Malaysia International Gourmet Festival (MIGF) 2011

The Malaysia International Gourmet Festival (MIGF) starts 1st to 30th October 2011. A whole month of of fine dining festival that draws folks from around the world to taste and appreciate fine cuisines in Malaysia.

Featuring 28 of Malaysia's very best restaurants with an interesting theme of "Its Raining Chefs!", diners can expect the best cuisines coupled with top notch service standards and of course infused with fun too.

The participating top notch restaurants include:

• Bunga Heritage (The Royale Chulan)

• L'Heritage (The Royale Chulan)

• Chalet (Equatorial Kuala Lumpur)

• Chynna (Hilton Kuala Lumpur)

• Iketeru (Hilton Kuala Lumpur)

• Dynasty (Renaissance Kuala Lumpur)

• Sagano (Renaissance Kuala Lumpur)

• The Emperor (Grand Dorsett Subang)

• Imperial Rama (Genting Malaysia)

• The Olive (Genting Malaysia)

• Kofuku Japanese Restaurant (Seri Pacific Hotel Kuala Lumpur)

• Lafite (Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur)

• Lai Ching Yuen Chinese Restaurant (Grand Millennium Kuala Lumpur)

• Mandarin Grill (Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur)

• Lai Po Heen (Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur)

• The Pomelo (Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat)

• The Restaurant (The Club Saujana Resort)

• Samplings On The Fourteenth (Berjaya Times Square Hotel Kuala Lumpur)

• Senja (The Saujana)

• Tatsu Japanese Restaurant (InterContinental Kuala Lumpur)

• West Lake Garden Chinese Restaurant (Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa)

Top "standalone" restaurants (not from hotels) are:

• Al-Amar

• Cuisine Gourmet by Natalie

• Flame

• NEO Tamarind

• Tamarind Springs

• Nerovivo

• Royal India

Do take advantage of the MIGF to check out the restaurants listed above have created specially priced MIGF Menus and Offers. Yes...MIGF is also aimed at making fine dining as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

For more details on the restaurants that I have listed above, visit www.migf.com

Happy dining!

~.~

Some random pics from the MIGF media launch at Pavilion and the festival launch at Sunway Resort & Spa.

succulent prawn

the crew all being merry:D

utterly juicy and yummy

a really humble and funny Chef Giovanni from Senja

A toast to MIGF!

more yummy delights

catching up again with Organising Chairman Dato Steve Day on our Malaysian food scene

with darlings Esther and Yvonne and a clown joined us too.

delightfully yummy right?

quench your thirst with the official beer

Fat Spoon in Damansara Utama (pork free)

Heard about Fat Spoon from pals working around Damansara Utama. Finally decided to try it out after my facial at Celmonze (Yeah this was last year). So here it is...I remembered only when someone asked me how to make popiah!

Tucked in the middle of a row of shops is this place called Fat Spoon. The name itself is cute. And not knowing what to expect, I opened the door to a place that's quite filled with happy diners. The warm cozy feel inside took my breath away. It was as if I walked into someone's dining room.

Was in for my next surprise when the menu arrived. I was given 2 Lady Bird books. I blinked. Lady Bird Books? I don't have any kids with me. I certainly don't look like a kid. The lady walked back and smiled at me. Gently she said "That's our menu." Hmmmm.

Looked through both books and ordered our food and drinks. I can't resist books. So requested that I could hang on to the book because I wanted to read them (and yes learn new terms - if you remember your Lady Bird books, you'll be learning new terms and words).

Service is quite fast. My Ulam Fried Rice arrived shortly followed by Dennis' Chicken Curry. I loved my Ulam Fried Rice. It was flavourful with an assortment of herbs and vegetables - nothing overwhelmed each ingredient. The Kunyit Fried Chicken that came along with it was also fabulous flavourful. It was very close to how my Goon family grannies and aunties did it. The only complain perhaps was that the Ulam Fried Rice was a tad wet and oily for my liking. I've always liked my fried rice dry and one of the ways to achieve such effect is to cook your white the day before (granny shared this cooking tip with me).

Hubby ordered the Nyonya Curry Chicken. It tasted OK. Wasn't anything out of the extraordinary except the long beans was cooked just right. Not too soft neither was it hard and raw.

Now the fun part. We ordered the popiah and the lady asked if we wanted to roll our own popiah? "Roll my own popiah?" Yes yes yes...I'll love that. So when it arrived, I was all super ready to play with my food. Spread some of the sweet prawn paste on the popiah skin. You can spread a thicker layer if you like the prawn paste. This would be a good time to spread the chilli paste for an even taste. Put in a slice of lettuce and then a little of all the ingredients. Read "a little" of else you'll have an overstuffed popiah that will not fold nicely. Hehehe. Hubby certainly went a wee too enthusiastic and his looked a wee bloated.

All in all, Fat Spoon is a lovely place to return too. I did not try the coffees then as it was dinner time. Soon, we shall return to try more items and the coffees that many pals told me that I must try. And since I can bring my furkid Shalom along (sit outside of course) this place sounds like a new haunt for us (only if the weather does not hit 39C as it has been the last couple of weeks).

