Saint's

Back to Saint's for another round of haggis. Earlier entry: September 13.

From Scotland: fried haggis balls. A brilliant offal-based snack, brimming with rich, meaty flavor. Who knew that sheep lungs could be tastier than pork liver?

Speaking of pork. ... from Ireland: succulent sausages with colcannon, a simple but satisfying blend of mashed potatoes & cabbage.

And from the former British colony of Malaysia: Malaccan pork satay. Yay!

Saint's be praised, booze is abundant here, including lots of wine. Beringer California White Zinfandel & Stone Cellars Merlot.

Nice names: Mount Gay rum & Polish Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka.

Saint's Bar & Kitchen,

Red Carpet Avenue, Encorp Strand,

Jalan PJU5/22, Kota Damansara, Petaling Jaya.

Trattoria Il Porcellino

Trattoria Il Porcellino: Round Two. Earlier entry: August 23.

Cheese buffs, head here to sample fun varieties that other restaurants rarely serve. This "burrata" is a mild-tasting mix of mozzarella & fresh cream, boasting a buttery lusciousness to pamper the palate. Ask for it to be dished out at room temperature.

Four types of semi-hard Pecorino ewe's milk cheese, produced in Tuscany. Their delicately savory flavor, bonded with a nutty edge, would bring a nice boost to salads.

Trattoria Il Porcellino's porcine offerings are also noteworthy. Share this cold cut platter of wild boar salami, Parma ham, cured coppa, spicy salami, mortadella & salami felino for terrific tasting portions of pork from wide-ranging Italian regions.

Pork-stuffed tortellini with ham & cream. Rustic comfort food, like something that one might find in a mountain village of Emilia-Romagna.

Strozzapreti with wild boar ragout. The al dente doughiness of the hand-rolled, fat-tubed pasta was well complemented by its tangy, coarsely meaty coating.

Risotto with speck bacon & porcini mushrooms. Enjoyable for its warm earthiness.

Save space for dessert, particularly this tasty troika of mascarpone, nutella & strawberries. Smooth & sensuously sweet.

Yogurt ice cream with more strawberries.

Even the prosecco comes bearing strawberries. Yum!

Wine or beer ... pick your poison.

Trattoria Il Porcellino,

Menara Hap Seng, Jalan P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur.

The Whisky Bar

Back to The Whisky Bar after over a year. Earlier entry: June 14, 2010.

What to eat with whiskey? Pork ribs, smoked with Scottish whiskey, seem like a safe bet _ meaty, fork-tender and somehow subtly sweet. Raise your glass!

Pork belly pizza with rocket salad. Also excellent; the velvety topping of pork slices lifted this thin-crust concoction to luscious new levels.

Fondue for two, fondue for two: Swiss gruyere & emmenthal cheese, with gherkins, broccoli, potatoes, sausages & bread cubes. (Chocolate fondues are available for dessert lovers)

Creamy and aromatic, as all fabulous fondues should be.

When the fondue is more than half-finished, a raw egg & kirsch are added into the mix to supply a special kick (liquor-laced fondues rule!).

A whiskey flight, featuring a tasting set of varieties from five countries: Hakushu (12 years, Japan), Old Pulteney (12 yrs, Scotland), Jim Beam Black Label (12 yrs, USA), The Irishman (Ireland) & Canadian Club Classic (12 yrs blended whiskey, Canada).

The Whisky Bar also now serves a traditional Sunday roast platter, EVERY DAY, 5pm-10pm, with roast beef, lamb shoulder, gammon ham, Yorkshire pudding & more, for RM48++.

The Whisky Bar,

Changkat Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur.

Lin Yuan

Our first eating expedition in Cheras since heaven-knows-when.

Pumpkin porridge steamboat is Lin Yuan's specialty _ a unique gastronomic pleasure.

To immerse in the sweet, creamy broth: quail eggs, pork tendon balls & fish paste dumplings, combined with a couple of raw chicken eggs cracked inside.

A little spicy sambal & house-made soy sauce ensure a powerful kick.

