Minori Japanese Restaurant which is located at The Royal Chulan Damansara Hotel 1st Floor No.2 Jalan PJU 7/3 Mutiara Damansara 47810 Petaling Jaya is famed and popular for its various Omakase dishes which offers it's' client a multitude of special exotic ingredients.
+BestRestaurant ToEat got to taste the new offering of this season Kaiseki dishes specially crafted by the Great Master Chef Takahiro. You can also read our previous review of another exotic dish which is
Cod Fish Sperm from this link.
We started our special "Kaiseki" Omakase meal with an appetizer which is the "Yum Tofu and Grilled Seasonal Eggplant with Crab Sauce, Ginger Flavour, and Mountain Caviar". This appetizer is served chilled and it was a delight to taste the many flavours from the ingredients and condiments. We started off with the soft tofu with crab sauce and move to the Eggplant which when eaten with the salmon roe exudes out a slightly natural salty taste. The Mountain Kaviar which is used here as the topping is actually a black seed which gotten its name because of the same texture like of the caviar.
Our next course is the soup; what the chef has created was the special Steamed Eggs with Ohitashi Organic Wasabi Leaf and Asari Shell with Yuzu Orange Flavour broth. Normally in Japan the Ohistashi is cooked with Spinach but the Chef uses the Wasabi leaf for this dish. The silky soft steamed eggs are actually Chawanmushi which is topped with a citrusy orange yuzu flavour broth. Paired with the succulent Asari meat; it enhances the full flavour of this soup.
As with any Kaiseki meal, our grill item for the day is the White Miso marinated Butter Fish "Saikyo Yaki". The flaky soft meat texture of the butterfish was grilled to the right char thereby exuding the natural sweetness of the fish. Paired with Vinegar Tomato, Wasabi Lotus Root, and Sweet Potato, it marries a vinaigrette, sweet and mustardy taste of these side dishes to the grilled fish.
After the grilled food, we had the Nimono, which is a simmered dish. For this, the chef has prepared the Tender Beef Tongue With Special Sauce. Normally beef tongue is very chewy and has a rough texture, but the chef; using this method of cooking which is simmering the beef tongue in stock over a period of time until the liquid is fully absorbed into the beef tongue is able to cook the beef tongue until the soft meat like texture.
To finish off our Kaiseki meal, it is a norm to serve a rice based dish; our Shokuji is the Scallop Porridge Minori Style With Fried Cherry Blossom Prawn. The chef uses the combination of dried and fresh scallop to cook this very flavourful porridge. Each spoonful of porridge is filled with the dried scallop and coupled with the sweet flavour of the Blossom Prawn, it was a wonderful end to our meal for today.
For desserts, we had the Warabi Mochi and Green Tea Parfait served in a cocktail glass; lined with cut strawberries and smash adzuki bean and the chewy warabi (jelly-like) mochi at the bottom of the glass.
For sake lovers, you can try out the sake pairing that we had, the first one was the Jumai Daiginjo - a very smooth sake. This is the only Sake in the world that is brewed using the legendary Kikusui Sake rice.
and the Funaguchi Kikusui Nama Genshu which came in a can and has a very flowery and fruity taste. Sake in a Can is renown for its freshness as it does not go thru the normal pasteurization and dilution process. The Sake is can directly from the source and this enables it to maintain its natural aroma and flavour. Best served chilled.
