Four chefs serve up a delightful high tea menu

By PRIYA MENON

CROWNE CAFE,
Crystal Crowne Hotel KL, 3,
Jalan Jambu Mawar, off Jalan Kepong,
52000 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-6259 4422. 

FOUR chefs at the Crystal Crowne Hotel in Kepong are defying the saying that “too many cooks spoil the broth”.  

Come weekends, the Crowne Cafe sets out more than 30 dishes for diners who come for its Weekend Hi Tea. 

Local salad: The Mamak rojak, made from vegetables, comes with a sauce that has a nice amount of herbs, to add a little spice to the meal.

Headed by executive sous chef Mohd Sabri, 28, the team offers a selection of international, local, Chinese and Indian cuisine.  

The starter table is laden with three varieties of salad, including rojak buah, and cold meats.  

“We also have live cooking stations that prepare dishes like the grilled prawns with cheese,” Sabri added. 

For the main courses, each chef prepares what he does best. So far, the meals have been a hit and the guests keep coming back for more. 

Be our guest: (From left) Chef John Liew, executive sous chef, Mohd Sabri, chef Mohd Faiedzal and Malay banquet chef Ahmad Marlizam with some of the dishes available for Weekend Hi Tea.

His famous soup list includes shark’s fin soup, as well as the seaweed soup which is full of protein to detoxify the body. 

“Chinese herbs have many different medicinal values, so I try to cook dishes which benefit our diners,” Liew said. 

He is also famous for his golden fried rice made with egg yolk, chicken breast meat, garlic and butter with spring onions. 

Liew also mans the chicken rice or duck rice station and the food tastes exactly like authentic hawker fare. 

Roti Jala is a very common dish, but the cafe’s Malay Banquet chef Ahmad Marlizam has added a personal touch to it.  

His Murtabak Roti Jala Serai Wangi has a hint of fragrant lemon grass to give the Roti Jala a zesty taste. 

“I use serai for roti jala as it is fragrant; the Roti Jala usually does not have much taste, so now it does,” said Ahmad. 

He also serves Murtabak with Chicken Masala, which is full of spices and aromatic. 

Sabri’s favourite is the Chicken Mongolian, a combination of mango, Thai sauce and creamy mayonnaise. 

“I also enjoy the Thai soup called Soup Potek which is full of seafood and coconut milk. It is a bit spicy but the fresh seafood, like crabs, fish and lala, makes it sweet,” he added. 

No buffet meal is complete without Western cuisine and one particular dish keeps the customers coming back. 

The chicken lasagna made by shy chef Mohd Faiedzal is very cheesy and creamy. 

The secret, according to him, lies in the Parmesan cheese, which is more cheesy, tasty and has a stronger smell. 

“That is the plus point; the mozarella cheese people usually use for lasagna is very tough,” he said. 

Faiedzal added that the chicken stock used in the lasagne is made in their kitchen by boiling the chicken for six hours.  

Dessert is an important element at the Crowne Cafe as Sabri was a pastry chef for four years before changing his forte. 

There are more than 15 types of dessert including a variety of Malay kuih and special cakes whipped up by Sabri himself. 

He usually has the Peanut Butter Cake, a recipe he created himself that using peanut butter and cream and is topped with chocolate sauce. 

Other popular confections are cho-colate cake, German chilled cheese cake and the chocolate brownie. 

Diners can indulge in all these dishes for RM25++ per adult, and for a group of four paying adults, the fifth adult eats for free. It is half price for children, RM18++ for senior citizens.  

The Hi tea is available from noon till 4pm.  

This is the writer’s personal observation and is not an endorsement by StarMetro.