Best Restaurant To Eat - Malaysian Food Blog: November 2014

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Delifrance Malaysia Christmas Celebration Menu 2014 at Avenue K Outlet Review

Christmas is around the corner and restaurants in the Klang Valley are busy preparing their best signature dishes for this joyful festive occasion. Best Restaurant To Eat was invited to review Delifrance Malaysia Christmas Celebration Menu 2014 at Avenue K outlet.

Delifrance Malaysia has been around for more than 24 years in Malaysia and specializes in offering a family type of dining experience and serving authentic French bakery products with more than 15 branches throughout Malaysia.

Besides cakes, chocolates and bread, Delifrance Malaysia brings you the Christmas Set Menu which is the Provencal Lamb Stew – which uses lamb shoulder which is firstly grilled and cooked in the brown mushroom sauce and topped with a side salad.

The mushroom sauce was indeed perfectly done for the grilled lamb as it covers up any gamey taste and the lamb meat was still tender and juicy.

Next was the Poached Salmon With Creamy Dill Sauce, the poached salmon fillet was drenched with the dill sauce over a bed of smash potatoes and served with a garnishing of fresh salad.

The poached Salmon has that firm, flaky texture and served in a sweet Dill sauce, one can taste the sweet fine tasting flesh of the fish.

For the last main we tried, it was the Lasagne. I am normally not a huge fan of Lasagne, but I find that the Lasagne served here is delicious as the layers of lasagne was thin unlike some which uses a much thicker layer of lasagne and mix with the light tangy sauce which has carrots infused was superb without being too overwhelmingly cheesy. Filled in between was tender minced beef meat which was perfectly blended with the entire offering.

Also, on offer for the Christmas set was the Cheese Turkey Pasta: This is a spaghetti pasta which are tossed in a cheese sauce and topped with strips of roasted turkey ham.

For the cake offering, we tried the Salted Caramel Tea Cake With Walnut

and the Doubled Chocolate Tea Cake

For Macaroon fans, Delifrance Malaysia offers Macaroon which comes with Strawberries, Lemon, Vanilla, and Chocolate flavours.

Other newly introduced cakes from Delifrance Malaysia for Christmas are the Santa Play Land Gift Cake.

Rocky Land Gift Cake.

So, if you are planning for a nice Christmas meal and delicacies for this holiday, Delifrance Malaysia has the offering to whet your appetite for some Christmas meals and for some of you, will be able to indulge in the sweet tooth offering.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Manhattan Fish Market@ Pavilion - Crab Feast Promotion and New Menu Launch Review

Manhattan Fish Market which specializes in seafood brings you the yearly special offering from the sea. Best Restaurant To Eat was invited to review the exotic Crab offering and new menu at Manhattan Fish Market @Pavilion Kuala Lumpur located PAVILION Kuala Lumpur 168 Jalan Bukit Bintang 55100 Kuala Lumpur

Diners can take their pick from a chill fridge located at the entrance of the outlet which showcases all the different crabs and lobsters on offer for the day.

Manhattan Fish Market has kept its philosophy that they want their food to be fresh and original thereby giving its customers the best value for their money.

Diners looking for seafood and especially more exotic crab and are willing to splurge can also try out the promotion King Crab, Australian Spanner Crab or the French Brown Crab.

The best way to enjoy crabs it just to poach it. In this way, you can taste the natural marine saltiness; serve only to emphasis the character of the crabs. And, this is exactly how Manhattan Fish Market serves it.

First on the dinner table was the Australian Spanner Crab,

for me, although the meat lack in the firmness of the meat but have a strong natural taste of the crabs.

This is then followed by the French Brown Crabs, which are a much bigger size compared with the local crabs. The highlight of this crab is the crab butter. It has a slight musky taste and was just nice eaten as it is. This is the best part of this crab.

The star of the night has to be the King Crab; it is similar to the Alaskan King Crab. Cooked at sea and frozen, it retains the same freshness and taste. Every mouthful is a joy as the chunky crab meat and the sweet, salty natural flavour of the crab was addictive i.e. you can’t stop going for the next piece and the next one. Crustacean lovers, you do not want to miss this dish.

Eating this King Crab requires minimum effort, as the staffs at Manhattan Fish Market is more then ready to cut out all the meat from the claws for you to savour. For those, that prefer to have some sauces to go with the super delicious crab, there is a garlic butter sauce for you to dip in.

For the new menu offering, the first of it, is the Summer Shroom – it has a tangy sourish dressing which is quite similar to the Italian dressing, mushroom are cooked in thereby preserving the natural taste of the mushroom.

