The ketupat dish highlights how a meal can look traditional but have modern connotations. — Photos: Akar Dining
Last year, upscale Kuala Lumpur restaurant Akar Dining unveiled a makeover that harnessed from both the eatery’s core mission of promulgating modern Malaysian cuisine, as well as chef-owner Aidan Low’s Japanese culinary pedigree.
The move was a smart one that brought into sharp focus how two entirely alien concepts can work together in synchrony under the stewardship of a masterful chef.
Low first opened Akar Dining in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and eventually earned a reputation for his particular brand of progressive Malaysian cuisine. But as the years passed, he realised that something was missing in his narrative.
Eventually, he identified what it was: he wasn’t utilising his formative culinary years in Japan enough.
And that is how he embarked on his brand new progressive Malaysian chapter – with a Japanese pulse.
Low is the creative force behind Akar Dining's carefully constructed progressive Malaysian offerings. — Akar Dining
“Our current direction is very much in the spirit of what we want to do but we still kind of keep that Japanese detail quiet. People who know it will know it but I think first and foremost we still want to put ourselves out front to try and bring out the best of Malaysia and also individual experiences such as my Japanese experience,” says Low.
The current menu, titled Mekar, is priced at RM508++ for dinner with an additional RM300 for the full wine-pairing option.
The trio of snacks that open the meal offer glimpses of just what Low is capable of. Think of it as snapshots of what’s to come. The Abalone & Mung Bean for instance features steamed abalone, abalone liver and mulberry sauce, abalone dashi and fried mung bean noodles. The star of this configuration is the abalone, which retains strong mollusc flavours and has a slippery smooth countenance.
Enjoy the bloom of floral essences that blossom on your palate when you savour the flower tart. — Akar Dining
Another snack to remember is the Flower Tart, which is filled with scallop umai and enhanced with a range of flowers like marigolds and Damascus rose.
Pop the entire assemblage in your mouth and delight in the literal explosion of floral flavours that descend on your palate.
Up next is the unassumingly titled Ketupat.
Designed to mimic the famed triangular rice packets bound in coconut leaves so synonymous with Malay cuisine, this is an ode to tradition that shows just how deceiving looks can be.
Because while this might bear a strong resemblance to ketupat, it is anything but.
The ketupat dish highlights how a meal can look traditional but have modern connotations. — Photos: Akar Dining
Here, the filling of the ketupat has been fashioned out of silver catfish marinated in petai miso.
The concoction is wrapped with daun kaduk (betel leaves) and spring roll skin and then fried. This assemblage is then paired with a fish bone rendang aioli.
Hot to the touch, the ketupat crackles upon contact and breaks open to reveal juicy cubes of fish with a slight, permeating trace of funk. Dip this into the rendang butter sauce for a distinctive edge.
Next is the Kabu Turnip, which reflects Low’s love for Japanese turnip – in this case, sourced locally from Cameron Highlands.
Turnip ice-cream, caviar and curry leaf oil - the dynamic superhero trio to remember. — Akar Dining
Here, the turnip has been turned into an ice cream, which is then topped with curry leaf oil and Ossetra caviar.
The meal offers a wonderful confluence of flavours and textures – the ice cream is cloud-smooth and has a vegetal earthiness underpinning its core musculature while the caviar is opulent and brine-laced.
Together, this tag team forms a formidable force, but add the curry leaf oil to the mix and you’ll discover a whole new superhero trio to contend with.
On paper, this is a strange, strange combination of ingredients but in reality, this is a working showcase of the fertility (and manic genius) of Low’s culinary mind.
The cassava noodle dish successfully turns the unassuming cassava into a leading star. — ABIRAMI DURAI/The Star
The Cassava Noodles meanwhile is a take on Japanese udon noodles. In this instance, it is reworked using cassava instead. The dish is enhanced with sea urchin, razor clams, kulim oil and puffed beras Rumie with a razor clam dashi poured over the platter.
The noodles are – honestly – one of the best things you’ll put in your mouth this year. Long and sleek, with a protracted, chewy pull, this is an addictive treat from the very first slurp. The uni adds an opulent aquatic edge to the dish while the kulim sauce imbues it with a truffle-esque sheen.
It’s a dish that catapults the humble cassava into a starring role where its co-stars – big names like uni – don’t outshine it. I think we may have discovered a new leading star with the formation of this dish.
Slipper lobster and green peppercorn sauce make for truly delicious bedfellows. — Akar Dining
Next on the menu is the Slipper Lobster which features lobster dry-aged in beeswax for seven days before being glazed with a house-made char siew marinade. This is enlivened with a green peppercorn sauce, daun kesum (laksa leaf) oil and char-grilled fiddlehead ferns.
The lobster has been cooked perfectly and exudes a silken, bouncy mouthfeel while the fiddlehead ferns have been grilled just enough to elicit a hot, smoky aura. The green peppercorn sauce is rich and strong and yet surprisingly, doesn’t steal the limelight away from the lobster.
The generous serving of sauce also shows Low’s affinity for “banjir” or the Malaysian predilection for effusive layering of gravies and sauces. It’s a triumphant tale that shows how modern nuances can co-exist alongside traditional preferences.
The reinvented apam balik pays homage to the original while seeking bold new horizons. — Akar Dining
Dessert arrives in the form of Apam Balik or a remodelled version of it. Here, the distinctive street food has been reconfigured with corn sauce, coconut Chantilly and peanut sponge with a coconut mochi at its heart.
The dish is very, very good – a soft, smooth operator with a chewy mochi soul and the corn sauce adding sweetness to the amalgamation. It preserves just enough of apam balik’s core qualities to remind you of the genesis of the dish but not too much that it takes away from the originality and inventiveness on show here.
The final sweet component of the night is the Pasir Putih Cacao, which is made up of single-origin chocolate done three ways – mousse, aerated chocolate and chocolate dulce. This is paired with a refreshing rose apple sorbet.
Single-origin Malaysian chocolate forms the soul of this refined, multi-layered dessert. — Akar Dining
This chocolate treat is fabulous – light and gloriously chocolatey with just enough of a bitter edge to retain your interest. The sorbet meanwhile cuts through the hedonism with fruity undertones and a lashing of acidity.
The wine pairing at Akar also draws to light how much work has gone into crafting pairings that resonate with Malaysian-centric meals – something that wasn’t really done or thought of in the past.
Highlights from the pairing include the Ployez-Jacquemarl champagne, an elegant yet fun bubbly that sets the course for the meal. The Balthasar Ress off-dry German Riesling meanwhile is a light, zesty offering that offers plenty of spark and vitality as well as a crisp, layered finish that perfectly sets the course for dishes like Ketupat.
For dessert, there is Seduccion, a sweet wine with a hint of nuttiness that is a great alcoholic epilogue to a meal here.
Ultimately, Low seems to be on a winning streak now that his culinary compass is firmly in place. His current menu is one of the most seamlessly fluid culinary experiences you are likely to experience in KL.
Each course engenders deep, introspective thought pathways about the multi-pronged ways that Malaysian ingredients and cooking techniques can be redefined into new moulds and formats that might previously have seemed inconceivable. And in the realm of modern Malaysian cuisine, that is the true mark of success.
