Enak KL is now back in town, after a short break some months back. Still in Feast Village, Starhill Gallery, Enak KL now occupies the lot where Tarbush used to be. Enak’s kitchen is still helmed by Chef Rani Ghazali who has been with the restaurant from the very beginning. Translated to mean “delicious”, “Enak” lives up to its name serving up traditional Malay cuisine, cooked lovingly by Chef Rani using age-old recipes from his family.
Kerabu, the Malay-styled salad using fresh local ingredients sits at the top of the menu and there are are 6 varieties listed there. We love our salads – we had 4 kerabus from that list!
I was told their most popular kerabu is the Kerabu Jambu Air Ikan Bilis, a unique mix of crunchy rose apples, fried anchovies tossed with shredded lemongrass, honey and lime juice.
Kerabu Jambu Air Ikan Bilis
Kerabu Kerang with cockles, beansprouts, coconut cream, kerisik (fried shredded coconut) and tamarind juice is another palate teaser. We also had the Kerabu Nangka with young jackfruit, prawns and bound together with ground fresh chillies, onions, belacan and kerisik. Kerabu Pucuk Paku had fiddlehead fern and chicken mixed with musk lime juice, kerisik and chilli padi for an extra kick.
Kerabu Kerang
Kerabu Nangka
Kerabu Pucuk Paku
We’re so glad we ordered their Sup Ekor because those chunks of oxtail were amazingly tender having been boiled for hours in a rich savoury broth perfumed by star anise, cardamom, cloves and even chill padi.
Sup Ekor
Once our oxtail soup has been slurped up, Chicken Satay made its way over. Tender juicy chunks of chicken meat dunked in a rich nutty sambal sauce – absolutely no complaints there!
Chicken Satay
Continuing with grilled items, we checked out some seafood items. After all, Malay-styled “ikan bakar” is always a favourite. So we had the Grilled Grouper and King Prawns and totally enjoyed the sweet freshness of the seafood. The fish and prawns had been marinated with a secret terutup glaze before grilling and that explains the incredible flavours. You can choose to eat the grilled food with several “sambals” – sambal asam jawa, kicap chilli padi or the regular sambal belacan.
If you are a beef lover, do not miss the Rusuk Daging here! It’s truly one of the best grilled beef ribs I’ve ever had. Tender yet with a yielding bite, the charcoal-grilled juicy meat was absolutely delicious – it’s our top favourite dish at Enak!
Rusuk Daging
Asam Pedas is such a typical Malay dish and we just had to have this. We chose the fish version – our Asam Pedas had a generous portion of seabass in it. With dried red chillies, tamarind juice, laksa leaves and wild ginger paste ground into the paste for this gravy, be sure to have lots of rice ready.
Ikan Asam Pedas
Talking about rice, Enak serves complimentary rich with their main dishes and diners can choose from white rice, nasi tomato or nasi biryani. Both the nasi tomato and nasi biryani were divine, beautifully scented by spices embedded in the grains.
To go with our rice, we also had the Sambal Udang Petai, Ayam Percik and two vegetable dishes – Kailan Goreng Ikan Masin and Kangkung Belacan. Needless to say, these made us did justice to the rice!
Sambal Udang Petai
Ayam Percik
Kailan Goreng Ikan Masin
Kangkung Belacan
There are several traditional Malay desserts on Enak’s menu. Popular ones are their Pisang Goreng, Serawa Durian and Ais Batu Campur. Our favourites are the deep-fried bananas served with a sweet-spicy dip and the rich durian “congee” cooked in coconut milk and palm sugar which we happily dipped the roti jala and steamed glutinous rice balls.
Pisang Goreng with spicy-sweet thick soya sauce dip
Ais Batu Campur
If you are looking for a comfortable and elegant venue to dine on traditional Malay cuisine, Enak KL is just the place. Service is attentive and friendly.
ENAK KL
Feast Village, Starhill Gallery
JW Marriott Kuala Lumpur
Jalan Bukit Bintang
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2782-3807