Restaurant: Kelantan Delights, Kuala Lumpur There were good reasons why Kelantan Delights was voted Malaysia’s “Best Malay Restaurant 2005-2006″ by Halal Journal. Great food, unique choices, reasonable pricing, professional service and good ambience were among them. Since it first started as a foodcourt outlet in 1997 and later graduated as a full-fledge restaurant in Suria KLCC from 2001, Kelantan Delights has not looked back. Today, at its new outlet at Sooka Sentral – next to KL Sentral, Klang Valley’s transportation hub – Kelantan Delights still serves marvellous exotic cuisine.

The restaurant prides itself on serving authentic Kelantan and southern Thailand culinary wonders. Kelantan Delights offers a wide variety of local cuisine with distinct tastes and flavours, different from other Malaysian dishes, featuring mainstays such as fenugreek seeds, tamarind skin, galangal and lemon grass.

In a 2008 poll, readers of The Star voted Kelantan Delight’s Nasi Dagang (healthy brown rice eaten with beef rendang, prawn or fish curry) as Top 2 in the country while Malaysian Business says the restaurant serves the best lompat tikam (pandan-flavoured rice cakes and pulut eaten with coconut milk and gula melaka syrup) in town. The restaurant is a treasure house for some of the best food found in Malaysia: nasi kerabu (herbal rice served with chicken, beef, solok lada, vegetables, pickled garlic and salted eggs), nasi berlauk, laksam (rice noodle in white fish sauce eaten with vegetables and sambal), ayam percik (grilled chicken marinated with home-made spicy sauce) and belut (eel) prepared in 10 ways.

Young coconut tomyam is a house specialty. The soup, with ingredients like prawns, squid, baby corn, mushroom and lemon grass, is cooked in coconut water and served hot in the coconut. It is a knock-out. Other specialties include daging bakar (grilled beef with home-made dip), kerapu daun kaduk (garoupa with basil sauce), sambal udang petai, pucuk paku belacan and som tham (young papaya salad). And Kelantan Delights’ appetisers and desserts such as sirih daun kaduk (basil leaf with condiments and spicy sauce), kerabu mangga (young mango salad), sira pisang (banana in syrup), pulut durian (glutinous rice in durian syrup), akok (baked mixture of egg and flour) and tahi itik (white sweet pudding) are simply delicious.

At its new location in Sooka Sentral, Kelantan Delights is 2.5 times bigger in size than its previous location. With floor space of over 4,300sq ft, the restaurant is an ideal place to host functions such as product launching, meetings, presentations, reunions and private parties. Facilities such as private rooms, stage and prayer rooms are available. The restaurant also has a large balcony with a nice view of the city, enhanced by romantic sight of passing monorails.

For special occasions, cultural performances such as dikir barat, makyong and wayang kulit can be arranged for customers.

Kelantan Delights is a place you want to bring your foreign visiting friends to, for a delicious taste of good local food. Prices are reasonable too and with warm and sophisticated decor featuring modern wood furniture, Kelantan Delights is definitely top on many recommended lists.