VISTANA Hotel Kuala Lumpur,
9 Jalan Lumut,
Off Jalan Ipoh,
Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-4042 8000/8004.
Business hours: Daily.
Halal.
AS MORE and more Chinese families dine out for reunion dinners and other festive celebrations, Vistana Hotel Kuala Lumpur is offering three set menus to cater to the rising demand.
From now till Feb 6, you can enjoy scrumptious dishes hand-picked by Chinese chef Ang Cheng Yew. A self-professed ardent traveller, he constantly finds inspiration from the places he visits and applies this in his cooking.
His latest adventure in India shed some light on the ingredients he chose to use in some of his dishes.
“Although the dishes are mostly traditional, I try to use some spices whenever applicable. For example, the Deep-fried Grouper with Sambal Sauce uses a lot of spices and suits those who love a fiery taste in their food,” he said.
The set menus for 10 persons per table — Happiness (RM775++), Prosperity (RM875++) and Longevity (RM975++) — are made up of predominantly Hong Kong-styled Chinese dishes.
Double delight: The prawns are cooked two ways to add more flavours to the meal.We sampled dishes mostly from the Longevity menu with an exception — Hong Kong Style Baked Salted Chicken which is available in the Prosperity menu only.
Unlike some food reviews that we had been to, we were feted together with other members of the media.
Dinner started off with the Thai Yee Sang. As the dish arrived at our table, we stood up and got our chopsticks ready to toss for good luck and prosperity.
Traditional yee sang is often accompanied by plum sauce. Living up to its namesake, the Thai Yee Sang was spicy akin to Thai chilli sauce.
Ang said this was tailored to Malaysian tastebuds as we loved our spicy food.
To cool our tongue after the yee sang, we were each served a bowl of Double-boiled Soup with Dried Scallops, Sea Cucumber, Chinese Black Mushroom and Abalone.
The soup is a popular choice for reunion dinners as it uses seasonal items we come to associate with Chinese New Year.
The soup was flavourful but it felt a tad salty for me.
Soon, the Hong Kong Baked Salted Chicken arrived, much to our anticipation. The dish comes highly recommended by Ang.
“The bird is left to bake in the oven for an hour before the gravy is ladled on to it,” he said.
The meat was tender and juicy while its gravy tasted unique.
Must-try:The Hong Kong Baked Salted Chicken is Ang’s signature dish.Next, the Deep-fried Grouper with Sambal Sauce was served. The fish was crunchy on the outside while still tender on the inside and the sambal added some zing to the dish.
We also had the Wok-fried Spicy Sour Tiger Prawns and Oriental Style Salt and Pepper Baked Prawns.
Despite a mouthful of a name, the prawns were delectable and fresh. It would go well with plain rice due to its heavy flavours.
To balance out the meaty dishes we had so far, the Braised Seasonal Vegetables with Dried Scallops, Bai Ling Mushrooms and Bean Curd Skin was a good dish. It was a typical vegetable dish that you could have in Chinese restaurants.
Just when I was heaving from the dinner, more dishes came our way.
I had a small portion of the Fried Rice with Seafood and Pumpkin. The addition of pumpkin cubes gave the rice dish an added texture and taste.
Lastly, we ended the dinner with plenty of stories, laughs and a bowl of Double-boiled Longan, Red Dates with Assorted Fruit.
Interested patrons can give the hotel concierge a call to book for dinner. You can opt to have it in the coffee house or in a function room.
The Thai Yee Sang is also available for takeaway, priced at RM56 for small and RM79 for a large portion.
This is the writer’s personal observation and is not an endorsement by StarMetro.
