Zing, Grand Millenium Kuala Lumpur – Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 Menu

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The concept of paying it forward is nothing new.  It could be as simple as someone buying dinner and not allowing you to pay.  Pay it forward.  Buy someone else dinner and see his face light up.  I once had a flat tyre and was feeling helpless because my AAM card had expired and I didn’t know how to change the tyre myself.  Thanks to the kindness of a stranger, the flat tyre was replaced.  The process left him sweaty and his hands dirty, but he didn’t complain.  Neither did he take the money which I offered.  “What’s your name,” I asked him.  “Frankie,” he replied.  I looked at him in his face, humbled, and said, “Thank you, Frankie.”  One of my favourite hymns is a song entitled “Pass it On”.  It’s an old song, and it starts with – “It only takes a spark to get a fire going….”.  I used to be a lot more idealistic in my younger days, and age and experience does harden the heart, but the single act of kindness of one stranger is an apt reminder that there are good people in this world.

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Yee sang with Norwegian salmon – the tangy, sweet sauce is made from peach, apricot and strawberry. Salmon skin adds a nice crunchy touch to the ensemble, but it costs an additional RM15.

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Christine demonstrating how to use extra long chopsticks

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Thick broth with sea treasure. A delightful melange of mushroom, abalone, sea cucumber, fish lips, dried scallops and shredded chicken. Like in the other Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 sets, no sharksfin is served.

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Steamed live fresh “cod” with soy sauce. Although this is called cod on the menu, it is actually freshwater sea perch. The number of fish served depends on its size, so either 2 pieces or 3 pieces will be served with the set.

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Poached marinated farm chicken with Chinese wine. The free range chicken has slightly tougher meat, and is served with the most fragrant minced ginger. Love it.

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Braised Chinese cabbage with sea moss and dried scallops sauce. Quite a mouthful but delicious.

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Seafood fried rice

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Chilled mango puree with pan fried nian gao. While the nian gao may not look like the most appetising thing in the world, it was probably the best I had tasted as I am partial to pan fried nian gao in egg.

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Chef Leong Weng Heng

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A private room in Zing

Zing
Grand Millenium Kuala Lumpur
Jalan Bukit Bintang
KL

Tel: 03-2177 4180

Non-halal

In conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration this year, the best chefs from 8 top Chinese restaurants in the Klang Valley have customised special Extravagant 8 menus, priced at RM888++ for a table of 8, exclusively for Standard Chartered credit card holders. The menus are available from January 20 to February 17, 2011. More details on the restaurants, their offerings and T&Cs are available at the Standard Chartered website.

Thank you, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and Grand Millenium Kuala Lumpur for kindly hosting this dinner.

Note: This is the last of five reviews under the Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 campaign. Earlier reviews:

Chynna, Hilton Kuala Lumpur

Shanghai, JW Marriott

Li Yen, Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur

Gu Yue Tien, Chulan Square

Chynna, Hilton Kuala Lumpur – Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 Menu

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Organic melon, golden pumpkin, fruits Yee Sang

I’m horrified. (tap tap)  Somewhere between Typing Tutor (a DOS based program in the 80s) and now, someone changed the 2-space rule after the period. (tap tap)  My friend, Chet, posted an article on Facebook which cited the AP Stylebook as one of its sources, and as I understand it, most of the youth of today, or those who started typing after circa 1989 (don’t quote me) have been adding one space instead of two after the period. (tap tap) I felt like a failure for all of 2 minutes, then realised that I should not let my feelings be affected by a body that is bent on saving space by leaving out alphabets (eg. color, flavor, aluminum). (tap tap) Of course, we can’t blame the Americans for everything, and the 1-space rule after the period probably surfaced due to some green movement (imagine how many trees are saved by the Americans/1-space rule advocates/young punks), but it’s hard for me to embrace change now.

Sowhatnextafterthis?Awesomecool.

A public service announcement.  If you love steaks and want to win a 4 day/3 night trip to the land down under, do take part in the Las Vacas Steak Challenge.  Details are available on their Facebook page.  The closing date is 13 February 2011 and participants are limited to 60, so hurry.

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It’s still Chinese New Year, so until the 15th day is up, you’ll be seeing only Chinese New Year posts in line with the festive cheer.  Today’s entry is Chynna, a pork-free restaurant which I love to frequent thanks to the Hilton card which offers me loads of discounts.  Discounts aside, the food’s pretty good, and the decor, opulent.  Be ready to be greeted by a long-neck-teapot-wielding-kungfu-man (i.e. a man holding a long-necked teapot as opposed to a long-necked man holding a teapot) as he performs some impressive stunts before pouring you a cup of 8-treasures tea sans spills.  The tableware is gorgeous while the entire place is awash in saturated hues.   Simply beautiful.

The Extravagant 8 Set Menu at Chynna is premised on a healthy concept, or at least, as healthy as it possibly can be.  The vegetarian yee sang was a delight to eat despite the lack of fish or seafood primarily because it felt less oily and sweet thanks to the restrained use of olive oil and plum sauce. One of the key ingredients used was organic “sharks fin” melon, a kind of squash where the flesh resembled shredded sharks fin with none of the guilt.  Golden pumpkin and fruits completed the picture.

I love a hot and sour soup, so Chynna’s version with kimchi, fish maw and bamboo pith was a pleasure to consume.  With all these creative ways of presenting soup, it’s quite possible to see the easy demise of sharks fin dishes.  Kudos to Standard Chartered Bank and the participating restaurants for paving the way.

