Since we have the Starwood card, we might as well put it to good use and try more restaurants under the Starwood Group. Since I was craving for dim sum, we decided to try EEST in The Westin Kuala Lumpur. We didn't make a reservation, luckily for us, we managed to secure the last table -- phew!
EEST serves Dim Sum Brunch on Saturday, Sunday & Public Holiday (11.30am to 2.30pm), whereby diners can order unlimited servings of dim sum from a special menu. This a la carte buffet is priced at RM98++ per person.
EEST is non-halal so you can expect to find some porky dishes here. The menu is divided into a few categories; Steam, Crisp, Garden, Chee Cheong Fun, EEST's Grain, EEST's Noodles and Sweet.
Restaurant interior
Nice water feature
We ordered from various categories at each time, but for the purpose of this blog post, I have rearranged the photos into each category.
SteamWe found some of the steamed dim sum to be rather disappointing as the skin has gone mushy, possibly from sitting on the steamer for far too long. Surprisingly, although they practice an a la carte buffet system here, the steamed dim sum is not cooked to order, unlike many other places which we have eaten at before in the past.
Crystal prawn dumpling "har kau" with crisp dried scallop - the prawn was big and succulent, but the skin stuck to the steamer basket.
Crab bisque xiao long bao - very disappointing, as soon as we tried to lift the XLB with our chopsticks, the skin broke. Also, the skin was far too thick for our liking.
Crystal dumpling with crab roe and crabmeat - same problem with the skin
But not all! is bad. We enjoyed most of our other orders from EEST.
Chicken and shrimp dumpling topped with fish roe (aka siew mai) - this was rather delicious.
Steamed spare ribs with salted black bean - liked this. The sauce was very flavorful.
Double cooked grouper and bamboo bean curd skin roll - Hubby liked this very much, the fish was moist and the sauce again was very flavourful.
Chicken feet with XO sauce - Hubby doesnt like chicken feet so I finished the whole plate by myself. Finished = good :)
Steamer baskets
Chef in action
There is a live cooking station for porridge. They have two styles of porridge available, cooked to order.. cant remember what they're called now. Anyway, the waiters and the chef kept asking me to try the porridge so I did. Can't say I liked it - too bland even with the addition of all the side dishes.
Porridge side dishes
Porridge
CrispWe found all the crisp "deep fried" items very good.
Octopus mousse with salted egg yolk coat with golden thread - nice.
Cheese and prawn bean curd roll - I love this. The cheese just oozes out when you bite into it and also the saltiness from the cheese works very well with the juicy prawn.
Garlic chive and chicken pot stickers - the filling was pretty moist but I think if they use pork, it would have been even better.
Flaky barbeque chicken pastries - this was one of our favorites, we kept ordering this over and over again. The pastry was very flaky and the filling was very flavorful.
Chee cheong fun
We tried both the 'sea scallop & XO sauce' and 'crystal river shrimp' chee cheong fun. Give the sea scallop one a miss since the scallops are about the size of a 5 sen coin and do not have much flavour in them. The prawns one are much better since the prawns used are of a decent size.
BBQ pork
This is not on the menu, but they have roast pork, BBQ pork and roast chicken by the dessert counter. They ran out of roast pork (siew yuk) by the time we came around to ordering it so we only tried the BBQ pork (char siew). Another disappointing dish - I only ate 1-2 pieces since the texture was very hard and the fat layers was not very nice. Hubby finished most of it since he doesn't like to waste food.
Dessert / deep frying kitchen
There are quite many Western desserts on offer such as tarts, cakes, fresh fruits but we didn't try any of them. We were attracted to the handmade mochi which came in four different flavours. OMG they're really good - pillowy soft and the fillings were really nice. They came in four different flavours, our favorite was the dark chocolate. And they come in such pretty colors as well.
Dessert counter
Handmade mochi
Fresh fruits
We had multiple helpings of the handmade mochi - they're excellent!
The eggs tarts here are really good too.. the kind that I like with flaky pastry. :) I think they have a very good pastry chef here since we liked the pastry items.
The teh tarik ice cream is actually served with pisang goreng, but we forego the banana and just ordered the ice cream. Unfortunately, the ice cream was too icy.
The black sesame ice cream mochi may not look like much, but it was rather interesting and tasted good too. Basically, the mochi makes up the outer layer and is filled with ice cream inside.
The mango pudding was supposed to be served with chocolate ganache and hazelnut wanton but the last two items did not arrive with the pudding. However, we were too full to enquire further. The mango pudding was decent, though we would have preferred the mango taste to be more prevalent.
Wibble wobble
EEST restaurant exterior
You can enjoy Starwood privilege discount for this dim sum brunch.
Verdict: Service was very pleasant, although the food had some hit and misses. But overall, we enjoyed our dining experience here. Mochi, egg tart and flaky chicken pastry is highly recommended.
Price: RM98++ per adult, RM49++ per child, RM6++ for chinese tea.
Location: EEST, Level 1, The Westin Kuala Lumpur, 199 Jalan Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tel: 03- 2731 8333
GPS Coordinates:3.14779, 101.714569
