tastebud-teasing textures that veer between powdery-soft and buttery-flaky. Like any proverbial gem worth its salt (pardon the pun), this unconventional showstopper is only available for dine-in at Tao Chinese Cuisine to preserve its optimal taste and texture.

 

Enrobed in a sunny yellow, unbaked glutinous rice flour skin similar to marzipan, the sensuous sweetness of the durian and oats paste playfully piques the palate as winsome Snowskin Durian Paste & Oats Mooncake (RM43). For durian-loving devotees, the almost guilt-free, indulgent delicacy is bound to leave them moonstruck.

 

Chef Lo then uses bird’s nest and butterfly pea flower to compose a pretty snow white, Marble Snowskin with Butterfly Pea Flower & Bird’s Nest Mooncake (RM43). Rife with streaks of eye-catching blue, the lotus paste at the sweet treat core also flaunts a baby blue hue with bits of bird’s nest lending luxe taste appeal.

Meanwhile, discover a matcha mooncake made in Mid-Autumn heaven with the debut of Snowskin with Japanese Green Tea and Cherry Jelly (RM31). Imported cherries are lovingly transformed into the mooncake’s tantalising sour-sweet heart in the pleasant embrace of astringent bitter-sweet green tea paste studded with longans and green tea-nuanced skin.

 

 

True to the ‘once you go black, you’d never go back’ maxim, the bewitching Black Sesame Bamboo Charcoal with Single Yolk Mooncake (RM27) will leave you spellbound with its nutty, savoury sweetness.

Like true love, the endearing charm of time-tested variants such as White Lotus Paste with Single Yolk (RM27), Pure White Lotus Paste with Nuts (RM25), Red Bean Paste with Nuts (RM25), Pandan Lotus Paste with Single Yolk (RM27) and Traditional Mixed Nuts (RM31) can still hold their own and are unlikely to wane amidst the onslaught of omnipresent competition for the hearts and palates of Mid-Autumn Fest celebrants.

Tao also dresses the mooncakes up to the nines in elegant black and red gift boxes adorned with gold stamped peach blossom motifs at no extra cost, with a minimum purchase of four mooncakes.

For more information, please call Tao Chinese Cuisine, tel: 03-2782 6128 or email: tao@intercontinental-kl.com.my

JOURNEY TO GOOD CNY EATS

Braised goose webs ain’t a mainstream dish one finds in KL especially during Chinese New Year (CNY). So it was a mind-blowing moment when I bit into the Braised 20 Head Green Lip Abalone with Goose Web & Sea Cucumber and Superior Brown Sauce at Celestial Court.

Granted, goose web like duck’s tongue is kinda bizarre to eat but heck, I’m Chinese so I consider them real delicacies. Frankly, I was more smitten by the fall-of-the-bone tender goose web skin at dinner compared to the abalone. The rich brown sauce was par excellence too.

 

The show-stealer was one of the many dishes we sampled when Sheraton Imperial KL hosted us to a preview of their CNY specialities. Earlier, we had a rousing start, creating much astir with Boston Lobster Yu Sheng with Banana and Chinese Pear (RM250 half portion, RM500 for full portion).

Executive Chinese Chef Vincent Loo and Dim Sum Chef Ken Liew pulled out the stops, creating an array of festive dishes including seven types of Yu Sheng. Quirky as it may seem, the addition of banana works unexpectedly well with the colourful salad.

Seafood also dominated most of the night’s menu but nobody minded. We lapped up every drop of the Thick Broth with Baby Lobster Meat, Shredded Jade Abalone, Dried Scallop & Sea Cucumber although I personally found it too salty for my liking. Apart from that minor grouse, the strips of seafood in the soup were welcomed by all and sundry.

The Braised Superior Bird’s Nest Broth with Assorted Seafood & Spinach fared better, colour and taste-wise. Having bird’s nest in savoury soup was a novel albeit agreeable idea as the pricey ingredient brought a touch of luxe to the meal.

Red-hot chilli heat singed our tongues lightly as we delved into the plate of Sautéed Fresh Scallops and Sliced Cuttlefish with Flower Fungus and Garden Greens in Spicy Beijing Sauce. A rave-worthy dish with delightful textural contrasts and light but assertive accents.

Similarly, the Dual Combination of Tiger King Prawns: Deep-fried with Spicy Chilli Salt and Sautéed Sichuanese Style left an indelible impression. Springy to the bite, the prawns retained their natural sweetness amidst the strongly flavoured seasoning. Crunchy snow peas were the vegetable du jour to lessen the guilt factor.

Much as we enjoyed the Braised Ee Fu Noodles with Seafood, Dried Oysters and Beansprout in Abalone Sauce, the metallic fishy overtone of the dried oysters tasted at odds with the overall flavour palette which was subtler and more delicate.

Still, the premium dessert of Double-boiled Bird’s Nest with Red Dates, Sweet Pear, White Ginseng & Snow Fungus more than made up for the minor hiccup. The faintly bittersweet herbal nuance was amply tempered by other sweeter niceties so everyone left happily ever after.

The dishes sampled were a concise selection from Celestial Court’s CNY set menus priced at RM1,988, RM2,088, RM2,288 and RM2,688 nett per table of 10 persons.

For reservations, please call Celestial Court, tel: 03-2717 9900 x 6933. Address: Level 3, Sheraton Imperial KL, Jalan Sultan Ismail,