Monday, April 03, 2006

Citrus – Food Review

Last Saturday, we were in Ipoh to celebrate KS grandma’s 81st birthday. In his family, birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s and Father’s day are all heavily celebrated besides festivals from New Years Day to Christmas.

Mama, as we call her, is one cool Chinese lady. I suppose growing up with my family makes her very different from my grandmas or even my mum. For one, Mama loves Western food and every year, we will take her to eat Western meals. Her favourite? Chicken Maryland, batter fried chicken fillet complete with a deep fried banana.

The place we took her this time around is Citrus, somewhere near the Jaya Jusco in Ipoh. The first impression of the place was a little bit cold, with most of the ambience decked in art deco, hardly inviting. I would prefer wood with soft lighting but I digress.

The first course of salads arrived and we realized this is a place where food presentation is a pride. My Wild Mushroom soup arrived and it wasn’t made from a can. Already half impressed my judgment of the place.

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Then, my salmon steak arrived. It was beautifully presented, half sitting on a bed of fresh French beans and half nestled on a scoop of warm mashed potatoes, with a drizzle of white and brown sauces on the perimeter of the large dish. I later discovered some other vegetable soaking in the sauces and even though I could not identify what veggies they were, they were so generously saturated that my tongue wasn’t able to distinguish what they were.

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The most interesting part of the dish was the garnishing of fried lotus root, lingau. It was crunchy and tasted of nga ku, the fried root only available during Chinese New Year, my favourite tid-bit of the season. It’s also an ingenious way of lending an Oriental touch to the dish.

The crust of the fish steak was well done but the core was medium rare. Juices oozed with every bite and the flavour was flawless, as any salmon would be when it is fresh.

And how much did this salmon dish cost? RM23, no kidding. My plate was clean when I was through. If you ever go to Ipoh, try this place. It was packed on a Saturday night though.

1 comment:

Wendy said...

hey...how did you take the pictures with pink background??