Daikanyama, Changkat Bukit Bintang

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Friday.  Let down your hair.  Paint the town red.  Enjoy sparkling sake at Daikanyama.

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Visit the tiny patch of green lung at Changkat Bukit Bintang.  All 10 square metres of it too.

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A thick delicious seafood okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) set off with a layer of bonito flakes.

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Bacon and cheese rolls.   Goes wonderfully with the sparkling sake.  Goes wonderfully with anything, actually.  Even that old green rag you’ve been wearing for the past 15 years.

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Did someone say salmon maki with truffle oil?   Quite a unique maki, this one.   Cooked salmon over mashed potatoes, drizzled with truffle oil and coated with some crispy bits.  It could do with more truffle oil.  I prefer generosity.

Daikanyama.  More of a bar than a restaurant.  A lovely place to enjoy your favourite sake.

Happy Friday!

Daikanyama
42, Changkat Bukit Bintang,
50200 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-2141 0323

The Restaurant @ The Club @ The Saujana

The Club

I’m not kidding.  That is the name of the restaurant.  Imagine my hesitance as I approached the front desk of what I believed was The Club @ The Saujana.  The conversation could very likely have turned out to be:

Me: Hi, I’m looking for The Restaurant.
Front Desk: Which restaurant, ma’am?
Me: The Restaurant.
Front Desk: Which restaurant, ma’am?
Me: The Restaurant.
Front Desk: Which restaurant, ma’am?
Me: The Restaurant.

As you can tell, I couldn’t have gone very far with that conversation.   Thankfully, I had arrived at the correct place after all.  My actual conversation was:

Me: Hi, I’m looking for The Restaurant.
Front Desk: Yes, this is The Restaurant.
Me: Is this the only restaurant?
Front Desk: Yes, this is The Restaurant.
Me: This is the The Restaurant?
Front Desk: Yes, this is The Restaurant.

There is, of course, a moral to the story.   I’ll leave it to you to figure that one out.

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The Restaurant

The scenery is quite different in this part of the neighbourhood.  Despite the growth in residential properties in recent times after a sluggish period when our international airport moved from Subang to Sepang, a fair bit of the area is still lush with vegetation.  True, the location of the resort is quite a distance from KL, but with modern infrastructure and traffic jams merely at the entrances and exits of all toll booths, the time taken is a wee bit shorter than in the olden days.

The Restaurant @ The Club

Chef Nancy Kinchela has had an extensive culinary career around the world before joining The Club @ The Saujana on 1 April 2009.   Far from an April Fool joke, she is serious and appears uncomfortable about being in the limelight, which I can only presume means that she is more at home in the kitchen.  Her style is modern European, and she is a stickler for using organic ingredients.   Her culinary style fits in well with the cool restrained elegance that is The Club.  The suites in this boutique resort are tastefully decorated in contemporary Asian accents and there are loads of benefits including a daily replenished private bar (all you can drink)!

The Restaurant @ The Club

A number of the items we had that night were not on the menu.   The refreshing combination of seasonal vegetables including fava beans and asparagus with jerusalem artichoke puree was light and citrusy, whetting our appetite for the subsequent dishes.  Imagine then, scallops, pan fried, with foie gras, a decadent combination further enhanced with sliced truffle and mint.   I fell completely in love with the roast lamb, tender morsels of deliciousness, but thought the accompanying ravioli (filled with beef and spinach and cooked in duck fat) a little overcooked on the outside rendering it a little stale and tough in texture, but the filling was still very tasty.

Another interesting dish was the butter poached lobster, squid and snapper cassoulet served with pillowy soft squid ink gnocchi.  The taste was citrusy and intense.  Chef Kinchela’s forte seems to be her ability in using ingredients sparingly but sufficiently to create just the right balance of flavour.  She readily uses truffles to accentuate her dishes…a slice here and there to just give a hint of the scent but not to overpower the dishes.

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The desserts were nice.  I particularly liked the lemon tart which looked deceivingly plain, and the chocolate fondant with caramel snaps.

The Restaurant @ The Club

Now, having seen the menus for lunch and dinner, I can tell you that prices are on the high side.   From the dinner menu, starters range from RM39 to RM48, soups at around RM37/38, and main courses from RM58 to RM160.  Desserts are approximately RM35 each.   The lunch menu (including an Asian selection) starts from RM35.   The prices seem comparable to the prices at Sage, and I sometimes feel compelled to compare these two.   Naturally, I can’t do that because the cuisines are predominantly different, and personal tastes come into the picture.  I do think that The Restaurant will give any other good restaurant a run for its money, especially when it comes to privacy and ambience, and freshness of produce.

The Restaurant @ The Club @ The Saujana
Jalan Lapangan Terbang SAAS
40150 Shah Alam

Tel: 03-78431234

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Thank you, Liza Latif-Grosskinsky of The Club @ The Saujana  for your kind invitation to dine at The Restaurant and Frat Mustard of theQGuides for making it happen.  Much appreciated!

My friend, Frat

One of the perks of food blogging is meeting new people, some of whom end up assuming different roles in my life. They come in all shapes and sizes, as is evident in my latest friend, Frat.  Frat Mustard.

Frat just dropped in for a quick chat.

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“Hello everyone!”

“Hiya Frat.  You’re a shy ‘un, aren’t ya?  I thought only food bloggers hated being in the limelight.   Why don’t you get out and let us see your face.”

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“Oh, alright.  I’ll just climb out of this glass now.”

“Nice biceps.”

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“Let’s cut to the chase, lady.”

“We’re obviously cutting other parts too, eh, Frat?   Sure you got your body parts intact?”

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“I came close to losing li’l Frat once. Boo_licious tried eating me, but I made a quick escape when the jug of beer got her attention instead.”

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“Problem is, it got mine too, so I plunged right in.”

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“And then, Fatboybakes lured me with fries.  Let me rephrase that.  Fatboybakes lured me with A fry.”

*growl*

“That wasn’t my stomach.” *eyes shifting*

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“You can’t possibly be hungry.   You just ate a plate of pasta 5 times your weight.”

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“That’s why I’m Fat.”

“You mean Frat.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.  Lisa dahlink, light me a ciggie, babydoll?”

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“You know smoking’s bad for ya.”

“I do…I think about it all the time and just want to drown myself in some Bloody Mary.”

“It’s a virgin. A Virgin Mary.”

“Not once Frat gets into Mary.”

“Right.  Moving on…so what does Frat do when he’s not devirginising mocktails?”

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“Yoga.  It’s great for unkinking the muscles and spine.  Especially if you’re really kinky.”

“Ummm okay.”

“Did you just fart?  Something in the air smells spicy.”

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“Oh, that’d be my girlfriends, HP, Heinz and Tabasco.  Hello Spicy, Mustard’s here!”

*stuffing nostrils with tissue*

“What else do you do…other than yoga, I mean?”

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“I bungee jump.”

“Into food.”

“Yeah, better to dive into a shitload of food than a load of shit.”

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“Ever got stuck in a tight spot before?”

“Are we talking about Virgin Mary again?”

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“Ummmm…I think that’s all the time we have for you right now.”

“Don’t be a stranger!  When you’re in a pickle, think of Frat!”

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For more about Frat Mustard, check out his website HERE.  Frat Mustard is also the face for TheQguides, an online restaurant booking site.  I’ve signed up.  Have you?