Nosh News with Seefoon

I always make it a habit to update myself on the latest foodie trends or new dishes being offered by my favourite restaurants. One such restaurant is the Yuk Sou Hin Chinese restaurant in the WEIL Hotel.

When Yuk Sou Hin first opened, helmed by Master Chef-Chinese Cuisine Chung Ho Shi, with his 39 impressive years of experience, I was over the moon for its Dim Sum and their signature Smoked Duck with Lychee Wood. I immediately became a committed fan and brought all my foodie friends there for their Dim Sum which I touted as the best in Ipoh.

Today, Chef Chung is still there and their signature duck is still on the menu and as good as it ever was but alas the Dim Sum and the menu is now pork free. As all my ethnic Chinese readers of this column out there will understand, there is an ingrained prejudice in the Chinese palate that dismisses any Chinese restaurant that doesn’t serve pork as being ‘not up to the standard’ to appeal to Chinese taste buds.

Therefore, I admit to not having frequented the restaurant as much as I used to as my friends all share this prejudice. However on my recent visit to celebrate Caroline Wong’s birthday I was delightfully surprised by the quality of the of the food….pork free as it is.

Under Chef Chung’s masterful hands, chicken has replaced pork as filling for all the Dim Sum and every morsel is as delectable as ever. And ingenious additions to dishes have elevated the lowly Dim Sum to gastronomic heights.

As in the scallop dumplings topped with black truffles, the dumpling skin translucent, paper thin and the scallop ocean fresh and the black truffle lending its inimitable fragrance to each delectable morsel. RM12 per basket. Their Snow Mountain Bun has been re-invented with a fluffier bun and none of the oiliness that the previous recipe called for.

Another new innovation is their Yee Meen (pre fried egg noodles) with Black Truffles and fried in truffle oil. The dish arrived with the fragrance of the truffles permeating the whole room in which we sat. And they were generous with the black truffle too as flecks of it can be found coating the noodles. Utterly yummilicious at RM28.

The final unusual and in fact rare dish which we had the pleasure of trying was the soup made from the Rafflesia flower. I was told it was the stem of the Rafflesia flower, but a little research on my part showed that it is a true parasite and has no roots, leaves or stems. This is the largest flower in the world some weighing in at 9kg with petals stretching nearly 1 metre. I suspect that what we were eating were its flower buds. Rafflesia buds reportedly has healing properties. According to folk medicine, the flower can restore a woman’s body after childbirth. Specifically, the buds of the flower are boiled with water and then consumed to stop internal bleeding, shrink the womb and restore the figure. And for men? Supposedly, it can improve sexual strength. It has also been used to induce weight loss. Chef Chung just claims that the soup was for detoxing.

I was expecting something quite pungent as the blooming flower is known for its noxious odour but surprisingly the soup was very pleasant, umami with chicken and other herbs and the actual flower bits had a mushroom-like texture. RM18 per individual portion.

So to my Chinese friends with pork preferences to drop them and I urge you to go to Yuk Sou Hin and try their new specialities.