CNY 2016 at Dynasty Restaurant, Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel

Chinese New Year is less than a month away and it's the time of the year that we indulge in those supreme and memorable dishes which is served in either 8 or 9 or more course-dinner.

Dynasty Restaurant in Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel recently launched their Auspicious Chinese New Year Feast to usher the upcoming new year; the Year of the Fire Monkey.

Dynasty Restaurant is a non-halal Chinese restaurant which conveniently located inside Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel. You can enjoy authentic Chinese Cuisine with your loved ones in an elegant yet comfortable environment with a 5-star service at your need.

I am impressed with their table setting as well as the dinnerware used to serve your meal. From the little saucer, side plates, plates, serving bowl to teapot; it features a dancing maiden with some clouds motif. It makes you felt as if you're dining in a floating palace and the maiden on the plates are presenting the dish to you :P
 

 The Executive Sous Chef Kok Chee Kin and his team of talented chefs crafted some special yet authentic Cantonese cuisine dishes which focus on the use of traditional ingredients while emphasizing on light and fresh flavors for healthy feasting.

Looking through their menu, I would say that their fabulous Chinese New Year set menu caters for the many people. This is because Chef Kin is very thoughtful that he created 7 festive set menu suitable for people dining in groups of 2, 5, 6 and 10.

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Dynasty Restaurant, Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel CNY 2016 festive menu: 

 The 7-course Double Happiness Set is priced at RM428nett for 2 persons. 

The 7-course Prosperity Treasure Sets are priced at RM838nett and RM1,088nett for 5 persons come with Salmon Yee Sang and a Prosperity Pot.

The special 8-course Chinese New Year Set for 6 persons is priced at RM988nett. 

The lavish 9-course set menus of  Happiness Set (RM1,598nett), Fortune Set (RM1,988nett) and Longevity Set (RM2,888nett) is for dining group of 10 persons.

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It is very rare for a restaurant to have a CNY set for 2pax as pig and I had always wanted to enjoy a special CNY menu together but most restaurants only have set for 8 or 10pax. Now, you too can enjoy a special CNY date with your partner at Dynasty Restaurant! Not to forget that this year's Valentine's Day falls during the CNY week and thus another reason to have a Chinese banquet to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Presenting to you some of the highlighted dishes at Dynasty Restaurant this CNY 2016. Sampled them during their Chinese New Year menu launch last week thanks to Sidney Kan and Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel.  

 The ultimate starter of every new year's celebration meal; the yee sang and here at Dynasty Restaurant, they have the healthy yet delicious version; Fruity Fiesta Yee Sang. Fruit lovers will be delighted to see chucks of white dragon fruit, strawberry, papaya and honeydew on the yee sang. These fruits balanced out sweet and savory compartments of it. Yum!

 Now, this is the real starting point to your CNY feast; the Fortune Combination Platter or what we known it as 'lang poon' in Cantonese. Chef Kin crafted 4 types of delicious yet beautifully looking treasures. In the white nest, it is the stir-fried asparagus with giant scallop. And then, there is the fortune money pockets, fried prawn rolls and salted egg & banana fritters.

I would say that this dish is visually presented and resembled a peacock's tail where the white nest is the body and the other 3 combinations arranged in an orderly designed tail :) A dish which is delicious on the outside and inside!

Warm up your heart with a bowl of Ocean Treasure Soup with Crabmeat. You'll be munching enoki mushroom, little chunks of sea cucumber, scallops and of course, crabmeat.

Their Braised Pork Knuckle, Fresh Mushroom & Sea Cucumber is quite a memorable dish. Flavorful, rich and satisfying! If you don't like the fat part like me; just put them aside as there's a huge chuck of delicious pork meat hiding underneath. As for the sea cucumber, I prefer them to be cooked longer so that it is fully infused with the broth/sauce - just a personal preference as I cooked them that way at home.

Feeling a bit on the heavy side? Munch on these Stir-Fried Hong Kong Kai Lan with Wild Mushroom. They do a good job in balancing your palate.

Every Chinese New Year feast is not complete without a prawn dish because it symbolizes 'laughter' aka happiness all year round. I love the gravy of this Grilled Prawns in Spicy Sauce & Green Chili because it taste almost similar (70% I would say) to the one my late-grandma used to cook  - our weekly crab dish during my younger days. The sauce is good to go with your rice ~ if you're having one but it will be great if fresher prawns are used.

