It all started when i joined Rebecca Saw's 30 Days 30 Gift Giveaway were i tried my luck to see if i can win anything. Being Malaysians, we are all sucker for freebies. So i am no exception, for as long as it is within the legal way.
A few emails to YTL Land to make reservation and a planned run to deplete the glycogen level, carbo loading for Bali marathon starts. If you have not read about how to carbo load correctly for your next race - read this here and bookmark it. Just remember that you don't carboload and overeat on the eve of your race day. It is accident waiting to happen.
Taken from Rebecca's blog. Thank You!
Back to Shook! Shanghai Brunch, we drove down to Brickfields and took the monorail. No point driving into town and pay exorbitant parking fees and get caught in weekend traffic.
We "valet" parked, but the valet went out for lunch. Photo edited by Kanthaa, edited on instagram. He was supposed to be our Valet ;)
For those of you that has not taken the Monorail, it is a good alternative. With a two coach train, things can get a bit sticky and smelly. But that is what taking public transportation in a country such as ours that is hot and humid.
We reached Starhill in about 20minutes including walking from Bukit Bintang Station. Been ages since we came here together. Many things changed and it is not the Bukit Bintang we used to remember.
We were confused about where the entrance to Starhill was. It is behind the Sephora shop that sells make up and stuff. From there, walk down towards the Starhill Tea Salon and around it. There is a escalator that will leads you down. Shook! is on the left hand side. Walk past Tarbush and an Vietnamese restaurant (horror, i saw a Vietnamese Cat Fish or Ikan Pangas).
It was my first time to Shook! and i am pretty impressed with the layout. Here it is, looking from the 4th floor.
Actually, it is more that i want to show my first official HDR shot using a dSLR ;-). Nevertheless, it is still impressive, the setup of Shook! i meant.
We had our reservation made about 3 days before. Apparently the place is almost sold out on a weekly basis. Plus i scored the free buffet from Rebeccasaw.com, it is only proper to ensure i correctly follow he procedure.
We were promptly seated and had our glasses filled with champange. I found out it was Laurent Perrier Brut Champange otherwise known as Brut L-P.
Champange for Brunch? That's a first!
How much a bottle? I had 5 servings, Aileen possibly 5 too. That's a bottle, maybe bottle and a half?
Photo by Wifey. One of those rare occassion i am in the frame. Cheers!
The food selection was impressive. I guess if you are paying that much, they better be. Here are some of the spread that was available today. They looked very very consistent when compared to Rebecca's Shanghai Brunch review. Enjoy the pictorial!
We were srved beef or chicken, grilled when we arrived
Japanese Section where they have meat skewer as well, over charcoal fire.
Sashimi and rolls. Fantastically fresh!
This one is for them to fry instantly.
The Grill, where there is a full lamb waiting
Oysters and more Seafood selection
These is cured salmon. It is super delicious and tad salty. I never eaten these before, and i had about 4 slices. It was good.
Chinese Section, which is the main theme of Shanghai Brunch
Chinese section again. No pork served.
The Italian section. Most items are predictable, but this one, the Cheese selection, wasn't. Never have i seen so many variants.
I can't pronounce some of them
Like seriously, Reblochon what?
More photos of the food and offering could be obtained from Rebecca's blog here. He photo quality using a Samsung NX11 are much better and clearer. My photos are not worthy.
OK. So where do we go from here? I mean, i profess healthy eating and wholesome food. I do not throw this out just because i am given free passes to eat, right? You see, in a food buffet, there is always the dangerous part where you will stuff yourself and end up overeating - and regretting it. Just because it is "price all inclusive", doesn't meant you should die trying to eat everything. Here is what i had, a bite-by-bite account.
I started off with a serving of Tuna, Butterfish and Salmon sashimi. The grilled chicken with vegetable over teriyaki sauce was too good to ignore. I had another serving of the Sashimi. Total calories for the Sashimi (2 servings) is 280kcal.
Wife has her wishes coming true when she loaded up her plate with nothing but cheese of all sorts, sundried tomatoes, mushrooms and more cheese. Good protein for her carbo-loading.
I then went for the Chinese cuisine. The above are (clockwise from top) Steamed Kailan, 8-treasure braised duck (which essentially has button mushroom, gingko nuts, baby corns, chest nut, chinese mushroom etc), Jellyfish. Middle below kailan is a wortip, or fried dumpling. Estimated calories - 450kcal mainly due to fried wortip, the others maybe only circa 300kcal. Yes, oil is 9kcal/gram. You do the maths.
