At the helm of Lafite is chef de cuisine Damon Campbell, one of the rising stars in KL's dining scene. A fellow Canadian coming from my hometown of beautiful Vancouver, Chef Campbell earned his stripes at world-renowned French Laundry in Napa Valley, California as chef de partie under three-Michelin-starred chef Thomas Keller and Diva at The Met in Vancouver, one of my favorite restaurants back home. He made the move to Asia in 2008 joining Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur as chef de cuisine for the hotel’s award-winning signature restaurant, Lafite. During his tenure, the restaurant won numerous "best fine dining in Kuala Lumpur" awards and he was nominated by Time Out magazine in 2009 for 'Chef of the Year.'
After a number of underwhelming meals in a roll, I was hoping to finish my KL trip on a high note. Hopefully, Lafite will deliver.
Instead of going with the degustation menu, we decided to explore the a la carte menu. That's going to give us the flexibility of choosing the exact dishes we wanted.
The meal started off with spherification. This came with a nice burst of briny flavors that left my mouth full of sea water emulsion. I'm guessing it's oyster (flavors) there.
It was followed up by a further amuse bouche, refreshing green pea emulsion with seaweed. I love the clean flavors there getting our palates all ready for the next course.
Virtual Cooked Scallop - It's Jelloman's first starter. This came with a hot salt griddle where she was supposed to "grill" her raw scallops on her own before enjoying them with the yuzu miso dressing.
Salmon "mille-feuille" - I had the salmon mille-feuille myself and this was beautifully presented with the citrus cured salmon tartare trapped between two rectangular wafers made with tatami-iwashi like an ice-cream sandwich. Some lemon juice provided all this dish would need to be successful. Very nice.
Foie gras Volume 4 - Jelloman's second starter was roasted foie gras served with spiced sponge, banana and orange meringue. Banana and orange, that's a nice way to balance the richness of the foie gras.
Lobster Parmesan - I was craving for some lobster tonight and this was interesting, a marriage between lobster and parmesan cheese!
It was reasonably good though. The poached lobster was perfectly matched with a tomato stew and, the light parmesan foam and crispy parmesan wafer provided some cheesiness to the dish. A nice pleasant surprise.
Wagyu Beef - Comparing to the four starters, I thought the main dishes seemed to take a much safer route. For Jelloman, it's 48-hour slow-cooked Australian wagyu beef tenderloin. It's been sous vibe at 63 degree and finished off with baby cabbage, carrot, crispy onion and mash. After a successful run of innovative dishes, we were finally brought back to earth! A very down-to-earth meat course.
Sablefish "Yuzu" - I have to admit, I like my main course a whole lot better than Jelloman's. It's seared Pacific sablefish but what I love most about this dish was the aromatic yuzu tea with snow pea, hon-shimeji and ginger serving as the broth.
The ginger provided some unexpected (but nice) heat to the broth.
"Lemon" - A lemon themed dessert to finish things off. Something for the eyes as well as palates.
Petite fours came in this cute looking box with all kinds of homemade chocolate. A sweet end to a remarkable dinner.
On a bit of a side note (totally unrelated to this meal), I started growing a very BIG pimple on my nose a couple of days ago and it got worse since we arrived in KL. Today, it got to a point where I looked like a totally different person all together. Because of that, Jelloman has been calling me "Avatar" all day. I'll leave it to all of you to decide whether I really looked like one here...
Food Rating: 7/10
Price: $$$$
Address: Lobby Level, Shangri-La Hotel Kuala Lumpur, 11, Jalan Sultan Ismail, Kuala Lumpur, 50250 Malaysia
Closest Metro Station: Bukit Nanas / Raja Chulan
Tel: +60 03-2074-3900
Website: www.shangri-la.com/kualalumpur/shangrila/dining/restaurants/lafite/
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