The holidays are around the corner and we got a chance to sample this delicious Christmas Eve menu at Hotel Maya's Still Waters. The food was just what I needed to get my tummy in the mood for Christmas!
The gingerbread ice cream will blow your mind!
With any restaurant review I'd usually start off with telling you about the appetizers and then go from there but I'm going to do it a bit differently this time because the dessert here was impressive! Not only did it look stunning, a work of art almost too beautiful to eat (I said almost), but the gingerbread ice cream was so good it had me inquiring if I could buy a quart of it to take home.
The dessert plate is beautifully spattered with sauces like brush strokes on a painting. The mascarpone cream with strawberry compote is served in a little chocolate pot complete with a chocolate lid. The cream is rich and yet not cloyingly so with the tang of the strawberries and the crunch of the cookie crumble. And the beautiful little scoop of gingerbread ice cream sits atop a sugary sesame crisp. If you like gingerbread, this ice cream will blow your mind. It's refreshing and spicy and creamy all at the same time. Simply genius!
Ok uhmm, I guess we should get back to the meal portion of this review, heh, we started off with an amuse bouche trio, a beef an asparagus roll, crab tofu with ponzu sauce, and Japanese cucumber with barley sauce. My favourite was the beef, which was juicy and tasty with the fresh crunchy asparagus. I also enjoyed the silky smooth crab tofu. Next up was the salmon belly carpaccio starter with lovely pearls of roe. The fresh salmon belly worked beautifully with the chef's special mixture of sauces.
One of the interesting dishes served on this menu is the turkey ham and ramen roll egg roll. Slices of omelette and turkey ham are wrapped around ramen to form little rolls. This is quite innovative and delicious!
For mains we had a choice between the grilled Hokkaido scallop, baked turkey breast, and char grilled tenderloin with a choice of onion sauce, shoyu or garlic sauce. I can never resist red meat on a menu and so I went for the tenderloin topped with garlic sauce. The sauce is delicious and gives the meat added juiciness and flavour.
And well…as for dessert…you already know all about it! Still Waters takes a distinctive approach to this festive menu injecting a bit of Eastern and Western flavours throughout…it's certainly different from the traditional offerings around town. This set menu is going for RM160++.