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Month: November 2017

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Travelogue: Finding clarity in Iceland’s brooding landscape

by Global Gastronaut
Posted on November 9, 2017December 29, 2017

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"I don't want this dish to end," said one of my dining companions that Friday night. We're at @Dewakanmy and about a third through the extensive degustation when this dish arrived. It's a little smaller than it looks in pictures yet its flavours punched well above its weight. This dish to me represents all that Modern Malaysian cuisine could be, elegantly interpreted with a restrained hand. It's not about taking a classic hawker creation and shoving it through the meat grinder of a restaurant and turning it into a Frankenstein dish. It's about breaking down the ingredients and flavours and assembling it carefully on a plate. What you see here are slices of prawn warmed lightly in a tart starfuit juice speckled with kaffir lime leaf oil. The green bouquet that sits on top is a selection of local herbs, leaves and shoots known as ulam, along with their blossoms. Each leaf was an incredible explosion of herbaceous beauty; one that many of us have forgotten as we lurch into urban times. These ingredients have been falling to the wayside as we embrace all that is foreign. This is one of the new dishes in Dewakan's latest menu and I've been watching the restaurant grow from strength to strength. What's being served right now is a strong selection of hits while older signatures have been tightened. The dish unfortunately ended, and with that, the curtain around what exactly this country is capable of has come down. If this is the direction Modern Malaysian can take, I can't wait to see more.

Spent all night slaving over a charcoal fire as is my yearly ritual. This time around, I broke with tradition and did a Malayan recipe for rendang tok, a dryer rendition with lots of lemongrass hailing from the state of Perak. My mum’s recipe was otherwise handed down from my grandmother and we have our ancestral roots in Central Java (okay, so my mum freaked out a bit when she tasted it and said, “Why is this rendang Malaysian?!”) It’s hard not to be inspired by the culinary culture of Malaysia when I’ve been living there the last 2 months. That said, I’ve used some ingredients from @javaraindonesia — thanks for making craft Indonesian ingredients available to all; and will also be serving my dish on a plate made by @bendangstudio_official. To those celebrating, selamat Hari Raya, happy Eid and to those who are not, have a fab long weekend! ❤️

Today marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, and with it goes the incredible food bazaars that’s given me an eye opening culinary tour of Malaysia. I’ve been going to the one at TTDI every other weekend — one of the bigger ones my side of town, and savouring different things each time. Satay is always good as is the selection of traditional Malaysian dishes like Nasi kerabu and Nasi dagang which we otherwise don’t get in Singapore. And who could forget the hot steaming rolls of putu bambu, soft crumbly rice cakes steamed in bamboo shells with a molten centre of palm sugar. What struck me is that the sellers speak in varying regional Malay accents and are always happy to proclaim that they’re heading back to their hometowns soon. It really doesn’t get anymore authentic than this. Swipe for more shots of what I had.

finesse [fi-ness] noun: extreme delicacy or subtlety in action, performance, skill, discrimination, taste. . This word is often thrown around by food critics when describing a chef's skill. Yet it is also found where you least expect it; like in a bowl of cendol in a cul de sac off Petaling Street that doesn't even have an address. For my non-Southeast Asian friends: It's a dessert of iced shavings flavoured with coconut milk with lashings of palm sugar (otherwise known as gula melaka) and topped with slivers of jelly made of rice flour made fragrant with pandan leaves. . But here, the cendol contained flecks of pandan and tasted just a touch more savoury than usual to counter the sweetness of the gula melaka. It was also chewy and had a bounce, demonstrating that the seller has indeed gone through many trials to get to this perfect balance, instead of simply buying it as a ready-made ingredient from a supplier. When we paid up, the vendor said with a smile: "You'll never see cendol as beautiful as mine in the whole of KL." I can't help but think to myself, 'I've never seen cendol as beautiful as that in the whole of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia' – and that's a huge area. . If that isn't finesse, I don't know what is. [Swipe left to see a closeup]

I’ve been eating my way through KL and @entierfrenchdining at Alila Bangsar is the latest entrant in the rapidly developing scene. It’s opened by veteran chef Masashi Horiuchi — whose resume includes L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in London; the man behind Shelter In The Woods (which I sorely miss since it closed) and Sakurazaka in Singapore. His food in KL is just as good, and makes me miss Shelter even more. Until I write a proper review on the interwebs, here’s a peek at what I loved that night: dark chocolate macarons for petit fours made with Pahang origin chocolate by @chocconcierge. The squares perched on top? Dark chocolate truffles laced with orange zest. I’ve had Pahang-origin chocolate multiple times now as a bar, truffle, and desserts at two restaurants (@restaurantnouri and @dewakanmy), on top of interviewing the owner back during my Michelin Guide days. It delivers every single time and was perfect when eaten as a ganache piped in between macaron shells. Note that I don’t normally enjoy macarons — they’re so sweet it’s almost vulgar but Chef Masashi’s team has managed to tame the sugar monstrosity with the complex, brooding quality of the chocolate, and in doing so, sent us into the night well on a bittersweet note.

Throwback to that time I wandered around the streets of Milan with @victoriacheng and @kloren1023 while savouring this delicious gelato made with Sicilian pistachios. Thank you @travisgoh for introducing and educating me on the wonders of this magic ingredient!

On the final night of the #spyoungchef event, we were treated to dishes whipped up by the judges. This one's by chef @margaritafores — named Asia's Best Female Chef in 2016. It's a bowl of Laing, a Filipino dish of taro leaves cooked in coconut milk with prawns and dressed with taro chips and crispy prawn heads. Earlier on the trip and on the van from the airport to the hotel, we discussed how there are many similarities between the cuisines of maritime Southeast Asia. Cooking stews with coconut milk is certainly one of them. There's even a similar dish in Malay cuisine, except that the stew is thinner with more water and the leaves used are cassava shoots. No surprises that this was my favourite dish that night! 😍

I've had chef Virgilio Martinez's dishes thrice now — twice in Singapore and once in Milan for #spyoungchef (unfortunately not in Lima yet, but soon!) This time around it's a dessert of white fleshed dragonfruit with textures of amazonian cacao. There are cacao nibs, chocolate ganache (or mousse? I can't be too sure) and a plate that's completely covered in cacao powder. This is nothing less than an incredible plate of textures and a divine combination. The magic lies in how the fleshiness of the fruit meets the sweetness of chocolate and the bitter crunch of the cacao nibs — a sweet marriage of ingredients that's right under our noses here in Southeast Asia, but few, if not none, have dreamt of putting together.

In Milan right now for #spyoungchef and having Franco Pepe’s pizza. Everything I read about his pizza is true and it tastes incredible. Who would’ve thought pizza could be this good? Pictured: mozzarella di bufala, 12 month aged grana padano DOP cheese cream, tomato compote, basil flowers, shaved 24 month aged grano padano DOP cheese, extra virgin olive oil.

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Dining dispatches from Southeast Asia, and beyond.

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Nasi ulam: A herbed rice recipe that’s easy, nutritious and delicious
Modern Malaysian cuisine blooms in the kitchens of Beta KL
Photoessay: Saturday morning at a Malaysian Farmer’s Market
Gaggan’s head chef Rydo Anton hopes to represent Indonesia to scale new heights
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