FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom

Summer Menu – Blossom, FLOUR Restaurant KL, Indian

Summer Menu – FLOUR Restaurant – Blossom

Words: Kitty Noble Photos: Monica Tindall

After the long, cool, rainy winter months in India comes the spring. The season is rapidly changing where the melting snow irrigates the flowers and the green leaves unfurl like a cat stretching after a good night’s sleep. Focusing on India’s west coast, this primal awakening of Mother Earth is the inspiration for Chef Yogi’s blossom summer menu. 

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
FLOUR Restaurant

Summer Menu – FLOUR Restaurant – Blossom

Following the successful winter menu, this new array of food takes the diner through spring into summer over the next five months. Of course, with the changing season comes the flowers that become berries. From the hearty warming winter plates comes the bright, lively and delicate spring into summer dishes. Prepared with a touch more chilli heat throughout, recipes are reflective of India’s seasonal palate.

Degustation Menu

The 11 courses (RM 550) of carefully curated dishes are both elegant and beautiful. We find perfectly sized plates which satisfy but don’t overwhelm the diner. There are two wine-pairing options, four glasses at RM 275 or seven glasses at RM 350. Lucky us, we are getting all seven!

As ever, we start with homemade bread. Today’s offerings are a lovely sourdough, and mini croissant served with the wonderful balsamic butter we love.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Bread

The Beginnings

With a declaration of ‘we need your palates ready,’ The Beginnings is designed to awaken the tastebuds and reflect nature. New tableware of a ceramic tree branch hosts a bird’s nest cuddling a quail’s egg. Unchanged from the winter menu, the egg is a cleverly made white chocolate shell containing a curried surprise, flavours exploding in the mouth. Chef Yogi, my palate is indeed now yours! An innocent-looking mint and green chilli meringue conceals a fiery punch of tomato stuffing, balancing chilli with sweetness. Then a final refreshment of the mouth comes in the shape of summery bell pepper and cucumber tart.

Indian Fine Dining
The Beginnings

Earth & Sea

Earth & Sea has quickly become FLOUR’s signature dish so that every guest will have caviar! Served with beetroot thoran custard, it has had an upgrade and now uses Baerii caviar. FLOUR is seemingly the first place in Malaysia to do so, thanks to Yogi’s introduction of the same. He offers an upgrade to the most premium imperial Beluga at RM 395. The Crème Fraiche, which accompanies the earthy, saline dish, has been jazzed up with the addition of saffron. The blinis, with which we mop up all the yummy goodness, have a fantastic tang, owing to the sour batter, the very same that is used for tosai. This one dish has an impressive ability to awaken every taste sensation, with the beetroot’s earthiness, the salinity of the caviar, the sourness of the blini, and the sweetness of the cream. Of course, with caviar, there is no choice but to pair it with Champagne, so today we have Moet & Chandon NV, sporting its familiar fruitiness and masculine mousse.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Earth & Sea
Indian Fine Dining
Moet & Chandon NV

Summer Menu – Blossom – The Eye

For our next eye-catching dish, The Eye is a charcoal-grilled abalone with shaved summer truffles and Jerusalem artichoke. It’s topped with a dainty violet flower and a sesame dressing. The pairing for this dish is the Drappier zero-dosage Champagne which we’ve had here before and a new favourite for me. Abalone has a curious texture, not dissimilar to octopus tentacle, with a firm crunch that is complemented by the dressing. Abalone is extremely difficult to harvest, which is why it comes with quite the price tag. In a charming little surprise and demonstration of the freshness, we are each presented with the shell in which the gastropod inhabited as a souvenir.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
The Eye
Indian Fine Dining
Drappier Brut Nature Champagne

Sunshine in Spring

The next dish is Sunshine in Spring, a BEAUTIFUL carpaccio of a carabinero prawn, bisque of the same, cumin, fennel and chilli. The prawn is served with an attractive bouquet of flowers, nasturtium leaves and a cumin tuile. It’s a shame to disrupt the dish’s artistic nature, but disturb it we must, as bisque is poured over the masterpiece. The attention to detail is staggering and what Yogi and the team do with a soup is fantastic.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Sunshine in Spring

Bangda

Bangda, or smoked mackerel, India’s national fish, is treated with the reverence it deserves. It’s lightly smoked and served with a dill leaf sauce with intense garlic drops. The depth of flavour is achieved by burning the garlic before creating an emulsion from it. House-made yoghurt decorated with nasturtium leaves and petals makes a pretty pool beside it. It’s another dainty dish with vivid colours that pop, contrasting the white bowl. The creamy yoghurt relieves the bitterness from the astringent herb. Still, mackerel having the strong flavour that it does is not overpowered in the slightest. We are treated to a second pour of the AIX Rose that was served with the prawn.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Bangda
FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
AIX Rose 2018

