HO HO HO! Awww isn’t Santa cute? Well, I ate him for dinner >:-P

The above is an actual Yule Log that’s so tasty we wanted more! This, after all, is just a teaser to what’s coming up for Christmas Celebrations at Prince Hotel’s finest restaurants: ENJU for Japanese, Tai Zi Heen for Chinese and finally Eccucino for all things good!

Basically in conjunction with the season celebration this year end, Executive Chef DJ and his culinary team has specially prepared a host of tantalizing menus for Christmas and Year-End celebrations at Prince’s restaurants together with Japanese Chef Thomas and Hong Kong Award-winning Chef Ricky! These includes some of the food prepared above, and I swear upon my tainted tongue that none of these are NOT to die for!

You’re basically presented with the best of Seafood on Ice- fresh oysters, mussels and prawns in the buffet menu. Beautifully Roasted Turkey with Giblet Gravy are also served with FOUR freaking cranberry sauces to choose from: Cranberry Mustard Relish, Beet Chutney, Chipotle Cranberry Sauce and Cranberry-orange Compote. All of them are unique both in flavour and in texture, a definite must try!

Which is your favourite?

The decorations were superb to spark the festive Christmassy mood, something which I really love to bits. Not only will you see Gingerbread houses popping out of nowhere, there’s even a life-sized one situated just outside Eccucino for your viewing pleasure! (not to be eaten of course!)

And as you can see, there’s a free flow of chocolate fountain for your eating pleasure :p

On the 25th (CHRISTMAS DAY!) you can get all these and loads more at Eccucino’s X’Mas day Buffet Brunch from 12 noon to 4pm, along with freshly prepared omelets and egg dishes with beef bacon or sausage, pancakes, selection of salads, appetizers and Asian specialties, only at RM98++ per person! Reservation: 03-2170 8888 ext. 8119/8120

Anyway we headed for our first course set at ENJU,  and boy were we shocked at the SIZE of that freaking Hokkaido Spider Crab that we were about to eat! The Nama Tarabagani- Steamed fresh Hokkaido giant crab leg served grated young ginger sauce was absolutely superb! Each morsel of the semi-cold, sweet flesh is an experience that you’ll never get anywhere else (that is, unless you actually fly to Hokkaido! :P)

We also had the Mizu Gai Sashimi- Geoduck and mussels tossed with cucumber, cherry tomatoes and mitsuba served with irizake and green plum sauce along with Kaki Oyster Cocktail- Fresh Oysters wrapped with dried seaweed, grated white radish and spring onions, served with Citrus Soy Dressing. Uniquely tasty, they say it’s the perfect aphrodisiac for a lovely Christmas eve

Of course coming with the set you’ll have Awabi Shiru- Creamy rice soup with abalone and minced chives, Ise Ebi Age to Inaniwa Udon- Deep-fried lobster balls served with flat Japanese noodles in shoyu and bonito stock and finally, the Yashinomi Mango Pudding- Mango pudding coated with freshly grated coconut Milk.

You can get all these including Master Chef Thomas Lim’s Christmas Eve Set Dinner Menu at ENJU for only RM120++ per person! (call ENJU at 03-2170 888 ext. 8203)

Tai Zi Heen is not spared at all in these delectable mix of Christmas goodness! Here we have the Tai Zi Heen Cold Appetizer Trio:

Chilled marinated shredded turkey with dried tangerine and pomelo
Smoked duck with century egg
Chilled prawn with tomato dressing

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The picture above also shows the Sauteed diced beef tenderloin with leeks, crispy sliced garlic and honey peas in a Vietnamese rice paper basket

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Braised pearl shark’s fin with crab meat and crab roe in superior broth, as can be seen in the picture below!

Very nais!

There is also the:
Braised sea cucumber with Jade Shell fish in sauteed baby cabbage
Wok-fried glass noodles with prawns, grouper and squid
and finally; Milk pudding with passionfruit coulis!

