Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Home Classic Pork Dishes at Xin, Concorde Hotel

As far as chinese restaurants in hotels go, Xin, in the Concorde,  has always struck me as one of those that is really good value for money.  Their dim sum is always good, and of course, it contains the "forbidden" non-kosher meat, pork, that integral part of chinese cuisine, I often feel, though more and more innovative chefs have managed to somewhat find close acceptable substitutes.  Of course, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, Concorde used to be the old Merlin, and those days there was only "one" chinese restaurant for dim sum in the whole of KL, and I reminisce fondly the chinese pavilions and turtle/terrapin ponds that formed part of the landscape, so that would be another reason why Concorde has a special place in my cholesterol laden heart.

The latest event we were invited for was to showcase their classic pork dishes, an invitation title so refreshingly simple, so direct yet so appealing.

Beancurd Stick Chicken Soup, a fabulous chicken broth (who says you need sharksfins to make a good broth...give me this soup for the soul any day), packed with the goodness of chinese herbs like angelica, ginseng, wolfberries, red dates.  I love my soups, and I love my soups even more when they're prepared this way.

Deep fried bean curd with mince meat.  Such a simple, yet delicious dish that screams out to be eaten with rice.  My children will without a doubt love this, and actually, just ordering this, with rice, would be a wholesome meal by itself.  Oh, and maybe one vegetable dish.

Slow cooked pork tendon with garlic. The chinese apparently seem to believe that if you ate a particular part from the animal, it would strengthen the corresponding part in your body.  So tendon would strengthen your own tendon... whether old wives' tale or not, regardless of its scientific accuracy, its darn delicious, and trust the chinks to use every part of the animal to make it delectable.  Melt in the mouth tendon, that tastes and feels like glorious fat, but in actual fact, is not! Best of both worlds.




The two pictures of this hokkien mee is to focus on that most wonderful creation called chee yau char.  Croutons of fat pork, deep fried, crunchy on the outside, moist on the inside, complementing that plate of glorious yellow noodles fried in high wok heat with that almost oil slick like dark soya sauce.  One of the reason I'd like to go to heaven is so that I can eat hokkien mee continuously without having to worry about weight.

Wok fried pork belly with DriedChilli.  Such comfort food this is.  Again, a bowl of steaming fluffy white rice and this tender pork belly, with the few token lettuce leaves, is a complete meal by itself.



The piece de resistance of the porcine repertoire, the BBQ suckling pig.  Crispy skin, layers of tender fat and meat, ...accompanied by fluffy mantao that somehow seems to mitigate the evilness of the fattiness of the suckling pig because it feels like a clean, untainted sponge to soak up all that badness.



Fried seasonal vegetable with Crabmeat and egg. Generous amounts of freshly peeled crabmeat, chunks of salted egg.

Chilled Aloe Vera Dessert. Actually, I often wonder at the courage of the early man, how they were adventurous enough to discover what was edible and what isn't.  How the heck mankind managed to extract that wonderful jelly like aloe vera from a plant, is quite impressive.  Afterall, we wouldn't randomly pick up a plant, especially a pokey one like aloe vera, and think to ourselves, hmm, this looks edible.



Telephone : Xin Cuisine 03-2144-8750 or email fbkl@concorde.net.
Xin Cuisine
The Concorde Kuala Lumpur
2 Jalan Sultan Ismail
50250 Kuala Lumpur

4 comments:

KY said...

I can use some of those soup now in this overly cold office!

Ciki said...

Looks delicious.. and I really missed chinese food.. pls bring me next time! :P

Christina Kim said...

That's a LOT of meat!
I was enticed by the vegetable and the chilled aloe vera dessert though :-P

Unknown said...

Early men were not adventurous, they were just hungry. How did they know if something was edible? Well, if they lived to tell, you know it's edible.