Cilantro in KL
Greater Asian CHs,
I will be coming to KL for 3 days in a couple of weeks and thusI have begun scanning this site for ideas of things to do and things to try. Thanks so much for all of the suggestions so far.
Cilantro, the restaurant in KL, comes up here and there. From what I gather it is in a hotel that is undergoing renovation and I was unable to find a website for the restaurant. Is the restaurant in fact still open? Do I need a reservation? If so, how does one go about getting one?
Also, how solo-traveler friendly is the place? What is it going to set me back. I am pretty flexible on price but as a general travel rule I try to spend less on dinner than my hotel room....or at least in the ballbark.
-MM
By MaggieMuffin
on Feb 26, 2008 12:41 PM
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Cilantro closed down last year when Micasa Hotel, where it was located, was closed for a one-year renovation project. Last heard, it was due to re-open at the Gardens @ Mid-Valley mall, with the same chef, Takashi Kimura. But to play it safe, why don't you try The Third Floor at JW Marriott instead? It's one of the best restaurants in KL & is helmed by Ken Hoh, the original chef of Cilantro. He's worked with Sydney's Tetsuya Wakuda, so you'd know what to expect: fusion French-Japanese food at its best.
I think KL is pretty solo-traveller friendly, except for its taxi drivers - which are a pain the the ****. As with Singapore & Hong Kong, you can choose to eat very cheaply in KL, or very expensively in high-end places.
See also:
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/473429
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Cilantro has opened its sister resto in Mid-Valley but the reviews haven't been great. IMO super high-end dining in KL is very overrated. The quality just doesn't compare to Singapore. One somewhat more upscale place that's worth a visit is Max! Kitchen on Tengkat Tong Shin (street behind famous nighttime eats street Jalan Alor), especially if Max himself is on duty. One of the few smal truly chef-driven restos in KL, there's always something good on the menu and if you phone say, a day ahead you can request a special tasting menu tailored to your likes (seafood etc.). Pleasant atmosphere, small, and somewhat intimate. Your concierge can get tel. no.
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New Year's Eve (tonight!) at Sage, Cilantro's sister at the Gardens, you can have a 6-course set featuring favourites from the Cilantro menu.
Wagyu Tartare with Anchovy Toast
Pan Fried Unagi with Foie Gras
Angel Hair Pasta with Mentaiko
Glazed Seabass with Shirauo
Grilled Wagyu Beef with Garlic Rice
Chocolate Cup Cake with Early Grey Ice Cream
Coffee or Tea
I think they said it was RM215++.
I had lunch there today, and I thought it was quite reasonable for the price, and the food was well-prepared. They just started serving lunch December 1, so they're not busy at all at lunchtime, though we were told dinners are usually booked solid. If it weren't so far from our hotel, I would go (even though we just had lunch there).
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Sounds yummy. Will definitely make a beeline to Sage when I visit KL next. BTW, should also try Third Floor at the Marriott next & compare its standard to Sage's.
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Address link:
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Sage
The Garden Residences Lingkaran Syed Putra Kuala Lumpur
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UPDATE: Takashi Kimura's back at Cilantro since it re-opened at Micasa last year after a year-long closure (whence Chef Takashi moved to Sage to ply his trade):
Website: http://cilantrokl.com/index.html
It's not cheap to dine at Cilantro, but Chef Takashi Kimura is definitely one of the finest (if not the BEST) chef in KL.
More pics:
http://food.recentrunes.com/?p=8100
P.S. - Sage is still going strong at Mid-Valley, with most of Takashi Kimura's experienced kitchen & front service staff (from the old, pre-renovation Cilantro team) staying put there.
Cilantro
MiCasa All Suite Hotel
Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2179 8082
Sage
The Gardens Residences (same side as Isetan
)6th Floor, The Gardens
Mid Valley City
Lingkaran Syed Putra
59200 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2268 1188
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I have to say i was very disappointed with Cilantro. Flavors were muddled and a few plates were over sauced overpowering all components of the dish. I could not recommend this place to any one, especially for the price. Maybe it was an off day.
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Very disappointing to know - no excuse for a place with Cilantro's stature & prices. Did you feedback to the chef?
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I just booked Cilantro for this Friday before seeing this post, should I change to The Third Floor instead?
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Turtle... maybe i went on am off day. It seems like many people really enjoy Cilantro. If you do have a 2nd night i would highly recommend El Cerdo for a great meal. It's more of a fun meal with GREAT pork and a wonderful wine list. The owner, german, is very friendly and welcoming.
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Thank you Epeter, will see if my friends are interested since we are all wine-ies, plus they have my favorite Dr Loosen! Well, we are here only for 2 days and want to try a bit more of its local authentic food for the rest of the our time, maybe some street food if our stomach can stand.Thanks for the suggestion tho, and will put it on our list for next time!! Very interesting to see a pork place in a Muslim country, don't you think?
