Gourmet Garden

Last Saturday on the 18th of April year 2009, we were invited by Haven Delight which is located at the newly constructed Penang Time Square to attend a formal review of the delicacies that are offered there. The event was made possible by Criz after he ventured into Haven’s den looking for something to satisfy his appetite. Thus, it would be polite to thank Criz and the management of Haven Delight for making this event possible.

Now back to Haven Delight’s review. Haven Delight is located on the 1st Floor of Penang Time Square which has open its doors not long ago on 2nd of March and officially launch on the 7th, and started their buffet spread on the 20th of the same month. Words have it that Penang Time Square would hold their official grand opening in between the month June and August this year. Thus, Haven Delight would be one of the pioneer businesses to step foot into this mall. This outlet in Penang Time Square is the flagship restaurant conceptualised and created by Mr. B.T. Ng who is the Managing Director of this restaurant. And at the helm of the kitchen is their Executive Chef, Edwin Teo, who has in total 10 years of experience in the kitchen preparing various types of cuisines ranging from Japanese to local Malaysian cuisines. At the Haven Delight kitchen, Edwin has teamed up with Alex a Sous Chef who specialised in Hong Kong and Shanghainese cuisines, K.P. Lim a Demi Chef de Partie and  Melvin Loo at the sushi bar.

At Haven Delight, one may find oneself savouring cuisines from in and around Asia and also be pampered with some fusion dishes. Therefore, one must be prepared to be bombarded by the different types of aromas, flavours and taste which have been yielded from the usage of various cooking techniques and ingredients. At Haven you are also assured that the ingredients used are delivered fresh and inspected by either the Executive Chef or the Sous Chef before anything is allowed on to the kitchen’s preparation table.

Any person who steps into Haven will be greeted with their specially design decor and friendly crew of stewards who are ever ready help you on your orders and recommendations as there roughly about 200 different dishes to choose from the A la Carte menu. And if are undecided on what have, may be you would like to try out their Buffet Menu which would only set you back RM49.90++ per person for adults, as for kids under the age of 12 you can expect to only pay 50% of the adult rate. In the buffet menu there are around 90 different dishes to savour within the stapled two(2) hours ordering period. Although it is  stated that the ordering period is only 2 hours, you are most welcome stay longer to finish the food that you have ordered within that period to prevent any waste of food.

As usual, I and Gill normally arrives early for events like this to check out the place and also to try to adjust the settings of the camera for the occasion and atmosphere. While waiting for the rest of the bloggers to arrive I managed to get off some shots of the interior and decorative ornaments.

In addition to the decor shots, I was also lucky enough capture the Executive Chef preparing the first dish that was planned for us to get our palates warmed up.

At about 5:30pm and after everyone has settled down at their respective tables, the cold cut starters began to roll out from the kitchen. First to be served to our table was the Hotzzz Abalone, a platter of sliced abalone dressed with their special spicy sauce, unagi sweet sauce and garlic oil and bits. The abalone pieces were firm and crunchy, if taken only with garlic oil and the crispy fried bits of garlic it would produce a fragrantly lite and sweet taste experience. Abalone and scallops are very delicate ingredients which do not have a heavy flavour and must be paired with seasonings or cooking techniques to bring out its unique mild sweetness, and that was what the garlic bits and oil did for the first piece of abalone that went into my mouth.  The addition of the spicy sauce/paste actually overwhelmed that unique sweet tasting flavour that the abalone has. Thus, our recommendation is to leave the spice out of the dish, but if you are the kind that likes some heat in a dish you may want to pair it with some shredded reddish to give the dish a refreshing taste and balance out some of the heat produce by the spicy sauce/paste.

