*further posted below after I read a gourmet magazine about a food festival to be held in KL in October. So I may have made a mistake - the Chef's last name seemed to be Mr. Choi (I misread Bong as his last name). Then when I read the line "once-in-a-lifetime", I told my business associate that I certainly agree to it as I won't try it anymore and last night was my once in a lifetime for sure. I was then told to complain it to their F&B as they served fake squid slices and the rice is not fresh though it's hard to tell on the taste about the shark's fin and chicken, especially I paid RM400 for those dishes.
After getting disappointed with the way on how the Chef made the sweet and sour dish and the smelly fish maw soup...etc. 3 years ago, I hoped I would get my loyalty to MO's outlets, but again I would simply delete from my "hard disk". Why...? Check the below.
1. the appetitizer is a fish ball slices and it's so so and they use some Thai sweet chili sauce on it. 2. I guess I may have told you this. When I see the pickled green chili and the chili sauce, I can be definite about the Chef should be from either Singapore or hired locally. Then when I checked on the Chef's name on their gourmet introductory book, yes, the Chef's last name is "Boon".
3. Shark's fin in "red hot" brown sauce. OK, re-reminding that Cantonese "red hot" cooking is to use yellow rock sugar to brown the wok so that it gets the aroma of rock sugar - that's how we should call "red hot". This one is just a mixture of soy sauce and oyster sauce. To quite a no. of people, "red hot" would mean soy sauce/oyster sauce together. Besides, the way they handled the shark's fin is a bit not appropriate. They forgot the "frying on wined water" process and without this step, the shark's fin smells. 4. Mixed veggie on crispy cup - this one is a bit salty and the pine nuts should have been more crispy.
5. Celery and lotus stem with crispy squid slices. Wow - you know what they put such squid slices? It's the artificial squid slices which you would find it in Big C or any supermarket. 6. Again the rice is a really extreme big disappointment. You can even tell from the look - it's not nicely cooked. Besides, when I tasted it, it's an overnight rice! They should use this kind of rice for fried rice actually! It's in room temperature when served! My goodness it's a 5 star outlet and they served room temperature overnight steamed rice! I didn't call the captain because last time I spoke too much on how to cook sweet and sour pork and the fish maw. The captain simply didn't know what I addressed to. Forget it.
7. Sliced deep fried chicken on prawn cracker - this one is so so. The chicken doesn't have the chicken taste. So 4 pieces were left. 8. See - how they prepared the ingredients in advance and let the lotus stem get rusty and didn't notice it!
11 comments:
first of all, some Singapore CN chefs do decent Cantonese dishes, it is just Cook Boon own culinary problem
just look at pics, didn't realize u actually ate at an outlet within the premises of one of the world best hotel group; definitely out of par with MO's Bangkok China House, no need to mention MO's HK Man Wah Heen
maybe Boon practice his shark fins cooking in Yaowaraj
hahaha, Big-C artificial squid stir-fried with veggie, well Boon must be watching ur cholesterol!
overnight steam rice, unbelievable!
for ur information, Shang Palace (Shangri-la Bangkok) finally afford to pay for a chef from Hong Kong (that Chef Wong is history), now food quality improved, and the rice is sauna hot, not warm :)
steamed rice is considered how important you pay attention to Cantonese cuisine. Besides, steamed rice should be presented in a round shape on the top and what we called "handsome boy" (靚仔). I used to practise this at home at my teenager's time without using a bowl and turn it upside down onto an empty bowl. Simply using a nice wooden half moon shape rice paddle is ok.
Mmh... it's quite ironic for us to try Cantonese food out of the Canton province including HK. :)
Anyway, I am going to write to MO about my concern instead of talking to their captain who really doesn't know what my points are.
BTW, I noticed many people ordered a half portion of peking duck and I already pointed that out it's quite not appropriate again when roasting a half split duck, the juice will go out. I wouldn't let it be a half order portion and peking duck should be served as a whole.
Yes I can tell the rice looks so stale from your photo here(taken by your nice camera). And I cannot stand the "fake" squid in a 5-star hotel. This looks like those Chop Suey Restaurants in LA's remote area 10 years ago.(Please note I mentioned "remote" area in LA 10 years ago. That means even nowadays LA's Chinese food is better than those shown here, at least for the rice and the squid).