Fishy Chicky Bang Bang – this is a new creation from the chef, a piece of chicken is wrapped with a piece of Dory fillet and fried to a crunch. Each cut has a combination of the chicken meat and fish fillet.

Oyster Roulette – this is oyster served with a special home made spicy sauce, it has a zesty, spicy and strong taste but perfectly matched with the fresh oyster.

But be forewarned that one of the piece is super spicy and henceforth the roulette which is used as part of the name of this dish. Just like the roulette, you never know when you get or will get this piece. Just some added fun to this dish if you plan to share this dish with your friends.

Volcano Island - Slipper Lobster - An island of spicy jewels with juicy seafood in Murray Curry, fried Scallops, poached spicy Dory nuggets, Volcano mussels and crispy Baguette on a bed of fragrant Garlic Herb Rice.

A platter for those who like to have some additional of spiciness, the curry topping to the rice is the chef creation resemble in taste to the Malaysian Nenas Bojari but with an added natural pineapple taste from the use of the top quality pineapple.

Fried Giant - a platter of golden brown fried crunchy prawns, crispy fish fingers, cherry snapper fillets, battered onion strips and calamari coated with crushed peanuts for extra bites. Enjoy it all with selection of dips which is Cajun Honey Mustard, Smoky Chipotle, Tartar and Onion Glory Dip.

Grilled Glory Dory Regular – this is the simplest form and best way to enjoy a 100% unprocessed dory – the flesh of the fish has that firm and flaky texture. It is perfectly grilled with a sprinkle of salt and served on a bed of Garlic Rice. Perfect combination as the juice from the grilled dory was perfectly paired with the rice.

There are many new drinks on the Manhattan Fish Market menu for example, Cheeky Monkey, Citrus Mint, Passionate Peach, Affogato, Fizzies Float, Happiness Infusion and Sweet Alabama

For me, I like the Citrus Mint as the mint was very strong; we were told that fresh lemon and mint are blended to give you that extra zest and flavours. This drink gives you that refreshing taste and is a good complement to some of the fried seafood that we had earlier.

For desserts, we had the Super Fruit Crumble – this is an Apple crumble with a double scoop of vanilla ice cream and topped with cranberries as part of the offering. It has that crumble has a crunchy texture and paired with the soft ice-cream touch.

Finally we had the Strawberry Flamingo – served with a topping of the mash mallow which will be flamed when it is served to you. It has mango pudding and chocolaty syrup with pieces of strawberry lining the sides.

It was indeed a pleasant evening savouring these little treasures of the sea and a word of advice for the crab lovers, there are little stock of these tasty seafood. Best to call first to check on the stock availability else you have to wait for the next year. Oh by the way the crabs are only available at Manhattan Fish Market @Pavilion Kuala Lumpur.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

MALAYSIA INTERNATIONAL GOURMET FESTIVAL 2014 MIGF - The Festival Awards & Celebration Party Grand Finale – Royal Chulan Kuala Lumpur

After a hectic month of dining and spectacular Festival events - set to the theme of ‘Red Hot Chefs!’ - it was time for the hard working 28 premier restaurants to let their hair down, enjoy the camaraderie of their peers and be feted at the traditional MIGF Awards and Celebration Party.

Attended by over 1,000 VIPs including royalty, 23 foreign Ambassadors, celebrities, captains of industry and international food writers, the MIGF Awards and Celebration Party signaling the finale of the 14th Malaysia International Gourmet Festival MIGF 2014 was an explosive affair with smoke, flame, red hot dancers, magical tricks and glittering awards ceremonies at the Royale Chulan Hotel Kuala Lumpur last Thursday evening.

The event began with fearless fire-breathers entering the atrium twirling flaming batons and swallowing flames whole. The Festival Chefs then arrived on the stage with much fanfare presenting a picture of happy camaraderie until suddenly eight 'chefs' broke forward, threw off their chefs' garbs and transformed into red hot dancers. The crowd burst into excited applause!

It was the restaurants' night off and courtesy of the Vision Four Media Group, Festival restaurants and guests enjoyed the best of traditional cuisine from each state of Malaysia. A lively Latin band, energetic salsa dancers and free-flowing drinks made sure it was a long night of continuous revelry.

Six restaurants made the final cut for the Golden Cauldron Award – given to the best all round restaurant of the Festival - but at the end of the evening it was Chef Nathalie Arbefeuille of Cuisine Gourmet by Nathalie who raised the gleaming trophy high, setting a new record by being the first female chef and the first non-hotel based restaurant to claim the Festival's ultimate prize.

In addition to Cuisine Gourmet by Nathalie, the finalists for the Golden Cauldron Award were La Scala, Marini’s on 57, Tanzini, Ten Japanese Fine Dining and The Olive.

