Kuriya, BSC

I think the concept of INCEPTION is real. It is quite possible to plant a thought deep in the recesses of one's mind. For example, I distinctly remember reading in EatDrinkKL's post that Kuriya is BSC was poised to become one of the best and busiest restaurants in Bangsar. Had it come from some other random food blogger, I'd have dismissed it as one waves off a pesky fly on the dinner table, but these accolades come from the The Ultimate of the Food Cognoscenti himself...that's as good as sending Leonardo into the 4th level of my consciousness to plant an idea there.

So, you can imagine my excitement when Aly (I seem to talk alot about her these days huh) asked me to join the Red FM crew for a food review at Kuriya. I was beside myself with anticipation. Well, the thin guy in me screaming to come out would also like to have been beside myself, were it not trapped inside instead of beside.

Now I did not know this until today, (my journalistic skills are about as good as my formula F1 driving skills), but Kuriya means aristocratic kitchen. The Salmon Belly Aburi was yummy, fresh and fatty salmon that melts in the mouth, married with a slightly tangy sauce. It's not entirely raw. The outsides are seared slightly.


A sake margarita. Interesting, but I think I prefer the traditional tequila ones, despite having an aversion to Tequila. By the way, thanks Aly for the drink. Hope it didnt cost an arm and a leg.


Boiled Ebi (Prawns) & Hotate with garlic syouyu. (that's a good scrabble word if its English).


Hotate Mentai With Wasabi Mayo. Scallops, with roe and a lovely sauce with kick. The scallops were fresh, no complaints here.


This has to be my favourite dish of the night. The Chef's Special, Avocado Kakushiyaki. Avocado halves gratinated with scallops within. Yummy. Scallops, cheese and avocado. Fabulous combination.


They might be smiling now, but they had to fight over the last piece.


Terry's fruity drink...well, it was colorful. (FK, if you are reading this, this is for you)


OOOH, I loved this as well. The assorted sashimi platter. Topped with Toro, and Hamachi, and raw prawns, (which I think Terry tried for the first time! Go you raw prawn virgin). The platter was exceedingly fresh.





Dobin Mushi, a clear hearty broth, served in elegant teapots and a teeny weeny tea cup. Off hand, I'd say this method of serving is to ensure your soup doesn't get cold.


Wagyu Kushiyaki. Tender pieces of skewered beef.


A well ingredient-ed (is there such a word?) Chawan Mushi. Smooth silky steamed egg, with lots of goodies lurking beneath.


Soft Shell Crab Tempura. I love soft shell crabs, and I love tempura, because it's deep fried and unhealthy for you. So, this was good.


The dramatic flaming Toyota... like a flaming Lamborghini, but Japanese. I kid you. It's a Oyster Shell Flambe, and it's all about the presentation. However, I found the flames possibly rendered the scallops to be a bit overcooked and as a result were too tough.


Sizzling Seafood Teppenyaki. Now, that's a LOT of food!


Another chef's special. A special fish, which none of us had heard of or seen before, called a Grunt Fish. A simple yet effective way of cooking, preserving the fish's sweetness without overpowering it in sauce. Exceedingly fresh.


This is what the grunt fish looks like, lest you should need to identify one in a lineup.

Freshly pulled homemade Soba noodles. Actually, I had this childhood aversion to Cold Soba noodles, but this reversed my childhood experience, and I'm now a happy cold soba convert.


Mackerel Roll. Well, a bit on the fishy side, and probably an acquired taste.



Terry, Chef Nakagawa and Aly...

That was a rather comprehensive meal. Thanks again to Aly for the invite, and to the management of Kuriya for hosting us.

Kuriya is located on the 3rd floor of BSC's old wing, where Grand Imperial, LeMidi etc are.

Kechara Oasis, Jaya One

I was intrigued when Aly of Red FM, who asked if I would like to go for a vegeterannean food review. Did she say Vegeteranean? As in a cross between vegetarian and mediterranean? Turns out, she was just slurring. Vegetarian, she meant. At Kechara Oasis. I always thought that was the name of a spa. It sounds spa-ish, don't you think?

Anyway, far from Spa-ish, Kechara is actually a whole organisation...check out their website HERE..Labelled as a New Age Vegetarian restaurant, the Kechara organisation has soup kitchens, their own meditation centre, and is inspired by Tsem Tulku Rinpoche, from the Tibetan strain of buddhism.

The restaurant itself is no soup kitchen, and in fact, is supposed to be the first fine dining vegetarian place in the Klang Valley.








Buddhist artifacts adorn the place... but not overly so. There is a certain minimalist zenlike quality about the restaurant.


Our hosts for the night are Jeffrey Gan, the Manager of the place, a "convert" to vegetarianism after watching some videos about the cruelty of slaughtering animals. He then found his calling and became the GM for the Kechara organisation.


A delicious mango lassi and avocado lassi. I preferred the mango one, which was slightly tangy. They pride themselves with purity of ingredients.


Kechara Salad. A vegetarian yee sang, so to speak. Raw salads, pine nuts, ground nuts, with a lovely tangy dressing. It certainly FELT healthy. All that fibre. Oh, they do not use garlic and onions, as Buddhist vegetarians, because of their potentially aphrodisiac and err... passionate qualities. No eggs either.


Kung Po Chicken. I've always been fascinated by chinese vegetarians, who make mock meats of every conceivable edible animal. We have mock charsiu, mock pork, mock mutton, mock chicken... this is mock chicken. I enquired why this was so, and Jeffry's answer, that actually made a lot of sense, said that it was to give variety in cooking...ie, the same method of cooking for the meat equivalent can now be used to cook the dish. Like this Kung Po "Chicken", for example. The chicken bits are made from a particular mushroom. Lovely.


