Kuala Lumpur - French-Japanese fusion at Cilantro
Takashi Kimura has been helming this award-winning French-Japanese fusion restaurant since 2001. I'd never gotten round to visit his restaurant during my previous visits to KL, and even when I was located here the past two years - until last weekend.
What I tried:
- Cold angel hair pasta with sea urchin and sweet prawns. I loved sea urchin, and Kimura's version here was better than the one I previously had at Gunther's back in Singapore. Not too sure about the raw prawns, but they provide an interesting slippery textural contrast to the cold pasta.
- Unagi with foie gras and mesclun. Not too sure why, but I wasn't really expecting a deep-fried battered croquette when I chose this dish. But it was well-executed, even if a bit too rich and oily for my taste.
- Confit of Loire Poussin with Truffle. This was well-seasoned though, again, I was expecting something else: the "confit" I was picturing would have a fall-off-the-bone tender meat, achieved thru slow-cooking over low heat, then with the skin crisped over high heat just before serving. What I had here seemed more like pot-roasted fowl.
- Rhum baba with vanilla ice-cream and berries. I'll need to order something else next time. The version here was dry-ish, way too small, more an sponge cake than a rum-soaked delicacy I'd expected.
Overall, Cilantro did meet my expectations. It was certainly one of the best fine dining French-style restaurant I'd tried in KL, and which I'd rate overall above Lafite, Le Midi, Prime, Mandarin Grill, and also its own sister restaurant, Sage; and about on par with La Vie en Rose and Frangipani.
Anyway, there are quite a few fine dining restaurants in Kl that I'd yet to try, e.g. La Maison Francaise, Marini on 57.
Address details
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Cilantro
Micasa All Suite Hotel,
368B Jalan Tun Razak
50400 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +60 3-2179 8000
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The unagi and foie gras interpretation IS interesting.
I had it at Sage in 2009 when Kimura was cooking there, and it was presented as a terrine of alternating layers of eel and liver. Surprised that it morphed into a deep-fried croquette.
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re: Julian Teoh
klyeoh
Feb 6, 2013 01:55 AM
Actually, I *was* expecting something like a terrine. Then, this pair of croquettes came out and completely threw me off!
Nice place, but not sure if it's the best. The talk of the town now seems to be ex-Frangipani chef, Chris Bauer's Cantaloupe at Troika Skydining.
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Very interesting. I eat out a lot in Japan and also like the Japanese interpretation of French cooking. I think the Japanese have higher reverence for French cooking traditions than modern-day French chefs themselves.
I like uni a lot and that dish you had looks to have very generous serving of it!
