Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels: Western Food

Showing posts with label Western Food. Show all posts

Sunday, December 4, 2022

YummY! - Spanish Tapas @ Bocado Kuala Lumpur

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YummY!

Jotaro's Food Review

Spanish Tapas @ Bocado Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - October 2022

During our 2019 cycling tour in Portugal & Spain we got to savour very good tapas, especially those from Restaurante Casa Pepe at Alcalá la Real. We even got to try tasty and artistic pinchos in Barcelona! After that pleasant experience, back home we were always on the look out for good tapas places! Now we got to try a nice spread at Mercat Barcelona and very good ones at Elli Rocks in TTDI!

This time round Lynne (the missus) had scouted out another tapas joint at Bocado, in Damansara Heights. It's entrance of a white-washed arched was a welcome that brought us back to our cycling tour of Zuheros with its white Pueblos Blanco of Andalusia region!

The moment we sat down a couple of glasses of White Sangria were there to welcome us; complimentary from the restaurant. It's light flavours tickled our palate and hinted of stronger things to come!

Kicking off with buttered toasts served with a dipping sauce of balsamic vinegar & olive oil.

Love this dip, and also love the bright and cheery Talavera tableware sauce plate it was served in!

Our first tapas was a simple one - rollitos berenjena - eggplant rolls!
It's a wonder how they have managed to roll a soft eggplant and have it infill with cheese! A nice soft start with slight crispiness which goes very well with the tomato puree and aged cheese that comes with it. I always like grilled eggplant, which bring out a musky flavour of the innocent vegetable.

These Croquetas don't look that fanciful but one bite into them and one will be hooked. A vegetarian tapas, these were made from fried mushrooms cooked with Béchamel making its creamy inside. I love this, biting into them slowly to feel the crunchiness of the bread crumbed skin and then slowly letting the juicy inside flow into my palate!

And a couple of red Sangria to celebrate the mood - it was an early birthday celebration for my better half 😄.

Do note that they have a stronger version called Sangaree, that also includes cognac, vermouth, etc. in its concoction; so do order the right one, pricing differs.

Something meaty - Chorizo Papas i.e. chorizo sausages stir-fried with small chunks of potatoes. As the sausages have been cut into smaller piece, the flavour of their air-dried meat have oozed out into the dish and the potatoes have absorbed this flavours beautifully.

Other than potatoes the dish have been cooked with slices of onions together with other spices to add more spunk to it. Chorizos are sausages made from of pork cured meat and get their smokiness and deep red color from being dried, smoked, and cured with red peppers (pimentón/pimentão).

In between bites do admire the blue Azulejo Ceramic Tiles hanging from some of the walls. Azulejo is a form of Portuguese and Spanish painted tin-glazed ceramic tilework.

Azulejo are found on the interior and exterior of churches, palaces, ordinary houses, schools, and nowadays, restaurants, bars and even railways or subway stations - some of the nices we saw were at the Obidos Railway Station during our cycling tour of Portugal & Spain. It's a station that's hardly used, deserted in fact and most train passengers don't disembark here seeing that it's very close to Lisbon. Most will take a day trip from Lisbon.

And a surpise for us, the big man himself, Chef Ignasi Prats ..... perhaps I was asking too many questions and he most kindly came out to answer my inquisitiveness! He's a Catalan from Barcelona and was most pleased to hear about our cycling tour in Spain and Barcelona! Getting to know the chef does have it's little perks, one will see why later on!

And comes the most beautiful dish for the evening - Piquillos con Brandada. It's smoked Piquillo pepper (red peper) filled with cod brandade, i.e. slow-cooked cod with mash potato. The slightly salty cod meld well with the bland potatoes in the Brandade. The bright red Piquillo were selected bigger ones with their bases cut of they looked standing there like hot volcanoes ready to erupt! Although looking red hot, they were not that spicy - it's the next dish that would add a strong sting!.

These Padrón peppers dish should be taken as a starter to spice up the palate for more invigorating tapas to come! We had ordered it later, but nevertheless, it was a most welcomed dish. The taste is mild, but some can be quite hot. Drought-stressed plants tend to produce hotter peppers - we bit into the larger one seen on top and was treated to a hot lashing, burning our tongue. Seems like the stressed pepper has stressed our palate! But it was a welcomed feeling that added to our Spanish culinary adventure! Like several other peppers. Padrón peppers become spicier as they mature, their ripe colour is red.

Padrón peppers are customarily fried in olive oil until the skin starts to blister and the pepper collapses. Padrón peppers originate from the municipality of Padrón in the province of Coruña, Galicia, northwestern Spain.

