Kai Xuan (My Valentine's Threesome)

I've not been out for dinner on Valentine's for at least eight years. This year, I was fearful about service quality, food taste as well as price when, because of work scheduling, we had to meet with some professional bird photographers for dinner in Johor Baru on February 14.

Chinese restaurant dining in Johor Baru.

Thankfully, Valentine's Day seems confined to Western menus and coffeehouses, since the Chinese restaurant at the Puteri Pacific Johor Baru was near empty when we arrived. We were able to commandeer a private room for five upon walking in to Kai Xuan, which was selected by the head of the birding of the Johor chapter of the Malaysian Nature Society, Andy Foo.

We met with Foo and his associate Ong, as well with veteran environmentalist Vincent Chow to discuss a project, and I am pleased to say that dinner was made even more enjoyable with the company of these gentlemen. Foo is obviously a lover of food, like I am, and we exchanged smiles when Chow spoke about the dangers of consuming shellfish from polluted waterways. Clearly, Foo and I share the adage of 'it's better to eat and die, than never to have tried.'

Beefy start to dinner.

Still, in a nod to Chow's careful diet, I made sure I stayed away from shellfish or seafood of any sort. As such dinner comprised of a tender beef with ginger and spring onions, which was done with a light hand, allowing the good quality beef to soak in the flavours of the ginger and spring onions. A good first dish for RM26.

Roasted duck.

I normally don't order two poultry dishes at one meal, but I was keen to see how hotels in the South treated their ducks. As such, I requested for half a roasted duck, as well as deep-fried boneless chicken in orange sauce. The latter was so as to compare Kit's highly lauded first attempt at orange chicken with something made by a reputed Chinese chef.

The duck was good, very succulent, with a really thin, crispy skin. I really enjoyed it and thought it pretty reasonably priced at RM40, because even Spring Golden (see entry of the same name) charges that for the same portion.

Orange chicken.

The orange chicken was good too. It's always great to tuck into tender, boneless chicken, and this was no exception. The saucing was good as well, although I have to say Kit's was a tad more English, with the use of cinnamon and cloves in his pure orange juice infusion, giving it a more festive, Christmassy feel.

Simple, yet good mapoh beancurd.

Part of what makes a restaurant or chef good is their treatment of simple, homestyle dishes. I ordered the mapoh beancurd as a test of this, and I was pretty pleased with the result. Though the original mapoh tofu is swimming with chilli oil and dried red chillies, this one was milder, with more chilli powder than oil. However, the cubes of tofu were silken and soft, and the gravy was thickened with a good stock (possibly seafood) and quite flavourful. Even the price was reasonable by hotel standards. A 'mere' RM16.

Perfectly done kailan.

The veggies are where most of the price jacking is done in restaurants, with greens being the biggest margin pushers. Yet, the company was good, and I had no complaints about the service, so I could afford to close an eye to the stir fried kailan being RM24 a plate. It was, after all, pretty good, with the greens still emerald in hue, and only lightly covered in oyster sauce and dotted with garlic, which, by their softness, had already infused its piquancy into the vegetables.

I was very pleased at the range of desserts on Kai Xuan's menu, since even in Kuala Lumpur, Chinese restaurants fall back on the same old lotus seed pancakes and peanut soup. While these traditional favourites were on the menu, I decided on a hot-cold ending. I gambled on the dumplings with sesame paste and was really delighted by the dish. Small glutinous rice balls enveloped fresh, thick, warm black sesame paste, and were rolled in crushed peanuts and sugar. The combination was rice, warm and hearty - very cheer inducing, and very moreish. Despite the heaviness of glutinous rice flour, these dumplings had us all going for seconds. I was amazed that this delightful preparation was a mere RM12. Especially when compared to the other dessert!

The best dessert I've had in any Malaysian Chinese restaurant.

Chilled almond jelly and longan - the perfect foil to the dumpling.

The cold almond jelly with longan (RM30) was the perfect counterpoint to the warm, heavy dumplings, and cleansed the palate beautifully. Truly, it was a yin-yang match made in heaven!

The meal, with six portions of rice (RM9), Chinese tea for five (RM12.50) and braised peanuts as an appetizer (RM3), came up to RM231.40. Money well spent, with what I hope to be the start of a really good friendship with three amazing men!

Kai Xuan
The Puteri Pacific Johor Baru
Jalan Abdullah Ibrahim 
The Kotaraya 
Po Box 293, 
JB Sentral, Johor Bahru
Malaysia 80730
Tel: +607  219 9999