Review: Kofuku Japanese Restaurant

Seri Pacific Hotel, previously known as Pan Pacific Hotel, has been around for as long as I could remember. I grew up passing by this hotel whenever I pop-by PWTC for events/fairs, but I've never stayed nor dined at this hotel until last week! It's just amazing how much the hotel has braved through since its year of establishment :)

Lobby of Seri Pacific Hotel

It's a privilege to be invited by the PR Exec., Nur Jihan Halim, to their Malaysian International Gourmet Festival (MIGF) 2012 menu at the Kofuku Japanese Cuisine. This menu is only available for the month of October, in conjunction with MIGF 2012.

Kofuku Japanese Cuisine's team of chefs & staff are led by their Japanese chef, Chef Steven Tan, who is actually a local but his expertise in Japanese cuisine is the pride of Seri Pacific. Their MIGF menu for this year showcases a symphony of Japanese dishes to please your every taste buds!

Entrance of Kofuku Japanese Cuisine

One of the tatami rooms

The MIGF menu

This is their special menu for the month of October, all through from 1st - 31st October. 

Their usual menu 

Interior of Kofuku 

The Full Festival Menu, priced at RM228.00 nett/person (with a selection of 5 wines) or RM188.00 nett/person (without wine) features an 8-course meal. They also offer a Light Festival Menu, priced at RM118.00 nett/person (without wine) that features a 4-course meal. In my personal opinion, go for the full festival menu & get 4 more dishes for just RM70.00 nett :P It's worth paying the RM70.00.

So, what's in the Full Festival Menu, you may ask. Read on & you'll find out ;)

Appetizer: Plum Wine (Umeshu)

Umeshu is made from the ume fruit + shochu (10-15% alcohol) + rock sugar. It's a very sweet, "thick", & slightly sourish wine, & I felt that it tastes more like some alcoholic syrup than a wine! *lol* It's not something that I really enjoyed as it was really sweet.

Right after the Umeshu, I was served the Zensai platter together with 2 types of wine i.e. the French Chardonnay white wine & the Australian MadFish Pinot Noir (unsure of the year). The white wine was to compliment the vegetables, while the red wine went with the seafood. It felt slightly strange to pair Japanese food with the classic white/red wines, but it was an interesting experience. I preferred the Chardonnay to the Mad Fish Pinot Noir as the latter is slightly sour. 

The platter consists of:

• Almond Flower/ Almon Hana - [read my comment below]
• Sweet Shrimp with Egg Yolk Vinaigrette Dressing/ Ama Ebi To Kimizu Ae - It's just like sashimi prawn, but rather slimy...I didn't really fancy this item.
• Grilled Dried Saury Pike/ Sanma Mirin Boshi - my 2nd favourite item on the platter, but words just ain't enough to describe it...it's probably like eating a really different type of freshly "salted" fish. Yums!
• Vinaigrette Moss Seaweed/ Mozuku Su - [read my comment below]
• Fresh Cucumber with Barley Miso/ Moro Kyuri - [read my comment below]

Japanese Amuse Bouche (Zensai) + Chardonnay (Ona Anakena) + Mad Fish Pinot Noir

The Light Festival Menu only has the Almond Flower, Grilled Dried Saury Pike, & Fresh Cucumber with Barley Miso.

Almond Flower/ Almon Hana

 Very unique item! It's actually fish cake with almond pieces, deep-fried to perfection!

Fresh Cucumber with Barley Miso/ Moro Kyuri

Nicely carved :) The effort taken to carve this small piece of cucumber just amazes me. The flavour is nothing much to shout about, but it's an "eye candy", no doubt!

Vinaigrette Moss Seaweed/ Mozuku Su

The moss seaweed was really fine & it just felt like eating strands of silky smooth seaweed.

Soup (Shiru): Clam Soup/ Hamasui

Frankly, I was quite surprised that there's only ONE clam. Hahaha. I expected at least 2-3, but it's still acceptable since there are many other dishes after this soup. The soup was clear & wasn't very special, in my opinion. The clam was also slightly over-cooked as it was kinda hard instead of soft & chewy.