The Award-winning Chef Ricky Thien’s X’mas Set Dinner Menu is all yours at RM158++ inclusive a glass of sparkling wine, sparkling juice or red wine! Just make your reservations at Tai Zi Heen, tel 0321708888 ext 8200

Finally we are back to Eccucino, my favourtest of places at all times! They even make really good Swedish meatballs, better than IKANO (somehow la!). A MUST GO TRY, only on the 25th of December 2009!

Lots of bloggers attended this one including Big Boys Oven, Food Point, Benjicajess, Coco and of course, Ah Bok of Taufulou! We had loads and loads of fun, which I think is very important apart from the taste of the food! (though this one memang really quality la!)

Free flow of ice-cream and choc fountain, anyone?

Here’s the Hotel’s address, located right opposite Pavilion:

Prince Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur
4 Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur, 50450
03-2170-8888

Have fun and have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you!

Just the other day, I was a fortunate invitee to an exclusive closed dinner session with Big Boys Oven, along with other prominent food bloggers such as CK from www.what2seeonline.com, Ken from www.Foodpoi.com, SuperWilson from www.placesandfoods.com and Timothy (who’s a bloody fit salsa dancer, argh hate people who loves eating and CAN eat a lot but don’t have to worry about growing horizontally. Oh wait CK included then grrr). I tell ya, nothing beats a few rounds of saliva-inducing meals together with a bunch of food and fun lovers originating not only from different lifestyle backgrounds, but different location as well (CK flew from Penang, while Ken is, well, he’s everywhere! )

Anyway, I shan’t digress. When I found out later that it was to be at the Eccucino, located in Prince Hotel @ Residence, KL, I can’t help but feel that it was all a fated event, seeing that I have a season parking pass at Prince Hotel, too! Finally I am going to be able to try out this restaurant which I’ve been passing by almost everyday for the last 1 year lol. You cannot understand the anguish I had to go through, to breathe in the pleasant, saliva inducing aroma every morning and every night, teasing my visual sensories as well. And now, thanks to both Shirley (from Prince Hotel) and BBO(who made this possible), now I can

Arriving at the scene just before the main dining crowd arrives, I met BBO there, who immediately told me to snap some photos. Whipping out my Lumix LX2, I knew I was going to attract some attention as the other floggers were taking pictures with their respective DSLRs, making me the only one with a Point-n-shoot. Fortunately for me, people with good eyes like CK and Ken knows the power of my Lumix, so I didn’t really need to “prove” myself :P. After all, it’s all about the yummyliscious spread around us and we really couldn’t wait to eat! Even the buffet section shown in the pic above, without looking at the food content, is already preparing us for a visually stimulating experience as the restaurant cleverly arranges from where the plates go right into the nitty details.

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This is the area where our Chef of the day prepares his specialty, a really sought after dish as you’ve seen in the first picture above. The wrap and ingdigressredients shown above is then heated in the big oven to perfection, the cheese just lightly melted and oozing out. Dunk it into a choice of 4 different dips: avocado, cream cheese, salsa or chutney (?) and you will never go wrong. Best served with one of their selected house wines, which by the way, is on free flow!

Going around their spread, their appetisers and dessert area is of course one of their specialties. Their tantalising selection seems to really want you to forget about dieting, seductively getting you to try each and every one of them out to your hearts desire. This, is one example where even I won’t even try to resist the sinful and fatal attraction.

Let’s see if you can (oh and did I mention that they serve “teppanyaki-style” ice cream too? One banana split please!)

But of course, if you chose to go on a healthy option instead, their salad spread is as mouthwatering, if not plentiful in their choice of greens and sauces.

Of course, one can never miss out the Sashimi section, which is a must in every buffet spread nowadays. Though it may be only three main choices to pick from, I was impressed at their “choice” cuts. This time though my favourite was clearly the butter fish (white flesh at the right) and needless to say, I had quite a few rounds eating those tasty morsels with wasabi and soy sauce of course

The same goes for their selection of sushi, but really, unless you want to make yourself full by filling yourself with vinegared rice (hey, some love it okay? lol) you’d better off having larger portions of sashimi instead to get the full worth of your dinner.