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"Very interesting to see a pork place in a Muslim country, don't you think?"
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Why would you you think that?
When around 40% of the population is non-Muslim, and about a quarter are of Chinese ethnicity? Where vast swaths of the cuisine is based on Chinese, Indian Sub-continent, Thai, Vietnamese, etc etc (non-Malay) cooking even with the cross-fertilization that goes on in such a place?
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TurtleEats does have a point, huiray. KL's changed quite a bit thru the years with greater Islamization in Malaysia: nowadays, almost ALL hotel F&B outlets in KL are halal, including the Chinese restaurants (100% of hotel cafes which serves breakfast to hotel guests must be halal) - so you'd most likely only get chicken sausages, turkey "ham" & beef "bacon" for breakfast. Foodcourts in public buildings (airports, railways stations, in-house cafeterias for any company) are all Muslim-run and have to serve halal food, though there is one rare exception in Hutong (@ Lot 10, Bukit Bintang) which has outlets serving pork.
Supermarkets in Malaysia have to have a separate, clearly demarcated section which sells pork & pork products, with separate non-Muslim cashiers. They are quite sensitive about these sort of things these days, and I think foreign visitors may need to be aware of this.
One thing I noticed about the Chinese in KL nowadays - they do get very excited if they come across any place which serves pork!
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Really? Interesting, and sad.
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"Foodcourts in public buildings (airports, railways stations, in-house cafeterias for any company) are all Muslim-run and have to serve halal food"
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Does that mean any dish with pork in it cannot be served anywhere in that same food court or in any such cafeteria, in line with what is implied by your comment about Hutong (@Lot 10, BB) ?
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Can one not simply walk around practically any area in KL and find restaurants/stalls/coffee shops serving food based on non-Malay food that uses pork in those dishes - as one would do in KL not that long ago and which would be so unremarkable as to even escape conscious thought? What happened to sundry stalls with siew yook and any number of other pork foodstuffs (intestines, offal, pig trotters, etc etc) just hanging there for you to order and eat? Are Chinese folks and their varied pork-based cuisine really reduced to having to hide in the shadows? Wow, that would be depressing if it is so nowadays.
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@klyeoh: Thank you for the additional comments you added to your post after I had posted (I believe I am correct that you edited your post).
However, I am still curious about my query about whether those cafeterias you mention (other than that exception you cited) are barred from serving any pork dish?
I hope you are not saying that privately owned Chinese restaurants - any ol' one anywhere - is barred from serving pork nowadays. A halal Cantonese restaurant, for example, would almost be an oxymoron. KL Hokkien mee without the pig fat lard and those crunchy little fried cubes of pork fat would be a travesty of what was once called KL Hokkien mee. Bak kut teh stores and stalls are still around, the last I knew of it...
ETA: I assume Cilantro the restaurant is halal? If so, would the forced absence of pork and pork by-products have any effect upon the deliciousness of the food particularly as compared with the offerings in its previous incarnation if such products were previously used? Some posters above were dissatisfied with the current restaurant's offerings... just wondering, I am interested in how this food scene is playing out.
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@huiray: Private Chinese restaurants (e.g. Ming Room, Oversea, Grand Imperial) still thrive these days, especially since they are the only places where the Chinese can be assured of getting pork dishes (siew yoke, char siew, etc.) But many Chinese restaurants in hotels, e.g. Lai Poh Heen in Mandarin Oriental, Shang Palace in Shangri-La, etc, are halal - so no pork!
As for foodcourts being halal, strictly NO pork products are allowed in - unlike in Singapore where you have Muslim and non-Muslim sections in foodcourts like Banquet.
Thankfully, there are some hotel Chinese restaurants which chose not to get the halal certification (and lose out on M'sian government business), e.g. Li Yen at the Ritz-Carlton or Shanghai at the Marriott, but these are in the minority.
I've heard of the demand on some 5-star hotels NOT to use Kikkoman soy-sauce in their Japanese restaurants because the Japanese producers do not have a halal certification for their product (?!!!). I guess the Muslim authorities in Malaysia are getting much stricter these days.
As for Chinese-owned casual eateries and those selling street food, they are certainly there, as long as the demand from their Chinese/non-Muslim clientele are around. It is not a problem for one to find pork dishes if we know where to look, but oftentimes, it's no longer a surprise when we go into a nice restaurant or hotel outlet, only to find fettucinne carbonara cooked using beef bacon or an English breakfast fry-up where all the meat's turkey - it's just not the same!
Thank god my hometown's Singapore, so I can satisfy my craving a mere 40-minutes' flight away!
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Wow, I had not realized how Islamicized the place had become and how the Islamists (even in Malaysia, once freely multicultural) have been suppressing the culture and life of non-Islamic folks.
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But, huiray, one can still definitely find pockets of culinary joy everywhere here in KL - see my new post on Soo Kee in Ampang :-D
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/779322
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Glad to read that! Thanks.
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