In and around the town of Padrón, the stems are removed before frying. Removing the stems is recommended by major Galician pepper producers as they cause bitterness in fried peppers. Elsewhere, the stems are generally left on the peppers, and the stems are used to hold the peppers while eating.

Okay, these Marinated Olives served almost at the end of our meal, are usually served a the start as an appetizer in Spain. No fault of the restaurant here - it's not on their menu and are usually used as a condiment in their cooking!

Chef Ignasi hearing us request for these, had kindly served it to us a an individual dish, soaked in olive oil. Although there were just the two of us and we did not order much, his personalized touch has warmed our hearts.

A fitting end to our dinner - Churros served as a birthday cake! And the missus was happily most surprised.

The churros here are one of the better ones I have tried locally, crispy on the outside and fluffy soft on the inside. They were served with three dip sauces: Pistachio Creme Anglaise (the lightly creamy creme anglaise had infused with pistachio paste, making it more interesting); chocolate sauce (the regular sauce served with Churros), and berries-marmalade sauce (sweet berries combo with the tanginess of marmalade). My favourite was the pistachio cream!

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Below are Bocado's menu, at the time of this blog
(click here for online Bocado Food Menu):

Bocado's Tapas Menu

Bocado's Vegetarian Tapas Menu

Bocado's Mains Menu 01 (From the Josper Oven)

Bocado's Mains Menu 02 (From the Josper Oven)

Various sauces available including Chimichurri, Española, A la Pimienta and Salsa Béarnaise.

Bocado's Desserts Menu

Below are their Drinks Menu
(Click here for online Bocado's Drinks Menu)

Bocado's Cocktails Menu

Bocado's Mocktails Menu

Bocado's Drinks Menu

BOCADO KUALA LUMPUR

Ground Floor, Bangunan ECM Libra, 8, Jalan Damansara Endah, Bukit Damansara

50490 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur

Tel: +6012-9233206

Online Reservations: https://letsumai.com/bocado

Webpage: www.bocadokl.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bocadokl

Instagram: www.instagram.com/bocadokl

Email: info@bocadokl.com

Hours: 12:00pm-12:00am (Everyday)

GPS & Directional Map: 3.14990, 101.66511

(Click here for Google Street View)

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Related / Similar Blogs:

Spanish Tapas @ Elephant Rock TTDI

After our savouring good tapas at during our Portugal-Spain cycling tour, we were on the look out for more locally; and found a good one at Elephant Rock!

Spanish Tapas/Pincho @ Els Pinxus Barcelona

Pinchos are delicious tapas found in northern Spain, and Els Pinxus have elevated them into an art-form; not to be missed when in Barcelona - Sant Gervasi-Galvany, Barcelona, Spain.

Portuguese Grilled Octopus (Polvo grelhado) @ Restaurante Bacalhau Lisbon

Grilled octopus should not be missed when in Portugal, and Bacalhau serves one of the better ones.

Cycling Europe 2019 Day 15: Zuheros To Alcala La Real - Cold In The Highlands

A cold but beautiful ride along the Vias Verde in Zuheros before we proceeded to Alcala la Real, an even colder place... Brrrr!

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Saturday, June 4, 2022

YummY! - Colonial Nosh @ Durbar at FMS

You are at - Jotaro's Blog / FootSteps / YummY! / Chinese Food-Western & Fusion Food / Colonial Nosh @ Durbar at FMS

YummY!

Jotaro's Food Review

Colonial Nosh @ Durbar at FMS

Ipoh, Malaysia - April 2022

It was by a stroke of fortune that we landed up eating dinner at Durbar at FMS. We had arrived at Ipoh earlier for a short get away break from stressful work in Kuala Lumpur. After visiting several places of interest around the city, and freshening up, we drove to Ipoh Old Town to look for good eats, perhaps their famous beansprout chicken, etc.

But....... Lo & Behold! To our horror, all the foodie places were closed. Desperate we went to their Tong Sui Kai (Desserts Street), but that too was closed. We drove around Old Town a couple of times but same old, same old ..... all were closed; it seems that most eateries and shops in the old town are closed on Tuesdays!

One of our kakis recalled noticing some a couple of shops being opened during our double loop AND we made a bee-line for the older part of old town, straight to the junction of Jalan Sultan Yusof & Jalan Idris Shah!

Our misfortune turned out for the better, for Lady Luck has led us to a place with good food with a nice throw-back colonial ambiance, she has led us to Durbar at FMS! The FMS stands for the Federated Malay States of the country's colonial era, i,.e. British Malaya.

When at restaurants in Ipoh, one MUST NOT miss their Wat Tan Hor!
"Wat Tan Hor" literally translate to "Smooth Egg Flat Noodles" and in Ipoh one will really find good ones that are smooth and tasty; and here Durbar it's fried the old way by their Hakka chef!

