Thursday, February 1, 2007

Luk Yu Tea House






In one of my previous posts entitled 'Mango Pudding' , I mentioned tasting the best Dim Sum I've ever had when I was on holiday in Kuala Lumpur. I'm featuring the Tea House, today, namely Luk Yu Tea House , situated at the very trendy Starhill Gallery in Bukit Bintang.
As I said, we were brought there by my aunt, Julie Kim, an entrepreneur with a taste for the finer things in life. I can always count on her to know the best places for anything and everything. Aunt Julie owns and operates an oriental style antique and objet d'art store in 1 Utama Shopping Centre, Damansara and busy as she is , she always takes time out to entertain us 5 star style.
Anyway, before I continue, I must tell you that the words 'Dim Sum' should actually spell 'Tim Sum' meaning 'to touch the heart' in Cantonese. And never say "Let's have Yum Cha" because the words 'Yum Cha' means ' to drink tea'. The correct way to say it is, "Let's have Tim Sum" ie 'food that touches the heart'. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, we can continue.
Luk Yu's decor is reminiscent of the 50's Chinese Coffee shop and they serve everything you've ever had at a Tim Sum Tea House and much more. To start off, they have approximately 15 different if not more, varieties of Chinese teas to choose from ranging from RM 3 to RM 10 per serve. Then, you look around and you see waiters dressed in traditional 'Sam Fu' , white mandarin collared shirts and black baggy pants , one or two carrying large kettles of hot water ready to refill your teapot.Luk Yu has an open kitchen concept and food is made to order, you won't see push trolleys with bain -maries anywhere. As you can imagine, the food is served piping hot fresh, and believe me when I say the Tim Sum is very refined and delicate, nothing like the stuff we get here. I guess you will only know the difference when you make a taste comparison. It's like they say, ' there's no substitute for quality.