COCONUTS HOT SPOT — Sasagawa is cocooned in Level 2 of the Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur. It’s a private enterprise and not part of the hotel where it’s renting the space from.
When you enter, you can see holding court in the centre is a huge pot of bonsai held high in a stone pond with flooring marked in centric circles creating a mesmerising effect. This is further enhanced by interesting wooden lattice dividers along the long corridor leading to private dining space.
Helming the restaurant is Chef Hitoshi Sasagawa who trained under Tadamichi Ota, an Iron Chef contender and his skills are honed in traditional and authentic Japanese Kaiseki cuisine. The menu in Sasagawa holds a good variety of a la carte items listed in the order of their cooking methods, as is the norm for Kaiseki cuisine.
There are several Kaiseki Sets to choose from and I tried samplings of their Hana Set.
To kick-off the meal, a selection of 3 pretty, bite-sized Appetizers were served on a “hassun” long dish. Delicately arranged with floral petals and leaves, the Egg Tofu, Boiled Greens and Cutlass Fish Nanbanduke were almost too lovely to eat.
No Japanese meal is complete without sashimi. In Sasagawa, fresh fish is flown in directly from Japan 4 days in a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday) so you can be assured that only the freshest is used in their Sashimi. I had my fill of the sweetest maguro (tuna), chutoro (tuna belly), ishidai (parrot fish), tenshi ebi (angel shrimp) and salmon from the stunning array presented.
Chef Sasagawa’s Special Chawanmushi is a wobbly and smooth creation of half egg custard and half goma tofu (sesame beancurd) steamed together in two layers and topped with a thin slice of winter melon, goma cream and a bright red wolfberry. I truly admired the amazing skills and technique needed to pull this off so flawlessly.
Most Japanese restaurants serve tempura with the usual tentsuyu sauce with grated daikon. Here in Sasagawa, the good chef served his tempura with just Andes salt. The Tempura platter consisted of prawn, brinjals and sweet potato tempura and with just salt as accompaniment, the natural flavours and textures of the ingredients shone through.
While I’m not a big fan of rice, I had to concede that Chef Sasagawa’s Shokuji Rice was fabulous. Short-grained Japanese rice cooked with dashi stock and bonito flakes and further boosted with abalone, salmon, perfumed with Shiso leaves and topped with those glorious globules of salmon roe. With such ingredients, it’s hard not to like this rice.
Chef Sasagawa’s creations of delicious authentic Kaiseki cuisine should be on the list of discerning diners. For lunch, there are bento sets for the busy diner.
SASAGAWA
Level 2 Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur
Jalan Sultan Ismail
50250 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2602-3288
Open daily:
12.00pm – 2.30pm (Lunch)
6.00pm – 10.00pm (Dinner)