Four Special MIGF Awards were also presented: The prestigious award for ‘Most Popular Restaurant at the VIP Gala Launch’ was won by Cuisine Gourmet by Nathalie based on portions and value sold. ‘The Most Popular Overall Restaurant at Taste MIGF’, this time by public response, was won by Ten Japanese Fine Dining. The award for ‘The Most Outstanding Marketing of the Festival’ was won by Resorts World Genting; while Westin Langkawi’s Seasonal Tastes won the award for ‘The Most Outstanding Overall Festival Experience’; Chef Valmurugan Subramaniam of Samplings on the Fourteenth was voted by his fellow chefs as ‘Chef Congeniality’ - the most popular chef of MIGF 2014.

MIGF 2014 was sponsored by Tourism Malaysia with The Vision Four Media Group as the Principal Festival Partner. The Official Imaging Partner was Fujifilm Malaysia and Official Beer, Kronenbourg 1664. The Festival Media Partners were Astro, Asian Food Channel, Astro Radio, Seni Jaya, Vision Four and Vision KL.

The MIGF Awards and Celebration Party is a rare time, not only for the Festival Chefs, but also for the restaurant management, kitchen, and service staff to enjoy the limelight due to their traditional behind-the-scenes roles. “Everyone involved in MIGF is a winner. Everyone deserves a medal. It has been a privilege to work with all of you!” declared the Organising Chairman, Dato’ Steve Day.

Awards were given for creativity, innovation, presentation and value of the Festival Menu, quality of service, effective marketing strategies, best use of the Festival theme, best restaurant station designs and the number of Taste Sovereigns and Gourmet Dollars collected and portions sold during the Gala Launch and Taste MIGF.

Full List of Award Winners MIGF2014

Golden Cauldron Award for the Best All-Round Restaurant 2014

Overall Winner: Cuisine Gourmet by Nathalie

Winners: La Scala, Marini’s on 57, Tanzini, Ten Japanese Fine Dining, The Olive

Chef Congeniality 2014

Winner: Chef Valmurugan Subramaniam

Special MIGF Festival Awards

Most Popular Overall Restaurant at the VIP Gala Launch

Winner: Cuisine Gourmet by Nathalie

Most Popular Overall Restaurant at Taste MIGF

Award Winner: Ten Japanese Fine Dining

Most Outstanding Marketing of the Festival

Award Winner: Resorts World Genting

Most Outstanding Overall Festival Experience

Award Winner: Seasonal Tastes, The Westin Langkawi

Friday, November 21, 2014

You & Me Kitchen Corner @ Kinrara Puchong – Hidden Romantic Gems Review

Finding a romantic place to dine and quality dishes serves without costing you and arm and a leg, is not easy these days but You & Me Kitchen Corner @ Kinrara Puchong located at ZP2, 27 & 28 Zest Point, Lebuhraya Bukit Jalil,Bukit Kinrara 9, 47180 Puchong, Selangor along the Lebuhraya Bukit Jalil.

When you arrive at You & Me Kitchen Corner @ Kinrara Puchong, you will be greeted by a very nice and beautifully decorated garden setting with wooden swing to sooth your stress away. Breezy and stylish with natural lighting by day, it is even soul warming at night as the lighting will be changed to a more romantic setting

Once inside, you will notice that the interior have different table setting i.e lovers’ corner, love shape table, round table and the normal dinning table. It is a nice place to hold an event like pre-wedding, post-wedding or wedding ceremony.

You & Me Kitchen Corner @ Kinrara Puchong, offers a wide varieties of dishes from Chinese to Western dishes which account for over 160 dishes to choose from. What is amazing is that the chef have painstaking made almost of its’ own ingredients ranging from the pasta (noodles, vermicelli, wanton noodles, pasta, wanton skin) to the sauces, soup base and so forth.

The chef emphasises on the quality & taste of its food. While food tastes wholesome & lovingly home-made it is liberated from excess oil or salt (here they use the Himalayan salt) with its homemade recipe.

For Appetizer we started with the STUFFED JAPANESE INARI – 3 pieces, it has that nice porky meat filling, combined with the soft and smooth Inari. With the added special sauce layered at the sides, it was the perfect match as a starter.

The next starter that was served was the YOU & ME SIGNATURE BAKED CHICKEN WINGS – 3 pairs. According to the Chef, it will take at least 20 minutes to cook this dish as baking the whole chicken wings to this perfectly baked texture will require this amount of time.

The skin has a special crisp while the meat of the chicken wing was still moist. The presentation of this dish was splendid.

THIS CHRYSANTHEMUM SPRING ROLL – 5 pieces, is another creative use of the wanton skin (made in-house) to wrap and fried out to resemble a Chrysanthemum flower. It not only looks nice but tasted even better with the stuffed pork meat with shrimp paste.

