Nine-course Cantonese delights

The Roasted ’Pi Pa’ Style Crispy Chicken with Prawn Crackers. — Photos: SHAARI CHE MAT/The Star

CHINESE New Year is the ideal time to treat family and friends to a special dinner.

Grand Millennium Kuala Lumpur has put together a nine-course traditional dinner that offers three traditional Cantonese cuisine set menus in the elegant Lai Ching Yuen restaurant.

Start by tossing the yee sang and Lai Ching Yuen presents a few unique ones.

Apart from the commonly used raw salmon sashimi, diners can also choose jelly fish, crispy fish skin and abalone of crispy white fish bait with prices ranging from RM88nett to RM168nett for either half or whole.

Indulge in the Double-Boiled Shark’s Fin Soup with Crabmeat and Assorted Seafood with a base premium stock of dry preserved ham and chicken broth cooked for four hours, and generously sprinkled with handmade faux sharks fin, scallops, prawns and crabmeat.

Chef Foong with his speciality Wok-Fried Prawns with Spicy Sauce served with fried mantou to soak up the remaining sweet and spicy sauce.

Executive Chinese chef Terence Foong builds a discerning menu that maintains the traditional flavours of Cantonese cuisine through meticulous techniques that require hours of preparation.

Diners will enjoy their meal while surrounded by a mixture of modern and old-Shanghai glamour in a setting of dark wood lattices, marble table-tops, dragon lanterns and walls draped in plush red curtains.

The Wok-Fried Prawns with Spicy Sauce is served with a side of freshly fried, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside mantou, because who could resist dabbing up the remaining sauce.

The succulent sweet fresh prawns are followed by a delectably delicate dish, the freshly Steamed Live Cat Fish with Minced Ginger with its silken and springy texture combined with the soft warmth of ginger.

However, a definite highlight is the Roasted Pi Pa Style Crispy Chicken with prawn crackers with its rich taste of lightly charred and crispy crackle of thin skin and tender flesh that is almost juicy.

“To create the crispy skin, we had to hang the chicken for at least a day and a half until dry. It is then marinated with honey, sugar, vinegar and rice wine before it is cooked it on the spot upon request.

The Steamed Live Cat Fish with Minced Ginger is light and flavourful.

Complementing each of the nine-course menus are two types of desserts, a refreshingly light Double-Boiled White Fungus with Longan and Sea Cocounut as well as two versions of the traditional Nian Gao sticky sweet dessert, sandwiched in deep fried yam as well as sweet potato.

Signature dishes such as Double-Boiled Dried Scallop Soup with Chinese Cabbage and Ten Head Mini Abalone as well as Braised Dried Seafood with Dried Oyster and Black Moss from the Timeless Reunion Dinner menus are also available as Lunar New Year Specials.

The Chinese New Year dinner is available until March 4 from 6.30pm to 10.30pm Set menus are priced at RM1,988nett, RM2,888nett, RM3,888nett or RM5,888nett per table of 10.

The Double-Boiled Shark's Fin Soup with Crabmeat and Assorted Seafood is a chicken-based broth with a generous sprinkling of handmade shark's fin.

LAI CHING YUEN, Grand Millennium Kuala Lumpur, Level 1, 160 Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. (Tel: [phone] / [e-mail] / www.grandmillenniumkl.com). Non-halal restaurant. Business hours: Noon to 2.30pm and 7pm to 10.30pm on weekdays, as well as 11.30am to 2.30pm and 6.30pm to 10.30pm on weekends and public holidays.

This is the writer’s personal observation and not an endorsement of StarMetro.