Infused with a touch of Japanese
December 30, 2019
I have always thought of Still Waters as a
Japanese restaurant. But it also offers Cantonese cuisine by the talented Chef
Meng. His specialties, as we are about to discover at a
Chinese New Year Tasting preview, are deliciously different too as, having worked
alongside the Japanese cuisine chefs, he has injected some of their ingredients
and methods into his dishes.
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| Yee sang with Japanese ingredients |
For instance, we start the meal with Japanese yee
sang. As we all know, yee sang is a culinary creation of the local Chinese
community, a truly unique Malaysian dish that has even found popularity in Hong
Kong and some parts of China too.
At Still Waters, Chef Meng gives it a Japanese
twist by adding ingredients such as tako, Japanese fish cake, crab stick,
jellyfish, marinated baby octopus, Japanese pickled seaweed, kyuri, tobiko and
ikura (fish eggs) to fresh lollo rossa, lollo bionda, pickled onion, radish,
roasted sesame, crushed peanuts, pok choi and not forgetting, thick slices of
the freshest salmon. The sauce is house-made and chef uses, among others, Japanese
plum sauce and sesame sauce.Well tossed, each mouthful of yee sang is a
fascinating dance of flavours and textures, all swaying to the rhythm of the
sesame-plum sauce.
Japanese yee sang is available a la carte
(RM78/half portion) and as part of CNY Set Menu C. Regular yee sang (from
43/half portion) is also available a la carte, with toppings of jelly fish,
salmon, kampachi (yellowtail) and crispy silver fish.
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| Eight Treasure Soup |
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| Oven-Baked Chicken with Chinese herbs |
Before we even lick the bowl clean, we catch
whiffs of herbal fragrance. And there it is… Oven-Baked Roasted Chicken with
Chinese herbs. The aroma of herbs (danggui, tong sum and pak kei) is heady while
red dates add a pleasing sweetness to the dish. This is not crispy skin roasted
chicken. Steamed lightly just before it’s served, the chicken is tender but not
fall-off-the-bone soft as there is still some texture on the bite. The juice is
thickened and poured over the chicken, adding another layer of smoothness.
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| Pearl Grouper steamed with mirin sauce |
Pearl grouper is steamed with mirin sauce and
topped with scallion, coriander and deepfried ginger. The fish is fresh and
firm but I find the mirin sauce a tad too sweet for my liking.
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| Wokfried Prawn with Golden Salted Egg Yolk Sauce |
Wokfried Prawn is a treat. Coated thickly with
Golden Salted Egg Yolk sauce, each prawn is butterflied at the back to allow
the rich sauce to penetrate into the flesh. It also allows peeling the shells
off with little fuss.
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| Scrumptious Garlic Fried Rice with barbecued chicken meat, mushroom and waxed duck |
To end our meal, we have Garlic Fried Rice. But
this is not quite the Japanese rice dish. In tune with the CNY festivities,
Chef Meng has thrown in diced barbecued chicken meat, shitake mushrooms and
waxed duck meat to add flavour the dish. I surprise myself by reaching out for a
second helping. And I love the slightly sticky and al dente texture of the Naga
rice that chef uses.
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| Osmanthus jelly and nian gao tossed in grated coconut |
For dessert, we have the de rigueur nian gao (CNY
sticky cake), steamed till soft, then sliced and tossed with snow white
desiccated coconut. There’s also osmanthus jelly, imbedded with goji berries and scented with the mild
fragrance of delicate osmanthus petals.
STILL WATERS
(no pork served)
Level 1, Hotel Maya
138 Jalan Ampang, KL
Malaysia
Telephone
+603-2711 8866 ext 260
Opening Hours
Monday - Friday
Lunch: Noon to 2.30pm
Dinner: 6pm to 10.30pm
Promotion
9-course CNY Set Menu for 10 pax, including yee
sang:
RM888, RM1,088 and RM1,388 nett
Yee Sang platters also available a la carte