Toss in some noodles for the final step to satisfy the tummy.

Lin Yuan Steamboat Kitchen,

Queen's Park Cheras, Jalan Shelly, Kuala Lumpur.

Hokkaido Santouka Ramen

Hokkaido Ramen Santouka: Round 2. Earlier entry: July 30.

Throughout its first weeks in business, Santouka kept running out of simmered pork cheeks before dinnertime, forcing us to keep returning until we finally secured our first taste of them. Worth the effort? Sort of; they're enjoyably tender, though not astonishingly so. Also, the sodium content in these seemed slightly too high.

Steamed rice topped with egg & salmon roe. Sounded promising, but tasted plain.

Completing our survey of Santouka's ramen flavors: the shoyu variety, made with pork broth & soy sauce. Not as memorably tasty as the shio & miso versions in our previous post.

Spicy miso ramen, containing enough chili to tantalize but not torture.

Gyoza stuffed with juicy chicken meat. Not sure why there isn't a pork version.

Hokkaido Ramen Santouka,

Tokyo Street, Level 6, Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur.

EAT Food Village

EAT Food Village: Round Two. Earlier entry: August 21.

Here's more from this Solaris Dutamas food court, starting with Kin Kin Chili Pan Mee. Even though Kin Kin's main outlet on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman is only a 10-minute drive from my office, this was my first taste of its yolk-sloshed, anchovy-fraught noodles. Delectably creamy and savory, but I heeded everyone's advice by not pouring in too much chili.

The cult of claypot recruited us with this Hun Kee Tian Yuan ginger duck rice, a 40-year-old recipe from chef See To Hun. Well worth the calories, featuring a bonanza of steaming-hot, aromatic rice & tender, gravy-enhanced meat.

Sentul's Ah Yap potato flour noodles, fried in the fashion of Hokkien mee. Not as starchy as feared, though not as satisfying as regular Hokkien mee (dude, where's my pork lard?).

Loke Yun Hainanese chicken rice from Ampang. Fair but forgettable; what we really enjoyed was this set's freshly made ginger chili sauce (not in photo), which proved astonishingly addictive for a mere accompaniment.

Lorong Seratus Tahun curry mee. Nothing like the sight of hearty cockles to warm the cockles of our heart (though the curry seemed too oily to finish).

Bukit Mertajam yam rice with stewed pork & egg. Fragrant grains, flavorful protein.

E.A.T. Food Village,

Publika Shopping Gallery,

Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur.

Trattoria Il Porcellino

Now that Il Lido has gone pork-free & Chiaroscuro is plain gone, here's where can we go hog-wild with Italian cuisine in the city center.

Not the typical bruschetta: one topped with pork lard & walnuts, the other with minced pork & emmental cheese. A fabulously flavorful introduction to Trattoria Il Porcellino, a pork-filled, vastly superior offshoot of Jalan P. Ramlee's pork-free Trattoria Cucina Italia.

Tomino cheese wrapped in speck bacon. Soft, oven-baked cheese with smoky, salt-cured bacon: a hookup that's sinful but sensational.

Porchetta ham, described as "the product of a pig that's gutted, deboned, arranged in layers of meat, fat & skin, then rolled, spitted & roasted over wood." Sounds tediously elaborate, but the result tastes more satisfying than supermarket ham.

Crisp-skin suckling pig ribs stuffed with cheese & ham. A bane for girth control; too fatty & greasy for our liking, but still a rather unique recipe.

Atomica Pizza, topped with spreadable pork sausage, tomato & mozzarella. A fine change from other pizzas topped with ordinary sausage slices. This has mushy, spicy sausage meat spread across its surface, providing a pleasurable pungency to every bite.

Ruffino, Aziano Chianti Classico DOCG (Toscana). All in all, there's much to recommend about Trattoria Il Porcellino, a rare Italian outlet that has a predominantly female staff, including the heads of both its kitchen & service team.

Trattoria Il Porcellino,

Menara Hap Seng, Jalan P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur.