East Asian food arouses a certain degree of expectation and anxiety in equal measure. There is Thai, Malay and Indonesian which is not so far in the East to be alien and then there is Japanese and Korean which is effortlessly alien. Sashimi sounds great in principle, but the Malayali in one cannot stomach the idea of ‘pacha meen’ however tish and tosh it might be.
Mixed platters
As we head to The Renai to try out the East Asian fare we are curious about which of our eastern neighbours would be represented. Turns out Chef Biju Monian, executive chef, has stuck to the familiar Thai, Japanese and Korean cuisines. The East Asian Food Fest is open on weekends for dinner. The chef has not gone too expansive as far as the menu goes. The fare includes seafood, chicken, beef and pork…the meats traditionally consumed in those parts.
Under the watchful eyes of the in-house dragon (suspended in parts from the ceiling) at Black Pearl, Chef Biju takes us through the menu. The inevitable question is where he picked up Japanese and Korean cuisine. Twelve years spent in Hokkaido cooking Indian fare at a multi-cuisine restaurant. “Since it was multi-cuisine, I learnt from my colleagues in the other restaurants,” he says. Japanese he learnt from the Japanese. The Japanese are conservative as far as the spices go, they prefer their food steamed…tandoori chicken is very popular! Tandoori? “It is mild on the spices and there is hardly any oil. The Koreans, however, are different. They like spice.”
As an illustration he brings out ‘Buldak’, spicy chicken fingers, a spicy starter with a hint of sweet. The crisp finger food is filling for a starter. The chef follows it up with chicken satay with a peanut dip. Ok! So it is Malay but you do get it in Thailand. The Buldak and satay contrast each other in terms of colours and flavours. While the former is red and spicy the latter is a turmeric-stained yellow and the sweetness comes from the dip. The ingredients are “authentic and imported”, says the chef, “for the sake of authenticity”.
Typical Japanese platter
For the Japanese platter there is sushi, gyoza (chicken filled dumplings which might be related to momos), yahi sakana (whole tawa grilled fish), shoga yaki (ginger flavoured sliced pork). For those who want to make a meal of it there are combos. Kats Dom set comprises pork or chicken cuts, miso soup, salad or takuan radish pickle, rice and dessert; Ten Dom set is the seafood option. A tempura station is a must for any self-respecting Japanese food fest or eatery, which is also there.
Kimchi salad. We got to sample the spicy version and the sweet. The spicy version was made of cabbage (‘the Japanese use Chinese cabbage’) and the sweeter version made of cucumber. Traditionally Korean, the Japanese too ‘indulge’ in a version of Kimchi only that it is “mildly spiced”. There is plenty on the menu to choose from, which goes something like this: Daikom, a spicy radish salad, jogaetong (clam soup) or koatgaetong (crab soup), chandal baki (beef brisket), daeji bulgogi (spicy marinated pork), saneg sun jum (pan fried fish)… There is steamed rice, fried rice and/or noodles to go with these. Same goes for the Japanese and Thai food.
Besides satay, as far as the Thai part goes, there is the ubiquitous som tam (raw papaya salad) which serves as a tangy start to your meal or the popular Thai chicken salad. There are two options: seafood and chicken, in the Thai soups. Then there are the curries – red (prawn), sea food and panang gai (chicken). For the more adventurous there is kao-ka-moo which is pork leg on rice. Sample yum woon sen, which is glass noodles with chicken, seafood and vegetarian options. If you are not too experimental, you can always try these as a combination with the Chinese food that is the regular menu at Black Pearl.
The food festival, which is open for dinner, runs through weekends (Fri., Sat. and Sun.) and concludes on the last Sunday of July.