- This dish is not available in the Light Festival Menu. -

 Raw Dish: Mixed Sashimi/ Sashimi Moriawase + Akarua Pinot Gris (New Zealand)

I was served some nicely chilled, fresh salmon belly, tuna belly, & yellow tail fish. The salmon belly was no doubt my favourite :D The wine that paired with the sashimi was also my favourite for the night because it's fresh, clear, & slightly fruity & floral smell + taste.

Grilled Dish (Yakimono): Grilled Tenderloin on Magnolia Leaf with Miso/ Gyuniku Hobayaki + Tyrrell's Moore's Creek Shiraz (Australia)

This is the CHAMPION of all dishes! Kudos to Chef Steven Tan for introducing this dish in the MIGF 2012 menu! The presentation was already fascinating & I was even more excited when I found out that I can "main masak-masak" (play cooking) with this dish! The beef was really tender over the charcoal fire & the miso dip that came with the beef complimented the beef well. What more, it was accompanied by a glass of full-bodied, rich & bold Shiraz!

Cook the beef to your texture preference :D

The amazing thing is the magnolia leaf didn't burn! I was really amazed & intrigued by the entire presentation & taste of this beef dish. It's lightly seasoned to give the beef a nice, grilled "original-taste" :) *thumbs up* I wish I could have more...hahahaha...

Charcoal & its ashes - lovely heat that cooked my beef!

Simmered Dish (No Nimono): Simmered Tiger Prawn in Japanese Sweet Sauce/ Ebi Gusokuni

Presentation was really something that I have to give some credits. However, I felt that the prawn was slightly over-cooked as it was kinda tough & dry. Cooking seafood is really an art/skill, so this is something that still needs to be perfected, I guess :P

- This dish is not available in the Light Festival Menu. -

Oshukuji (Rice): Steamed Grilled Eel in Bamboo Basket/ Unagi Seiron Mushi Gohan 

The rice was like glutinous rice instead of the usual Japanese rice & the worst part is that some parts of the rice was dry, hard, & half-cooked. *sigh* This was quite a disappointment. The unagi was alright, albeit slightly thin, but I wish the rice was at least acceptable in taste & texture.

- For Light Festival Menu: Miso Soup, Steamed Rice, Pickles. - 

Dessert: Japanese Classic Pan Cake with Red Bean and served with Green Tea Ice-Cream/ Dorayaki To Yakadatsu Matcha Aisu Kurimu

The dessert was nicely presented & tastes quite pleasant too. I wish the pancake was fluffier as it felt slightly dry. The overall dessert wasn't too sweet & has the slightly sourish strawberry to balance up the taste. Good enough :)

Hugel Gewurztraminer (France)

This wine that's more floral & fruity goes pretty well with the dessert. It's supposed to have expressive aromas that are typically floral, with roses, orange blossom, hawthorn, Williams pear, lychee, and a note of oriental fragrance. On the palate, the wine is dry, yet rich, fine and elegant, with excellent balance. While it can be enjoyed upon release to enjoy its freshness and verve, it can also be kept for 2 to 3 years. - adapted from www.wine.com.

That's all I had from the MIGF 2012 festival menu. I was quite stuffed at the end of the course, but was pretty pleased with the overall experience.

Kofuku's Chopstick Club

Interesting display. Apparently these are regular/VIP customers of Kofuku & they have their own pair of chopsticks, which they use each time they dine here! *oooooo*

Tun Dr Mahathir's & Tun Dr Siti Hasmah's chopsticks!

Photo with Jihan, Chef Steven Tan & another of their Japanese chef

If you're keen to try Kofuku's MIGF 2012 menu, you will have a week plus to try it out! Let me know what you think once you try it :) In the mean time, stay tuned for my next post on Seri Pacific's Wine Tasting event!

Kofuku Japanese Cuisine
Level 4, Seri Pacific Hotel Kuala Lumpur
Jalan Putra  
50350 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia.
Tel: (603) 4042 5555
Business hours: Lunch - 12:00p.m. to 2:30p.m.; Dinner - 6:30p.m. - 10:30p.m.


Missing the Gyuniku Hobayaki,