Carne de Vinha D’alhos

Carne de Vinha D’alhos is another elegant dish. Duck has been marinated in wine vinegar and spices for three days and is enveloped in pasta made by FLOUR’s Italian chef, Alessandro Piso. A Goan dish given by the Portuguese is the most fetching ‘vindaloo’ we have ever seen. Two tortelloni pasta parcels float on a pond of curry, with Parmesan tuille and more flowers. This dish alone takes five minutes to plate, and when it arrives, you can see why. The sauce is light and airy and, whilst robust, does not overpower the tortellini. The wine mate is a Marsannay Pinot Noir. Red fruits are forward in this pairing well with the curry.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Carne de Vinha D’alhos
Indian Fine Dining
Marsannay Pinot Noir

Cheese in a Farm – Summer Menu – Blossom

Another colour-palette popping dish is Cheese in a Farm, Yogi’s homemade cottage cheese take on palak paneer. Shimeji mushrooms and pickled silver-skin onions crown the silky cheese. A bright green soupy spinach is slurped up with chapati, flirtingly caressed with fennel and cumin – the summer spices. Lightly smoking the cheese adds a fun dimension to the thematic chilli kick and velvety sauce. For Mon and me, this was a surprising yet firm favourite.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Cheese in a Farm

Tarabagani Kamemashi

In keeping with ‘pushing the envelope’ of imported food to Malaysia, chef Yogi bucks the trend of Alaskan crab and instead chooses the closer shores of Japan for their red king crab, in the Tarabagani Kemamashi. It’s perhaps the most labour intensive of all of the dishes we dine on. Each pot is individually made per diner. Basmati rice basks in a broth of the crab, each grain perfectly cooked and separated. As the lids are not 100% airtight, the team creatively manufacture a seal of pastry, holding the lid firmly, which is then prised off at the table. It reveals the pink crab flesh, sitting on its throne of rice. The curry leaf adds a real lightness to the dish with a mustard sauce to give an extra kick. This is served with a crisp Chablis, enhancing the spice whilst standing up to the bold yet well-married flavours.

Indian Fine Dining
Tarabagani Kemamashi
Indian Fine Dining
Chablis

Parfait Puri

Parfait Puri is yoghurt, so thick, it reminds of strained Greek yoghurt. The worlds’ most expensive spice, saffron, straddles the savoury and sweet divide, coursing through to add the unmistakable earthy, honeyed note and keeping with FLOUR’s standards, not an oversweet dessert.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Parfait Puri

Cassata

Cassata, named after the Neapolitan ice cream, is, in fact, an Indian flag-themed ice-cream. Not being a fan of sugar, this is one of the best I’ve had… ever! The mint ice-cream is made of actual mint, not that awful mint essence. The orange is represented by mango, and coconut adds the white element to the flag. 

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Cassata

Digestive – Summer Menu – Blossom

To round off the meal, we enjoy a glorious and moreish Cognac (you may choose tea or coffee instead), paired simply with a hazelnut truffle.

FLOUR Restaurant Summer Menu - Blossom
Digestive

Once again, FLOUR surpasses expectations, with an obvious striving to tweak and improve on the smallest details. The passion for quality ingredients, innovative pairing, out-of-the-box provenance of products and meticulous plating is apparent and reflected in every detail of this wonderful menu de degustation. This is one jewel in the city that everyone should experience at least once. Their tagline: redefine, recreate; reinvent, is the personification of continuous improvement.

Reasons to try the summer menu, Blossom, at FLOUR: unique products to KL; fabulous plating; a tastebud awakening; stunning restaurant; check out their spring blossom menu before it changes again!

FLOUR Restaurant
12, Jalan Kamuning, (Off Jalan Imbi)
55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
+6012 960 0053

FLOUR Restaurant Opening Hours
Wednesday – Monday 6 pm – 11 pm
Tuesday – closed

Find more restaurants for special occasions in KL here and stay up-to-date with the latest gourmet and travel recommendations for Malaysia here and here.

4 Comments

  1. Yet another classy place.

  2. Now my mouth is really watering, very classy. Cheers Diane

  3. A very light and airy menu of entrees after a season of filling comforting food. A welcomed sight!

  4. Everything looks so beautiful. Like little works of art.

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