Two prominent Malaysian restaurants created dedicated cocktail programmes to complement their food menus. — Photos: MICHAEL CHEANG/The Star
Food and drinks have always gone well together. That’s a fact. However, in many restaurants – even in some of the most esteemed or high-end ones – the drinks tend to be more of an afterthought.
While some places would have a dedicated wine list to pair with their dishes or tasting menus, others just slap together a list of random beverages that may or may not complement the food at all.
So, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that two of my favourite restaurants – the open-fire grill experts BarKar in Kuala Lumpur, and Malaysian-Chinese specialists Fifty Tales – recently launched dedicated cocktail menus to go with their food.
I visited both outlets to find out the benefits of having a proper beverage programme in a restaurant.
I’ve always enjoyed the food at BarKar, but have also often heckled Chef Lee Zhexi about the lack of a “bar” in “BarKar”.
Well, the Michelin-Selected restaurant now has a cocktail programme to go with a new menu; there are six cocktails in total, all created by Lee and his team.
According to Lee, when they started BarKar two years ago, the intention was always to have a cocktail programme to go with the food. At first, they got help from some bartender friends, but a few months later, decided to start creating their own.
“We initially listed our drinks on a small card instead of including them on the main menu, just so customers can try them,” he said, adding that six months later, they decided the lineup was strong enough to finally be on the main menu.
BarKar’s drinks are more culinary-driven, and while they were not created to pair specifically with the food, they do complement each other.
Lee reckons that having cocktails would cater more to younger generation diners who might not want to drink wine in a restaurant.
“Many younger guests usually don’t drink here. If they wanted to drink, they would go to a cocktail bar or somewhere else after the meal,” Lee said.
With that in mind, Lee and his team adapted their drinks menu to be more interesting and featured drinks that were unique.
“The kind of cocktails we came up with are things you probably won’t get at a craft cocktail bar,” Lee said.
BarKar’s drinks are more culinary-driven, and while they were not created to pair specifically with the food, they do complement each other, some in more ways than one.
They also try to utilise ingredients from the kitchen. For instance, the Duck Soup cocktail uses whisky that is infused with duck “bacon” and ginger, mixed together with Drambruie (whisky-based honey liqueur), and then finished with a cloud of duck fat cream. It’s an odd sounding combination that arguably only a chef would come up with.
BarKar also tries to utilise ingredients from its kitchen, such as duck fat for this Duck Soup cocktail.
While it may not be a drink that you would necessarily order on its own, it worked really well when paired with the 14 Days Dry Aged Mountain Duck dish, served two ways – first grilled over firewood and paired with a delicious Chai Bui, or stewed mustard greens. The remaining meat is made into Duck Tsukune skewers.
Having the official cocktail programme has helped the restaurant raise customers’ satisfaction levels, instead of just pushing sales, Lee says.
As the food at BarKar can be “fatty”, – there are a lot of hearty, rich dishes on the menu – many guests would order a more refreshing cocktail to go with their meal.
As the food at BarKar can be ‘fatty’ and rich, many guests would order a more refreshing cocktail like the Loh Han Guo to go with their meal. — Photos: MICHAEL CHEANG/The Star
It’s no surprise then, that one of their best-selling drinks is the refreshing Luo Han Guo, which is based on the traditional mata kucing longan and monk fruit drinks.
Made with cognac, whisky, smoked longan and monk fruits, the Luo Han Guo here is a refreshing cocktail that pairs perfectly with the hearty claypot Char Siew Wagyu Beef Rice, the restaurant’s signature dish.
The Chinese tea-inspired Sweet Char, made with a blend of teas including chrysanthemum, and gin, is another refreshing drink.
Then there are the more dessert-like cocktails like the Kueh Talam (a tequila-based love child of the kueh talam and pina colada), and the Tropicana Kopi, which is an espresso Martini riff with added yuzu sake, which gives it a pretty nice citrus-y, yeasty note.
Both drinks work to either give a good contrast to the more savoury or sour dishes, like the Aged Beef Kerabu Tartare, or complement the desserts, such as the Ma Lai Gao & Burnt Butter.
My favourite drink on the menu, however, was the Nyonya Truffle. It pays tribute to nyonya cuisine and the women who made it, with lemongrass and assam boi giving it familiar, comforting flavours, and rum and truffle oil lending a touch of class.
