Iftar at Latest Recipe

For the final Iftar for this Ramadhan, my brother-in-law took all of us out to Le Meridien. Unfortunately, Latest Recipe stopped doing the Ramadhan buffet since the weekend. So, we settled for the standard buffet there.

While I was settling down, I heard a voice calling. It was a friend from Sheffield, who was with his family for Iftar as well. I last saw him about three years ago when I visited him at Prince Court Hospital. I I was not mistaken, it was during Ramadhan as well. How time flies.

Food there was great as usual. They had all my favorites, salad, sashimi, tandoori, laksa. They also had pasta, where my children's eyes lit up when they were able to order off the menu straight to the chef, and the food was prepared in front of them.

The boys started out, appropriate I might add, with the chocolate fountain. That kept them hyperactive all dinner long. Irfan, especially enjoyed the dinner. He had the chocolate-covered marshmallow of course, then pasta, biryani rice and waffles. Really worth his buffet admission price.

Irfan enjoying his startersStarting things off with a bowl of salad. I'm civilised that way ....Then came the raw stuffsThe tandoori was especially nice this evening, although I was disappointed that they did not have the spiced pappadoms like before, which went down brilliantly with the mango chutney. I was full by the time I had dessert - ais kacang, custard pudding and sago gula Melaka. A hefty dinner indeed.

The boys mesmerised by the chefBuffet here at Latest recipe had long been my favorite as they serve all my favorite dishes. They had at one point Peking Duck - not tonight. A good place if you wanted variety, or simply if you were in a group and you were not sure what the rest of the group prefer to eat. You could't really go wrong here. And again, Selamat Hari Raya.

If you want to know more about Latest Recipe at Le Meridien, please click here.

Anniversary Dinner at Favola

The nice welcoming ambiance. Nice seats, dimmed romantic lighting. Expecting a nice meal.Puan Anita and I celebrated our 14th wedding Anniversary last evening. Being Ramadhan, we planned for an Iftar in town, but since it was Saturday, most of places were already fully booked. I wanted to go to Latest Recipe in Le Meridien, but the only seats we could get were by the lift. Not exactly romantic.

As an alternative, I booked a table at Favola, the place where I had a superb lunch a couple of weeks ago. It was a true Italian affair, with nice motifs and decorations. The seats and ambiance were very welcoming, and we had our seat overlooking the kitchen, and was able to see how the food were prepared. The lighting were suitably dimmed, and the waitresses were kind and attentive. We arrived early, and made our orders for the food for Iftar. We then took a stroll around the hotel lobby.

The place promised much, but unfortunately for the evening, it did not deliver. We were left disappointed. The entre and pizza were delicious, but unfortunately, the same could not be said about the main dishes. This was a similar complaint I had when I had the lunch there previously. The antipasta was superb, but not the mains.

For starters, I has grilled peach with buffalo mozzarella and rocket salad. Anita had some seafood salad - calimari and clams basically, all served with Italian bread. The bread and the salad were excellent.

My buffalo mozzerella and rocket salad. Definitely something to order again should I return.Now you see it ...... now you don'tNext came the pizza. It was not bad. But the wood-fired pizza at Alexis Ampang - my children favorite - was much better. And this was the chef's specialty pizza - called Favola.

Then came the disappointing main dishes. Anita ordered spaghetti marinara. It was on the dry side to start with, and despite adding tobacco Tabasco (thanks Jools!) and sliced parmesan, she still did not finish her meal. The pasta tasted bland, and was overpowered by the overspiced thick marinara sauce. I suspected that there too much olive oil as well. By the end of the meal, when the pasta cooled down, it started to absorb the oil and became soggy. Thumbs down unfortunately.

Anita's main dish, the marinara. The least we say about it, the better.The top layer was crisp. Blowtorch may be?If you think that the pasta was bad, I ordered another chef's recommendation in a lasagna for my main meal. It was well overcooked, and the top crust layer was more or less as crisp as a piece of wood. It was burned, while the minced meat at the bottom still tasted rare! A basic culinary mistake I must say, and one I did not expect from such a prestigious outlet! The top burnt layer tasted bitter and …… burnt, while the oily bottom layer tasted like ….. olive oil. You can see the herbs still separated from the minced meat, as if they were added in as an afterthought. Did they use a blowtorch to burn the top layer?

To cap things off, my mango juice smelt as if they were fresh ….. out from a box. We did not bother to order dessert or coffee. We would rather head home and see what our boys were up to.

The meal experience could have been much better .... if the meal was as good as the ambiance.The main lobby at Le Meridien. Nice and compact.Well, Favola may be a nice place to have afternoon tea and salad, but that was just about it. The main meals were disappointing, despite me picking up the chef's specialties. The ambiance was nice and the waitresses were competent and attentive, but this did not make up for the disappointment in terms of the overall gastronomic experience. We were expecting better.

