Healthy festive fare for CNY

Eating Out with CHOONG MEK ZHIN

UTARA COFFEE HOUSE,
Hotel Armada Petaling Jaya,
Lorong Utara C, Section 52,
46200 Petaling Jaya
Tel: 03-7954 6888 ext 4557)
Business hours: Daily, dinner from 6.30pm to 10.30pm.
Halal.

WHEN creating the menu for the upcoming Chinese New Year, the team of chefs at Armada Hotel focused on health and came up with dishes featuring healthy ingredients cooked using healthy methods.

For the healthconscious: The Tuitti Fruitti yee sang is quite like a fruit salad but with the distinct feel and taste of traditional yee sang, complete with extra virgin olive oil

“We try as much as possible to steam, boil and bake the food rather than fry it. Also, we thought about the individual ingredients that go into the dishes, and tried to make sure each would benefit our diners’ health in some way,” hotel executive chef Chew Teik Chye said.

Take, for instance, the outlet’s all-new Prosperity Yee Sang Tuitti Fruitti that uses all kinds of fruit instead of the usual fish.

“We have put in strawberries, banana, apple, pear and mandarin orange slices for that Chinese New Year feel in our yee sang, a traditional must-have,” Chew said. “And, instead of normal oil, we use extra virgin olive oil in it,” Chew said.

For those who prefer the usual, the outlet offers grass carp, salmon or tuna in the yee sang, which is priced from RM40++ to RM70++ and is offered in half or full portions.

This year, four speciality dishes will be served in the Triple Prosperity set menu that serves 10 people and has nine dishes altogether.

First off is the deep-fried chicken farce coated with almond flakes on mango sauce, which is a dish that goes through multiple processes before arriving at the dining table.

Fusion of flavours: The duck roulade dish on the Chinese New Year buffet menu is a mixture of duck and liver and is drizzled with kumquat sauce thart gives it an Oriental flavour.

“The chicken is first deboned, then the meat is steamed and dried in a time-consuming process. ‘Farce’ is just another term for mousse, which is what the chicken becomes after it is combined well with other ingredients,” Chew said, adding that the end result resembled chicken pieces.

The other specialities are the tiger prawns baked in Mongolian sauce; Armada Treasure Pot with braised dried oysters, fatt choy, black mushrooms and broccoli, and the steamed glutinous rice with diced chicken.

Diners may also opt for the alternative choice in the menu to the above-mentioned speciality dishes — the roast chicken with barbecue sauce, tiger prawns with crispy coconut slices, the Armada Treasure Pot with everything except for the broccoli, which is substituted with mustard plant, and the glutinous rice in lotus leaf.

“The rice dish uses both glutinous and normal rice so that diners won’t feel overly full when they eat it,” Chew said.

The other dishes in the Triple Prosperity set priced at RM888++ are salmon or tuna yee sang, braised shark’s fin soup with crab meat and dried scallops, steamed pomfret with soy sauce or steamed patin with supreme soy sauce, as well as double-boiled sea coconut with glutinous rice balls and deep-fried crispy nian kou, which is a sticky and sweet treat.

“We also thought a lot about the elderly during the six weeks it took us to come up with the menus. For instance, some dishes use deboned chicken so they are easier to eat, especially for the elderly,” Chew said.

He added that they used old ginger instead of the young rhizome in their dishes when needed, as old ginger added extra strength and warmed the body better, something elderly people would appreciate.

There is also a set menu called Lucky Eight that features eight dishes and is priced at RM688++. It offers salmon yee sang, braised shark’s fin soup with crab meat, roast chicken with Mongolian sauce or Hong Kong style, steamed patin with garlic sauce or deep-fried red snapper with cheong ching sauce, stewed loh hon chai (mixed vegetables) with beancurd skin with or without fatt choy, fried rice with seafood or Yong Chow style, double-boiled sea coconut or red bean cream with glutinous rice balls and deep-fried crispy nian kou.

A daily Chinese New Year buffet, priced at RM55++ per person, with six rotating menus with about 80 choices on each is also offered alongside the set menus until Feb 28.

Among the buffet choices are a few with a touch of Western influence, such as the smoked salmon ravioli in creamy nage and the roulade of duck with kumquat, in which the fruit lends the dish an Oriental flavour.

The buffet is available for dinner only from 6.30pm to 10.30pm, alongside the set menus that are also available for lunch upon request.

HSBC creditcard holders enjoy a 50% discount off the buffet price.