And the receipt was also served in a book. This time a romance book. Yeah from kids learning to read (t order our food) and a romance book (for our bill), I certainly have grown a lot over dinner at Fat Spoon:D

Check it out:

FAT SPOON

73, Jln SS21/1A,

Damansara Utama,

47400 Petaling Jaya.

Tel: +603 7728 3323

Food for Thought ~ Songket

Songket - one of my fave fabrics is handwoven in either silk or cotton with gold or silver threads. I love wearing them. I love using them as my of my home decors. Now, Songket bring a new meaning to me. Check out Songket Restaurant & Bar.

Conveniently located in the heart of KL centre along Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, this quaint restaurant is happily "hidden" behind Tony Romas. Because she's happily hidden, she remains nicely quiet and peaceful away from the hustle and bustle of KL city yet being nicely nestled in the middle of KL city. Don't take my word. Come visit and have a meal (open for lunch and dinner but during the night it feels like I am back in a kampung). Coupled with its warm ambience, this makes the perfect place for your business meal or in my case I had a lovely time dining and chatting with pals over some wine (Thanx Tony for the lovely dinner and company).

Started off with Aneka Pembuka Selera while we waited for our other dishes to arrive. This platter consist of cucur udang, kepak ayam, popiah goreng and tauhu sumbat. However we opted to replace the popiah goreng with pegedil. I've always loved pegedil and this is one of the yummiest I have had for a long time. Here the pegedil is a mixture of potatoes and minced chicken.

Vegies are always a must. We opted for pucuk paku goreng which was a lovely stir fried with shallots, chilly and garlic. Although for the strangest "I don'y know why" reason, I thought I actually tasted desiccated coconut in it. I must ask Tony the next time I swing by Songket.

And if you love meat, the 2 must eat here are the rusuk panggang and the kambing panggang.

Rusuk panggang is a well marinated chargrilled ribs served with pegedil. Served with a house blend of a spicy soy sauce and sambal belacan, I still preferred the ribs on its own with its own marinate. Because it is chargrilled, the meat retained its juice.

The kambing panggang is so sinfully yummy that given the chance (I was recovering from my bad throat then when we ate at Songket), I would have requested for another serving of this awesome chragrilled leg of lamb. Dip it into the peanut sauce served with it although I still liked the lamb as it was. The marinate was subtle yet the "lamby" taste wasn't overpowering.

I am not much of a coconut person. So I normally stay away from curries that contain coconut milk. However this dish of Kari Udang Raja had me wanting more. The natural sweetness of the king prawns and coconut milk blended superbly with the choice of spices.

With such lovely dishes, it is hard to not carbo load here. Rice does not stop at white rice here. So we opted for the nasi lemak pandan and the nasi minyak. The nasi lemak pandan is rice cooked with coconut milk with a delightful pandan aroma. It is served with some anchovies (ikan bilis), peanut and sambal. Nasi minyak is spiced rice served with some acar (tangy crunchy pickled vegetables) on the side. Was quite tempted to try the nasi kerabu and nasi goreng kampung (my all time fave). However will leave it for another time.

Done with dinner, we opted to rest our stomachs a little. Took a walk around Songket.

After a little walk, we were still quite stuffed to start on desserts. So we opted to rest a little longer. Unlike many other places, Songket Restaurant & Bar offers its diners a Malay cultural performance everynight (weekdays) at 9pm. Diners can expect a repertoire of dances from the different states in Malaysia including Mak Yong, Zapin, Joget and more. And if you're game, you can certainly join the dancers for a Joget Malaysia too:D And this is indeed a good place to bring our foreign friends to experience Malay food and its rich cultural heritage.

Finally we were all ready for dessert. There was 8 items to choose from so we opted for the unique ones such as the durian tiramisu and the tapai pulut. The durian tiramisu is made with fresh durians. I asked Tony what happens if its not the durian season? And at Songket, the durians are kept frozen in the freezer. Honestly, this is a good idea. At least you have durian rather than no durians or worse still places that resort to durian essence or flavourings.

The tapai pulut is a sweet dish of fermented glutinous rice served with a scoop of ice cream. Absolutely delightful, the fermented glutinous rice was easy and light. And it did not give me any heartburn (which I normally get after any glutinous rice meals).

Sago gula melaka is a common dish found in many places. Here at Songket, you have fun playing with your sago melaka. The chilled sago is in a mini pool of coconut milk and palm sugar syrup (gula melaka). You stir the coconut milk and gula melaka together controlling the amount of sweetness or creaminess of coconut milk as you like.

I was a happy girl that night. My dinner of the lovely Malay dishes, delectable desserts and wine drove my flu and sore throat away:D Now to plan my next trip to try the other dishes.

Songket Restaurant & Bar

• 29 Jalan Yap Kwan Seng (behind Tony Romas)

50450 Kuala Lumpur

• +603 2161 3331 (advisable to call for reservations)

• Business Hours - Mondays to Fridays 12pm - 3pm, 6pm - 11pm

- Saturday, Sunday & Public Holidays 5pm - 11pm