Favola was located on the 8th floor of Le Meridien, on the level of the swimming pool and the Grand Salon. The official Le Meridien website featured the restaurant here. Remember to show your FourSquare check-in to claim your 10% discount! Sorry about the quality of the snaps since the lights were dim, too dim for my iPhone.

Lunch at Favola

The whole of last Sunday was spent at a Medical Meet at Le Meridien and for lunch, I was treated for some nice dining at Favola, an Italian joint on the 8th floor, right next door to the Grand Saloon, where we had the meeting.

My talk was in the morning, and it was more of an update of we learned during my recent trip to London attending the European Haematology Association Meeting back in June. With the talk done and dusted, the lunch was a lot more relaxed, and I shared the table with a couple more senior Haematologist and another Doctor with the Pharmaceutical industry. We had a nice chat, and the nice lunch helped.

It was a sit down dinner rather than buffet and food were pre-ordered. The antipasta were some smoked salmon, salad with goat cheese, plus fire-baked pizza and spaghetti. The mains were fish, but the mains were not the highlight. We finished things off with some succulent ice-cream with fresh raspberry.

The pizza was definitely one of the best in town. Pretty simple but biting and filling. The pasta was great as well. My fish was unfortunately overcooked, and with the tangy sauce, it did not make for an experience on par with the antipasta. I should have ordered an alternative instead. Oh, well!

I would definitely give the place another visit with my boys in the future especially with a 10% discount on foursquare check-in. Let them decide on the pizza, since they were expert when it comes to the sticky, cheesy round thing. I would also like to explore the pasta a bit more. More information on the outlet can be reached here.

A Talk on a Sunday

Having a Medical Meeting a day before Ramadhan starts was never ideal. However, since I prepared for the initially planned meet before, it was hard to say no. The invitation was initially for the 10th July, but the venue being in KL Sentral - Le Meridien - having a meet a day after the then unpredictable Bersih rally, it appeared to be a bad idea. It was then postponed to the 31th July.

My talk was in the morning and the turn-out was a lot better than I expected. The topic covered was also pretty diverse, but ran the risk of being too varied. The crowd mainly consisted of the more junior doctors in training, so it was rather too specialized for most of them.

My topic was myeloma, and constraining the talk proved a challenge as I was not keen to dwell on things which were standard knowledge. I tried to introduce the new announcements and controversies, and sticking to 20 minutes and 40 slides was not easy. I therefore made the talk more focused around three main points, for clarity and economy of time.

I would have another meeting in the afternoon before calling it a day. Comparing the talk to the one I organized in UMMC last weekend was definitely an eye opener. We did not have the resources but I believe that if you concentrate on content, the meeting would be a success. And that was what apparent from the two meets, with a clearly different financial muscle backup. I also spent time discussing avenues of securing funding for my future talks as we had the capacity to identify relevant and interesting topics. I believe that clinician-lead meeting rather than one driven by the Pharmaceuticals is the way forward. 

Non-typical Sunday

It wasn't a typical Sunday in a sense that I had meetings to attend to, followed by a sumptuous buffet lunch at an eatery that is was fast becoming my favourite, Latest Recipe at Le Meridien, KL Sentral. Following the meeting and paperwork, I had the time to bring my boys out to the park. Oh boy! Did they enjoy that. So much so that the were fast asleep in the car on the way home, and went reached home just before 6.30 pm!

I remember the park at KLCC used to be full during weekends. It was almost empty today. Maybe it was the overcast weather threatening to rain. Which ever way, it was not the first Sunday it was like this. A couple of months ago, before Ramadhan, I had the same feeling. In fact, web the parents and children I saw were mainly Indonesian. I kid you not. It seems that KLCC and the park is turning into foreign worker's land during Saturday and Sunday. I better stop here for fear of getting my site spammed by our friendly neighbours.

After the run around the park, jumping and skipping, it was time to take an early dinner. It seemed like the most convenient stop would be Chinoz by The Park. Mind you, it has been a while seen we stopped after an unsavory incident with a waiter gave us second-rate service because we were Malaysian - they prefer the Mat Salleh there of course, but what would I know. The boys had their pizza and I decided to order some Japanese. The miso the was gorgeous, although a bit expensive. Seeing my temaki, Idlan wanted to try one as well. My God, that was messy.

As I mentioned, the boys were fast asleep on the drive home. Idlan has since woken up but it wouldn't be long before he heads for the bed again while Irfan was still sleeping. I was hoping that he will sleep through to the morning. Fingers crossed!