Can't resist the roast chicken with the super crunchy skin. I had one serving with two small slices of mantao or chinese bread. The bread is used for dipping into the next dish that is to die for.
Steamed duck in sweet sauce - best so far. The lean duck meat was so tender it slides right off with a chopstick. The sauce superb for dipping into the mantao.
Really tender. I had two servings. Add in total of 500kcal with the chicken and mantao.
Soft on the inside. Savoury on the outside. Eat with care.
With the above all done, clocking in close to 1000kcal in just one sitting of 1 hour of eating and drinking. You can see just how buffet can contribute to your daily caloric allowances if you are not careful. This is not including what is on the other end of the buffet. The dessert. Behold, the scrumtious Dessert Spread.
Cakes, tarts, chocolates, meringue, pavlova...
Tarts. Tarts. Tarts.
Chap Suey Cake on the lower left. No idea what it is.
Did you see Macaroonnnnn? Single shot mango sago and red bean sago.
Winner. Chocolate truffles and pralines. Interesting is that they had a dark chocolate that is spicy! Nice touch. I helped myself to all the dark chocolate here.
It was a milk/white chocolate fountain that day. Becky got a Dark chocolate fountain. Pavlova on the left.
More tarts and sweet desserts.
With so much temptation, me and wifey decided that we should stick to dessert that has the highest hint of dark chocolate and with berries. Berries are expensive stuff and unless you want to spend paying RM20/100gram for blueberries, raspberry or blueberries, this is a good place to satisfy your want for these expensive-berries.
Macaroons, blueberries chocolate tart, blackberries chocolate tarts, and dark chocolate berries cake. This plate brings in close to 800kcal. Lucky it is for 2 person.
We further satisfy the curiousity of having the berries with another serving of berries. Must say that they are actually not sweet, but sourish. So, now we all know that those jams or anything that is sold outside, giving the impression that these berries are sweet, are nothing but sugar-laced. Glad we tried it in it's most original form.
Two servings of these! Not gonna be more than 70kcal!
With the conclusion of the dessert and the fifth serving of Brut L-P Champange, we sort of know we ate just nice, without overstuffing and we managed to try most of the stuff, if not all. The above were mostly protein based and carefully selected carbs. As we were using this buffet as a carbo-loading exercise for the Bali Marathon (that concluded yesterday, report soon), eating right and eating well takes main priority.
There are other attraction as one dine at Shook! Shanghai Brunch. There is a live band, with two very delectable ladies singing easy listening jazz and pop, that focused mostly on Ol'Blue Eye Sinatra to Connie Francis (of the 70's). You can even see the staffs singing and dancing to the tune - a testament of how much they enjoyed to be there while you are eating.
Yeah baby!
Apart from that, they had a Magician by the name of Chase, going around tables performing magic tricks like how the street magicians would do. It is the first time and myself and wife witness this in front of us.
Let me tickle your nuts
Here is two videos of what Chase did during the short interaction with us.
and this is continuation
Apart from that, there is a Mime artist that goes around making balloon art and impressing kids and ladies with simple but nicely done art such as a balloon corsage. :) Wifey received a suprised from the Mime. Thank you!
Wah!
We asked for another one, as we can't bring only one home. There are two kids that WILL fight for this. So, he made another one for us. Sweet of him!
We enjoyed ourselves with the food and drinks. We were kept entertained and the two and half hours (we arrived at 1pm) we were there were utilised to enjoy the ambiance and also the company of each other. We kept the iphones away and accessed it minimally ;-)
:D
Upon leaving the place, we were given two small token of appreciation. Each contain a box that has a cupcake with the chocolate praline with Shanghai Brunch printed.
Nice touch Shook! We gave them to the kids. Afterall, we had our fair share of buffet for the day
Man thanks to Shook! and Rebecca Saw for the opportunity to Brunch at the really nice place. It was an event of many first for me, never thought i would be sipping champange for brunch, or have the cured salmon, even the spicy chocolate and those berries that were on the buffet table.
Details:
TIME: 12.00 noon to 3.30 pm
PRICE: RM268++ with free-flow champagne, RM168++ food only
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