The Malaysian Insider :: Food

Posted: 06 Dec 2013 07:10 PM PST

BY EU HOOI KHAW
December 07, 2013

Croissants take three days to make.A month before Les Deux Garcons opened their Viennoisserie and Patisserie in Taman Desa in Kuala Lumpur, I received a box of croissants, pithivier, brioche and French pastries filled with fruits.

Pascal (left) and Kah Mun with the croissants just out of the oven.The croissant flaked and flew up as I bit into it, and my lips were covered with the buttery, paper-thin pieces of pastry. It had a soft centre, moist with butter melting into the pastry.
That was so pleasurable and unforgettable that I started making orders for me and my friends even before it opened.

Pascal Yeong and his partner Toto Ooi were happy to oblige, as test runs were being made in the main kitchen there.

Les Deux Garcons (LDG) opened two Sundays ago in Taman Desa, followed by the one in Shell House, Brickfields, three days later.

This LDG outlet is in a leafy neighbourhood of Taman Desa. As it opens from 8am onwards, it is just perfect for a breakfast of croissants and coffee or tea. As a friend said, it's the best croissant East of Paris and it certainly is!

But there are other pastries to like too, such as pithivier, brioche a' tete, pain au chocolat, chocolate éclairs and pastries filled with fruits like peaches and berries.

The pithivier is a puff pastry with a layer of almond paste.Pithivier is a gateau of puff pastry with a layer of frangipane or almond paste. "It's like a French mooncake," said Pascal.

It's a pastry to savour slowly, going through the buttery layers, touching the lovely frangipane that is slightly sweet.

The brioche a' tete is a very rich bread, with a deliciously eggy, buttery aroma. It's round in shape, with a small ball of dough on top.

Puff pastry with peaches.There is also a brioche loaf studded with apricot and cranberries.

Pain au chocolat is a croissant with chocolate inside.

The croissants are best eaten the same day, while the brioche can be kept overnight, if you can resist eating it for that long. All of these are just divine.

Macarons with different flavours.Macarons, marble cakes and the finest French cakes are also made here and you can also treat yourself to these. My favourite macarons at LDG are the truffle, salted caramel and wasabi ones.

The marble cake is irresistible. I am wowed by the Le Palladio, the delectable truffle mascarpone on a macadamia nut and butter crumble base, with a layer of hazelnut daquoise.

Le Palladio, truffle mascarpone on a macadamia and buttter crumble base.The croissants and the other pastries are made with French premier ingredients. I watched as pastry chef Ng Kah Mun put a whole slab of Lescure butter on the smooth sheet dough, folded it over the butter, sealed the edges and slapped them down. The pastry for croissants contains 84% butter.

The dough is frozen overnight. Next morning it is put through the sheeter. The lamination or folding the dough is done, then put through the sheeter, and the whole process is repeated several times till the folds are just 5mm thick.

"As you fold, you make both ends meet. One double fold is 12 layers, and it has to be rested for an hour. Proving takes at least 3 hours," said Kah Mun.

Making the folds with the sheets of dough for the croissant."We have to let it rest to cool it. A lot of people do croissants and the butter leaks out. With a good lamination, the butter should be melting in the oven. We have to ensure the butter is at a certain temperature at all times."

Kah Mun studied at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York and has an associate degree in baking. She has worked in New York for a year, with a stint at the one-Michelin-star Nomad there.

By the time the croissant dough is ready to be shaped, egg washed and baked, it would have taken three days.

"A croissant dough has 108 layers. By the time you roll it up as a croissant, it's 300 over layers!" said Pascal. "The croissant must have a honeycomb cross-section."

More than 300 layers make up the honeycomb texture in this amazing croissant.We were there when the baking was done, and the oven kept beeping at intervals, with wonderful aromas filling the room.

Pascal came back from the United Kingdom in 2002, where he had studied for a degree in marketing, then got his MBA.

During his time there, he had always visited a certain patisserie and became fascinated with their cakes and pastries. His mind was filled with the idea of a European restaurant and he started Café Café in Kuala Lumpur. The restaurant has been around 12 years.

Pascal noticed the uptrend in macarons, looked around for a school to learn how to make them, and found a French-Spanish master patissiere in Thailand.

He took up a course in making macarons, cakes and desserts, travelling there every three months for two years.

"All my training is French-based. I then decided to have a warehouse to do R&D and develop recipes in Taman Desa," he said.

Les Deux Garcons in Taman Desa.He opened the first Les Deux Garcons kiosk in Bangsar more than two years ago. The macarons were a runaway success, as were the cakes.

"Kah Mun and I have the same philosophy. We want to do things properly, with no shortcuts. We have combined my recipe with hers and taken two months to get things right."

The cafe will be looking into serving light meals with croissants and salads next. For all that work, the croissants and other pastries are just RM5 each. A pack of six macarons are RM27, truffle macarons RM9 each, marble cake RM28, Le Palladio RM24. You can also buy the cakes and macarons online at lesdeuxgarcons.com.my/store/ - December 7, 2013.

The three Les Deux Garcons are at:
* 16 Jalan 2/109E, Desa Business Park, Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur, telephone: 03-7980 0200.
* 36 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, Kuala Lumpur, telephone: 03-2284 7833
* K01, Ground floor, Menara Shell, Jalan Tun Sambathan, Kuala Lumpur, telephone: 03-2282 1234.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Jumaat, 6 Disember 2013

The Malaysian Insider :: Food

The Malaysian Insider :: Food

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