Acme Bar & Coffee: Chapter Five. You & me could write a bad gastromance.
Focusing on Acme's Asian creations this time _ recipes familiar to Malaysians, but spruced up with special flourishes. For something that no street stall sells, get your gustatory juices going with gluey-sweet beef "hitam manis," bracketed with quinoa, green sambal & rice.
Wantonly wanting wontons: crisp golden triangles of dumplings _ swollen with shrimp paste, laced with lemongrass & lolling in coriander-&-chili sauce.
White laksa. Feels like a Kelantan-inspired version, flooded with mild-flavored shredded fish in the thickest, freshest gravy conceivable.
Creamy Nyonya-style soul food, of which Aunty Mel of Simply Mel's might approve: a hillock of deep-fried garoupa, tender & boneless, canopied with comfortingly warm curry & vegetating amid a bumper crop of softly ripe tomatoes, chilies & eggplant.
Tom yam soup with shitake mushrooms, glass noodles & tempura prawns. Not as fiercely fiery or tortuously tart as most Thai broths. Personally, we prefer it this way.
Sambal hebi aglio olio spaghetti, with prawn sambal & olive oil. An anarchic mix of Malaysian & Italian sensibilities that gels more harmoniously than expected. Other similarly-themed pastas here include Seafood Rendang Fettuccine & Green Chili Pesto Fettuccine.
Grilled lamb shoulder with ABC's kitchen-made "kicap manis" marinade, peas & hand-cut fries. Sacrificial-sized slabs of savory-sugary meat, perfect for priapic appetites.
Roederer & Mozaik Rouge. Bubbly makes us turn red. OK, no, not really.
And with this, we wrap up our Acme 2011 Pentalogy. But we're really looking forward to returning next year, once the menu evolves further. Acme is here to stay, no doubt about it.
Acme @ The Troika,
Persiaran KLCC, Jalan Binjai, Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2162-2288
0 comments:
Post a Comment