Eat and Cook @ Bukit Jalil, KL
Eat and Cook has got to be the hottest restaurant in town, and I heard they are booked out for whole April! Wooohooo!
Eat and Cook
Headed by the young talented duo, Chef Lee and Chef Yong; serving “Omakase” style course using the finest and freshest seasonal ingredients and most of their ingredients are sourced from our homeland (so proud to hear this!). Omakase is something we often find it in Japanese restaurant where you leave the menu to your most trusted chef, and enjoy what the chef makes for you.
Here in Eat and Cook, the chefs adopt the “Omakase” concept too. They will decide your course and cook right in front of you. What you need to do is just come with an appetite to eat, savour what the chefs have created, and enjoy them with all your senses.
There are only 2 types of course menu to choose from. The 5-Course Journey menu is priced at Rm 260++ per pax, comes with 5 dishes of different sensations and it takes about 90 mins for the whole journey. The 8-Course Journey menu is priced at Rm 380++, you will be able to enjoy the full journey with 8 dishes, including amuse bouche and petit fours. This journey takes times about 120mins.
Look at the menu, 5 courses, with 5 sketches of ingredients; you totally have no idea what will be served next, how do they taste like. This is very interesting. It plays up your imagination; stimulate the anticipation and look forwards the next course.
I am pretty amazed with chefs’ works and creations. Another thing is the friendly-interaction they created with the diners. Chefs will take the initiative to interact with you when presenting his masterpiece, get your feedback after each dishes. They show the very sincere enthusiasm towards the ingredients they use, respect each ingredient and incorporate them into their creations; they also educate the diners on those rare ingredients they found in our homeland and even share their stories with the diners.
Words really couldn’t describe how amazing it was on this dine-in experience. I really appreciate everything the chefs brought up and their efforts in every creation. I must say this is the most heart-wowing restaurant by far. I had this wonderful journey in experiencing the course, very memorable from first dish till the sweet-ending. Seats are pretty limited as they serve only a limited pax at a time, so book your seats in advance!
Domaine Jean Marc Brocard Chablis “Viellies Vignes” 2018 (Rm 52 per glass)
Wine to pair with the course. Recommended by the sommelier, he told us this chardonnay will go well with the seafood and grilled fish in our course. With a soft hint of floral note, sweet and not overly acidic.
We started off the course with their Homemade Mini Ciabatta, served with Tom Yum Butter. We were advised to use our fingers, break open the flaky crispy ciabatta with soft fluffy warm center, and mop over the butter that is infused with herbs that make tom yum, such as lemongrass, kaffir lime, and chili, braised with tomatoes to bring up the sweet and sourish flavour.
How I wish they will pack and sell the bread and butter; but for now, they won’t because chef said the team will hate him for sure, that’s because the heavy preparation work.
From the menu, the first course itself showed the graphic of TOMATO , so we thought it will be a vegetarian dish; but no, it was scallop dish. However, tomato was the key factor in balancing the whole dishes. The Cameron Highland tomatoes have been through lacto-fermentation for 6 days, giving a refreshing tang on the palate. The scallops were fresh and seared to perfection. What wowed me the most were the sago crackers that was packed with the umami sea essence cooked with stock from scallop shells and trimmings, the khaki-ish coloured ham choy dusts (salted vegetable powder), and I also noticed chef sprayed a special kind of liquid onto the plate before plating the ingredients. It was actually lemon and Lihing wine from Sabah to season the plate. So much efforts and this whole dish was interlacing layers of umami-ness, very heart-wowing and made us looking forwards the next course.
Next dish MUSHROOM. Chef named it as The Journey of Mushroom. It had an earthy umami punch and came with a scent of truffle but without adding truffle into the dish! Interesting!
This dish is made of different types and texture of mushrooms, such as shitake, himeji, enoki, king oyster and placed on a bed of French lentils sautéed with onions and braised in the jus of mushrooms. When serving, the chef layered sprays of Jungle Garlic perfume, which is the gem of Kulim; this was where the truffle scent came from as it has the scent very similar to truffle!
Third course was a … SUGAR CANE graphic? But presented to us a fish dish! It was actually the grilled fish inspired by a Kelantanese ikan bakar dish!
The sea bream was wrapped with cognac-kombu strip, grilled over the sugar cane for its natural sweetness. There was no addition of seasoning to the fish at all! It is then added with the “dried ice crush” made of bunga kantan and pickled onions. The sauce on the side was extremely wonderful, it was a concentrated tomato sauce infused with budu (fermented anchovies but without the pungent taste anymore), touched with budu cream and balsamic glaze. The combination of all flavours from the salty yet aromatic sauce complemented so well with the smokiness sweet sea bream.
Cute palate cleanser – Calamansi Lolipop served with assam boi powder and calamansi powder. That’s fun dipping the sherbet loli into the powders, totally like a childhood memory of mine, like the 10 sen 20 sen ais potong sold back then.
The fourth icon was a PASTA dish but it was another dish jam-packed with efforts! Pure egg yolk homemade pasta with duck jus, topped with delightful tender pieces of meaty duck confit that is cooked for long hours, fragrant crispy duck skin and citrusy pomelo. The whole combination was bursting with flavours and aroma of the duck, with its fats lingering around the oral cavity as I chewed the crispy skin over the time, very aromatic and the pomelo to cut down the grease brilliantly at the end of the mouthful chews.
That piece of duck skin is really something. Fatty yet crispy. The taste was super mind blowing. Only that emoji on WhatsApp can describe how I feel as I chewed the duck skin.
Here comes the CORN sweet ending and I am totally in love with it. This Apam Balik inspired dessert assembled both thick and thin types of apam balik; thin crispy rich coconut wafer layered with honeycomb cake, red sweetcorn puree, juicy red sweet corn from Mr Jagung Merah, very aromatic nutty homemade peanut butter, touched with red corn husk hair; and side with a serving of old and young coconut savoury ice cream, garnished with toasted shredded coconut. This whole, comes with different kind of textures! Oh I love the burnt flavour of the thin apam balik edges that is incorporated into this dessert.
I really hope the chef will consider to bottle up his special nutty peanut butter sauce for sales too (I’d feedback to him I would like to purchase it!).
Really can’t wait to revisit for their next new menu. Hearsay the new menu will be out in May!
Eat & Cook
H6-1, Pusat Perdagangan Bandar Bukit Jalil
Persiaran Bukit Jalil, 57000 Kuala Lumpur.
Opens daily from 6pm to 11pm
Closed on Monday
Tel : 03-9765 6898
Website : https://eatandcook.asia/
