Guest chef Hirohashi Nobuaki presents special kaiseki menu featuring wagyu, for a limited time only
A kaiseki meal is an expression of a Japanese chef’s mastery over the ingredients and in the hands of Chef Hirohashi Nobuaki, who has taken over the kitchen of The Library at The Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur, each course becomes a culinary haiku.
Currently based in Singapore where he has his fine dining wagyu kaiseki restaurant, Ushidoki, the Osaka native gained valuable experience at well-known kaiseki restaurants in Japan, before opening his very own acclaimed restaurant, Unshin.
Drawing on over three decades of experience, Chef Nobu, as he is also known, has created a special 4-course Wagyu kaiseki dinner menu for the hotel’s latest signature Guest Chef Dinner Series, with some very rare and extraordinary Wagyu – Miyazaki Wagyu A5 to be exact – the world’s highest-grade from the Miyazaki prefecture on Kyushu island, which has won the ‘Wagyu Olympics’ championship three times.
Raised not with beer but on fresh mountain spring water from the Kirishima Mountains, the cows are butchered between 28 to 32 months, slightly older than most commercial beef, for better flavour.
There is another delicious facet to this dining experience, as making its debut in Malaysia in conjunction with the dinner is the KID sake range from the Heiwa Shuzo brewery, which has been meticulously paired with every course by Tadashi Okushima who is one of only 21 people certified in Japan as a sake sommelier.
The degustation menu begins with the customary kanpai toast featuring a chilled sweet and aromatic KID Junmai Daiginjyo, followed by roast wagyu beef garnished with asparagus, miso vinaigrette, Yuzu and herbs that is paired with a crisp KID Tokubetsu Junmaishu Karakuchi.
Next is the very marbled BMS level 12 grilled wagyu beef served with soya sauce soil, edamame, sweet corn and mountain wasabi, paired with a dry KID Junmaishu at room temperature to better bring out its aroma.
His braised wagyu beef with sweet sauce sukiyaki, black truffles, wild Japanese parsley is the kind of familiar, homely rice dish that one would welcome after a long, hard day and made richer with a perfect half-boiled egg stirred in, which is paired with a sweet KID Daiginjyo that is the brewery’s signature sake.
Dessert is a luscious olive oil ice cream with hints of salt under a carpet of shaved summer truffles that is even yummier with an iced, fragrant and fruity Tsuruume Kanjukuume plum liqueur.
Available from 26 to 30 June 2018 from 7pm until 11pm, the four-course dinner is priced at MYR350 nett per person with an option of sake pairing at MYR500 nett per person.
For enquiries, call +60 3 2142 8000 or email dining@ritzcarlton.com.my.
