Prego @ Westin KL MIGF Festival Menu Preview

September 26, 2013

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When we think of Italian food, most of us think of pastas and pizzas as these are so readily available at so many restaurants in town and not just those that specialise in Italian cuisine. However, Italian cuisine is much, much more than that as I was soon to discover during Prego Westin KL’s MIGF Menu Preview at the invitation of the hotel.

While Prego definitely offers fine dining Italian cuisine, it doesn’t have the stuffy ambiance one would come to associate with a fine dining establishment. Many of the restaurant’s customers arrive in casual attire and there’s a friendly vibe from everyone, from the waiting staff to the chef’s team. As the restaurant has an open kitchen concept, you can actually step right up to the kitchen and observe the chef and his team at work preparing your meal. Prego offers indoor and al fresco dining surrounded by palm trees and plants overlooking the bustling Jalan Bukit Bintang.

Heading the kitchen is Chef Samuele Alvisi whom I’d met at the recent MIGF Gala Launch. He was one of the more friendly and approachable chefs there and took the time to talk to everyone who approached him. Granted, some chefs were too busy to talk but Chef Samuele struck me as someone who give you his undivided attention no matter how busy he was.

Chef Samuele has extensive experience in some of the best hotels, having journeyed extensively over the past 15 years. The chef loves experimenting with food and uses Asian ingredients such as “santan” in his creations although I’d never have known there was “santan” in the food until he told me! Such is the subtlety of the chef’s creations!

Prego’s MIGF Festival Menu:-

Appetisers

Tarpaccio tartufato

Thicker Beef Carpaccio, with home cured egg, fried capers, anchovies cream, mustard shallot dressing and black truffle Frescobaldi Remole Bianco 2012

Soup

Zuppa di cipolle com spuma di formaggio eriduzione al porto

Onion soup with cheese espuma and port wine reduction

Entre

Spaghetti affumicati con gamberi di fiume e crema di burrata

Homemade smoked spaghetti with fresh yabis and burrata cheese sauce

Chablis, La Pierrele, La Chablisienne 2007

Main

Merluzzo con creama di piselli, patate e funghi

Cod fish with green peas sauce potato mushroom and shellfish reduction

Chianti, Frescobaldi 2010

Dessert

Tiramisu in tuille

Tiramisu mousse served in tulip cup

Sambuca Opal Nera

Full Festival Menu Price

RM330++ per person with wine

RM190++ per person without wine

Before I begin on the Festival Menu, I have to tell you about this marvellous country bread with tomato pesto dip that was served to every table. I believe in France, it’s known as “pain de campagne”. The country bread at Prego is baked there so it’s so fresh and delicious that I could have devoured the whole thing as it went so well with the dip. I wish I could have this for breakfast everyday. The exterior is a little hard but the interior is so soft and not at all chewy. Simply the best country bread in town.

This plate of Tarpaccio Tartufato or Thicker Beef Carpaccio is beautifully presented, a sight for the eyes as it is for the taste buds. Just look at the ingredients, there’s home cured egg, fried capers, anchovies cream, mustard shallot dressing and black truffle. The beef carpaccio just melted in my mouth like butter and how everything blended so incredibly well was impressive.

Frescobaldi Remole Bianco 2012 is from the Frescobaldi Estate in Tuscany. This is a wine which is not too acidic.

The thick and creamy onion soup was made with white onions all blended together. There wasn’t a strong onion taste which one normally associates with onion soup. This is the best onion soup I’ve ever had.

The smoked spaghetti had an unusual taste which was quite exceptional as Chef Samuele had used smoked flour. This is definitely not spaghetti as most of us know it. It’s spaghetti made by an expert at Italian cuisine. The yabis is a crayfish from Australia. It’s less springy than prawns and tasted succulent and juicy.

Chablis, La Pierrele, La Chablisienne 2007 is from Burgundy, France and tasted more fruity than the first wine. It was also not too acidic. I am obviously no wine connoisseur (no one needs “Wine For Dummies” more than me) but I enjoyed this wine more than the Frescobaldi Remole Bianco 2012.

The cod fish with green peas sauce potato mushroom and shellfish reduction has a combination of tastes as the green pea sauce is sweet while the shellfish reduction tasted slightly bitter. It’s like a yin-yang dish when it comes to flavours. The sweetness of the green pea sauce tempered by the bitterness of the shellfish reduction. The cod fish was exquisite and I can’t think of a better fish to go with these 2 sauces. In case you are wondering where the “santan” I mentioned earlier was, it is in the shellfish reduction.

Chianti, Frescobaldi 2010 from Tuscany has an oaky flavour, rather dry.

The Tiramisu in Tuille which is a light, airy tiramisu mousse sprinkled and dusted with cocoa. The perfect dessert to end an outstanding meal at Prego.

Sambuca Opal Nera was served with dessert. This is a liqueur (tasted too string for me) which has an interesting story behind it. Opal Nera was created many years ago from a secret recipe by Francoli, a family company of distillers based in Northern Italy. The main ingredients in the production of Opal Nera are various spices such as star anise and green anise. Other natural ingredients include elderflowers, elderberries, orange flowers, coriander, cinnamon, cloves and Sicilian lemons. Liqueur is an acquired taste and I have’t quite acquired the taste for it yet.

From where I was sitting, I had a clear view of Chef Samuele in his open kitchen and I could tell that he takes great pride in whatever he is doing. His team works with clockwork precision without any raised voices or tempers flaring a la Hell’s Kitchen.

Other than the food and attentive staff, what really impressed me about Prego was how Chef Samuele took the time to walk around the restaurant greeting diners and having brief chats with them. Chef Samuele has a wealth of knowledge, not just on his specialty, Italian cuisine. It seemed to me that quite a few of them were regulars and I’m not surprised as Prego offers more than just excellent food. The warm hospitality and smiles within the restaurant will surely remain in each diner’s memory long after the food has been digested. The restaurant has a very cohesive team and I observed that guests who walked in were quickly ushered to vacant tables and attended to with menus within seconds of their being seated. Now that’s service!

Grazie per una deliziosa cena, Chef Samuele e Westin KL.