LOVE LIFE, CHERISH MOMENTS

   Greetings earthlings! It has been over 3 months since i came back from my UK-Europe trip during spring time. Every time i look back at our photos, i can't help but long to return for another wonderful experience. One of the more memorable moments during this trip was in Edinburgh, Scotland. Mr. J and i along with our friends in Glasgow, took a bus ride to the historical city for a one day trip. Laine booked us a table in an amazing 1-Michelin-starred and multiple award winning restaurant called The Kitchin for us to experience first hand, what's fine dining in The UK.

   After a brief walk around the city, we found our way to The Kitchin for our lunch, which we already reserved prior to this. The location is not difficult to find, along the Commercial Street, only stone throw away from The Victoria Quay, across the small stream, right next to The Scottish Government building.



   The Kitchin is the proud brainchild of Chef Tom Kitchin, which carries the philosophy of 'From Nature to Plate' and this is also the main concept for the restaurant.

'From Nature to Plate' is a true reflection of Chef Tom Kitchin's passion for the finest, freshest Scottish seasonal produce and the cooking at the restaurant reflects Tom’s training under some of the world’s best chefs blended with his own Scottish heritage.

The Kitchin presents modern British cuisine influenced by French cooking techniques and an appreciation of the best quality ingredients available from Scotland's fantastic natural larder. The produce at The Kitchin arrives fresh daily thanks to a close team of selected suppliers who supply the restaurant with seasonal produce every day. All the meat and fish is bought in whole and all the butchering and filleting is done in-house daily.

~source from thekitchin.com

Food map, showing us the origin of ingredients used in The Kitchin.

Spring themed set lunch menu

Bread Sticks served with cream cheese

Freshly baked Bread served with house butter

Complimentary cold Amuse Bouche Carrot and pumpkin puree topped with pickled carrot, radish and cucumber.

   Alright, let's begin with appetizer. I had the Scallop while the rest had the Pork dish. There were 3 scallops beautifully placed over a pile of sea salt, served with some fresh squid and garlic sauce. Our scallops were well cooked and the garlic sauce were incredible savoury, successfully complementing the natural sweetness from these seafood. The pork dish was something unique. A croquette is actually a breadcrumbed fried food, normally stuffed with mashed potato or grounded meat. In this case, the croquette was deconstructed, with grounded pork shin as the center, surrounded by a crispy ring that was not directly connected to the center. Best thing of this dish is definitely the leek and potato sauce that was rich and creamy.

Scallop Orkney queenie scallops served with a wild garlic butter and squid.

Pork Clash Farm Pork shin croquette served with a leek and potato sauce and a fried hen's egg

The inside of the master piece.

    Next up, our main courses. Each of us ordered different mains, so we got to taste every single items in the menu. I had the fish dish, which is European plaice, or flounder, while the rest had the Chicken and Ox dishes. My fish dish was seasoned minimally and the creamy sauce was good but not great. Addition of rhubarb was a little bit odd to me. Although it was executed beautifully, but it was not my favourite. On the other hand, the chicken breast was alright, great flavours and varied textures. Personal favourite has to be the ox dish. As weird as the dish sounded, the flavours were impeccable, with explosion of flavours, from spicy to sweet, from salty to savoury. Each of the item within was well thought and perfectly done.

Plaice Seared fillet of North Sea plaice served with a braised fennel, rhubarb and sea purslane

Have a closer look

Ox Inverurie ox tongue boudin served with braised ox tripe and red pepper

Chicken Haulkerton Farm chicken breast served with Jerusalem artichoke potato risotto and confit leg

    Finally, we got our desserts. We had both of the Coffee and Rhubarb desserts. My coffee souffle looks incredible on the outside and tasted even better on the inside. The souffle has an excellent height to it, freshly baked from the oven. Its texture was warm, fluffy and airy, with intense coffee punch and chocolatey flavour from the ganache. Espresso ice-cream couldn't scream more AWESOME, with its incredibly strong espresso and creamy texture. Rhubarb is not a common ingredient in Malaysia. We seldom come across this food in any cuisines from home. Hence, when i tried out the rhubarb, i wasn't sure what to expect. The texture was soft and tasted sour, pairing with the sweet and rich vanilla cream, creating a perfect dessert. However, the rhubarb sorbet was too sour to our liking. Nevertheless, this dessert was still stunning and mind blowing.

Coffee Coffee souffle served with chocolate ganache and espresso ice cream

Rhubarb Rhubarb jelly and set vanilla cream served with poached Tomlinson's Farm rhubarb and rhubarb sorbet.

