Out & About: Garden Recipe Paradigm Mall.

Found myself back to work today (apparently why I didn't apply for leave totally escapes me). After an extremely slow morning, a colleague invited me to join her for lunch at a shopping mall nearby.

Loathe to continue with hacking away at our individual mountains of work, we all decided to abscond and have ourselves a leisurely lunch at Paradigm Mall. The mall is one of the newest in Klang Valley and is designed to feel bright and airy, perfect to calm our Raya-fied nerves and bellies.

We chanced upon Garden Recipe restaurant, promoting healthy eating and organic ingredients. Browsing the menu we were all tempted by the Malaysian menu on offer, featuring among others, stalwarts such as fried noodles, nasi lemak, bee hoon noodle soup.

Lavender? in Malaysia?

As we browsed the menu further we came to realise that Garden Recipe offers meals with a very distinctive take on the classic Malaysian recipes. Some ingredient has been carefully substituted with healthier alternatives; Brown rice, black soy, fresh tofu, milk and more.

We decided to give the place a try as my eyes were immediately drawn towards a unique item. - Lei Cha.
I ordered this interesting rice based Hakka dish (which roughly translated/described would suggest Pounded Tea). What it is is actually perfectly cooked rice, served with an assortment of vegetarian side dishes- raw, simply cooked or pickled, with some nuts and fried crisps for textural contrast.

I have seen this dish featured on the Asian themed food shows on Astro before and had always desired to try it but never really found a place that offered it.I loved the fact that the dish was presented this way, using similarly hued bowls, echoing the colour of the individual ingredients that make the Lei Cha.

Lei Cha soup mix, brown rice, blanched green onions,
sliced french beans, dough fritters, roasted peanuts,
stewed Chinese kale, blanched cabbage chiffonade
and chopped sweet pickled radish.

Lucky as I am today, my lunch mate Sam was very savvy about the dish and she regaled me about the history of the this restorative meal.

I then set about composing my bowl. Tentatively, I arranged the various goodies around the grains of  perfectly cooked brown rice before pouring on the Lei Cha soup mix, like so.


Lei Cha being readied for mixing. Pour on the Lei Cha soup and give it all a good stirring.

The Lei Cha soup itself was very unique in that it carried with it the mild astringency of pounded fresh real tea leaves (in this case, food processored!) intermingled with the sweet fragrance of Selasih (Vietnamese Mint), tang of Mint and I think probably a smidgen of Sesame seed as I detected a hint of nuttiness as well.

Secret of the Lei Cha

This lightly seasoned soup when mixed with the other ingredients, amalgamates all the fresh flavours. Additionally, every scoop of rice also offered different textures, firmness of the brown rice, chewiness of the dough crisps, crunch of the vegetables and the slightly resistant bite of the pickled radish.

Every mouthful was utterly delightful. I never knew a Vegan dish as good as this existed in the wild. My lunch mates all had noodles (guess they all wanted a light meal?).

Ms. RT with her Chicken Curry Noodle (while striking a pose!)

Ms. Sam with the sumptuous Fried Salmon Head Noodle (using brown rice beehoon).

 

Mr. K with his Grilled Salmon Steak Noodle (also featuring brown rice beehoon).

Gone!

Spoke to the Manager after the meal and was informed that Garden Recipe has been accredited Halal by a private company in Malaysia (HDC?) but the same certification is now being counter-accredited by JAKIM. I guess one would have to properly investigate this, but I was informed by the Malay (Muslim) staff who attended to our orders that they certainly offer Halal foods as all their meats (Chicken et al, is acquired from Halal certified suppliers).