The Apartment Downtown KLCC

November 2009

Sprinklings of genuine brilliance peeked from behind this safe, enjoyable dining experience. The menu perhaps undersold the quality as it peaked interest without over-raising expectations (until dessert anyway). I expected good, contemporary fare and that’s precisely what I got. However, in between were utterly incredible moments of sheer dining excellence.

To start, we ordered several bites from the ‘Global Tapas’ selection. Encapsulating the overall meal, the dishes sounded reasonable but were in truth far better than that. The addition of pesto to the Portobello Mushroom was not to my taste but that is a personal thing and my dining companions loved it. The crab and salmon cakes were wolfed down leaving only enough time for accompanying sighs of satisfaction and the chicken skewers were very good, too.

However, if you’ll permit me a sidebar, that description doesn’t do justice to this order. The chicken skewers themselves were indeed very good: tender, well-marinated, flavoursome and delicate. But what really merits this paragraph and valuable lines of magazine space is the sauce that came with it. My goodness me. The chilli lime aioli was not just divine, it wouldn’t have been out of place in any restaurant in the city. Rich, sweet, powerful, it positively redefined what you can expect of a satay dip.

Having been bowled over once, it came as little surprise that the rest of the meals didn’t quite hit those heights again, although the main courses were still hugely enjoyable. The seafood done exactly as it should be: simply, with just a minimal impact of spices and delicate vegetable or salad accompaniment – I couldn’t and wouldn’t have asked for more.

The sheppard’s pie (I don’t know if the misspelling is an in-joke, trendy reference that has passed me by or mere mistake) was hearty and a cheap, cheerful alternative to the champion steaks. Although, I wonder if they wouldn’t be better off raising the price a few ringgit and delivering a slightly higher meat-to-mash ratio.

The pastas, too, were all you can hope and expect; fresh, lively and not overly infused with needless flavours. In many ways they sum up the uncomplicated class of The Apartment.

But wait. Once again, it was time to be almost knocked from our seats in surprise. For an uncomplicated restaurant The Apartment does a fine job of offering the unexpected on its dessert list. Taking the essentially innocent, childhood trifle and adult-ing it up with coffee and caramel was inspired and the results sensational. Beautiful soaking of the trifle fingers in not too much coffee and the acquired taste of the base coffee jelly was acquired rather quickly in my case and nearly resulted in a second order. Honourable mentions too to the Eton mess (first of those I’ve seen in Malaysia), mocha panna cotta, pavlova and crepes with peanut butter and kaya. Matthew Bellotti