Momos. This in Nepalese/Tibetan influence. Lovely little dumplings with an assorted filling.


Butter Mushrooms - A special mushroom, deep fried till crisp on the outside cooked n a divine butter sauce. Aly kept saying she is reminded of soft shell crabs. It might be vegetarian, but I'm sure the butter sauce negated the healthy effects of being vegetarian.


Chef Au, a jovial, semi meat eating chef. His favourite food, Bak Kut Teh...


Ting mo. Steamed buns, dipped in a lovely curry-ish sauce. The buns were superb. Light and fluffy, calling out for some chicken curry to be dipped in.





For dessert, a chocolate mousse, eggless of course. Concocted by their pastry chef Nic.


Interestingly enough, Kechara also caters for wedding receptions and large functions, and there is a market for such a service. Read Aly's post about Kechara HERE.

After a healthy purifying dinner, we just HAD to go and contaminate our bodies with THIS:



Thanks Aly for the invite, as always, and Jeff and Anna for being gracious hosts. Also, nice meeting you Andrew the photographer.

Kechara Oasis
Unit 19-LG1, Level B1 Block D Jaya One,
No. 72A Jalan University,
46200 Petaling Jaya,

One Who Flew Over The Cocoa's Nest

It's been awhile since there's been a road trip with fellow bloggers into the interior. Ever since our intrepid adventurer and adventuress, Cumi & Ciki became international food and travel writers, these jaunts into the quaint little towns and remote areas have become all but a memory. So, when Cumi & Ciki spearheaded the trip to Cocoaland, well, actually a Cocoa plantation run by the Lembaga Koko Malaysia, (not related to Coco Chanel), a large group of us enthusiastically hopped onto the proverbial bandwagon...some wagons arriving later than others, and getting lost.

The place, Jengka, off the new east coast highway, just after the Temerloh turn off, approximately 2 hours from KL. There are a whole lot of Felda settlements along the way, and Jengka is divided numerically into Jengka XXX. We were supposed to turn off at Jengka 18. Laidat oso got people can get lost.

The Malaysian Cocoa Board has a nice building perched on top of a hill...


Our troops ready for adventure.


The people at the Cocoa Board are very hospitable, we were given a lovely breakfast of fried noodles with fried eggs, before being ushered into the conference room for a taklimat. (briefing). It was actually very educational. I always thought Malaysia was way up there in cocoa production, but actually, we are lagging behind at number 18, if I am not mistaken, in cocoa producing. However, as Cocoa grinders, we are ranked no 3, so there is a big disparity between raw material and end product in our industry here.


The Cocoa Board actually sets out to help small time or big time farmers, interested in cultivating the crop. They provide seedlings, saplings, bud grafting, pest control, advice and service for 5 years for FREE!!! They even arrange for your crops to be bought. So, if you have 10 hectares of land lying around idle, do consider a career in cocoa planting. The price of processed cocoa powder is apparently even higher than palm oil.


Is that dashing British fellow falling asleep at the briefing? Gasp!


We were provided transport in a convoy of 4 wheel drives. Children being children, opted to sit in the trunk.


A cocoa tree up close, with them cocoa pods.


Who makes the peace sign anymore these days while taking pics? Well, apparently Memoirs of Chocaholic does. Maybe the cocoa fuelled the flower power in the chocaholic.


Ms Cocoaland 2010??


Some kid who was hanging around with us.


The cocoa pods come in different colors. This species is a glorious aubergine type color.


One of the projects of the Cocoa Board is to experiment on different permutations for crops. In terms of spacing of the plants, and what other plants can be grown concurrently. Here we have the very sought after TONGKAT ALI grown in between the cocoa plants. I would love to try them aphrodisiac chocolates made from cocoa from this plantation!


The fleshy interior of the cocoa pod.... the texture is a bit like soursop, as well as the taste. Yes, its edible.


Check out Oliver's pods.


With one deft chop, Su of Delectable manages to crack open the cocoa pod like a hard boiled egg.


The circle of life for the cocoa bean. The seeds are placed in a wet gunny sack to germinate. When germinated, the seedling is placed, root down, for the young sapling to grow. The pictures show the cocoa baby plant in various stages of growth. After 6 weeks or so, they are bud grafted, with other species, for more productivity.


And the final stop, how we actually GET the cocoa from the cocoa pod. The pods are broken, either manually, or with the Cocoa Breaker Machine, (COBRE), the beans are separated from the husk, and the beans are fermented for up to five days. Hence a foul odour fills the air, so if you intend to ferment cocoa beans at home, make sure you don't do it in your condo.

The fermented beans are then left to to get a sun tan, for 3 days or so, before they are dried to a crisp, and vaguely the same skin tone as Ciki. The precious cocoa lies within the seed.

We have in that last frame, that British fella telling Puan Rozita, "hey, this doesn't taste like Cadbury".



And the end product of cocoa is.....tah dah....

For those of us who wanted it, you could actually get the young cocoa plants and bring them home. The boy took 5 back.

A great trip, and honestly, MOST educational. Highly recommended for field trips etc. The people at the Lembaga Koko are great, hospitable, friendly and helpful. Kudos to them for an excellently run establishment.

Thanks to Cumi for organising, to Ciki for inviting, and to all the staff at the LKM.

PS- I hope little Chloe benefited from the Cocoa Pod that her mother asked for! ;)