Bangsar’s Tasting Room

'Needs more commitment,’ a friend said of our French fries with wasabi mayonnaise on a recent Saturday evening at Bangsar’s Tasting Room. She was, in a way, describing our entire meal. The fries were very nearly there: tender batons sporting mere traces of the crisp golden crust that might have been had they been left longer in the fat, accompanied by a perfectly pleasant mayonnaise that merely hinted at the wasabi that might have made it more memorable had it been added a bit more assertively.

No complaints about the Tasting Room’s physicalities. The 45-seat first-floor space is stylish but not self-consciously sleek, tables are generously spaced, and there are a few sofas where guests can lounge and nibble while mining the wine list (huge kudos for the selection of well-priced wine flights and for the reasonable prices on bottles) or get down to serious business with a full meal. The vibe is relaxed but service is professional; this is the only KL restaurant in its price range at which a request to serve three appetizers shared between two people in three separate courses has actually been heeded. And if servers aren’t quite equipped to answer every question about the wine menu, written descriptions most vintages are available.

But the food menu is a minefield of well-conceived but unevenly executed dishes. An appetizer of baby octopus required far too much mastication and its white wine-based red capsicum and tomato sauce lacked the vibrancy one might associate with those vegetables; the seared water chestnuts served alongside, however, were a brilliant combination of crispness and light char. A decently sized piece of foie gras served atop a single Portobello mushroom fared better. The liver was cooked just right, coffee-hued and crusty outside and ever so slightly pink within, and married beautifully with the pan-fried fungus - but some textural contrast would have cranked this dish up a notch.

My entree of expertly cooked pan-fried Pacific codfish swam in a buttery red wine and porcini sauce – not in and of itself a bad thing, except that its flavour completely overwhelmed that of the fragrant dukka that coated the fish. And my friend’s New Zealand lamb with chocolate sauce was, simply put, tragedy on a plate. We’d anticipated the chocolate incorporated with other seasonings, perhaps something along the lines of a Mexican mole, but the sauce was one-dimensionally chocolate-y, overly rich, and way too sweet. It belonged on a sundae, not on plate of lamb cooked to within a rubbery inch of its life.

Entrée gaffs were partially redeemed with a slice of cheesecake topped with a tart berry couli. While not the New York-style heavy-on-the cheese cheesecake of my dreams, it nonetheless made for a pleasingly light, not-too-sweet ending to the meal.

In spite of the slip-ups I’d probably return to the Tasting Room. Why? Well, for wine lovers it’s an eminently relaxing setting in which to sample and sip while not breaking the bank. And the menu does have its moments, if you choose well. Dishes incorporate excellent ingredients and there is obviously some talent in the kitchen. I’d just like to see both put to full use more evenly across the board.



Contact:
65-1 Jalan Bangkung
(above Wine Cellar),
Bangsar
Tel: 03 2092 4404

Website:
N/A

Operating Hours:
N/A

Cuisine:
Fusion