The Sun-dried Oyster, Fatt Choy, Flower Mushroom and Pork Meat is great to balance out your heavy meal. The oysters used in this dish are rich in taste - a bit bigger compared to the one at home in terms of size and I'm sure your superiors in the family will praised them and - you of course for bringing them to a lavish dinner. hehe.

If you're dining here at Dynasty Restaurant, be sure to order their Hong Kong style clay pot waxed meat rice! It is that GOOD! The rice is cooked to perfection - at the right texture and moisture. Waxed meat (waxed duck's drumstick, liver sausage and Chinese pork sausage) are superb and compliments the rice well. Can't stop munching on this one.

      I'm sure you're drooling with the pot of claypot waxed meat rice below. Here's a good news to share. You can enjoy this delicious dish at Dynasty Restaurant for only RM39nett per person (minimum order is for 2 person). There's 2 types of claypot rice available which is the current one;

Hong Kong Style Clay Pot Waxed Meat Rice ( 腊味煲仔饭)

and the 

Clay Pot Rice, Spare Ribs and Chinese Sausages ( 腊肠排骨煲仔饭).

All their festive sets menu ends with a Fortune Pastries dish. I love their own-made Chinese Sticky Rice Cake or also known as nian gao where it is coated with desiccated coconut. It is soft yet chewy and easily manageable in your mouth. If nian gao is not your thing, pick up one of those fruit tarts instead while others enjoyed theirs. An East and West dessert on a plate - satisfaction for all ages. 

Overall, it was a great CNY feast at Dynasty Restaurant. And you should try them all. Their CNY 2016 menu is available from now till 22 February 2016. Make your reservations today by dialing 03-2716 9388 or drop an email at: rhi.kulrn.fb@renaissancehotels.com to secure your table. You can also make an online reservations at www.klrenaissance.com/printing .

Dynasty Restaurant, Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel
Corner of Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Ampang,
50450, Kuala Lumpur.

Tanuki Raw, Orchard Central Singapore

I were at Singapore again last week for some restaurant hopping and catching up with my BFF, Sean. It was a fruitful trip as I managed to sample some delicious food plus catching up with old friend. Singapore is so near to Malaysia that you basically can fly there every week :P

Orchard Central is quite a new shopping mall along Orchard road in Singapore. My bff brought me to this delicious Japanese place called Tanuki Raw. They served fresh and premium Japanese food where they take their raw food seriously and heavenly I would say.

They have indoor and outdoor seating and we were at the outdoor sofa seating as there's ample light for an Instagram worthy picture. Another reason I love this place is that they do have 'lunch menu' or what we called 'lunch set' here on weekend. A lunch set on weekend? I rarely see that back in my own country - normal lunch set are only valid for Monday to Friday.

Their affordable lunch menu starts from 12SGD is available daily from 11.30am to 3pm. And you can opt for a complete set of drinks, salad and miso soup at 2SGD (if I'm not mistaken - or is it 3 SGD?).

Salmon Don

 Their Salmon Don comes with perfectly cuts of raw salmon, little ikura (fish roe) on a bed of healthy sushi rice. Their salmon is fresh and one word - Oishii.

Chirashi Don

 If you love premium sashimi, you gotta try their signature Tanuki Raw Chirashi Don. You can get all your beloved sashimi in one bowl. Be prepared to feast on premium cuts such as tuna, salmon, seabream, swordfish, scallop and salmon roe on a bed of sushi rice.

I'm lovin this place. Must thanks my bff for this lovely lunch. The next time you're dropping by Orchard road; be sure to visit this place! The nearest MRT station is Somerset which is connected to Orchard Central mall.

 Healthy, delicious yet affordable lunch at Orchard road ~ only at Tanuki Bar.


Tanuki Raw
181 Orchard Road
#02-03 Orchard Central
Singapore 238896

Nearest MRT station: Somerset

The Han Room Restaurant, The Gardens Mall

The Han Room Restaurant which is located at The Gardens Shopping Mall had recently relocated to the Third Floor of the mall from its previous Ground Floor location. It is currently located right next to Borders Bookstore as well as opposite Fong Lye Restaurant and Sushi Zanmai.

Was there with my pig few days back for dinner and it's our first time dining at its new location. As usual, it has the wow factor of a banquet Chinese restaurant with properly folded napkins, elegant chopsticks with the restaurant name carved on it as well as the courteous servers at your service.

Not sure about the size of its new location compared to its old one; but its new location do caters to birthday or wedding banquet judging from the stage area as well as a three-tier cake replica displayed. It also has many private VIP rooms for more private and quiet dining session. 

All the must-have for a Chinese dinner - minced garlic, chopped chili and soya sauce.

We started off our meal with a Yin Yang Vegetables Soup (RM20 per pax) where half spinach and half corn soup formed the Yin and Yang symbol on a bowl. I quite like the soup where it's well seasoned and you can taste the chunks of crunchy corn and spinach. This is a Chinese style starchy based soup where you need to drink it while it's still hot. If you're sharing your dishes with your dining partner, do consider order one or two pax portion to share. For us, we ordered 1 pax portion at  RM20 and we got this big bowl of soup (pic below) to share. Luckily for us; we did not ordered 2 pax portion which we initially thought was a tiny bowl of soup which is the reason they put a per pax price.

After browsing through their long pages of menu, we ended up with 3 main dishes to accompany our white rice. We had this Smoked Farmed Chicken (RM45 for half chicken) and it is known as 烟 口 水 鸡 in Chinese. According to the waiter, the colour and texture of the sauce resembles saliva and hence in Chinese it's called 口 水 鸡 where 口 水 means saliva. I love the yellowish-white sauce and the smoked chicken is rich in flavour. It does resembles a bit like the salted chicken taste due to the high amount of saltiness in it. 

I was quite excited about the Thousand-layered Bean Curd (RM33) when I browsed through the menu. It consists of thin slices of silky and smooth bean curd resulting from a highly skilled chef's knife skills. The thin slices of silky bean curd is arranged beautifully on the plate which is regarded as a piece of art. The bean curd is silky and smooth but I think the sauce could be better as I would like to have more sauce to accompany the bean curd.

For the greens, we had Stir-fried Hong Kong Kailan in Two Styles (RM28) where the leafy greens are chopped and deep-fried to crispy like chips state and the green stems are stir-fried with minimal sauce. 

We were supposed to have an appetizer dish but was only told it was unavailable halfway though our meal. We then ordered a sweet-ending to replace the appetizer dish. For dessert, we had Chilled Snow Pear & Seaweed Ball in Teapot (RM18). The presentation was quite amusing with a porcelain teapot sitting on a bowl filled with dry ice and hence the lovely mist spurting out. The tiny teacups comes with a little fish in it - it's part of the cups not an additional prop into this dish.   

All you need to do is to pour the dessert drink into the tiny teacups and then enjoy your dessert - voila! It does looks as if the fish is swimming in the teacups when your drink is sitting in it.

If you're ordering White Rice, it's priced at RM2 per bowl and do present The Gardens Card if you have when paying your bill because you'll get 10% off the bill with the card.

Service charge of 10% and GST of 6% applies.

The Han Room is under the same umbrella as The Oriental Group of Restaurants. Do check out their FB page for more on their latest promotions.


The Han Room
Lot T-216A, 3rd Floor, 
The Gardens Mall
Mid Valley City,
Lingkaran Syed Putra  59200,
Kuala Lumpur.

TWG Mooncake 2015 (Snowskin Series)

I'm excited to share with you on the mooncakes which I bought from my shopping session at Takashimaya Shopping Centre few days back. I go back to this fair at Takashimaya Square every year to fetch my lovely mooncakes home!

TWG Mooncake is always the top item in my shopping list whenever I fly down to Singapore. It's because I couldn't get their Snowskin series back in KL. If you are flying down to Singapore; you can actually purchase the mooncakes from their TWG outlet in Singapore Airport when you're flying back Malaysia. However, if you're flying back in the evening; they might run out of stock though. Purchasing them at their airport outlet is slightly cheaper compared to their outlets in the city :P

For this trip, I bought a box of 4 pieces from their mooncake booth at Takashimaya Outlet and another 2 pieces from their airport outlet at Terminal 1 transit area. 

I L-O-V-E TWG's Snowskin mooncake a lot because it taste very different from those common ones which emphasize on the flavored lotus paste filling. This year, TWG is offering 4 types of tea-infused snowskin mooncakes which guarantee to bring snowskin mooncakes to another whole new level.

Their theme for this year is the Autumn Celebration Tea which announced the arrival of fall in deep violet, setting the tone and the flavour of the season. Their gift boxes are customized to match the theme of the season on the outside but still maintaining the golden glam on the inside.

The 4 flavours for the TWG Snowskin Mooncake series are Pure, Illumination, Dragon and Celebration. A box of 4pcs is priced at SGD60 per box while individual piece is priced at SGD16/each. 

Dragon

The rose among the thorns in the box is the Dragon which is indicated by the red coloured snowskin on the outside with a layer of edible gold foil sitting on the top of the mooncake. This delicate and stunning piece of masterpiece is embellished with a 24ct gold leaf, filled with Red Balloon Tea infused nashi pear mousseline and a refreshing and crunchy blueberry marmalade white chocolate heart in the middle.

One of my little red Dragon survived the long journey home but I accidentally swing my paper bag while walking and the 24ct gold stuck flat on the plastic cover. Well, it's ok; since it's an edible gold foil; we licked the cover clean. Muahah!

Sorry for the bad quality picture below, but the mooncake is so delicate as it's made from soft mousse that it look a bit of a disaster when I cut it. But do ignore the look of it after you cut the delicate mooncake because the taste is absolutely delicious that you might want to lick those crumbs which stuck on your fingers. It has a very soft skin and filling which do not make you feel bloated like the ordinary lotus paste fillings do. I even got feedback from my eating partners that it taste as if they are eating an ice-cream mooncake! And I do love the authentic blueberry filling in the middle - they are not flavouring but pure blueberry compote encased in a white chocolate ball. It's heavenly!

Celebration

With the violet theme leading the Mid Autumn season, we must not missed the fun and laughter leading to towards the festive day but to celebrate it throughout the weeks to come. This Celebration snowskin mooncake is crowned with a splendid purple snowskin, filled with a dainty chestnut mousse infused with Autumn Celebration Tea around a mango marmalade white chocolate heart.

The mango marmalade in the middle is a bit sourish and matches the overall taste and the oumpph texture of the chestnut mousse. You gotta try it for yourself!

Illumination

Do you love TWG's signature Black Tea? This stunning Illumination mooncake is made to satisfy its loyal tea lovers. This exquisite black snowskin mooncake comes with a light nutty praline infused with the signature TWG 1837 Black Tea and an oriental burst of glowing orange marmalade in a white chocolate heart.

I tried cutting one of my Illumination mooncake into half to showcase the golden treasure enclosed inside this black beauty. This is one of my preferred flavour too and surprisingly that the orange marmalade paired well with the praline filling.

Pure

This satin white snowskin mooncake comes with a smooth dark chocolate mousse which is infused with fruit and flowery notes of TWG 1837 White Tea, with a heart of tangy blackcurrent marmalade enclosed in a white chocolate ball in the middle. I'm loving the dark chocolate mousse filling which is not too sweet and the tangy blackcurrent marmalde gives a kick to the chocolate mousse. Chocolate lovers must not missed this and you'll come back for more!

This is one of my must-have mooncake every year during Mid Autumn celebration; the exquisite TWG Snowskin mooncakes. Do note that TWG snowskin mooncakes can only last for 3 days in the fridge and it will turn bad after that even though it's sitting in your fridge. I tried to keep them in the freezer and it's still ok on the 5th day. Do not keep longer than that (even though it's in the freezer) or you'll be wasting a nice piece of mooncake to savour. I did that last year (6th day) and end up sending the one last piece to the bin.

My last box of TWG mooncake for this year and need to wait another 365 days till my next TWG mooncake ;(

Happy Mid Autumn 2015!

Mooncake Shopping in Takashimaya Square, Singapore

Few days back,  I flew to Singapore for a day trip in conjunction with the Malaysia Day public holidays :) Was there for a mini mooncake shopping session at Takashimaya Shopping Centre.

Check out the participating retailers at their website. The above poster is from Takashimaya's official website :) 

Every year, they have a huge mooncake fair at the Takashimaya Square, B2 where you will get to sample and purchase mooncake from participating restaurants, local retailers as well as local and international hotels. It's one of the largest mooncake fair which I've been to (let me know if you found something more than this one yeah). In fact, I flew to Takashimaya to buy my supply of mooncake every year as I love their unique mooncake! You can also expect to see overseas brand like The Peninsula Boutique, Mei-Xin and Kee Wah from Hong Kong as well as SunnyHills at Raffles Hotel from Taiwan.