Accompanying the abalone dish was the Unagi Tofu which is also found in the cold cut section of the menu similar to Hotzzz Abalone. The Unagi or eel in Japanese Restaurants are normally served with sweet sauce, at Haven Delight there is no exception. The only difference here is that the unagi sweet sauce was not too sweet like those found elsewhere. As the name says Unagi Tofu, the dish is really just a cut of unagi resting on top of a small block of cold tofu dressed over with sweet sauce and garnished with sprinkles of spring onion, sesame seed, bonito flakes and crispy bits of garlic. At the first bite into the unagi, the texture was plum and firm and the taste was not excessively creamy. Then when I combine the unagi to the tofu, it gave another type pleasure to the senses in my mouth. The cold tofu with its sweet soy scent and cold creamy taste match well with the unagi cutlet, giving it a refreshing experience rather than a dull end. But one thing to point out was that the unagi’s skin was a bit chewy, otherwise it would be a fantastic starter.

After the two cold cut samples that we had, the steward crew started to roll out the main cause sample for our review. In all we sampled 7 main dishes during the event, which was started with their Chicken Ban Ban. The Chicken Ban Ban is a construction of deep fried boneless chicken cutlets in batter stacked on top of a bed of greens and deep fried egg omelette, and painted with a combination of their chef’s mayonnaise, wasabi mayonnaise and sweet sauce. The chicken cutlet was tender and moist, but slightly oily on its own. By combining the chicken cutlet with the other ingredients found on the plate and plastering it with the mayo to add richness, wasabi mayo to add some spice and the sweet sauce to achieve some sugary taste, was actually a different experience to savour. If everything was done as it was done previously as commented by Criz would have been a better experience because the egg should have been on top of the pile rather than at the bottom which had cause it to loose the crispiness and introduced the oil drippings from the chicken to it. I second that as the texture of the egg was rough due to the loss of that crunch and it tend to brush on the throat when swallowed. Some times old is really gold!

After the savour Chicken Ban Ban, next to come was the Red Dragon Prawns with Jammy Sauce. This is really a colourful dish with lightly battered deep fried prawns stir fried with capsicum, onions, and dragon fruit and glaze with a tangy, sweet and spicy(not hot) sauce.  As the name has it, jammy sauce, the predominant taste of this dish is sweet but not overwhelmingly sweet until the tooth falls off. Other than sweet, the sauce was fruity and tangy with a hint of turmeric. The jammy sauce went very well with the firm and tender prawns. On the presentation wise, the outlook of the plating we skilfully planned but the yellow was too strong, may be if they were to add in the dragon fruit much later in the stir frying process, it might still retain some white to achieve some balance in colour.  But then again, the dragon fruit might not have soaked up enough flavour of the jammy sauce! Dragon fruit on its own has no predominant taste but has lots of texture and a pretty looks. Therefore it needs other ingredients to give some flavour or good to pair with different taste as it would not overwhelm it.

Next to come was the Motoyaki Scallop which for tonight came in a big round Japanese platter and bedded individually with shredded reddish and green coral leafs. On normal days, the scallop comes on a plate of 5. The scallop we found under all that sauce and cheese was surprising fresh and plum. The fresh scallop with shell intact was topped with a spicy cream and cheese mixture with bits of fresh grind black pepper and whole grain black sesame seeds were baked to perfection. The cheese chunks tasted savoury and smokey, the sauce was spicy hot from the Tabasco sauce and chilli flakes and rich, and the black sesame seeds where infused with heat and a little bit of sourness from the black pepper. It was a great sauce to start with, but like the abalone scallops have a very delicate sweet taste and the heavy tasting sauce had overwhelmed the fresh scallop that was used in this dish.

Most traditional Korean families would have their own kimchi making recipes that pass on from generation to generation. At Haven Delight, the kimchi used in their Korean Beef Kimchi are also home-made or can I say kitchen -made. The kimchi is the concoction of the executive chef and used in the stir frying of the tender slices of beef. Presentation wise not much can said just average, but looks can be deceiving. Although the Beef Kimchi looks red hot, in fact the heat was mild with some sourness. The beef slices were tender, juicy and still permeating with scent of beef. The Korean Beef Kimchi can be either taken hot or cold, but when taken cold the heat is much more intense and less sour. A bowl of white rice is a good marriage for this dish and the two (2) dishes to come, Homemade Spicy Chicken and Shanghainese Honey Spare Ribs.

