Renoma Cafe Gallery @ Bukit Bintang

Returning to Kuala Lumpur's first Renoma Cafe Gallery. Earlier entry: September 18.

Escargot gets a makeover: forget about the ones baked with garlic butter & check out Renoma's puff-pastry version, still buttery but with much more to sink our teeth into. Partnered with curried lotus root chips, micro cress & sauce madere.

French onion soup, bristling with caramelized onions in tongue-scorching beef bouillon with melted Comte cheese.

Nicoise salad, made nicer than normal with heirloom tomatoes to accompany the usual suspects of quail eggs, artichokes and anchovies.

Another classic, beef bourguignon, supremely hearty slow-braised beef cheek with root veggies, red Burgundy wine, forest mushrooms, pearl onion confit & potato mousseline.

Caramelized sea scallops in a savory-nutty-earthy, juicy-creamy preparation, sprinkled with sesame & salmon roe on a bed of confited salsifies, with a fricassee of chanterelle mushrooms (beneath the salad) & walnut oil.

Also complex (with some assembly required): citrus-cured ocean trout with (deep breath!) Szechuan peppercorn, trout roe, avocado bavarois, baby radish salad, capers, pickled onions & cold-pressed avocado oil.

Potato lovers, this one's for you: Hand-cut, double-fried Russet potatoes, served with Renoma's housemade dips, one tinged with bits of black truffles & the other made Malaysian with a spicy infusion of sambal terasi.

Wild-caught sole fish fillet poached in brown butter, with veggies, kaffir lime leaves & orange maitre d'hotel sauce. Not quite sole meuniere, not quite satisfying, but quite sodium-loaded.

Hanger steak (or as the Brits might call it, skirt steak). Not bad, but what we really loved on this plate was not the meat, nor the ratatouille or the (rather weak) sauce Perigeaux but the fantastic truffled pomme puree.

Splendid cheese selection: Saint-Paulin, Roquefort Crouzat, Saint-Marcellin Fermier, Rocamadour and Trou du Cru.

French Connection (cognac, amaretto) & Bikini Martini cocktails.

Renoma serves some interesting wine by the glasses, including the Chateau Beauregard Ducasse Rouge, Graves, & Veiga Naum Albarino, Rias Baixas.

But with each glass well exceeding RM30, a bottle might prove more economically prudent.

Renoma Cafe Gallery,
510, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2143-9919
Open daily, lunch through late.