Look at this beauty

  Overall, The Kitchin offered us a wonderful and memorable dining experience with its delicate food presentation, freshest and organic ingredients, quality and cutting edge cooking style along with top notch service and ambiance. None of the fine dining restaurant back home can compete with Chef Kitchin's one of a kind dining concept. He wisely combined the French technique with his origin--Scottish spirit in his cooking, creating a colourful, vibrant and impeccable dining experience for guests. The Kitchin is definitely the place to be when you are in Edinburgh and craving for quality fine dining at an affordable price. I hope you enjoy today's write up and i can't wait to show you more!

Mr. J and i

With the gentlemen

Thanks Laine for the recommendation!

   Good Friday peeps! This never ending holiday is starting to get on my nerves. I've been completely resting for the past few weeks. I'm starting to long for travelling, working, gallivanting and everything else. Even though i do enjoy staying home, being a home maker and purely enjoying my leisure, but i can't help but to look forward to more excitement in the future. For instance, this wonderful memory with my cousie when she visited me last month. I took her to Majestic Hotel for an exclusive and elegant afternoon tea.

The inviting and elegant dining space.

   There are basically 4 different spaces in Majestic Hotel to enjoy their wonderful afternoon tea sets that starts from 3pm to 6pm daily. They are namely The Tea Lounge, The Colonial Cafe, The Drawing Room and lastly the most exclusive--The Orchid Conservatory. Each of these spaces are located on the Ground Floor, right behind the hotel lobby. They are beautiful, elegant and relaxing but none of the above can compare to the beauty of Orchid Conservatory. Located at a transformed green house, The Orchid Conservatory consists of several tables that can only fit 15 customers per day, surrounded by amazingly colourful and vibrant orchids, just like its name suggests. Therefore, prior reservation is required in order to secure a place for your afternoon tea session.


   We were pretty lucky in the sense that we only made our reservation a day before. The hotel staffs informed us that normally, the reservation has to be made at least a week earlier. Thank God for this opportunity. When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed by the 2 staffs that were in-charged of this space. They escorted us to our allocated table, right beside an array of healthy and fragrant white and purple orchid. The table setting was neatly decorated, with crispy white table top, accompanied with classic white and gold china. There were only 5 tables here and all were occupied for the day.

Milk and brown sugar crystals for our teas.

   After that, the table staff quickly introduced us to Majestic Hotel's English Afternoon Tea Set. It began with the tea selection from their Twinings Tea Collection. We were given a petite black box with 6 different kinds of tea containers, ranging from Rose Garden Black Tea, Medley of Mint Tea, English Breakfast Tea, Calming Chamomile Tea and more. We used these tiny containers to smell and get our preferred choice of tea before proceeding. I went with the Rose Garden Black Tea while cousie Caryn ordered the English Breakfast Tea.

Twinings' Tea Testing Platter

    After that, our designated waiter brought over our teapots and began an interesting presentation of tea making. He patiently explained to us, that different types of tea require different brewing time. Therefore, they prepared this little device, consists of 3 different hourglass, with different amount of sands, symbolizing different time for each tea. White tea like chamomile requires the shortest time of all, only 3-4 minutes; whereas green tea and infusions take a longer time, approximately 5-7 minutes to be perfectly brewed. Coincidentally, both of us ordered black teas, which take the longest among them all to brew, roughly 8 minutes. He explained further, as the black hourglass (black tea) finish emptying its sands, our teas will be ready to serve. I thought the whole experience was quite delightful and educating. Kudos to our incredibly polite, patient and knowledgeable waiter!

Our waiter patiently explained the art of tea brewing

   After our tea was brewed, we were served with 2 cups of warm and fragrant teas, perfect combination to what we were gonna have next. We were having Majestic Hotel's English Afternoon Tea. It comes in a combination of sweet and savoury, both cold and hot finger food, served in their signature bronze wheel and a classic gold metal box. The menu changes frequently. Hence, the items we had might not be repeated during your next visit, because Majestic Hotel would love to keep their menu fresh and creative at all times. Although there were two of us, but the serving of the sweet items remain as single portion. What a set back, as we had to slice our beautiful desserts into halves. Nevertheless, the presentation was excellent, together with the natural lighting and white furniture, this place is beyond perfect for photography.

The complete look of our English Afternoon Tea Set for Two--RM 220 nett

    Let's begin with the savoury and warm items. In the metal box, we had 3 pairs of warm savoury items. The first pair was a crumbly pie, filled with arrabiata sauce, minced chicken and topped with creamed potato. Second one was a pastry pie filled with sauteed mushroom with herbs. Lastly, we were given two crispy fried balls, filled with shrimps. The last one was indeed Malaysian inspired. My favourite has to be the first pair. I'm loving the marriage between these ingredients, totally screamed savoury. The most unique part was the amount of love the kitchen team poured into these finger foods. They were placed in this metal box to keep them warm, so that diners would be able to enjoy the fullest out of these savoury items.

