Kam Eat With Me

Expect nothing but the best for CNY this Year of the Dragon at Elegant Inn HK Cuisine, featuring 8 special CNY menus to choose from, ranging from sets for groups of 4-10 persons to individual set menus.

None of that colourful fake stuff as EI’s (Elegant Inn) Bountiful Harvest Salmon Yee Sang comes with fresh ingredients made from scratch, right down to house-made sauce and raw salmon slices sliced on premise. We were told that a special team is mobilised just to take care of the Yee Sang station for this CNY period.

For our sneak preview, to me, this was the highlight of the entire amazing menu. I fell in love with the mid-course jiggling Braised Five Treasures Stuffed Pork Belly with Black Garlic, Chestnuts and Lotus Seeds. The black garlic gave depth to the robust sauce, to be mopped up with cute fried mantou. The sinful slab of pork with its fatty layers brought to mind Tong Poh yoke, except that this was even better, with  chestnuts and lotus seeds for added texture. 

But it’s not really fair as like picking one dish is like singling out of many children as your favourite, whereas every single dish shone and had its merits. 

Thoroughly enjoyed the Double Boiled Spare Ribs with Night Blooming Cereus, Fresh Cordyceps, Organic Black-Eyed Beans and Topshell which had so many, many ingredients. The rare blooming cereus (made into a sensation in Crazy Rich Asians) is known to have many health/healing properties. Boiled together with fresh cordyceps, topshell clams, black eyed-beans, Yunnan ham, chicken feet, dried conch and dried scallops, the soup was so luxurious, full of goodness and the ingredients alone befitting as a dish by itself.

Trio Seafood Platter was so sumptuous with Fried Japanese Dried Scallops and Golden Coin Shark’s Fin, Salt Pepper Fried HK Silver Fish, Hokkaido Scallop Bacon Roll. The salt pepper fried silver fish was crispy and addictive while it takes a rare person to resist anything bacon, what more when wrapped a delectable scallop. The star of this dish though was the shark’s fin, fried with egg and scallop, until it’s fine and fluffy, like its name ‘kwai fah chi’ (osmanthus flower petals) name. A lot of hard work and finesse involved – we devoured this gratefully, wrapping the contents with a cabbage leave in one mouthful.

The delightful Free-Range Chicken cooked with Fish Maw, Lotus Root and Wild Termite Mushroom in Premium Soy Sauce was a nice departure from usual chicken dishes, savoury sweet and the unusual termite mushroom providing conversation fodder.

Aromatic HK Liu Ma Kee Red Beancurd Pork Belly and French Beans was simple but no less tasty as was the Braised Fish Maw with Pork Cartilage Ribs and Prosperous Chicken Meat Ball in Crab Roe Sauce. I really enjoyed the tender cartilage, braised for hours, having fully absorbed the flavours of the gravy.

Slippery smooth Fish Maw with Organic Spinach, Silky Egg White and Crab Roe was a lovely comfort dish and instead of predictable ‘lap mei farn’ (rice with waxed meat), we had Claypot Rice with Chicken Fillet, French Goose Liver and Fish Maw – how to resist foie gras oil coating fluffy rice grains?

We ended out amazing dinner with a Chinese poached pear tong sui, not so sweet and a nice changer from the boring sea coconut we usually get for dessert.

Book early to avoid disappointment as EI is immensely popular during CNY.

Add: Menara Hap Seng, Jalan Sultan Ismail, Kuala Lumpur. hp: 03-2070 9399