Prime At Le Meridien,.... And Absolutely Useless Free Gifts

Owning the Starwood card and its many vouchers can sometimes be darn stressful, especially when the expiry date looms before you like the date of the SPM Bahasa paper. The sense of urgency turns into hysteria, and a mad scrambling of trying to slot everything into a limited time and space. So, I was immensely relieved when so & so decided to host a birthday dinner for another so & so, at Prime, BECAUSE, I had a free cake to redeem from Le Meridien, AND a 25% group dining voucher. I am a good guest to bring, coz the vouchers virtually pay for my portion by itself.

It is my 2nd time at Prime, the first, I bumped into Kenny Mah. This time, we were given a room, obviating the need to be seen by the rakyat. The room is quite nice, cosy, plush, and you need a forklift to lift the chairs.

I am not sure what that hanging thing above is meant to be, but it reminds me of the whale skeleton that hangs in museum negara. Despite my age, I vaguely recall the brouhaha when that particular whale got washed up on our shores.

The breads, a spicy tomato focaccia and a nutty white bread, were complemented by the most divine spread of butters, to spread. A trinity of butters, tomato, salted, and parsley, I think. Most divine.

I'm a plebian, and always say a silent thanksgiving prayer when bread is served with real butter, (a louder prayer when it's salted), as opposed to the balsamic & olive oil combo. Its so ladida these days, apparently even Pick n Brew serves that.... well, I very unkultured one. Give me gourmet butters anyday.

At this point in thyme, my camera was showing its low battery signal. Groan, of all the times to run out of battery. And usually I am very organised, and would be armed with extra batteries. Channeling all my qi into energizing the battery, I allocated what I hoped was enough energy to last till the cake cutting.

After oohing and aahing over the menu, and the myriad choices of types of cows (wagyu, kobe, black angus, jersey, normal), and their different nationalities (Australian, Argentinian, etc), and different ageing (80 days, 150 days), and different dietary (grain vs grass), I finally settled on the lobster bisque soup.

I love soups served with the puff pastry roofing. It's kinda exciting to see what surprises await beneath that puffy filament. In this case, it was a rich, thick, creamy flavourful soup, ... a bit too thick, with a morsel of lobster. But oh so good, but gosh, it sure made the hitherto consumed bread expand like newly filled sponge, .......

Classy restaurants of course give sorbet for you to wash your palate. (and to justify a RM40 bowl of lobster bisque soup). The raspberry sorbet, a rather generous scoop, was very intensely raspberry, and very dense, not sobert-y (sorbay eee) at all. Twas more like normal ice cream. Who's complaining? I'm not.

At this point, the battery light was flashing red, which would be the equivalent of the petrol light coming on in the car. Sigh, all these dishes, and no one to photograph them. I used the last surge of flash (usually I don't but I didn't have a choice, lighting sucked) to photograph this piece de resistance, the Wagyu Prime Rib, 1kg shared between two (this is a half portion, ie, 500gm) priced at RM498 per kg. Actually, very good value, if you think about it. For wagyu. It can easily feed 4 people, imho.

My own order was the Black Angus, 8oz (220gm) of gorgeous rib eye (RM90)....camera had died completely by then, so you'll just have to rely on my description to imagine the succulent tender meat, marbled with just the right amount of fat, and seared to perfection, sliding down my esophagus as I closed my eyes and imagined myself as ........... erm..... analogies escape me right now.

Wife's surf and turf (RM125), comprising half a lobster, and a fillet mignon slab, was also very good. But way too much. Meanwhile, while my own steak order was perfect and I felt contentedly full, after consuming it, the eaters of the Wagyu began flogging off bits of their meat, as they were too full. I have to say, the Wagyu was divine. Melt in the mouth, also with a bit of fat, and oh so tender.

Prime, quite prime indeed. Am rather pleased with my 2nd experience here, despite having heard some shocking reviews. They did however have an interesting "no tah pau" policy, which they explained. Apparently they didnt want people to bring food home, contaminate it, fall sick and die from diarrhoea and sue them.

On a separate topic, though it happened in the same day, pertains to what a sucker I am for free gifts. HSBC called me asking if I wanted a supplementary card for the spouse, and I would get a free mystery gift, .....the word "FREE" always sends tingles of excitement down my spine, like a mainland chinese masseuse tickling your feet with a feather duster (not that I've ever experienced it).

So imagine my excitement, when months later, a couriered parcel comes bearing lo and behold, a rather interesting looking aluminium tin, that looked like a wedding favour.

I excitedly rip open the courier package, (courier packages, COULD they make any LESS simpler to open? Gosh, you need a surgeon to cut it open) take out the tin, and pop it open. I couldn't make out what the heck the contents were.

Anyway, it turns out, its a POCKET watch, complete with chain. GASP!!!!! I was in HEAVEN. I've ALWAYS wanted one of these......nooooooooooottttttttttttt!

Mystery gift indeed. It's still a mystery to me why anyone in their right mind would think that this gift would interest ANYONE. Argggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. A POCKET WATCH!!!!

A POCKET WATCH!!!! Still can't get over it. I'll be waiting for part two of the present, which presumably, logically, should be a monocle. I'd like to have a word or two with HSBC's corporate gifts consultant.