I had heard about
Kebaya Restaurant before but not had the chance to try it out. So when our friends asked me where I would like to go for my birthday this year, I decided on this venue. As it turns out, I'm glad that I waited to go in a bigger group, instead of just me and hubby. I'll explain why later.
So anyway, we brought Hannah with us and the Tans brought Isabelle, because on checking with the restaurant, apparently young children are not encouraged, unless we have "early dinner". It was not much of a surprise to us as we have encountered this with other fine dining establishments before, but anyway, we had not intended to bring Helene. So after making arrangements with my MIL to look after Heidi, we made our way to the restaurant.
Kebaya is located at
Seven Terraces, a boutique hotel which is tucked away on Stewart Lane, which is behind the Goddess of Mercy Temple in the core heritage area of Georgetown. The hotel has won numerous awards and Kebaya is presently the No. 1 restaurant in Georgetown according to Tripadvisor reviews.
Check out some of the photos of the hotel and the centre courtyard:
The restaurant was almost fully booked for a Sunday night. Like I mentioned above, I was glad that we were in a group of 6, because that meant we could try almost everything on the menu. The food is basically Nyonya food, but cooked and presented with a new approach. Like the menu says, "A new approach to Classic Straits and Indo-Chinese cuisine". Each set is priced at RM127,20 nett and comes with 1 appetiser, 1 main, 1 greens and 1 dessert. The main and the greens are served together with free flow white rice, and the restaurant recommends sharing. Meaning that if there are 6 sets, you can get 6 mains and 6 greens which can be shared, justlike what we have in a Chinese restaurant. Whereas if there are only 2 people, you can only order 2 sets and it limits the dishes which you can taste. So overall it was good choice, and 6 people is just nice :)
Let's have a a closer look at the food. There were 7 appetisers on the menu, so we ordered 6 out of the 7. Each appetiser comes in 3 portions, so we halved those again ourselves to get 6 portions :) All were delicious, no complaints!
This was the Otak Otak - red snapper cooked with tumeric and baked in a puff pastry. Not quite like the traditional otak otak, this was more like a curry puff. The sauce that came with it was yummy too.
Kebaya Ban Xeo - crispy wafers (like pie tee cups) stuffed with shredded chicken, bean sprouts, tofu and stir fried vegetables in a tamarind sauce.
Pork Man Tou - Soy pork and pickled vegetables in a home made man tou bun.
Miang Kham of Salmon Roe - betel nut leaf with toasted coconut, lime, cashew, shrimps and Norwegian salmon roe. This was more of a Thai dish (hence the description of Indo-Chinese cuisine in the menu), but when folded together was yummy nonetheless. The salmon roe literally popped in your mouth!
Chao Tom - minced prawn with herbs and spices wrapped around a sugar cane stalk and grilled, served with basil, coriander and mint leaves and a sweet sour sauce.
Crispy Joo Hoo Char Roll - sauteed carrot, shitake, pork and dried squid. This was more like poh piah, so that's why they called it joo hoo char with a twist!
Next we had the mains and greens. The menu had 8 mains with an additional main as the day's special, so we managed to try 6 of them. However there were only 4 greens, so we had 2 types of greens as double portions. Again all were delicious, so it was hard to fault anything.
Thai Soft Shell Crab Salad - with chilli lime dressing, mango, green apples and pomegranates. This was really very very spicy, but I liked it because I like the additional kick! The pomegranates added a lovely sweet taste to the dish.
Prawn Geng - shelled prawns in a lemongrass and tumeric curry. The curry is very very good. You could actually just eat the curry with white rice.
Kebaya Tamarind Beef - Beef shoulder glazed with tamarind and gula melaka. It has been slow cooked for 72 hours so the beef is very very tender. Also delicious with white rice :)
Hong Bak Lamb - Prime lamb shank from New Zealand cooked for 48 hours, so it was also very tender. I don't normally eat lamb, but our friends gave it the thumbs up. This was very big shank, so it would not make sense to eat it by yourself. Good for sharing, just like the rest of the dishes.
Grilled Snapper - Fillet of snapper (boneless) marinated in a spicy paste. I liked this dish because of the sauce. I think it was the same one which came with the Otak Otak earlier.
Grilled Chicken Kapitan - this dish needs no introduction for Nyonya food lovers. Delicious when eaten with rice also :)
For the greens we had Crispy Nyonya Tempura - deep fried vegetables in batter. We had a double portion of this as the kids would like it too.
Sambal Goreng - sauteed French beans and corn in a belachan coconut cream with cashew nuts. This was something quite different. Not exactly to my liking as I am not a fan of belachan, but Hubby said it was good,
Cher Chai - sauteed greens - this was quite a standard vegetable dish, but complimented the other dishes very well.
Wing Bean Kerabu - salad of wing beans (kacang botol), toasted coconut, calamansi lime and sambal belacan. We also had a double portion of this and this was my favourite greens. In additional to all those ingredients, the dish also had pomegranates which made the dish sweet as well as sour and spicy. Good combination for the tastebuds!
And then we had dessert! There were 5 types of dessert on the menu and they had an additional dessert on that day as the special, so we tried all 6.
Pana Cotta - passionfruit and coconut pana cotta with candied pistachios and pineapple. The tangy flavour of the passionfruit was very refreshing, especially after the heavy meal.
Gula Melaka Mousse - homemade palm sugar mousse layered on a sponge cake sprinkled with caramel cashew nuts.
Pandan Creme Brulee - egg custard with pandan essence and served with brandy snaps.
Cempedak Brulee - this was the day's special. Hubby really enjoyed this as cempedak is one of his favourites! It was much smaller than the Pandan version though.
Chocolate Fondant - warm chocolate fondant with a liquid centre and served with vanilla ice cream. As expected, this was a hit with the kids.
Tang Yuen - house made glutinous rice balls stuffed with coconut and gula melaka and served in a wam coconut broth - a twist on the traditional Onde Onde!
And since it was my birthday, happy birthday to me! Halfway through to 3 score and 10 haha :)
