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/

ABUNDANT PROSPERITY EATS AT STILL WATERS

Japanese Yee Sang (RM78 half serving, RM138 full serving) complete with housemade Japanese plum sauce is the star of the Chinese New Year show at Still Waters, Hotel Maya Kuala Lumpur this year.

The colourful salad flaunts a rosette of thick, succulent salmon sashimi atop lollo bionda and lollo rossa lettuce, julienne cucumber and radish. Jelly fish, Japanese crabstick, marinated seaweed, chuka idako (marinated baby octopus), Japanese fishcake, tobiko (flying fish roe), salmon fish roe, pickled onion, takuan (pickled daikon radish), sesame seeds, roasted peanuts, and pok chui (fried flour crisps) form the festive melange.

Once tossed and mixed together, the resultant salad is enticingly refreshing; a vibrant platter of moist, crunchy textures with vivid, palate-pleasing accents.

Priced from RM43 upwards (half serving) and from RM78 upwards (full serving), Still Waters will be offering other variants of Yee Sang: Kanpachi (yellowtail), Salmon, Crispy Silver Fish and Jelly Fish from 10 January to 10 February.

The hotel chefs also have created three Chinese New Year set menus to welcome the Year of the Rat. Catering to tables of 10 persons each, the Chinese New Year Set Menus are priced at RM888 nett (set A), RM1,088 nett (set B) and RM1,388 nett (set C).

Our sneak preview gave us a taste of selected dishes from the three special menus, starting with Braised Eight Treasure Soup. After the salad’s appetite-whetting flavours, the broth tastes underwhelming in spite of the myriad albeit scant amount of ‘treasures’: sea cucumber, crab meat, fish lips, dried scallop, fish maw, mushroom and beancurd. Chef Wong Thiam Ming promises the shortcoming will be rectified after our feedback.

Like a phoenix rising to restore the meal’s equilibrium, the Roast Chicken with Chinese Herbs proved on point. An intensive labour of love, the chicken is ‘bathed’ in oil first before it’s baked and then steamed to tender, juicy perfection.

Delectably suffused with sweet, woody nuances of angelica (tong gwai) gojiberries, red dates, codonopsis root (dong sum) and Solomon’s seal (yuk chuk), the chook easily warm hearts and tummies.

Hondashi (bonito powder) is the chef’s trump card in perking up the Steamed Pearl Garoupa with Mirin Sauce and Scallions. Although the sweetish soya sauce eclipses the fish’s inherent sweetness, the classic soya sauce and scallion pairing remains a failsafe complement for this fleshy catch.

 

IMHO the the Wok Fried Prawns with Golden Salted Egg Yolk Cereal is rather ho-hum. However, I daresay the curry leaf-scented, creamy and savoury sauce will hit the mark for most CNY celebrants.

Top marks go to the aromatic Garlic Fried Rice with Dried Duck Meat, Mushroom and Barbeque Chicken. We like the inspired use of dried duck meat dices which added a distinctly rich but not cloying overtone to the rice. A winsome dish to generate a buzz of satisfaction.

Old meets new in the dessert department with Steamed Housemade Nian Gao pair with blobs of Osmanthus Jelly. We love the fresh, coarsely grated coconut coating the soft slices of new year glutinous rice cake. To cleanse the palate, there’s QQ-chewy konnyaku jelly flavoured with fragrant osmanthus.

A la carte menu for smaller dining parties are available too.

For reservations, call Still Waters, tel: 03-2711 8866 or visit www.hotelmaya.com.my

CELEBRATION OF NEW BEGINNINGS AT LE MEI

If there’s a dish to soup up the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration, the excellent Shunde Style Traditional Shredded Fish Soup by Le Mei’s Chinese Executive Chef Lim Kian Meng will be the hottest choice.

Similar to a hearty bisque, the creamy white broth enhanced with fine slivers of wood ear fungus, snake gourd and carrot is to-die-for. Shredded seabass amps up its lush sweetness with crumbs of the deepfried fish give it a subtle crunchy finish.

This stellar speciality is one of the many show-stoppers featured in Le Mei’s three CNY menus: Wealth & Fortune Set RM3,388, Everlasting Prosperity Set RM2,388 and Spring & Happiness Set RM1,688 per table of 10 persons; available now until February 8. 

The customary Yee Sang (from RM50 upwards depending on variant and portion size) with salmon is par for the course. Personally, I find the salad platter a tad too sweet but it’s a minor hiccup easily remedied by reducing the sauce. Overall, the ingredients jive together well enough.

Pix courtesy of Chasingfooddreams.com

Chef Lim’s two decades of culinary experience from past stints in Macao, Russia and locally stands him in good stead. Gastronomic proof of his culinary prowess is apparent when you savour the Stewed Sea Cucumber with Free Range Chicken and Black Truffle in Claypot.

His judicious inclusion of black truffle paste prior to serving transforms a downhome offering into a raveworthy speciality. The discernibly musky scent of truffle coupled with the milieu of big, robust flavours from the toothsome, juicy chicken and plump mushrooms make this a divine dish to remember.

 

Wok-fried Scallops with Asparagus and Fresh Mushroom in XO Sauce maintains the impressive streak. Sweet and tender, the scallops imbued with a dash of the zingy house XO sauce will surely tantalise the tastebuds and get the thumbs up. 

Inspired by Hong Kong’s famed pei fung thong (typhoon shelter) style of preparation, the Fried Lamb Racks with Crispy Garlic and Chilli follow a similar approach. According to Chef Lim, the lamb is marinated with herb juice prior to being battered for frying. We find the blush pink lamb deliciously juicy; the crisp fried garlic and chilli bits setting the palate alight with bursts of flavourful piquancy.

 

Dense and firm, the meat of the Sabah Giant Grouper Steamed with Premium Soy Sauce is a winsome, classic way to ensure the pricey fish (loong da'rn in Chinese) fulfills the sumptuous and auspicious quotient for the festive table. 

Mindful of today’s health-conscious clientele, Le Mei serves Fried Organic Brown Rice with Seafood and Tobiko. Tiny Hong Kong dried shrimps, dices of fish, prawns and a generous topping of tobiko make the fried mixture of brown and white rice a surefire crowd-pleaser.

The sweet-ender of Pan-fried Glutinous Rice Cake is not your average nian gao. Dim sum chef Yau Fong Peng uses pheen thong (flat brown blocks of unrefined cane sugar) to ensure the festive CNY cake is lighter, less sweet and sticky.  Each slice is seared to give it a brown crust and amplify the caramel flavour. You can’t ask for a better way to welcome the Year of the Rat in 2020.

Picture courtesy of Le Meridien Putrajaya

For reservations, please call LE MEI, tel: 03-8689 6888/

6847/6868. Address: Lobby Level, Le Meridien Putrajaya, Lebuh IRC, IOI Resort City, Putrajaya, Sepang