The Lamb Teriyaki looks standard with parts achieving caramelising with a sweet taste to the end with help of the teriyaki sauce used to base it. But certain part of the lamb chop did not have enough flavour marinated into them. It could also be due to the cut used which is from the leg of lamb that has less fat. The fats actually help to induce more fragrant and flavour in to the meaty areas, just like fats on a beef sirloin steak.  During the sampling I overhead that some bloggers encountered some resistance with the lamb like it didn’t want to just go down without a fight.

As mentioned above, the Homemade Spicy Chicken is a dish that definitely needs a bowl of white rice to be happily married.  The deep fried chicken cutlets are more heavily battered and crisp as compared to the Chicken Ban Ban cutlets that we had earlier. The tender chicken cutlets are then coated with a sweet-sour spicy sauce that combines savouries from fermented black beans, spice from lemon grass, heat from red chilli, and fragrant from spring onion, curry leafs, onion and garlic. This is one of the dishes that we will definite like to have seconds!

Another white rice favourite is the Shanghainese Honey Spare Ribs. We were expecting tender meat-fall-off-the-bone spare ribs, but what got was a tough, over salty and heavily sweet sticks of ribs. Thus without white rice or plain chinese steam buns it would be a hard hit to our taste buds. Presentation wise more should be done to make the ribs more appetising, in fact I had to rearrange the ribs so that it would provide a better shot.

After all the planned main courses that were served for the night  the kitchen started to send out some of the lighter dishes for us to sample, and they started with their Japanese Yaki Udon. The Yaki Udon is a common noodle dish that is found in almost every Japanese restaurant that serves cooked dishes, the only thing exceptional here is that the garnishing takes centre stage with bonito flakes. When immediately served, you could the bonito flakes come to ‘live’ due to the introduction of heat. We actually had a prelude of the Yaki Udon some weeks back and it was acceptable on the average side.  As for today’s serving, we found that it was too moist and there was some hint burnt taste and smell. When we checked, the Yaki Udon today was prepared by another person who doesn’t usually work with Japanese cuisines, thus the unacceptable mistake occurred.

This was the Yaki Udon we had weeks ago.

Another light dish that we sample was the chef’s special, Tempura Cheese Maki. Again we had in fact sample this dish before weeks ago and at that time we made some suggestions that were implemented into this dish today. We found that there were improvements to the outer batter which is more fragrant and crisp,  and also the fillings were altered to achieve a better texture. It used to be a combination of salmon and unagi which we found to be too rich in flavour and too soft in texture. At that time I and Gill requested that some crunch to be added and substitute either the salmon or unagi to balance out the taste. As for the cheesy mayo sauce, it was quite delightful for our palate as it combine the savoury and crisp deep fried maki with a sauce which is smooth and creamy. That is what I call chef at work!

At the end of the sampling, we were pampered with their homemade ice-creams, Macha Ice-Cream and Kuru Goma Ice-Cream. The Macha Ice-cream is actually a scoop of cold green tea flavoured ice-cream served with a dollop of red bean paste accompanied by two (2) balls of mochi or glutinous rice flour balls. There is nothing to complain about the not sugary sweet ice-cream, it had the unique flavour of green tea and the bitter-sweet taste of green tea. The ice-cream actually relies on the red bean paste to balance the bitter-sweet taste of green tea with its sugary sweetness. But the texture of the red bean paste was a bit of a put-off because the beans were not smooth enough to compliment the texture of the ice-cream. I guess they must look into substituting the red beans with another species, like kidney beans for say. And the mochi were slight tough in the insides. As explain by Criz, when hot meets cold things will get hard. That for me is called ‘tempering’, but it should not have happened.

