About 5 years ago, there was an Italian restaurant in Kepong called Chef Ken’s. We used to go to Chef Ken’s quite regularly for its nice selection of Italian food and its signature dessert, the tiramisu. The tiramisu was so good it could rival the stuff you get from fine dining establishment, so imagine our happiness when one day, after a call to the restaurant for a reservation, we were told that the restaurant had shifted to somewhere even closer to where we live, at Desa Parkcity’s Waterfront. It had been renamed as La Casa.
With excitement, we went to La Casa but to our disappointment, the quality of food just wasn’t there anymore. Alas, we left La Casa thinking perhaps Chef Ken had lost his mojo.
The truth emerged when we were invited to a food review at Silver Spoon in Bandar Manjalara.
# – Silver Spoon.
While I was happy that a new Italian joint has taken roots in Kepong, I was even more delighted when I heard that Chef Ken had actually sold off his restaurant to La Casa and had taken a position at Silver Spoon. So he never really lost his mojo, he just wasn’t there to begin with, haha.
# – Chef Ken.
Silver Spoon is a very nicely decorated restaurant. The interior is modern & classy but yet feels very cosy.
# – Interior of Silver Spoon.
It has an open kitchen, where you can watch your food expertly prepared by Chef Ken and his staff.
# – Open kitchen.
One of the appetizers served was Arrancini. Arrancini are deep-fried Italian rice balls stuffed with smoked salmon and brie. I really enjoyed this as the rice balls were crispy on the outside but juicy & cheesy on the inside. I think the amount of smoked salmon in the rice balls was just nice as too much of the salty smoked fish would render the rice balls inedible.
# – Arrancini. They were also deep fried mozarella sticks on the side which were truly heaven sent for cheese lovers like myself.
Then there was stuffed portobello mushrooms. I really love mushrooms but I never really like portobellos. I know it’s a tasty mushroom but my experiences with them so far had always rendered me unable to bring myself to order anything portobello related. The reason? Well, portobellos were always cooked in a way where the liquid in them were never properly drawn out. I guess by undercooking them you may get beautiful, plump mushrooms on your plate but as soon one bites onto it, there’s always a burst of unsavoury liquid in your mouth. I really do not like that part of eating a portobello :P
Fortunately at Silver Spoon, the portobellos are properly cooked till they’re shrunk and full of real body. The stuffings, made of breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and herbs were really delicious and went really well the the mushrooms. In fact, I think it might be the best dish at the review!
# – Stuffed portobellos.
The prawn and avocado stack was what you’d refer to as a great idea. The idea of it was so delicious; rich, creamy avocado paired off with freshly grilled prawns? My mouth waters at the sound of it. However, the truth was I felt the prawns were slightly overcooked. The dish wasn’t bad at all, no, no, but I personally feel that it would hit a new level of awesomesauceness had the prawns were not overcooked. So I only had a piece of prawn but I totally devoured the rest of the dish.
# – Prawn & avocado stack.
Over and done with appetizers, lets move on the the main courses. To me, eating pizza is enjoying the entire combination of the crust, sauce and ingredients. Just because it doesn’t have a lot of the ingredients in its official name does not mean it’s a bad pizza. Do you want to eat meatballs pizza or do you want to eat meatballs?
So how’s the smoked salmon pizza at Silver Spoon? Nice, crispy thin crust, checked. Abundance of capers, checked. Brie, avocados, smoked salmon, checked, checked, checked. Basically, you won’t go wrong ordering pizzas at Silver Spoon :D
# – Smoked salmon pizza.
Now the part that appeals to the chinese in me. Rice! I love, love, love risotto. It’s so rich, creamy and decadent. Throw in a couple of porcini mushrooms? You got yourself a slave, baby.
The risotto was cooked just right, not too creamy like it’s eating Goldilocks’ gruel or too hard you might as well stick to Jasmine grains. The abundance of meaty porcinis really made the dish :)
# – Wild mushroom risotto.
An Italian dinner would not be complete without some pasta eh? So we were served some spaghetti marinara which was delicious. The sauce was not too tart and all the seafoods were not overcooked. The white wine also gave the dish a kick it needs in an otherwise boring choice.
# – Spaghetti marinara.
When we first saw the menu, we were all looking forward to the duck confit. A duck’s leg slowly cooked in its own fat served with polenta and orange campari sauce, sounds heavenly! In reality, I found the duck and polenta a little dry till I realised I had forgotten to pour the sauce all over it. My bad :P After I did that, the dish transformed into proper comfort food and I wish I had more belly space to accommodate it.
Finally, it’s dessert time! I was looking forward to the tiramisu and when it arrived I almost did not take picture of it :P As soon as I popped a spoonful into my mouth, I knew Chef Ken was back. It was just like how I remembered it; not too sweet, creamy but light. It was beautiful…
# – Tiramisu.
The chocolate pot deserves another mention but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why I hadn’t taken any picture of it. It was gooey bitter chocolate goodness, very tasty. In fact, I think it could very well hold its own against the tiramisu.
# – Full & happy people; God, Horng, Haze, KY, Jessica (Silver Spoon’s lady boss), Joe and partner (hidden), Cheng Yi, Rebecca’s bf and Rebecca.
# – And one with the slim head, please head on to Cheng Yi’s post for reference.
So yeah, I had a wonderful time at Silver Spoon. I’ll definitely go back there again especially since it’s only 10 minutes drive from where I live. The food and drinks are reasonably priced but most importantly all bear the marks of Chef Ken’s, whom we had genuinely thought we’ve lost ;)
Silver Spoon Trattoria (above AmBank),
1st Floor, Wisma Manjalara,
Bandar Menjalara,
52200, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-6277 0445