My favourite dish that evening was the steamed Canadian cod, a fresh (as is possible for imported fish), firm piece of fish served in a slightly spicy sauce made with dried shrimps, onions, chilli, coriander and fermented black beans.  The cod was the small scaled variety which, according to Chef Lam Hock Hin, was sweeter than the regular type.  Actually, half the battle is won when fresh ingredients are used, and yet, there are still restaurants out there that deem it fit to serve substandard items.  Blame it on price levels, consumer habits, etc, but if we’re expected to be a force to be reckoned with in the food universe, we should start with the freshest local produce possible.

Chynna
Hilton Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur Sentral
KL

Tel: 03-2264 2264

In conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration this year, the best chefs from 8 top Chinese restaurants in the Klang Valley have customised special Extravagant 8 menus, priced at RM888++ for a table of 8, exclusively for Standard Chartered credit card holders. The menus are available from January 20 to February 17, 2011. More details on the restaurants, their offerings and T&Cs are available at the Standard Chartered website.

Thank you, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and Hilton Kuala Lumpur for kindly hosting this dinner.

Note: This is the fourth of five reviews under the Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 campaign. Earlier reviews:

Shanghai, JW Marriott

Li Yen, Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur

Gu Yue Tien, Chulan Square

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“Sharks fin” melon used in yee sang

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The beautiful Bangsar-Babe holding up the beautiful and intricately designed plate

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Hot and sour soup with kimchi, fish maw and bamboo pith

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Steamed Canadian cod in fisherman sauce

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Stewed sun dried oysters with fatt choy, braised peanuts and chicken

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Wok fried nian gao with Chinese cabbage and mushrooms

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Ginger syrup with glutinous dumplings

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Chef Lam Hock Hin

Shanghai, JW Marriott – Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 Menu

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Bald Eagle could tell that I was upset about work when I suddenly started ranting at 12.30 at night. As a matter of policy, I choose not to discuss my work life at home, so when this happened, he knew that I was troubled. The next morning, I took my time getting out of bed. He said, “You don’t want to go to work, do you?” (He loves stating the obvious.) After taking a shower, I got dressed absentmindedly and kissed him goodbye. Seeing how he was so chatty earlier, he could have told me that I was wearing my outfit terbalik, right? But no, he let me walk out of the house with the label sticking out, seams clearly showing. I went to the nearby tuck shop to get a can of Nescafe and a bun, and the girl at the counter didn’t say anything about my outfit. I stopped at Petronas for fuel, and the guy who attended to me didn’t say anything about my outfit. I greeted the receptionist at my office, chatted with her about the lovely CNY flowers decorating the entrance, and she didn’t say anything about my outfit. I walked past 30 colleagues to get to my room, and they didn’t say anything about my outfit. I had a discussion with two of my staff for a good 20 minutes, and they didn’t say anything about my outfit. It was only when I took a pee break about an hour later that I saw my reflection in the mirror and screamed.

The world needs glasses. Not rose-tinted ones. Just plain old prescription glasses.

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I looked in awe at the braised Shanghainese pork.  It stood like a wobbly terraced structure of pleasure, entirely made up of my favourite kind of meat.  The pork belly had been braised for five hours and sliced so precisely that it deserved to be put on a pedestal and worshipped.  The one given to us was firm, cooked exactly to my preference, but I was told that it is normally cooked a little more thoroughly to a point where the pork fat melts a little and becomes softer.  Bamboo shoots ensconced within the structure and steamed with the pork proved to be a lovely accompaniment, much like a concubine to her master.

I liked the double-boiled superior wanton soup.  Choose wanton soup over sharks fin soup?  Indeed!  With the Chinese, there are several grades of soup, ching tong (clear soup), siong tong (superior soup) and then, there’s gou tong (higher than superior soup).  This was made with dried scallops and bamboo pith in a clear broth made with chicken and Yunnan ham.  The wantons were made with pork and vegetables.

The fried rice, humble as it is, had Aly asking for seconds, and that girl normally doesn’t ask for seconds of anything.

When asked which of the dishes was his signature, Chef Wong Wing Yeuk replied in fluent Mandarin, “Xiu Long Bao!”.  Luckily, thanks to my years of tuition lessons in Mandarin (yes, really), I made out all of 2% of the entire conversation (money badly spent).  The rest was un-fluently translated by FBB, but they cannot be repeated in this child-friendly blog.  They were pretty little dumplings with translucent skin, and steamed with the most exquisite broth, but the good Chef also candidly mentioned (in Mandarin again) that he did not prescribe to the theory that a xiu long bao should be made with a fixed number of folds.  I suppose he has a point.  While  I can’t see the significance of 18 (or whatever number is deemed appropriate), the more important virtues are that of taste and translucence and elasticity of skin, and Shanghai excels in all areas.

Shanghai
JW Marriott Kuala Lumpur
183 Jalan Bukit Bintang
Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2179 8288

In conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration this year, the best chefs from 8 top Chinese restaurants in the Klang Valley have customised special Extravagant 8 menus, priced at RM888++ for a table of 8, exclusively for Standard Chartered credit card holders. The menus are available from January 20 to February 17, 2011. More details on the restaurants, their offerings and T&Cs are available at the Standard Chartered website.

Thank you, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and JW Marriott for kindly hosting this dinner.

Note: This is the third of five reviews under the Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 campaign. Earlier reviews:

Li Yen, Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur

Gu Yue Tien, Chulan Square

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Salmon yee sang

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Double boiled superior wanton soup with dried scallop and bamboo pith

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Deep fried grouper fish with sweet and sour sauce accompanied with deep fried goose liver wrapped in bean curd

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Braised Shanghainese pork with vegetables

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Imperial fried rice with shrimps and diced chicken

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Steamed Shanghainese meat dumplings

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Sweetened glutinous rice cakes with red dates and dried longan

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Pan fried glutinous rice cakes with sesame seeds

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Chef Wong Wing Yeuk