Penang Food Fest @ Suria Caf, The Saujana Hotel, KL

From 1 14 March,Suria Caf@ The Saujana Hotel, KL is featuringa Penang street food fest with 3 Penang chefs specially flown in from the famed gourmet island itself.

Little touches such as the table setting reminiscing of the tables commonly seen at most hawkers joints in Penang set the mood for the evening. Or at least for me it does. Im a Penangite, and its been a while since I last went home.

The popular dishes that makes up the Penang food fame took centre stage of course, else it cant be named a Penang Food Fest right?

At the live stations, hot wok at work stirred up sizzling Char Kuey Teow, Mee Mamak and Oyster Pancakes (Oh Chien) .

Taste-wise, it barely met my standards; which was a shame, as I really! would l ike KL-ites/or whoever that patronise this fest to experience true oh chien, char kuey teow and ourscrumptious mee mamak.

Below: Big juicy oysters caught my attention at The Oh Chien (fried oysters pancake)station. A short chat with the Penang chefs revealed that the preparation wastweaked so that it suits the tastebuds of KL-ites.

The end result was scrambled eggs, tons of chilli and oysters. Not your typical Penang Oh Chien for sure.

Anyhow, gratification can be found elsewhere. The nasi kandar section was pretty decent.I love the Black promfret curry; fresh and sweet fish in flavoursome curry.

Telur goreng mamak Fried omelette mamak-style.

Beef rendang.

Curry prawns.

Black promfret curry.

Nasi briyani. A bit dry.

Popiah (chinese spring rolls) and banana pancakeswere freshly rolled on the spot.

However, I ignored these and went straight for my favourite the icy SWEET ais kacang.

Frankly, it could have been better. Same goes to the Pasembur (an Indian rojak), another of my favourite tea time snack. The main ingredient the cucur udang (prawn fritters) were dried out and stone cold. Feedback were given to the team and hopefully from now on these will be prepared freshly cut at the live stations instead.

Other Penang delicacies include the perennial favourite Assam Laksa and Chee Cheong Fun. The Chee Cheong Fun came with the pungent He Ko prawn paste that we Penangite love. Ahh, at least this wasnt tweaked and remained original.

Strangely enough, it was the lamb with goat cheese crust that saved the day.It was utterly delicious! The meat was pink, moist and JUICY. I was finally satiated and felt less disappointed.
Good lamb never failed to please me!

Further exploration of the buffet proved fruitful.
The hot dishes such as the braised duck, ginger beef and the crabs were all actually pretty decent. I loaded up on the beef and duck and my friends who tried theRoasted Tomato Soup said it was commendable.

The rest of the food pictures are as below. Apparently theres a Nyonya buffetevery Friday here at the Suria Cafe. Lets hope the recipes are not tweaked and retained the original flavour. I might hop in to try that next.

Appetisers.

Something interesting > Cold spanish omelette with olive tapenade.

DESSERTS: Bread and Butter pudding.

Assortment of cakes and sweets.

And fruits.

The buffet is priced at RM68++ for lunch and RM84++ for dinner.
For reservations, call 03 7843 1234 (ext 6122/4717) or emaildine@thesaujana.comor visitwww.thesaujanahotel.com

Suria Caf, The Saujana Hotel, KL.