Eat Drink KL: Il Lido @ Yap Kwan Seng

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Il Lido @ Yap Kwan Seng


No ifs or buts about it: Il Lido could well be KL's best Italian restaurant. That's a brazen proclamation, but being a true-blue fan of Italian food, I'm willing to make that claim.


We braved ferocious traffic on a rainy evening to head here this week; the reward _ being greeted as the first paying customers in this outlet's existence.


Capellini with sea urchin & buffalo milk ricotta. It's tricky to expound on the food, since everything is irreproachable, but it's worth mentioning that the service is stellar and the setting is sublime. If you have a loved one's birthday coming up, then come here.


Pappardelle with goose liver, duck confit & truffle sauce. You recognize these ingredients; on their own, separately, they're decadent. Combined on one pasta platter, they're divine.


Risotto with gorgonzola, radicchio & walnut sauce. Many of us search fruitlessly for the risotto of our dreams. I might sleep easy tonight, because I've found mine.


Squid ink tonnarelli with spicy crab & saffron sauce. It seems naive of us to think that only Italian chefs can truly do justice to Italian food. But if you agree, then it helps to know that the chef here is from Milan, and that he personally crafted the menu.


The icing on the cake: this restaurant is non-halal (with apologies to Muslim friends). We loved this Sardinian suckling pig; it's vastly different from the Chinese and Spanish versions that we're used to, and vastly superior. Instead of seeking (and failing) to describe this, it would be more tantalizing to simply end this entry here.


Argentinian Chardonnay Oak Cask, Trapiche (2006),


Il Lido,
Jalan Mayang,
Off Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 2161-2291