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Eat and be healthy

Steaming hot claypot rice with waxed meat.

It's more than just good health in every dish at Eu Yan Sang's Zun Kitchenette where master chef Choi Wai Ki personally hand-picks the freshest of ingredients, writes TAN BEE HONG.

Fried ninko and yam is a must for CNY.

Choi looks forward to a healthy 2008.

ITS very name, Zun Kitchenette, means honour and respect for the customer. Open since December, Zun is Eu Yan Sang's first foray into the food business and to get to the restaurant, one has to walk through the Chinese herbal store itself.

According to its general manager Eric Chiu, this is part of Eu Yan Sang’s integrative health concept to encompass retail, health and food in one place. The store also houses a health centre offering reflexology and tui na massage.

Thus, it’s no surprise that Zun specialises in healthy cuisine like nourishing soups, healthy dishes and rejuvenating delicacies.

But its biggest secret yet is in its kitchen – masterchef Choi Wai Ki himself.

No stranger to Malaysia, the Hong Kong chef has already crafted a name for himself among gourmets in the Klang Valley and regular customers at Zun insist that he cook the food for them. With the basic underlying principles of health behind Zun, I ask Choi what are his biggest challenges. “Good food without MSG, preservatives or food colouring,” he replies without hesitation.

His Revitalising Double-boiled Chicken Soup is a delicate potion with herbs like kei qi, pak kei, yuk chuk and dried longans to help you destress and to improve mental concentraion. Or have a sip of Snakehead Fish Soup with American ginseng with healing properties and for women, there’s a nourishing ba zhen black chicken soup to improve blood circulation.

“With food, it’s not just a simple matter of nice or not nice. Gourmets will be able to tell if a dish is excellent. We also have to be innovative and come up with new ideas to present time-tested recipes.”

Customers start with a small glass of refreshing chilled apple vinegar to get the appetite started. Juices are a big deal here and Choi insists on separate juicers for different fruits. Indeed, the orange juice is thick and tastes so much fruitier and it doesn’t separate into pulp and water.

For Chinese New Year, Zun offers three nine-course menus at RM768+, RM988+ and RM1,288+, starting with yee sang. Those who have had a taste of Choi’s yee sang will know how good his home-made plum sauce is. As an added touch, the staff introduce the dishes with auspicious phrases. As the waiter squeezes lime juice on the salmon, he wishes everyone “kat, kat, li, li” (profitable year).

Choi’s version of the ubiquitous Four Seasons is four separate plates of pi dan (century egg) with pickled ginger, slivers of cold boiled ham with garlic dip, sliced abalone on fruit with a vinegar made from spine date (also known as Chinese Sleeping Elixir for its calming properties) and chiu yim tofu (salt and pepper beancurd).

The first three are cold dishes but I liked the tofu best. Fried and served hot, the tofu is fragrant and is a combination of tofu and fish paste.

The palate is then refreshed with a soup. For the RM988+ menu, this is a Braised Sharks’ Fin Soup with bamboo pith and dried scallops. Full-bodied in flavour, the soup is chockful of goodness in every sip, with the dried scallops and bamboo pith providing contrasts in texture to the strands of sharks’ fin.

Braised Venison Tendon in abalone sauce is served with whole garlic cloves, shitake mushrooms and blanched broccoli florets. The mushrooms are thick and luscious and the tendons soft and tender.

The Crispy Roasted Chicken, served with prawn crackers, is a treat. Well-marinated with powdered dang gui, the chicken has great texture. There is no need for a dip.

And as this is the time of the year for waxed meats, the Lap Mei Fun seems the perfect dish to round up the meal. Each grain of rice is fluffy and separate and has completely absorbed all the aromas of waxed meat which is placed on top of the rice as it cooked in the claypot. The waxed duck, sausages, waxed meat and liver sausage are then removed, chopped up and served on top of the rice with blanched xiu bak choy. Wow!

Dessert is Fried Ninko with yam and Birds’ Nest Soup with ginseng and lotus seeds. “We use fah yin birds’ nest from Sarawak,” says assistant manager Wong Kah Cane. “This is the best type as it contains all the various types of nutrients and minerals.”

Zun is open for lunch, tea and dinner. There is a special tea menu with pasta soup, French toast and Eight Treasure Porridge from RM6 to Birds Nest at RM30.

Until the end of February, there is special menu of soups and main courses at an introductory price of RM16.80 as well as a Birds’ Nest Rice at RM60 (normal price RM120). This is rice topped with birds’ nest cooked lightly with mushrooms and other ingredients.

Choi laughs. There’s a couple, he says, who loves this dish so much that they come every evening and have a portion each.

ZUN KITCHENETTE
Ground Floor, Shaw Parade, Jalan Changkat Thambi Dollah, KL
Tel: 03-2118-6860

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