A more all-rounder drink that would probably pair well with most dishes at the restaurant, (and not just the belacan in the Ichiyaboshi Chicken Wing we had), this was a perfect example of how the restaurant has designed their cocktails to go hand in hand with the its signature dishes.
Local Malaysian-Chinese restaurant Fifty Tales recently underwent a renovation that added a dedicated bar to their space in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
With the new bar, co-owner and beverage manager Aaron Phua finally has a proper space to prepare his cocktails and teas, instead of being stuck in one corner of the kitchen, unnoticed, like he used to be.
“With the bar, people start to notice the drinks programme more, as it is more visible compared to when I was sharing space with the kitchen,” he said.
Ffity Tales recently introduced a new cocktail menu to its restaurant in PJ.
However, Phua reckons that the main star should still be the food and hospitality of the restaurant, and that everything else, including the drinks should be the supporting elements.
“The beverage or the cocktail programme here is just mainly to elevate the dining experience,” he says. “It’s not to be a superstar, but it’s significant enough to support the food, to give an overall experience when you come to a restaurant.”
Fifty Tales’ current drinks menu comprises a list of signature cocktails, two low-ABV drinks, a specialised menu of teas, and a selecition of wines.
The two low-ABV drinks, East Meets West and Drunken Flower, take familiar flavours (luo han guo and chrysanthemum) and add them to beer for a pair of simple, refreshing, starter drinks.
Phua says the whole point of Fifty Tales’ drinks menu is to support the food in the restaurant, not to overpower them.
Some of the drinks were part of the restaurant’s menu from the very beginning, and Phua also works with Fifty Tales co-founder and head chef Aaron Khor and his team to develop them.
According to Khor, he would usually come up with the dishes first, then tell Phua what it will taste like, and the latter would then adapt his cocktails to the menu. They also tailor it to suit the direction and branding of the restaurant.
“A lot of the cocktails are still Aaron’s ideas, which are still very culinary driven, so a lot of the flavours that we enjoy eating can be present in these drinks as well,” Khor said.
The Bah Kut Teh cocktail, for instance, is inspired by a Kepong-style of the dish, and adds herbal soda to gin, as well as a housemade herbal syrup. It is a drink that goes really well with the meat-forward dishes, especially the Pork Belly Char Siew with pork lard rice.
The Bah Kut Teh cocktail is inspired by a Kepong-style of the traditional dish, and pairs well with the meatier dishes in Fifty Tales.
Tang Yuen is another drink with familiar homely flavours, with whisky, pandan, ginger, egg white, sesame oil. The savoury-sweet flavours pairing pretty well with the Red Snapper Otak Otak and Typhoon Shelter Fried Cuttlefish dishes.
Dong Fang Bu Bai was by far my favourite drink. Gin, lychee, pepper, and wasabi is a weird combo at first but it gels beautifully, and would pair well with almost any dish on the menu, not just the Assam Prawn Hokkien Char we got that night.
For fans of spirit-forward drinks, the Landlady’s Love Potion is tough and strong, just like the Kungfu Hustle landlady character it is inspired by. The base is smoky mezcal, with anise from Pernod and Grand Marnier to tie it together along with calamansi and super salt rim.
Another good one is Cina Teh Ais, which mixes gin, whisky, rum, plum wine, cold brew osmanthus.
Fifty Tales now has a dedicated bar space for Phua to work in.
While Phua says the whole point of the drinks menu is to support the food in the restaurant, at the same time, they also wanted to make sure that the drinks menu was not neglected, as a good one menu can help elevate the dining experience, Phua said.
He also says it is more fun to pair cocktails with food compared to wine, and that it is more practical to do that in an ala carte restaurant like Fifty Tales.
“With cocktails, you get a different variety of flavours. I’m not saying wine doesn’t have the complexity (to pair with food), but the moment you open one bottle, you have to stick to that one character,” he said.
“In an ala carte restaurant like ours, it can quite be difficult for one flavour to accompany the whole meal. With cocktails or mocktails, you can at least go for different flavours after one drink, and get different flavour experiences.”
Ultimately, it also gives the team another way to “tell a different story” with their drinks.
“Most of the drinks are also based off what Malaysian Chinese have been eating, drinking or tasting throughout the years. The restaurant is named Fifty Tales because we wanted to share stories about Malaysian Chinese cuisine, and that applies to the drinks as well,” said Khor concluded.
Michael Cheang wonders what kind of drink would pair well with a nasi lemak. Follow him on Instagram (@mytipsyturvy) and Facebook (fb.com/mytipsyturvy).