Talking about making full worth of the money you pay for this buffet selection, here’s one section you wouldn’t want to miss out especially if you’re into seafood. Their oysters may not be as big as the ones you find in other buffet spreads at other places, but the least I can say is that it’s sweet, not that “smelly” compared to the larger species. Fresh, and with a spoilt choice of red or green pepper tobasco sauce plus lime, I think you can’t really go wrong with this. The huge succulent prawns are very, very sweet and supple too! These are, as usual, best taken with a glass of house wine or beer which I will remind you, is on free flow with your dinner set. People with high calorie count should close an eye and skip this picture, seriously, otherwise you’d forgoe your doctor’s advice and feast on this anyway.

There were a few canapé choices to select from, and I can honestly tell you it was very hard to miss them, not when they are so creatively presented in this fashion. You just cannot resist taking a spoon and making a quick pop into your mouth just to taste the flavours each and every choice offers. If I’m not wrong, there was the exquisite sweet-sourish morsels of lamb, and the one above is bite-sized tofu in some complex fusion of sauce, lending an incredibly sexy taste to it.

And who can ever avoid taking pictures of this lovely set of Chocolate Fondue, presenting itself so well that it’s hard not to notice. The constant flow of hot, melting chocolate makes it so irresistable, and the fact that choices of dips have been prepared so nicely for you (right sided of pic) makes it all the easier to choose from, instead of wasting time in your indecisiveness in picking your bits. The fruits selection is on the limited side, but they were so creatively presented that you’d just ignore everything else lol

I don’t usually talk much about the soup selection but I must add that the choice we had that day was pretty special. Here we have some kind of spanish soup whose name I’ve forgotten, and it was quite a… unique soup. I have to say the taste was uniquely Spanishy I suppose. The other one is the wild mushroom soup which can’t really go wrong, maybe something to wet your throats with.

And of course, the assortment of condiments you can have on top of your soup. I love the fact that for every dish they have, they will also prepare a large selection of sauces and condiments to go with it. You can be a little creative and try adding certain flavours here and there to get your perfect concoction (for free)!

So here comes the topic for the day: Grilled to Perfection! Every Wednesday night is Grill Day, presenting a lavish choice of meats and seafood to choose from, a myriad of marinades and sauces to select thereafter and the chefs will do the rest, creating the perfect grill for you. Here you’ll see chicken and beef patties in their interesting mix of flavours, huge succulent tiger prawns, half lobsters and huge cuts of tuna and salmon.

At the other end of the grill section you’ll find chicken thighs among other parts, skewered pieces of selected seafood, squid rings and last but not least, 2 different cuts of beef.

These were my choices (round 1 la) and don’t let the picture fool you, that half lobster is really big, making the sirloin beef look seriously puny. lol.

One of my “rounds”. I love selecting little portions of food to decorate my plate, making it visually appetizing. Selected here is a very aromatic portion of mashed potato which is rich in cheese, baked sweet potato, springy fried mee hoon, my butterfish sashimi of course, 2 different canapes and the cocktail prawn dish. Yummy.

That was my personal experience in Eccucino, Prince Hotel KL. Made possible by the guys above, and of course my sincerest thanks to BBO for contacting me in such a personal manner… You guys are all so down to earth that if I were a Ostrich, I’d have to bury my head deeper underground to be in your level! (lame section, sorry) Once again it was really great meeting Ken, Wilson and CK as well (who’s food review gets circulated in corporate institutions even!) and I hope to meet you guys more often for more fun and food!

The Wednesday “Grill to Perfection” dinner buffet costs RM88++ per adult for the variety of food as you saw above, together with free flow of selected house wines, draught beer and soft drinks (to make you full no doubt, giving less room for the REAL food. If you’re a buffet person, you’d know what NOT to do to make full use of the money you pay :P). Eccucino can be found at the Grand Lobby, Level 1, on the right hand side once you enter the main entrance, you can hardly miss it. Make sure you go in between 6.30pm to 10.30pm for the Grill Experience (TM) daily, otherwise there’s also the buffet breakfast and lunch (weekdays only), during morning (6am – 10.30am) and lunch time (12pm – 2.30pm) respectively.

To make a reservation, here are the following details for your convenience

Eccucino
Tel: 03-2170 8888 ext 8119
E-mail: restaurants@princehotelkl.com.my