Majestic Festive Banquet Dinner @ Majestic Hotel, KL

This year, The Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur has a line up of exciting specials to celebrate the festive month of Ramadhan. One of them is The Majestic Festive Banquet dinner that will be held from 24 June to 12 July 2015 at the hotel’s Function Rooms located at Level 3. Diners will get to enjoy specially crafted Malay dishes adapted from old recipes closely replicated by Chef Zaidi and his team.

The Majestic Festive Banquet dinner will feature more than a hundred classic Malay recipes from around Malaysia including the popular perennial favourites such as Kambing Panggang, Satay Kampung, Ikan Bakar, Pajeri Kedondong and a local Aneka Goreng live station. The roast lamb was marinated with Middle Eastern influenced dry rub and proved to be a great start to the evening.
I concur it’s not the most appetizing lamb you’ll ever see but it’s actually quite delicious, in fact the best one among the many Ramadan buffets I have attended previously. The meat was tender, not overly gamey and tasted well together with the accompanying Rosemary sauce. For Ikan Bakar, you have a choice of cencaru, kembung and pari – all grilled in banana leaf so the fish does not get burnt.

Satay plays a big part in the buffet and the station was setup to bring back the old days of how they used to be sold in rattan baskets. The grill actually functions but more towards keeping the already-cooked satay warm.
While the peanut sauce was great, both the chicken and beef satay felt a tad too dry and chewy for my liking. Similar feedback was heard across the room so I hope they’d be able to rectify it.

Since there were so many dishes in the spread, I won’t be describing each and every of them. But a number of dishes I really liked and felt that they cooked it right (at least to my palate) were the Sambal Udang Petai, Fish Curry with Tomato, Ikan Talapia Merah Goreng Berlado, Sup Ekor, Pajeri Kedondong (umbra fruit in palm sugar curry), Ayam Pongteh and Ayam Goreng Berempah.

A few live cooking stations located outside the function rooms treat diners with an interactive experience. They showcase local street-food favourites such as Mee Rebus, fried fruit fritters, roti canai and murtabak.

Completing the buffet experience is an assortment of desserts including traditional Malay kuih-muih, chips, crackers, dodol, cookies (recommended!) and a couple of soup-based desserts like the Pengat Pisang and Bubur Kacang Hijau.

For those who fancy something icy, there’s ABC and cendol prepared with a myriad of colourful toppings and syrups. They use a Japanese ice shaver machine for the job and it’s able to dispense snow ice that’s soft and fluffy, perfect for a bowl of ABC. However, I feel you might want to ask the person making it to tone down the sweetness.

The Majestic Festive Banquet Dinner is priced at RM100 nett per person. Another more elaborate buffet at Contango themed the “Festive Variety Dinner” is priced at RM125 nett person (includes more Western and Asian dishes) will be held from 17 June to 18 July.

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