Tai Zhee Hin, Prince Hotel

I am a bad blogger. After being given this press release material, only now have I perused it, and noticed this:

"In conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration, the best chefs from top 8 Chinese
restaurants in the Klang Valley will cook up a storm to prepare customised Extravagant 8 menus that will satiate the palate and tantalize the taste buds between 20 January and 17 February 2011 exclusively for Standard Chartered credit card holders.
Priced at RM888++ per table of 8 pax, Standard Chartered credit card holders will not only be taken on a gastronomical journey; they will also be treated to free fortune cookies"

Wow, nothing quite like the promise of fortune cookies to make me drop all plans and lure me to a dinner.....unless it was yet another invitation by the Queen herself. Yes, 2nd in the series of Extravagant 8 Menus, this time, the venue, Tai Zhee Hin, Prince Hotel. I have to confess, I rarely step foot into the Prince Hotel, the last time was probably a couple of years ago for teh tarik (a rather extravagant teh tarik venue, I have to add), with a group of my school alumni. I've seen many reviews, and salivated over the tantalizing looking dishes that the Chinese restaurant, Tai Zhee Hin, had to offer.





Salmon Yee Sang with crispy shredded treasures and blackcurrant-plum dressing. Thick, succulent pieces of almost radioactively pinky orange salmon adorn the array of vegetables, in all shapes and sizes, almost like that meat dress adorning a famous singer.


Eight treasure broth with sun dried seafood. The Stanchart promo has a no sharksfin policy, do don't hope to look for those cartilageous strands of stuff within these bowls of goodness.


Braised sea whelk with fatt choy, bai ling, dried shiitake and straw mushrooms. Fatt choy, the ever present ingredient in chinese new year menus.


Honey Glazed Tanned Ribs With A Chocolate Memoir....


Crispy deep-fried sea bass with spring onions and ginger sauce. There's always a suspicion that deep fried fish is probably frozen and was unlikely to be doing somersaults in the aquarium on the same day that it's fried, but this fish was fresh enough.


Pan-fried tiger prawns with Chinese herb-infused superior soy sauce. I'm glad to see that preparation of prawns seem to reverting to the more traditional har loke style, rather than the creamy butter prawns that have invaded our palates in the 90s and last decade.





Cantonese-style roasted chicken with fragrant salt and prawn crackers. The unnaturally pink prawn crackers seemed to be a hit on our table, and was gone before you can say keropokman. The red meat parts were tender and moist, though I found the white meat to be dry and unmemorable. However, there are distinct factions between leg and breasts lovers when it comes to chicken meat.


The cosy private dining room that overlooks the main lobby and the famous chandelier.


Golden fried rice with shrimp and crabmeat.


An award winning chef, Chef Ricky Thein was the recipient of Gold Medallist at the 5th World Golden Chef Competition for Chinese Cuisine in 2005 and was also awarded the Silver and Gold Awards for the Excellent Service Award by SPRING Singapore in 2005 and 2006 respectively.


Bald Eagle, to whom we have this spate of meals to thank, plays the gracious host, in the absence of his lovely wife, (did I just utter those words?)....



Sweetened red bean cream with glutinous rice dumplings. We all love balls don't we. There's something about the word, and the shape, that makes people do the silliest things.








Crispy fried Chinese brown sugar cake. Nian gao, in other words. I liked this dish, coz I found the nian gao not sweet at all.

Tai Zhee Hin is halal, so a great place to entertain your Muslim guests.

Tai Zi Heen is located on Level 2, Prince Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Conlay, 50450 Kuala Lumpur.

For reservations, please call our Restaurant Manager at 03 -2170 8888 or
email: restaurants@princehotelkl.com.my

Shanghai, In the Marriott. Not the Tang One.

Every now and then, the Queen herself (picture inset) descends from her lofty, fart-free heights to mingle with the mortals, and on the rare occasion, actually accepts an invite for a food review, and in turn, benevolently dishes out the invites the way one throws bread to the poor from a bodyguarded limousine in a starving third world nation. With the royal wave, of course.



Looking at her pose, one can almost imagine her getting ready to give the annual Christmas address, .... but yeah, to cut a long story short, her madge invited us to a special auspicious 8 event, organised by Standard Chartered Bank, for its credit card holders, in conjunction with 8 chosen restaurants...priced at RM888++ (actually should be net hor, if they really want it to be prosperous).. for 8 people..(or sometimes 10). Oh, its for Chinese New Year, in case you were wondering.

