Japanese Restaurant, Sunway Putra Hotel

Sunway Putra Hotel is the former Legend Hotel Kuala Lumpur. The Japanese Restaurant was formerly known as Gen. While the hotel's management team waits for instructions on the way forward since the Sunway group acquired it from Metroplex, it is still business as usual. And it being spring in Japan, there were two special set meals.

The Haru No Bento (Spring bento) I chose cost RM69++for ohitashi (appetizer), sashimi, nimono, yakimono and agemono. Those are the components of a bento (meal) box. My appetizer was boiled chrysanthemum leaf in a light soup. It came out a little too heavy on the dashi, which was a pity since the young leaves of this flower are very floral and fragrant.

A lighter hand was needed with the chrysanthemum soup.

The red snapper and salmon sashimi was fine, with the snapper served wrapped around shreds of cucumber. My braised dish was tender baby yams (sato mo nigori goshi) in a light stock, which were delicious. The Chinese use these baby yams in their cuisine as well, but they are mostly boiled and eaten with sugar, especially around the period of Mid-Autumn festival. This version is a lot more complex, with a lovely blend of flavours.

Spring Bento, with sashimi on the top left, fried vegetables beside them, grilled items on bottom left and baby yam on the bottom right.

The yakimono (grilled) component of my bento consisted of tiger prawn and scallop. The scallop was gratinated, and it was a lovely surprise to find a beautiful bit of coral (the proper culinary term for scallop roe) in my half shell.

The fried or agemono part of my meal was a patty of deep-fried mixed vegetables, sort of a Japanese cucur sayur. Simple, crisp and crunchy, it added bulk to the meal. Fresh fruit rounded up my meal.

White dragon fruit was a relief! I detest the red variant!

Kit played it safe with unagi kabayaki, his favourite grilled eel dish. The portion looked sizable, but Kit would have loved more eel!

Simple and straightforward eel.

Of course I ate his pickles, though he drank his miso soup.

Pickles and miso, a must with each Japanese meal.

I also enjoyed the seaweed salad, which was a lovely blend of crisp and crunch, since it featured alfalfa sprouts, wakame, as well as red and white seaweed.

Seaweed salad.

Our host, Meng Hong, had the lovely tofu salad, with three plump shrimp which he passed on to us, and teriyaki chicken.

Tofu salad.

Teriyaki chicken.

Japanese Restaurant (formerly Gen)
Sunway Putra Hotel (formerly The Legend Hotel Kuala Lumpur)
Putra Place
100 Jalan Putra
50350 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603 4042 9888