Happy Chinese New Year! I bet everyone of you had your fair share of yeesang and chinese delicacies during this period, also not to mention those hefty calories piling on. My aunt bought us a CNY dinner at the local chinese restaurant in Taman Tun.
It was a typical chinese dinner with many different courses. In Chinese tradition during the big festival, there are a few essentials in our meals such as prawns, fish, noodles, abalone and yeesang which all signifies something.
The yeesang is the must have in every CNY dinner. It is a combination of 10 different elements in the whole plate. Usually it is made up of cucumber shred, pamelo pieces, crackers, colored dried vermicilli, shredded mango, shredded carrots and raw salmon. It varies in restaurant. Their yeesang was just mediocre and a tad too dry, we requested for extra plum sauce. The salmon was fine, I wouldn't say it is of supreme quality though. I only give it a pass since the salmons were in abundance which I think should be of lower grade because in many expensive restaurant, the salmons are limited.
Another signature delicacy the shark fin soup. I am an advocate against shark slaughtering. Enough said. Since a couple years back, I never consume shark fin soup - be it real or artificial.
Chinese believe that fish (yu) is essential so there will be abundance of wealth, romance and career etc at the year end. Hence, the classic steam fish. I'm unsure what type of fish it is, looks like a siakap to me. The flesh was tender and smooth. However, the presentation was horrible and unappealing honestly. The sauce was well just dark sauce and soy sauce - wasn't exactly tasty either. The ratio just wasn't right!
The roasted duck was just plain disappointing. It was too tough or that the duck was really old. With two tables each having a huge plate of roast duck, none bothered finishing it. I wonder why was that. The sauce itself was terrible! Usually roast duck will be served with sour plum powder, which in this case was absent and the sauce didn't made up for it.
Prawns are another staple in CNY dinner which represents laughter - an abundance of laughter throughout the year. The prawns were stir fried in garlic sauce which was really bland. The garlic was too overpowering that it makes you cringe when the sauce touches your tongue - pretty pungent honestly. The prawns were alright, not to say that it was super fresh.
The usual abalone, mushroom, oyster with chinese seaweed to represent "Fatt Choy" meaning wealth if I'm not mistaken. This was one of my least favorite dish of the night. The chinese seaweed was too much! Overpowering the whole dish and with a table filled with kids/young adults - we cringed at the taste of it.
This makes to my least favorible dish of the night too! Noodles represented longevity of life in Chinese culture. Unfortunately, this dish was so starchy that we didn't bother eating more than a bowl of it. I felt as though I was eating pure starch!
Lastly, the dinner ended poorly with a dessert. Chinese believed that it is necessary to end on a sweet note to have a sweet and smooth year ahead. The red bean dessert was too thick and sweet - it was a massive goo. Two spoonful and I pushed it away. The glutinous rice ball I believe are prepacked glutinous ball.
All in all, the dinner was really below average. I would not step foot into the restaurant again even for a normal dinner. Well, if a big feast menu ended up so badly, what would the day to day course meal be like? The service was pretty good though - the waiters were very helpful and friendly.
The chef was not very pleasant when my uncle commented on several of his dishes as the chef claimed that no one ever complained about his dishes, we were the first. Well, that didn't end in a very high note.
Yik Kee Restaurant, TTDI
38, Jalan Datuk Sulaiman, Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, 60000 KL.
-thevanillapudding-
awesome foods! checked out the tandoori beef in ttdi kapitan house?
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