As for the Kuru Goma Ice-cream that we had, I found it to excellent not because it is sweet but for the fragrant and flavour that it delivered. The Kuru Goma Ice-Cream is actually black sesame seed ice-cream topped with generous sprinkles of crush peanuts. The presentation of this ice-cream that cost RM 8 had many thinking whether is was worth that price as it was not well decorated to enhance our sense of sight to capture our attention, But a mouthful of the ice-cream it self was enough to convince me to put all those thought at bay. The ice-cream was packed with the aroma and flavour of sesame coupled with the crush peanut topping that provided the nutty savoury taste made me think of our local ‘Mua Chi’ and the urge to ask for more. The sugary sweetness in the ice-cream was not overwhelming but balanced with the taste of sesame and peanut.

Other than the planned list of dishes to sample on that night, we were also given the opportunity to be the ‘preview’ 2 new dishes that they are testing out in the kitchen. The first one was their Hong Kong Style Wanton Noodle Soup. It took me & Gill sometime before we got sample the noodles, wanton and soup. Although some minutes have passed, the wanton noodles were still surprisingly firm and crunchy, I guess it has to do with the flour used and the ratio.  The soup was sweet with taste of prawns and pork, but the soup was not totally clear as you would expect.  in all the noodles and soup were better tasting the wanton noodle we had at Canton-i in Queens Bay Mall. But, there are still buts! We were disappointed with the wanton dumplings, the texture was mushy as the prawns were no longer fresh and firm, and they used squid paste rather than mince pork to adhere the prawns together in the dumpling. These caused the dumpling to produce a powdery texture and reduce the sweet taste of the dumpling that it supposed to give. Then there was the used of fried shallots to garnish the plate of noodle, which spoilt the original sweet taste of the soup. And the accompanying chilli was not well prepared, it did not have that prawny aroma and the chilli was not fragrant. The best Hong Kong style chilli for Wanton Noodles I ever had was still the one produced by the long gone Super Tanker Restaurant in KOMTAR. The fragrant and taste of the dried shrimps and dried chilli were all infused together and also into the oil.

For the second preview, we had the opportunity to taste their Chicken Bom. The Chicken Bom is actually a fillet of chicken encasing chopped salmon and a bunch of herbs and spices. Many thought the casing was made of flour, but it turned out to be a chicken fillet drench with a type of sweet sauce. The presentation looks very interesting for the night, with a small blue flame burning at the side. When cut, the fillings emitted a very unique herb like aroma which many could not put a finger on. And many did not like that strong herb taste and some even find that it didn’t even ‘jive’ with the dish. I guess my experience with Western herbs gave me an advantage over the rest, my first guess was either Thyme or Oregano. And it turn out to be Thyme. Thyme is normally used on fish dishes and sometimes chicken when combine with other herbs. But the amount used that night was definitely on the heavy side. Anyways, it was something unique that you don’t get to try everyday. The chicken was tender, the salmon was slightly dry with unique herb taste.

And on average I would grade Haven Delight:

* 3.8/5 for value (used of good quality and fresh ingredients in their cooking, and overheads were also taken into consideration)

* 3.5/5 for taste & texture (inconsistent in the taste and flavour dishes that were sent out from the kitchen)

* 4.5/5 for service (friendly and prompt not only at this event)

* 4.5/5 for cleanliness (basically the place is still new for it just open its doors in March)

* 4.0/5 for atmosphere (slightly noisy due to the in-house music)

Apart from the photographs taken on food and the physical look of the restaurant, I also managed to capture some happenings before and during the event.

Passionate, Edwin Teo fully concentrating on making the event as tasteful as possible.

Ever ready Jing Jing who was charge with serving us that joyful night.

The silent Hooi Sian promptly assists in removing empty plates for a new dish to be served.

Food Paradise is seen here hard at work writing her reviews.

Steven anxiously waits for everyone to start with the scallop.

Allie enjoying her scoop of Kuru Goma Ice-cream.

The feedback or review form prepared by Criz for this event.

Other Food Bloggers who attended the event:

Allen Ooi

Allie

BBO

Buzzing Bee

Cariso Food

C.K.Lam

Criz Lai

Food POI

Lingzie

Mary

Nick Chan

Penang Tua Pui

Steven Goh

The Nomad Goumand

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