This is another innovative dish. Here the chef, have added some curry into the cooking of this traditional English Oxtail Soup thereby enriching it to be best of both world. With the spices added to it, it marries the authentic Malay version sup ekor flavour to this soup.
With a chunk of Australian beef tail which was slow cooked, the aroma and taste of the soup was mesmerising. You can taste the strong stew slowly down the throat as you take sips of this warm soup.
Unfortunately, the serving of the soup is not that much. You really have to enjoy every little sip before it is finish.
Rating 4 of 5
Date of Visit: 09/21/2013
Spending: Approximately MYR 15 ()
Eating Pork Knuckle always leaves me a strong guilty feeling as the cholesterol level will hit the roof. To me, this dish is a hard to resist dish and although feeling guilty, this is a must try and eat dish.
There are many variations of Pork Knuckle serve in many restaurants. Firstly there is the salty German version, which is the most famous type serves in most places, the Chinese version either serves in butter sauce, deep fried version or roast. I have the luxury of tasting the fourth one today in the last 3 months. You can view my other Pork Knuckle rendezvous in my other post.
At Ante Kitchen And Bar, the version serves here is an Oven Baked version. The chef have deboned and cut into bite size pieces making it less challenging to savour this knuckle which is suitable as a sharing dish.
The first taste of the knuckle skin was very crispy and crunchy. It was very marinated and not too salty to my liking. After savouring the crispy knuckle skin, the next attack is on the meat portion.
As it is oven baked, the end result is that the meat was a little tougher; it is not so succulent compared to those that were deep fried as the deep fried version if fry properly is a little more succulent. If the pork knuckle is overcooked before being oven baked/fried, the meat can be a little harder, tough and less juicy. For me, only the crispy knuckle skin was the saving grace for this dish.
Cooking a perfect steak especially Pork Steak is very challenging. First of all, it will how the chef will marinate the steak for a period of time. For some, they will not be bothering about marinating it and will have to depend on the sauce that accompanies to flavour the steak.
Here, the chef had taken the time to marinate the meat prior to grilling it. Moreover the meat choice used by the chef was excellent as it chooses the meat with a layer of fats that makes it succulent when grilled.
We are able to taste the marinate, which was in grain into the meat. The steak comes with in-house prepared raspberry cream sauce, which is of a sweet base, and blended quite well with the succulent and juicy steak.
The garnishing of the steak was potato wedges which was deep fried and a baked green apple (the apple was first peel of its skin beyond going for a salt water bath and oven baked). An unique garnishing indeed.
The Pork Ribs was very well marinated and it was cooked to a soft texture before it is sent to the charcoal grill.
The use of the piglet ribs is much better as the meat is more tender and easier to cook and grill. The in house BBQ sauce was a perfect combination to the juicy ribs which makes it very flavourful and tasty.
The serving is a full rack ribs and this is ideal as dish to share with your friends and companion but I understand that there are customers who can eat the whole plate by oneself. If you are a beer drinker, this is an ideal complimentary dish.
When it comes to Roasted pork – the Chinese version is always my benchmark. I am a great fan of “Siew Pai” – Roast Pork Belly.
Benchmark of a perfect Roast Pork Belly is a real crisp with the right amount of salt infused marinate. Chef of this “Siew Pai” spent a great deal of time to poke the Pork Belly skin with a special nail type of hammer to poke whole so that when it is grill the heat will penetrate and make the skin very crispy and crunchy. Moreover this method will extract out the fats layer making the pork belly more succulent and tasty.
The version serves here is slightly different and it comes with the sweet caramelized sauce which was served with the meat. Frankly speaking, I would have preferred the sauce to be served as a special dip instead of spreading onto the meat. This makes the skin to be a little softer and causes the skin to lose the crisp and crunch which turn off a great dish.