So Chinese Food in KL's top hotel is not as good as those in BKK for the same level then. You may say oh this is the only lousy one in KL's top hotel, but that already ruins the image of KL's top hotel restaurants.
By the way, MO will open one in Vegas by Jan 2010.
SS, there are yet quite many nice Chinese restaurants but I noticed due to Halal restriction, some Chinese food lost its original flavour when it comes to pork ingredients though they do have pork. However, I got told it's also one of the critics that even the wok once cooked pork, then it's supposed not to cook other food due to certain religion restriction. So it may not be a matter of the chef to some extent. However, cooking rice like that is very lousy, making my meal so unpleasant.
Never found a reason to dine at the Chinese/Cantonese outlet in hotels too. I think Shangri-La has a Hong Kong chef now. Try the Prawn Sang Har Meen at Grandmama's, but bring your cholesterol pills along. Lot of prawn eggs inside!
I am not very partial towards chinese cuisine, except for Dim Sums, but my friends like Oversea restaurant in Jalan Imbi.
no excuse for Boon, if other CN restaurants in KL know how to handle pork and non-pork, then as a top chef working in a MO hotel, he shall also
and none of ur dish was a pork dish, except the shark fins soup broth; so what was so difficult for those chefs under Boon supervision to cook a decent mixed veggie on crispy cup, stir-fried celery and lotus stem with crispy (fake) squid slices, and the chicken on prawn cracker? and a bowl of steam rice?
hahaha actually u should make some fun, let us guess, i am sure no one think those dishes were from a 5-star hotel outlet
i always blame China House not doing good enough, okay from now on i shall give her a better time, oooops even Shang Palace and Man Ho r much better, at least on food styling
Android, thanks for your recommendation. I did try Grand Mama's tonight at Pavillions and it's pretty good. At least the Asam Lasak is better over there though I don't like Asam Lasak. I did that on purpose because I really can't ake the fish/shrimp soup base no matter how good it was gold when I was in Penang 2 years ago. I'll post the photos later on.
About the Chef at Lai Po Heen, correct it's no excuse about his mis-administration of the kitchen in overlooking such simple things - steamed rice and the freshness of ingredients. So let's say even I have prejudice (actually I'm a great fan for MO - how can I have prejudice? If so, I'll be on a positive side:), when we check on the rice and the lotus stem - no excuse at all. It's not about the taste. They are not charging RM1 for a steamed rice and RM3-5 for the stir fried lotus stem... and it's a MO outlet - really destroying MO's image.
what ? 4 simple dishes incl. a little bowl of shark fins soup cost u RM400 ($130 USD) OMG
i am so sorry to say, if u didn't mention it was LPH, i thought those dishes were taken from a Sham Shui Poo restaurant; look at pic #4 and #5, ur home cooking does much much better, and no need to mention the rice, the new GM (just arrived in September) shall rethink the contact offered to F&B Director and Cook Choi!
remember last year we dined at MO's China House, 2 soups, 4 dishes (incl. stir-fried shark fins), 1 whole live fish, 1 noodle, and 2 desserts plus cocktails and drinks cost just slightly higher
Lai Po Heen used to be reasonably priced. When I first tried it in 1998, it's not like this! They used to charge the shark's fin at around RM40-50, but now almost 100.
TC, please don't compare my cooking to them as I cook to my preference and I used 0.0001 mg of oil for my cooking; so it doesn't "shine" at all. In the restaurant's cooking, the Chef usually will put some boiled oil on finishing the dishes to make them look better. Besides, I don't garnish my dishes like my steamed spare ribs should have been put with some sliced red chilli... :)
In fact, my business friend told me to go inside their open kitchen and make it by myself...:)
By reading all of the above, I shall thank this chef at MO-KL since he made those Chinese food in LA shine and sound cheap.
Finally Chinese food in LA can compete and excel the top-of-the-line Chinese Restaurant at MO in terms of look, quality, freshness, taste and price. I think this chef.
some dishes from Kitchen (now bye bye) and Peninsula were quite good, except the Peking duck, big laugh!
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