The Malaysian Insider :: Food

Posted: 18 Jan 2013 03:45 PM PST

Inside Renoma Cafe Gallery: note the animal head on a human form on the back of the Renoma chair. — Pictures by Choo Choy May

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 19 — The Garden Landscape — an obvious nod to chef Heston Blumenthal's Garden Salad — is a great introduction to Chef Alven Tan's food.

It's as if the vegetables are sprouting up from the dark porcini soil. There are heirloom orange, white and purple carrots, Romanesco cauliflower and tomatoes, all from Holland, with green leaves fringing them, and a poached egg in the centre sprinkled with a little chilli.

Garden Landscape: a salad with heirloom baby carrot, heritage tomato, asparagus, porcini soil and soft-poached organic egg.

Cured Muscovy Duck Breast Salad.

The vegetables are sweet and crunchy. There is more crunch and flavour from the buttery porcini soil which the chef de cuisine made with mixed nuts, charcoal bun, charcoal powder and porcini mushrooms dehydrated and pounded, then with butter and sugar added. Altogether it was superb.

It is obvious that colours and textures are a large part of what the food at Renoma Café Gallery in Kuala Lumpur is all about.

We were also wowed by the luscious, glistening slices of house-cured French Barbary duck breast in the Cured Muscovy Duck Breast Salad. It's duck breast that had been air-dried for two weeks after dehydrating it with pink salt. It was so delicious.

There was the merest hint of bunga kantan or ginger flower, yuzu zest and white wine vinegar in the lovely dressing for the salad.

Our lunch might seem to have centred on duck, but we didn't mind. I was again floored by the Smoked Duck Tea that came next. Making a good consommé demands the consummate skill of a chef.

Smoked Duck Tea: a consomme of smoked duck, wood ear mushrooms, water chestnut and pan-seared gooseliver.

Alven rose to the occasion with a sublime consommé, that wafted up a stirring aroma as it was served. I loved it for its intense, complex flavours, the perfectly done foie gras in it that had a "ping" to the bite. Some finely chopped waterchestnut, and strips of wood ear fungus and a green pea, together with a sous-vide egg in the centre, completed it. Now the egg should be eaten whole and separately; do not let it cloud this divine consommé.

The RCG Signature Burger was pure sin. What else would you call 250 grams of grass-fed beef striploin patty with no flour or egg fillers, with the pate-like duck rillettes in the centre and the pan-seared foie gras at the bottom?

RCG Signature Burger with Pan-seared Foie Gras, Muscovy Duck Rillets, Sambal Terasi Mayo.

Confit of Muscovy Duck Leg.

Crispy leek and salad in the burger and fries with a sambal terasi mayo dip made of chilli, belacan, shallots, coconut and mayo were just the side attractions. While it all tasted rich and good, I would have liked it even better if the bottom half of the burger bun was thicker and didn't become a little soggy.

The Confit of Muscovy Duck Leg was flawless. The crispy skin with the aroma of duck fat fell away at the bite. The preparation for the duck confit took two days; the chef finally slow cooking it in duck fat for three hours. He served the duck confit sitting in an apricot and mustard sauce, with sautéed cocktail potatoes, caramelized onions, mushrooms and baby vegetables.

If you want a soup, the Forest Mushroom Veloute is a must. Black trumpet, oyster, porcini and chanterelle mushrooms are simmered for hours in a vegetable stock, blended and finished with porcini cream. It's a soup packed with flavour, its body derived from just mushrooms.

The Pavlova with passionfruit sauce, mixed berries and toasted almond: lightly sweet, unusual for a meringue.

The Slow-braised Grain-fed Beef Cheek is what the chef recommends too, as well as Coq Au Vin, Foie Gras and Black Truffle Capellini, and the wonderful Sea Urchin Tofu, among others.

Dessert was Pavlova with passionfruit sauce, mixed berries and toasted almond. It was lightly sweet, unusual for a meringue. The Orange Crème Brulee was exquisite. Breaking through the thin crackle of burnt sugar at the top, I tasted the most delicate custard with a citrusy lift from orange zest.

The Renoma Café Gallery in Kuala Lumpur is the second one in the world after Paris. It encompasses art, fashion, furniture, and now food. It was a natural progression for stylist, fashion designer and scenographer Maurice Renoma who opened the first Renoma Café Gallery in Paris in 2001.

Renoma's edgy, quirky artworks are on the wall, and on chairs designed by him, in his signature colours of red and black. His favourite theme seems to be animal heads dressed in elegant and casual outfits.

The Renoma Café Gallery here can accommodate 450 people, with the main dining area downstairs, the Salon Lounge on the mezzanine floor sofa seating, dart machines and a pool table. A plush private room here seats 15 for dining, with a minimum spend of RM5,000.

It's not expensive dining at Renoma Café Gallery. The Cured Muscovy Duck Salad was just RM26, Smoked Duck Tea RM20, RCG Signature Burger RM58, Confit of Muscovy Duck Leg RM38 and Pavlova RM14. A three-course set lunch is RM39. The Garden Landscape was one of the courses in a set lunch.

It's pork-free.

It is located at 510 Jalan Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur, tel: 03-2143 9919

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Jumaat, 18 Januari 2013

The Malaysian Insider :: Food

The Malaysian Insider :: Food

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