Belacan Malaysian Grill

Saturday, April 28, 2007

The monthly "Wine & Dine" group gathered at the Belacan Malaysian Grill in Redondo Beach tonite for dinner. This was a first for me. I had never tasted Malaysian cuisine before. Some of the dishes I really liked and a few of them were not my type , but other people enjoyed them.

Malaysian food can be quite spicy, like Indian food. We had the medium spice level with our dinner and it was fine with me, in fact I could have taken it up a notch. But some people thought it was really spicy. When you have a group of 14 people you need to cater to every ones taste and find a happy balance.

Roti Canai - Crispy fried flat bread with a curry dipping sauce (this sauce is to die for, I will have to search the Internet to see how its made)

Satay Tofu - Fried tofu stuffed with vegetables and peanut sauce

Malaysian Curry Puffs - Pastry stuffed with potato chicken curry ( another favorite - I also
put the curry dipping sauce on it)

Kuala Lampur Spring Rolls - just a bit to greasy for me

Penang Rojak - Malaysian fruit & vegetable salad (not my cup of tea but others raved about it)

Spicy Eggplant - Sauteed eggplant with spicy bean paste ( for eggplant it wasn't too bad - the
sauce helped tremendously)

Grilled Tamarind Prawn - Shrimp marinated with tamarind sauce (my favorite dish - they
cooked the shrimp with the shells on "keeps the flavor" and the tamarind sauce was excellent)

Coconut Rice - (I did not try either of the rice dishes - I'm not big into white rice)

Belacan String Beans - Sauteed green beans with spicy bean paste (Another hit for me - even
Barbara who doesn't eat anything green raved about these)

Beef Rendang - Slices of beef in Malaysian curry and spices ( I liked the sauce but I felt that
the quality of the meat left something to be desired)

Of course we had our usual assortment of wines. From sparkling Shiraz to Gerwurtzraminer to Cabernet. I did not try all the wine. I did think that the 06 Kosta Browne Rose was excellent and I am not a big Rose fan. I was disappointed in the 05 Roar Santa Lucia Pinot. It was very elegant front palate then seemed to drop off dramatically. Not to sure if I will save my bottles of this. I brought a magnum of 1999 Kunde Merlot which turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. I'm not a Merlot fan but this one was pretty good. There were several other wines I tasted that I likes but I did not keep notes on them. A Reisling stood out along with the Gerwurztraminer.

Again another fun evening with great people, good wines and unusual food. It doesn't get any better that that.