It's been awhile since I stepped into the hallowed halls of Shanghai. Mentally, I have this image of Shanghai being pork free, fine dining and expensive. Me being a more tai chow kinda person, used to squatting by the roadside, and being the Eliza Doolittle of the Culinary World, am always wary about fine dining places, for fear my lack of etiquette and manners might cause embarassment to the hostess, in this case, the queen herself.


Nevertheless, never one to turn down an opportunity for good food and company, I delightfully accepted the invitation...and was not disappointed. A very unique yee sang presented itself, it was almost the texture of coleslaw, lots of finely shredded cabbage, and not much, if any, of that shockingly dyed preserved stuff that adorn most other yee sang dishes. Which suited me fine. The sauce was also very unique, not your normal plum sauce, but more like a peanut sauce.


According to James, our new found friend, (not that new la, but he's just moved down from that lovely quiet town of Ipoh, hence his fair and smooth complexion), those chopsticks are longer than usual.





Double Boiled Superior Soup With Wantan and Bamboo Pith and Dried Scallops. A hearty broth, that has the wholesomeness of homemade goodness, but yet, might not be something you can easily replicate at home. I mean, who has the time to make wantans at home right!


Mmmm, deep fried goose liver wrapped in bean curd, AND, deep fried grouper in sweet and sour sauce. Groupers... are they like food bloggers? Hanging out in groups, hence the name, Grouper? Or maybe a Grouper is the organiser, like the queen, and we are the groupees. Anyway, I am not usually a fan of deep fried fish in this form, but this grouper was surprisingly moist and delicious. And tastes like fish. You know what I mean, when its filleted, and deep fried, it could be almost anything. But hey, we are talking about a 5 star establishment here.


Imperial fried rice with shrimp and chicken. Imperial indeed, fit for a queen. Delicious and fluffy. Reminds me of one of the old Malay folklore, where this old man, Pak Pandir bumped into a hungry tiger, (Sumatran la, must be), and implored the Tiger to let him finish eating his rice, which he did, and Pak Pandir ate grain by grain, until the Tiger fell asleep. That's how fluffy the rice was...we could eat it grain by grain.


In the remote jungles of the Andes, arising from a jungle of brocolli, an Incan/Mayan pyramid, also known as Ziggurats in Mesopotamia, made out of fat belly pork....


Top marks for presentation! First time I've ever seen such a dish. Well, if the proof of the pudding is in the eating, this porky pudding passes with perfection. Tender slices of melt in the mouth lard, with a hint of lean, (Mrs Jack Sprat would do cartwheels of joy), braised just right. A subtle sauce that complemented the gorgeous meat texture.





And what is a visit to Shanghai without a sampling of their famous Siew Loong Baos. Lovely little dumplings, filled with tasty pork and piping hot soup, that explodes in the mouth like a magical candy from Harry Potter.








The Q&A session with the Chef, who only speaketh the language of the Motherland, was quite a riot with Aly (who's british) and Thamby (who's denying her chink heritage) scrambling for translations. I did them the favour by informing them that the chef was talking about kung fu, and his days at the Shaolin temple... sigh, I amaze myself with how helpful I am.





Deep fried nian gou with sesame seeds. I am ambivalent about this chinese dessert, which was designed to seal the kitchen god's mouth shut so that he did not repeat the gossip he heard in the kitchen, but this particular dish, was not sweet and didnt caramelise your teeth, so it was rather palatable. The generous coating gave it that extra crunch. And to my horror, as I write this, I realise I had missed out one other dessert, sweetened glutinous rice cakes and dried longan.

Let me do a Julia Child, and attempt to describe something without the aid of pictures. The dessert is quite unlike anything I've had, in totality. The sum of the parts in this case was quite different from the individual parts. The glutinous rice cakes have no taste, and has the texture of ... well, glutinous rice but not as sticky. The longans impart that deep earthy smokey taste, into the sweet broth. The neutrality of the rice cakes coupled with the strong flavours of the longan, and its broth is a good match.

[pilfered from J2kfm's blog]
*The Extravagant 8 Menu is priced at RM888+ for a table of 8 pax, additional diner will have to pay RM111+ each. Subject to 10% service charge and 6% government tax.
*The Standard Chartered Extravagant 8 Menu is available for a limited time only – 20th January 2011 until 17th February 2011.
*For reservations please call Shanghai @ 603-2719 8288.
*Shanghai is located on the first floor of JW Marriott Hotel (www), sharing the same premise with Starhill Gallery on Jalan Bukit Bintang in the heart of KL city centre.