The flower petal which is the park of the wanton skin is very crispy.

An innovative way to present the next dish is the PORK BELLY SATAY - 6 sticks – It come serves on top of a mini BBQ stove with charcoal still burning in it, to give you the extra feel of the warmth on to your satay i.e. still served hot.

The Pork belly was very well marinated with the strong aroma of the Lemon Grass and the gravy was very fragrant with a strong smoky peanuts flavour.

After all the appetizer, we started with the Chinese dishes serves here, which is the YOU & ME SIGNATURE FOUR SEASON VERMICELLI IN PORRIDGE – this is the first time I have actually eaten a bowl of noodles cooked in a porridge broth. It is really first of its kind, as the porridge which was cooked with chicken was simply delicious and heart warming.

The decorated vegetables which are used to resemble the four seasons are sliced ginger, slice fresh red chilli, carrots and black fungus was a delight to look at. Even the fine texture vermicelli was in-house made too.

Next we had, CURRY NOODLES WITH MINCED PORK & MUSHROOM – this is similar to the Spicy Pan mee which I have eaten before but with an added taste from the in-house sauce which was very flavourful. The noodle was very springy and chewy and blended perfectly with the ingredients and gravy.

Seeing this dish, it does not resemble any curry noodles as the first thought of curry is, it must have loaded up with santan and spicy red/orange colours.

HEART TO HEART – the white Pearl rice comes in two lovely heart shaped. Couples can share this dish together. It comes accompanied with a special in-house concocted sauce with sides condiments on a bed of freshly cut purple cabbage.

To eat this dish, you just add all the condiments and mix it. The combination of the sauce, the meat and the other condiment was delightful with each bite having an ingredient or two in it.

Next we move on to the Western dishes, the first of which is the MARINARA SAUCE HOMEMADE PASTA WITH APPLE MEAT BALL – the meat ball which was added with apples was very bouncy and meaty. The strong apple flavours embedded in the meat paste was evident in every spoonful. The pasta which was fried is a slight different variant from the spaghetti which we are used to. Nevertheless it adds some texture to this dish.

This is then followed by the HOMEMADE NOODLES WITH VEGETABLES AND MIXED FRUITS IN SPECIAL THAI DRESSING – it has a tangy feeling, a little sourish taste. All the noodles here are in-house made and fried using corn oil to give you a nice crunchy feel.

Next, we tried the PAN FRIED RED EYE STEAK – this dish is very well decorated to resemble a cattle farm. The vegetable and pan fried mushroom is the “cow pen”. The sauce that was provided for this dish was the BBQ sauce and the Brown sauce.

What I like about the way this dish is served was, unlike other restaurant which pours in all the sauce on the meat, the sauce are served on individual container i.e one that look like a milk urn to complete the decor. This way, you will have full control on whether we like it with sauce or little sauce or no sauce on our steak. By the way, this dish is served together with a small glass of red wine.

Our last dish that we had was the PAN FRIED NORWEGIAN SALMON FILLET – It comes decorated to resemble a salmon swimming in the sea with bubbles form by the onion rings, while the vegetables with mushroom is the bed of corals.

This dish is served with an avocado based sauce, which is flavourful and matches to the Salmon. The other side sauce one of which is the caviar sauce and the garlic sauce add wonders to this dish. This dish is served together with a small glass of white wine to complete the meal.

For desserts, we had the GOLDEN BRICK – It is a sugar coated toast with the mango sherbet. Sweet ending to the meal, the toast was a tad too sweet for me. But when you dip the toast with the sherbet which has a sourish taste, you get to taste both sweet and sour taste at the same time.

For drinks we had the Tropicana Tea – which has freshly cut Apple, Grapes, Passion Fruit, Strawberry, Kiwi. It is a super refreshing drink as each sip accompanied with the freshly cut fruits is very delicious. The sweetness level was just right.

For coffee, we had the POTTED LATTE – the coffee comes from Triple A, Taiwan. For me, I find the coffee taste to be on the milder side as I really like my coffee to be extra fragrant and super strong. But for others, this version should be ok.

The last drink was the ORANGE EGG NOG – this is an orange juice with fresh egg blended into it. The result; you get a drink that taste quite similar to a yakult. The blended eggs make the drink a little creamy and milkier. Served cool, it is a delight to drink.

Yes, we had a field day at You & Me Kitchen Corner @ Kinrara Puchong as the food presented and serves here are so picture beautiful and it awaken your senses and taste-bud to a new level. So, if you are really looking for a romantic place to chill with your love ones and have beautifully presented home cook meal served to you, then you can’t miss out this place.

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