When a person digs deep and unearths their own truths and revelations, this often results in their best work. Because this is work that is deeply personal and meaningful, and not something forced or created in response to a trend.
This is exactly the culinary trajectory that has guided talented chef Shaun Ng’s new dinner menu at his vaunted Michelin Selected Kuala Lumpur restaurant, Hide.
For the past few years, Ng has traversed different geographical boundaries and patterns and tested the waters in many ways – initially focusing on Japanese-influenced fare before venturing into highly-focused Malaysian meals.
And yet, these various interplays weren’t able to fully define his culinary voyage, which incidentally includes working in celebrated American restaurants like Eric Ripert’s redoubtable Le Bernadin in New York, and Kato in Los Angeles, where he was part of the team that helped the restaurant earn a Michelin star (it now has two stars).
Now five years into operating Hide, Ng has discovered his eureka! moment, epitomised through a career-defining menu that celebrates his journey.
“I think from the start people have always been asking, ‘do you have an identity for your food?’. It’s hard for me to really establish myself in one single route as a Malaysian because when I was 15, I went to Britain to study and was there for a few years.
“At Hide, there was a period of time where we were doing a full-on Malaysian menu. And I just felt that wasn’t me. That was me ‘forcing’ the Malaysian route,” he explains.
“To go fully Malaysian is a little bit misleading, because I spent almost half my life overseas. So this menu is kind of a reflection of that; of me having half my life here and also half my life travelling, seeing and experiencing new things. It’s a combination of everything that makes me ... me,” he continues.
Ng’s new dinner menu is priced at RM698++ and takes diners on an odyssey through his life experiences and memories, tethered by a Malaysian soul but emboldened by an adventurous global spirit.
Each course also features hand-drawn illustrations by a Kelantanese artist, and stories that illuminate the “why” behind each dish.
Highlights include Tomato Tart, which takes inspiration from the pizzas that Ng used to devour after service at the restaurants he worked at.
In this interpretation, this travels through tomato terrain include a tomato meringue, spiced tomato chutney, tamarind chutney and cheese to tide it all together.
The meringue here is light and whispery but the chutneys are no shrinking violets. They are bold and assertive with underlying, clingy spice-riddled nuances that highlight Ng’s reinterpretation of this dish through a distinctly Malaysian Indian lens, imparting something entirely new upon the canvas of something old.
Ng’s Box of Memory, meanwhile, takes a treasured childhood recollection of his mother’s Chinese-style steamed fish and reinvents it in the guise of a brittle, crisp potato-based carapace filled with fish tartare and wagyu tartare.
The tartare is seasoned with a special sauce and accentuated with latok (sea grapes) and wasabi.
The dish is lovely – it undulates with the simplicity of steamed fish but simultaneously elevates it by adding opulent touches to the dish, rendering both familiarity and festivity in one tiny bite.
The Truffle & Comte Roti Bakar is a dish crafted in ode to a nostalgic kopitiam stalwart.
Ng’s roti bakar took him three years to perfect and is a feather-light meringue-based affair that has had many fillings in the past.
In its current format, French Comte cheese, red dates cooked with honey and shaved black truffles are studded into its core in what is probably the most successful marriage to have emerged out of his various roti bakar incarnations.
It’s cheesy and opulent yet simultaneously stays clear of overindulgence – essentially the culinary equivalent of a successful pick-up line.
The Cucur Udang is a real-life example of what people mean when they talk about elevating a dish. Cucur udang is a beloved Malaysian deep-fried staple – deeply comforting and intrinsically simple.
Ng has taken that dish and turned it into something far beyond this realm. The crispness that shields the prawn ought to be studied – it is brittle, crackly and snaps to attention upon contact with your mouth.
The prawn itself is firm of flesh and limber and the budu cream (a combination of fermented anchovy sauce sambal and cream cheese) that laces the bottom of the vessel has been nailed to a point of addiction.
It’s a dish that has its heart wound around the concept of cucur udang but also clearly has a playful streak that has wandered off somewhere entirely different, birthing a funk-tastic new offering.
If you’ve ever been to Hide before, you would have found joy in Ng’s Melinjo Curry Noodles, which uses melinjo (a fruit native to South-East Asia) as the base for a curry sauce. This is complemented by fresh cucumbers, green apples, fish collar and sea urchin (RM68++ supplemental).
Served cold, this dish has consistently been one of the triumphs on Ng’s menu. In this incarnation, the sea urchin adds a velvety, aquatic overlay to the meal and takes it to altogether new heights.
This is a dish takes your breath away and yet reminds you of home, engendering both comfort and a fleeting, wonderful sense of euphoria.
The Nasi Ulam meanwhile answers the question: can comfort food exist under the auspices of fine-dining? With this dish, Ng proves conclusively that the answer is an emphatic, “Yes”.
Here, turmeric rice forms the bedrock of the meal which is boosted by winged beans, pomelo, pomegranates, lemongrass and torch ginger bud. Crowning this assemblage is Japanese grilled black cod. The rice is stirred together, then hot steaming flower crab curry is poured into the bowl.
This is basically rice and curry – unicorn variation. What’s really nice about this dish is that you can eat it in various ways – enjoying the nutty, herbaceous rice on its own or layered with the incredible richness of the crab curry.
It’s an homage to the various ways Malaysians enjoy eating both nasi ulam as well as piling on (or “banjir” as the concept is known) the rice with various curries and accompaniments.
Which makes this right here one of Ng’s outstanding contributions to the modern Malaysian culinary canon.
The savoury part of the meal ends with the Aged Duck, which features Penang Cherry Valley duck aged for 14 days and paired with black garlic sambal and a sauce made from red currants and roselle.
The duck has been nailed to an absolute art – crisp, burnished skin that succumbs willingly to flesh that is tenderly yielding and still pink through its core. Ng designed the sambal and the currant sauce as a tag team of sorts, so diners can take turns pairing the duck with both.
Each offers a very different experience – the black garlic sambal is rich, earthy and lightly pungent while the currant sauce is effervescent, fresh and radiant. Both are obviously vying for the attention of the duck and yet in this race, there is no clear winner, just two very strong contenders whose hearts are in the right place.
The meal ends with the Mangosteen & Roselle, a multi- layered affair that combines mangosteen marmalade, roselle jelly, pickled roselle, yoghurt kefir lime espuma and tuile.
This light, effervescent offering is fruity, floral and fun – like a happy glide through sunshine and clouds set against a tropical backdrop.
Ultimately, a tasting menu’s success is woven together through many elements – pacing, portioning, service, flavours, storytelling and progression.
Getting it right is a science. But perfecting it to a point that it’s a full symphonic orchestra without a note out of place? That is no longer culinary art; that’s a culinary masterpiece. And Ng’s current menu belongs in this pantheon.
