Ready for some luxe dimsum?
KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 — Fifty varieties of dimsum are on the menu every day at the Shang Palace in Kuala Lumpur. Freshness is of top importance and dimsum chef Low Kien Fatt is in the kitchen making them every morning at 7. After 18 years in the trade, Low knows what’s expected and is well-versed with the healthier trend of eating (no MSG in dimsum, less sugar in desserts).
“The size of the dimsu
m remains,” he says, “but presentation is very important.” Western ingredients such as foie gras and cheese are increasingly being used in dimsum and the chef has an eye-shaped dimsum that’s steamed, then topped with panfried foie gras. “Next month I will do a deepfried cheddar cheese roll with prawn.”
The chef’s interest in dimsum-making had started early. Even when he was in Form One, he was already serving in restaurants during the weekends. Whenever he had the time, he would sneak off to the kitchen and observe what the dimsum chef was doing. After Form Three, he said goodbye to his studies and started working.
From a junior helper he worked his way up, and his dimsum –making improved through working with Hong Kong sifus in five-star hotels in Kuala Lumpur, then the Tung Lok group of restaurants in Singapore. His last job was with the Shangri-La in Jakarta. He liked working there. “There are now a lot of Chinese restaurants in Jakarta. There are no problems with labour and one restaurant can have 20 assistants,” he said. “Now there are a lot of Malaysian chefs working in Indonesia.”
He found Singapore a very competitive place for chefs: “The salary is not very high and the place is very small.”
The chef’s favourite foo
d? Tai Look Meen or Hokkien noodles. “You can’t find this in Jakarta.” So he has his regular fix, fried over a charcoal fire with a lot of chee yau char (lard bits),
in a stall in Bandar Damai Perdana, Cheras.
A father of a four-year-old daughter and baby son, seven months, the chef never cooks at home. “My wife cooks, I eat.”
We had a taste of the chef’s dimsum, all the five varieties from the special menu for the month. The Panfried Chive Dumpling with Shrimps had the thinnest, most delicate skin, with chunks of crunchy prawn and chopped chives inside. It tasted wonderful. The Steamed Scallop Dumpling with Kei Chee had all the clear and sweet flavours, and bouncy scallop. There was an excellent mouthfeel of the Steamed Pork Dumpling with Black Mushroom (a fresh shiitake).
The Deepfried Beancurd Rolls with Shrimp served in superior stock was unusual. You dip the crispy roll in a bowl of soup, said the chef. It added flavour to the roll.
What’s really scrumptious in the menu are the special appetizers of the month at Shang Palace: the Deepfried Squid with Salt and Pepper. It was unlike any I’d eaten before. “It’s dipped in a thin
egg and flour batter and deepfried. Then chopped garlic, coriander stalk and chilli are fried, the squid is added in and then a seven-flavour salt goes in."
The Double-boiled Sparerib soup with sun-dried scallops, radish and dried oyster was truly a comfort broth, so good and soothing.
The dimsum dishes are between RM10 and RM12, the deepfried squid is RM20 and the double-boiled soup is RM35.