If you are flying to Singapore for mooncake shopping like me; do take note of these few items as you may not buy mooncake the same way like you did back home. Back home; you can walk to a mooncake booth and select the individual piece which you would like to purchase because it comes with individual packaging. Well, do expect to bring a box of mooncake with you from one booth to another if you are purchasing them overseas like me. Most booth have their mooncake priced per box of 2 or 4pcs instead of individual pieces. Thus, if you would like to have only 1 piece of that particular mooncake from that particular booth, do inquire whether they sold in pieces of 2 per box so that you don't over purchase. But some retailers (which I find quite rare) do sell them per piece instead of per box; thus do walk and inquires a few rounds before making your purchase.

And you can also see mooncake baked fresh from the oven at some of the booth in Takashimaya; do walk over to taste some sample from their booth as they are quite delicious - they are usually in my shopping list as they are freshly baked and taste good! And do note that some of the mooncake sold can only last for 4 days to a week even though you keep them in the fridge (trust me, I wasted some previous years although I kept them in the fridge), thus do inquire on how long can they last in the fridge or under normal room temperature. This shows that their mooncake do not have preservative compare to those which can last for 2 to 3 months. And I usually bring a cooler bag with me so that the delicate snowskin mooncake can survive the long journey home (although it's only an hour flight :P).

Here's some of grabs from the mooncake shopping session at Takashimaya Square...

The No.1 must-buy in my list (every year without fail) - TWG's Snowskin Mooncake.

My favourite Walnut mooncake from Amethyst Pastry & Cakes

I also bought some special custard mooncake from Kee Wah Bakery HK. 

Takashimaya Shopping Centre is located along Orchard Road and is accessible by Orchard MRT station and Somerset MRT station. And do check out the Food Village which is located on the same B2 floor too; lots of interesting Japanese goodies for you to shop!

Gogi King, Solaris Mount Kiara

Few days ago, to reward my piggy partner; we went for a Korean Cheesy BBQ dinner at Gogi King located in Solaris Mount Kiara. We drove past this shop few weeks back on our way to another Korean restaurant nearby and saw this interesting concept of Cheesy Korean BBQ.

Their menu is simple with BBQ dishes, noodles, stews, side dishes and drinks. 

We had their Set A (RM55) which consist of Grilled Pork Belly, Pork Shoulder and Skirt Meat.

Their set comes with side dishes such as the essential kimchi, fresh lettuce, two ways salad, a bowl of hot soup and some cheese and egg on the grill. 

Here's what you will get for the Set A! Yummylicious pics ahead..

Refillable side dishes!

From the top is cheese, raw eggs, kimchi, garlic and green chillies. You need to wait for the cheese to melt a little before dipping your grilled meat into it. Just eat your grilled meat together with the cheese and it's heavenly. Well, our focus was on the cheese! For the egg, you need to wait till the egg is cooked first before munching it. And it's basically a steamed egg when it's fully cooked. Grilled meat + cheese+egg = YUM!

 It comes with a complimentary bowl of soup too.

You see, we love more side dishes to our meal and thus we ordered more. You might be wondering how these two fellas finished them but it was all wiped clean at the end of the meal. 

You gotta order these Mini Rice Ball (RM9) which comes in 5pcs of rice ball. You can find some chopped veggies in these rice ball and they are delicious.

We love Korean pancake thus a Kimchi Pancake (RM16) is a must-order whenever we dine in a Korean restaurant. It will be great if there's some spicy sesame sauce to accompany this pancake as it taste quite bland by itself. 

 Now, I would love some flavorful soupy dishes to accompany my mini rice ball. Thus, here comes the Seafood Tofu Stew (RM20) which comes with generous cubes of tofu! I think the soup flavor could be more intense ~ it's just a personal preference as we prefer dishes with stronger taste.

Our Cheesy BBQ dinner at Gogi King.

Overall it was a great dinner and something different from the normal Korean BBQ. But their meat could be even better if it's marinated with Korean sauces before being grilled. Service is great and environment is clean - not smoky.  You should try this meat + cheese BBQ!

Gogi King

No.1, Jalan Solaris,

Solaris Mont Kiara 

50480, Kuala Lumpur.