A closer look and one can see that the hor fun (flat noodles) are fried with a good wok-hei before the beaten egg gravy is poured on. The last time I had fun eating good fried hor-fun was Nibong Tebal!

Next to come was Inchi Kabin!

This Nyonya fried chicken dish has a peculiar name, probably derived from a ship's galley cooking something for the captain (that is Enche or Inchi i.e. Malay for Mister) and delivered to his cabin (Kabin), hence Inchi Kabin! Basically it's a chicken dish which is seasoned with several spices and then twice-fried to make the chicken more crispy. The first deep-frying is at a low-medium heat to cook the inside, and the second frying is at a high heat to make the outside crsipy! But my mom does it differently, instead of twice-frying, she has the seasoned chicken sun and air-dried for an hour, and the deep-fry it only once.

But what's then the colonial connection? It's in the dipping sauce that comes with this dish. See, once of the ingredients for the sauce is Worcestershire Sauce. For Mom, it's not just any Worcestershire Sauce, but a similar thicker brown sauce made by HP Sauce.

So how was the Inchi Kabin here? The chicken itself was tasty with a good range of spicy under-flavours, but their dipping sauce was not up to par. I found it too thin, perhaps they didn't use HP Sauce 😅.

The grilled fish was this halibut, nicely done with crispy skin and as expected of a white fish the flesh was tender and had hardly any fat. Overall a good dish, except for the mash potato which was rather soft.

Let's take a break from the food, and enjoy the ambiance of the place. The walls are filled with many photos/paintings from the colonial era and nice chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The floor is lined with terra-cota tiles and a tasty ornate timber display case is on one side.

Patrons eat on wooden chairs around \white marble tables ala coffee-shop style. All these set us in a mood to be transported decades back to colonial Malaya. At on end a short staircase led up to a mezzanine.

View from the mezzanine.

That's us! When we arrived, after our spins around an empty Old Town, the restaurant was packed. The captain Susan led us to this table at the far end, set slightly away from the rest of the tables. This is actually their staff table and it was most kind of them to take us in and making room for us.

And right at the centre, a portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II looks down on us, reminding us to be on our best and follow proper English Etiquette. No talking in loud tones, minding our P's & Q's.

HaHAha...HAH! Ooops...... not supposed to laugh so loud..... hi hi hi hi hee.

Susan was very proud of the place, and took us up for a quick look at the mezzanine where there is a large table to cater for large groups. More importantly on the walls were hung many black and white photos from Ipoh's past.

Paintings of Old Ipoh, and Hale Street done in sepia, they brought back nostalgic feelings of gone-by days while also indicating the names the old colonial names of Ipoh roads.

A nice water-colour rendering of Durbar at FMS.

Up here too, smokers (or ex-smokers like yours truly) will get nostalgic on seeing displays of old cigarette boxes, some of brands that are no longer existing or no longer sold here - brands like Capstan, Rough Rider, State Express 555, John Players, & Matterhorn, etc.

The quick tour jogged our appetite and we continued with a favorite - Baked Stuffed Crab!

They have two varieties here, the regular or the traditional - the former is baked with mozzarella cheese.

Worldwide there are many recipes for baked stuffed crabs. I love the ones here, not spicy but made with local flavours; we opted for the traditional one. Even without the cheese, it was creamy and flavourful!

Banana Fritters with honey.

This is another dish that should not be missed! Our quintessential Malaysian favourite, Goreng Pisang is given a nice twist and served with a dab on honey and scoops of ice-cream.

The ones here uses Pisang Raja, a must for good goreng pisang, and the batter used is just adequately thick and fried to perfection - a golden crisp without being overly crunchy.

They usually serve this with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice-cream, seeing how much we had enjoyed their food they served it with scoop each of vanilla and coconut ice-cream; AND seeing how much we enjoyed they ice-cream, they served us an additional two scoops of their coconut ice-cream..... what more can we ask for 😋😋😋!

I believe their coconut ice-cream is made purely from santan; and not like other places whose coconut ice-cream are fallaciously made from milk cream ice-cream with added toasted shredded coconut flesh.

Good food and good times here!
A memorable "mirror' selfie of us, Susan is left-most, and Wee Liam (the owner) is far-right.

Established in 1906, FMS is the oldest bar-restaurant in the country; older even than Coliseum (KL) which was established in 1921. FMS closed in 2008, when the latest generation of the founders did not continue on the business. Wee Liam, a trained architect, took over and re-opened it under the banner Durbar at FMS.

Aren't we glad he did! Now many of us can continue to savour these enjoyable food from days past!