Avanti Italian-American Restaurante @ Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa

It all began with a sudden crave for steak. Ever since I had the slab of Maria’s heavenly Charbroil Australian Wagyu steak, there was no turning back – I am now a Wagyu Steak convert. To fulfill my desire for this expensive luxury food I went to Avanti, an Italian-American restaurant in Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa. Instead of the many other well known and established steakhouse like Prime at Le Meridien, I chose Avanti simply because of its location.
I didn’t have the mood nor patience to get through the traffic jam leading to KL’s city center, especially on a Friday night. Besides, I didn’t read any complaints on the restaurant’s food after Googling around so I thought it should be alright. Sadly I went home a disappointed, a few hundred bucks poorer and did not had my cravings fulfilled, at all.

The night started well though, with unlimited supply of crusty bread to go with the tuna or dipping them in olive oil while we waited for our main courses to arrive. Our soup – Southern Italian Spicy Seafood Soup was perhaps the dish we enjoyed the most throughout the night.
Being robust and flavorful, a blend of different seafood like scallop, prawn and squid are prepared along with a generous amount of sliced shallot. Since this is fine dining it shouldn’t be surprising that a serving like this cost RM29. Did your jaw drop? lol.

Among the choices of Chateaubriand (beats me), Entrecote Double (omg what is this lol), Beef Tenderloin, Rib Eye and Strip-Loin, I chose Grilled Australian Chilled Wagyu Beef Tenderloin for being the most tender part of the beef.
For RM98 you get a 220gm tenderloin marinated with jalapenos, Tabasco and soya sauce, which is served with grilled Roma tomato, corn on the cob, mashed potato and choice of mushroom sauce, black pepper sauce or tarragon bearnaise (I have absolutely no idea)

While the tenderloin was tender and cooked perfectly pink inside, the taste was utterly disappointing. It tasted bitter with little beef flavor, let alone Wagyu. Maybe because I am new to this fine dining thingy, or maybe I don’t know how to admire Avanti’s grilled Wagyu, but I couldn’t find myself enjoying it at all.
And realizing that each bite I took (that I didn’t like) was costing me RM10 or more, it was certainly adding insult to injury.

SL ordered a pan fried Australian Sea Bass weighing 200gm @ RM56 that night. Before being pan fried, the fillet was marinated with lime juice and cilantro, then served with Lemon Butter Sauce. It was not bad, but nothing worth writing home about either. Still, it fared much better if compared to my pitiful Grilled Wagyu Tenderloin.

If it was any consolation, at least the live band was great, service was top notch and the well-decorated restaurant was a beautiful sight to behold. After lamenting this disappointing experience to a friend who have dined here before, I gathered from him that the kitchen had a change of chef not long before we went.
Now, that explains the dip in food quality. If that’s really the case, I guess I was really unlucky not being able to catch the original chef when he was around. Because according to my friend the food was excellent before this. Sigh, if only I knew this earlier.

Avanti Italian-American Restaurante (Website)
Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa
Contact: 03 7492 8000 Ext. 3176
Business Hours
Lunch: 12.00noon – 2.30pm (Tue – Fri & Sun)
Dinner: 6.30pm – 9.30pm (Tue – Sun)
Closed on Saturday for lunch, and on Monday for lunch and dinner