Savoury items: from left to right (first to third)

   Moving on to the bronze wheel, and i'll start off with the bottom layer, which was occupied by several types of sandwich. Starting from the left most, was a multigrain bun, filled with shrimps, coated in mayonaise and alfafas. Next one would be the typical smoked salmon with tuna sandwich, followed by a pair of egg mayo sandwich served with cucumber. Last but not least, beef sandwich served with rocket leaves. All of these sandwiches were delicious, but my personal favourite goes to the shrimp with alfafa, followed by the beef sandwich. They were well balanced and kept me going for more.

From left to right (first to last)

    Proceeding to the next level, we had three British scones. Two of them were raisin scones and one was original plain butter scone. Alongside with these were two cups of strawberry jam and perfectly whipped cream. There was another marmalade jam but was placed in the savoury metal box. The scones were good, but not the best i've had. To be honest, a good scone is pretty hard to get by. For me, i would prefer my scones to be flaky, crumbly, buttery, slightly chewy and have the perfect consistency in between a bread and a cake. Most of the bakeries out there tend to make their scones leaning towards the bread side while the scones here were more towards the crumbly side, which was not too bad. I absolutely love the whipped cream and strawberry jam. It would be better if they include clotted cream as well, because this thing is to die for!

British Scones (two raisin scones and one original scone) served with strawberry jam, whipped cream and marmalade jam.

   Moving up to the final tier, we were served with 5 unique individual desserts. From the left, was a carrot cake topped with coloured cream. The next one was a decadent orange chocolate mousse cake, coated with dark chocolate ganache. The little red one in the middle, was none other than Red Velvet Cupcake topped with cream cheese frosting and designed white chocolate. The one next to it was a cute little eclair filled with refreshing lemon curd, glazed with yellow coloured white chocolate and topped with paper thin wafer sheet. Last but not least, we also had a raspberry trifle, consists of whipped cream, meringue, raspberries and raspberry sauce. These were such complicated and delicate little finger desserts. Both of us girls adored these little babies and were longing for more! The portion should be doubled since there were two of us. Anyways, it was hard for me to choose a favourite, but the raspberry trifle was more unique and memorable to me, mainly because the different types of flavours and textures, blending altogether to form a summer treat. You could taste the crunchy meringue, velvety smooth cream, together with explosion of sweet and sour flavours within one bite. Totally mind blown!

From left to right: Carrot Cake, Chocolate Mousse Cake and Red Velvet Cupcake.

Eclair filled with lemon curd and Raspberry Trifle

With my beautiful cousie Caryn

   There you go, our memorable and enjoyable afternoon tea experience with The Majestic Hotel, KL. Overall, we were quite pleased with their food, service and ambiance. The cost per person was RM 110 nett for an afternoon tea in The Orchid Conservatory. Although it is a bit pricey compared to the rest of the dining space (RM 58 and above), but it was worth it, judging for the exclusivity, dining ambiance and personalised service. Imagine dining in a garden filled with colourful orchids that are meticulously cared, with delicate little sweet and savoury items which are professionally produced by a team of prestigious pastry chefs, along with a team of professional and polite table staffs. This dining experience was wonderful and one of a kind. I would definitely recommend Majestic Hotel's English Afternoon Tea to friends out there! I hope you enjoy today's write up. Have a wonderful weekend ahead! xoxo

More Information:
Website: http://www.majestickl.com/index.html

   A while ago, i met up with some of my favourite girls in The Pantry, Bangsar for our almost yearly catch-up. The Pantry is situated among the housing area of Bangsar, behind the vicinity of Bangsar Baru and Telawi. Honestly, it was quite tricky to find this place without a GPS and parking could be troublesome during peak hours. Anyway, The Pantry gained its fame from its hearty brunch items and beautiful rose platter, hence, i've decided to give it a try.

Eggs Benedict--RM 29 Poached eggs and turkey ham on Homemade Brioche with Hollandaise sauce

Rose Latte

Rose Platter

Croissant glazed with rose flavoured syrup, raspberry sauce and rose macaron

    As you can probably tell, the presentation for rose platter was outstanding. However, taste wise, the croissant and macaron were both disappointing. The croissant was cold, bland and lake of the buttery crisp i like. The raspberry sauce did not serve any purpose here. Rose macaron's shell was hollow and poorly executed. Butter cream filling was too greasy and weighed down the airy light macaron cookies. Thank goodness, the rose latte was still a pass, with substantial rose flavours but not too overwhelming. Eggs Benedict was a complete let down as well. With cold and flat brioche and overcooked poached eggs, there was barely any item that spell good. Not to mention the pricing which is totally overpriced.

Us girls

   Food aside, i'm relieved that the service was good enough to put down our disappointment towards this place. I saw some potential here with the beautiful cafe, healthy menu selection and incredible presentation skills. There is definitely room for improvement for The Pantry. Sometimes, looks can be deceiving and that was the case for today.

More Information~
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepantrykl/
Address: 9, Lorong Kurau, Taman Bukit Pantai, KL.