Bol - Asian Reimagined — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

Food: Food was a little underwhelming. Dishes lacked a bit of balance in my opinion. But I guess taste is something quite subjective. Main flavour profile was sweet for most courses. Was missing some acidity and punchy savoury flavours you would typically expect of Peranakan food. Courses like the cod and scallop were rather cold when it was served. We added on the wine paring but felt it could have been more thoughtfully paired. I had chosen the cod option over the duck, but it was paired with a red wine which didn’t really go that well together. The dessert was probably the best thing served. Light ginger tapioca balls and palm sugar parfait which wasn’t too sweet. Perfect.

Ambience: We were one of the first to arrive, and were seated at a corner upstairs. Located in a little terrace house with pretty wallpaper. It was quiet and cosy at first. But whole experience was spoilt when a group of noisy girls celebrating a birthday came in. They were loud, and standing around their table which was quite close to ours. They really did not know how to behave with proper dining etiquette and being such a nuisance to other diners. My friend and I could hardly hear what the waitress was saying when introducing the dishes. Didn’t help that the waitress had a rather strong foreign accent which made it rather hard to understand. Neither could me or my friend have a decent conversation without having to raise our voices a little. That was quite unpleasant considering the dinner is meant to be an experience, not just about the food.

Service: Staff were friendly and attentive. Would have also appreciated a more interesting description and story behind each dish instead of just listing of the ingredients and telling us to eat it together. Some of the ingredient names were mentioned, but as these ingredients are not well known to foreigners, just throwing names will not really help them understand what it is. I found myself attempting to explain to my friend (who’s French) what these ingredients were and what traditional Peranakan food these dishes seemed to be inspired by instead. The staff and (I believe) one of the owners were aware of the noisy group and came over to our table extending their apologies. They offered a drink on the house. We were grateful for some attempt at service recovery which wasn’t really their fault, but at that point, we just wanted to get out of there for some peace and quiet.

As much high hopes I had for this place, unfortunately I do not recommend it and probably would not revisit. At least not until some of these problems mentioned above are addressed. We spent about RM500+ per person. Not really acceptable at a 1 Michelin star restaurant price point (even though it’s not a 1 star...

Upon arriving at the restaurant, we were warmly greeted by the receptionists who immediately seated us at a table on the ground floor. We would like to note that while the decor is stunning, the lighting feels a little bit dark.

We were given food menus and beverage menus. The menu is small as expected for this level of dining. With only 13 items on the menu, the chefs can focus on their specialty and showcase their best dishes.

We started off with the Rojak Tart which came in three pieces on a bed of small "pebbles". The rojak is very flavorful and is truly an explosion of flavours and a good play of textures. We do think that this dish reminded us of our childhood visit to our local rojak stalls.

Then, we had the Itek Tim. The itek (duck) tortellini was plated with a sour/acidic duck consommé. While we do enjoy the the duck tortellini which we think is tender and sort of herby, we thought that the consommé is a tad bit acidic.

Moving on to the mains, we had the Sea Bass "Kapitan" which smelled amazing when it was served on our table. The fish is flaky with beautiful crispy skin. The veggies served with the fish is also well cooked. The sauce tasted sweet, tangy and pungent. This dish was so good that we think this was the best dish we had for our dinner; visually and flavour-wise.

Next, the "Loh Mai Gai" was served to our table. Visually, it looks like a deconstructed Loh Mai Gai which is a dish made with steamed glutinous rice and chicken. We do think this was an interesting take on a local dish as the sauce tasted good and the sesame chicken was a superb play of texture. Flavour-wise, this dish tasted very similar to the actual Loh Mai Gai especially when all of the parts of the dish are eaten together.

We then moved on to desserts. First, we had the "Hawthorn Melaka". This dessert is truly an enjoyable end to our whole meal. The sweet and sour sorbet is a reminiscent of the candy we used to eat during our childhood and pairs well with the crunchy caramel.

Our second dessert was the Guava Sop. While the play of texture is good, sadly, this dessert tasted pretty much flat and is not something we'd recommend.

The service was amazing and attentive. Water is provided complimentary (as with such case for any restaurant of this level) and is proactively refilled so we did not feel the need to order any beverages.

Overall, this restaurant combines local familiar dishes with amazing european fine dining techniques which resulted in a beautiful fusion of flavours and textures which we'd otherwise not be able to experience from the usual...

Dined in 26/10/2024.

Menu - Mediocre, weak ingredient pairing, simple don't go well together. Food was served lukewarm. Only had the presentation. Only 3 glasses of wine for 7-course menu.

Wine was not served at the right time, either too late, when we had almost finished the dish that the wine was supposed to pair with, or too early, when the next course was served 20-30 mins later. 20-30 mins wait between the course after we have finished the dish also not ideal.

Wine - Mediocre selections. Wine pairing for the menu was not on par, so we ordered a bottle. However, server broke the cork, we asked to decant it for obvious reason, yet wine was poured directly into the decanter without filtering the broken cork.

Funny enough, we were then being confronted by chef and he claimed it as "one tiny piece" of cork in the wine, when 3 out of 4 diners clearly had PIECES of broken cork. Had to reject the bottle. Manage your risk if you wanna order a bottle here.

Service - Servers are not well trained. Menu was scattered on the table during dining. When we asked to return the menu, we were told that we could keep it (not that we requested...).

Being confronted by chef at the table for a mistake of the server, and it didn't stop at the wine, chef continued to denounce us how maybe his restaurant is not up to our standard, and how he had to wake up as early as 5.30am to manage his operation.

Chef cut in the talk repeatedly, made sure we LISTENED to him. His story-telling guilt-tripped us, and ruined our experience as diners. We had to request to return to our dining rather than having this confrontational conversation right now, perhaps that was why main course was served slow.

DISRESPECTFUL chef also made us feel really uncomfortable that he emphasized strongly how he paid for the dinner out of HIS OWN POCKET, so the dinner was complimentary for us. We felt belittled and awful for our experience. We didn't request any form of price compensation. Regardless, chef might have forgotten, we had to, and did pay RM200 up front for the booking of 4 pax.

Also, chef announced that he was OBSERVING us throughout the dinner from the CCTV. Felt violated as a diner. Perhaps 6-8 waiter & waitresses in the dining hall were not good enough to inform kitchen of dining hall's situation.

Environment - As mentioned above. CCTV was being used to watch the diners.

Price - Not worth for the food & experience above. However, like the chef mentioned, it was complimentary despite the RM200 paid. I guess it was meant for us to be grateful.

Would not return. Would...