Thanks to Shanghai, JW Marriott for hosting the dinner, and to Mr & Mrs Bald Eagle, and Standard Chartered Bank, for the lovely invite.

Others who've reviewed: My Story (Ai Wei) and KgBoyCityGal and of course, J2KFM.

Zuan Yuan, One World Hotel

Sometime LAST YEAR, in an intoxicated inebriated frame of mind, I managed to key a reminder into my phone with the entry, "Bangsarbabe Food Tasting", 6th January. When I looked back at the entry, I was racking my brains, after severe amnesia, wondering, "food tasting? for wedding dinner ah?"... It wasn't till later, when the invites were out, that I found out, ooh, it was for the Chinese New Year Menus at Zuan Yuan, at One World Hotel in Bdr Utama.

And so it begins, the first of the Chinese New Year feasts....the tail of the tiger and the head of the rabbit. Do we move from carnivorism to herbavorism this lunar year? Will cute baby piglets cease to become part of our menus? So many questions, so many thoughts to ponder upon at the turn of the year. Resolutions for 2011? Well, resolutions are for the imperfect. So I've none.

I was the 2nd last to arrive, much to my embarrasment. Actually, I observe that food bloggers are surprisingly quite a punctual bunch. Despite hell and highwater, most manage to arrive at the venues on time, which is good.

After me, Nigel Skelchy made his grandiloquent entrance, explaining to us the various components of the Brass alloy. (to be fair, I asked him, knowing that this was the walking wikipedia, with no leaks).


The restaurant, on the ground floor of 1WH, is pork free, and halal.


The first toss is ALWAYS the best. Year in year out. Gone are the days when yee sang is served only from the Birthday of Mankind (Day 7) onwards, but even a month before CNY. That first taste, when the tangy plum sauce hits the tongue, triggers of happy memories of days gone by, of the innocence of Chinese New Year, when we gaped at firecrackers and waited for our first ang pow. These days, its a reminder to change new bank notes.

Incidentally, the old man here does give angpows to those who qualify. My criterion for angpow giving is.
1. Unmarried
2. Untainted
3. Unemployed
If you fit all THREE criteria i'll gladly give you your angpow. I'll have to take your word for no2... the very act of lying would taint your soul immediately anyway.


The clickety clack and cacophony of auspicious chants... wealth, health, longetivity, business prospering, world peace, etc... As I said, that first taste is always the BEST, so Zuan Yuan has the unfair advantage here, for me personally, this year.


A most amazing Roasted Duck with Unique Spicy Sauce. Succulent moist tender pieces of duck, in a semi spicey chilli-ish sauce. These days I find I prefer ducks that aren't waddling in their own fat. A good balance of lean and fat is important, and this particular duck had that balance.


Wok Fried Tiger Prawn HK Style. Big prawns, coated by their descendants, minor shrimp...the prawns were super fresh, and this method of preparation is a welcome change to the usual butter prawns that have invaded our tables for the last decade or so.





Steamed Coral Garoupa with Pickled Radish and Chilli. Now the fish was sizeable, but a bit overcooked. Pity. The meat was fresh enough and the sauce not overpowering.


The must have Fatt Choy dish, with stuffed beancurd skin. Very nice, and a lovely stock gravy as well.


Chef posing with Bangsar Babe...


For a pork free dish, it certainly tasted adequately flavourful, with turkey liver sausage, and very aromatic fluffy rice in lotus leaf. Chunks of meat, and mushroom, ... a lovely way to end dinner and fill you up if you weren't already...BUT there was an unexpected encore..


A lovely chicken soup that could soothe any soul, subtlely flavoured with chrysanthemums, and other herbs. Lovely lovely ....














Desserts were the avocado kataifi, a delicious avocado filling wrapped in the fluffiest rice vermicelli..and a hearty healthy Double Boiled Organic Bird's Nest With White Fungus and Red Dates dessert. Absolutely goodiness...


Bangsar Babe with our charming hostess, Florence...



To view their full various set menus, check out The Nomad Gourmand's post HERE...

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the dinner. The duck was really outstanding, I felt. With all due respect to any Muslim readers, somehow a pork free Chinese restaurant strikes me as appealing as KFC without the skin.... but the delightful cornucopia of flavours and alternatives more than made up for it in Zuan Yuan.

Good chinese halal food? Head over here pronto!

Thanks Bangsar Babe for the invite, and thanks to the management of One World Hotel for having us.