Welcome to 'The Party Hub' - where patrons are prompted to get 'hooked on life,' 'eat to live' & 'drink to life' - the latest F&B brand by KL's Soul Society Group, the force behind some of the city's most spirited restaurants - SOULed OUT, Tujo & WIP.
Hubba Hubba opened this month at Lorong Ceylon's new Invito Hotel Suites, up the road from Changkat Bukit Bintang, with a view of Jalan Berangan's long-enduring shop-houses. A second Hubba Hubba that'll be touted as a 'Social Hub' is expected to launch later this year at KL Sentral's Menara CIMB.
Hubba Hubba's energy is buoyant, matched by a menu that takes light-hearted liberties with familiar recipes. Skewers with a twist or two are the ideal introduction here - try the chicken skin, well-seasoned with kosher salt (RM10 before taxes), or the gizzard rubbed with serrano peppers & tomatoes (RM7) ...
... or beef tripe with chili soy (RM12), eringi mushrooms with jerk sauce (RM7) & lamb with lime chipotle dressing (RM15). All satisfyingly tasty & juicy (kudos to the kitchen), flaunting a global range of influences with a slight emphasis on Asian flavours.
As with all of Soul Society's outlets, the selection's dizzyingly wide, but we stuck to seafood for our mains. The most delicious dish we had here, hands down, featured succulent slabs of cobia fish with miso jus, lily bulbs & kale (the Chinese sort). RM36.
A taste of Lisbon, sort of: Portuguese-inspired seafood rice, moist & savoury with prawns, mussels, scallops & olives. RM33.
For snacking: Edamame beans with Himalayan pink salt, alongside yam tempura with a chili soy dip. Other starters span the likes of fruit crudites & prawn pancakes, while bigger plates comprise lamb cutlets with saffron wild rice & entrecote steak with serunding butter charon sauce (should there be a comma in between serunding, butter or charon? consider us curious); it'd take multiple visits to polish off the menu.
Approaching the end, desserts might come skewered too (& liquor-laced to boot): Pineapple prepared with marsala wine & bananas with rum - both RM7 each - supply the sweetest satisfaction.
Coconut milk cake, also with rum (RM15); we wanted to try the Bailey's cendol, but that wasn't available for our visit.
No lack of liquor here, of course: A carafe of pleasant house wine (Shiraz) provides value for money at RM30.
Cocktails come recommended: Love the Dragonfruit Mojito, brimming with fresh fruit (RM25) & Hazelnut Mango Daiquiri (RM24).
Hubba Hubba is a hangout with a vivaciously colourful sense of humour; the service team is solid too, with several very friendly & efficient staff members. Our only hesitation is that Hubba can get loud, so we fled faster than expected; the set-to-high music makes conversation a bit of a strain for older customers like us. But then again, party places can't be like libraries.
Hubba Hubba at Ceylon
Ground Floor, Invito Hotel Suites, 1 Lorong Ceylon, Kuala Lumpur. Daily, 7am-2am.
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