KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 9 — Dining at a brand new restaurant is often a double-edged sword.

Of course, it’s exciting to savour a never-seen-before menu to perk up our jaded palates but when a place is ill-prepared with food that falls short of the lofty promises and the service is patchy, diners end up becoming white mice for an experiment to test out the restaurant’s capabilities... at the peril of their own wallets.

Tangram defies all these opening odds and you’ll find yourself walking away singing a happy tune with plans to return.

The Bangsar restaurant is the collaborative effort of Unwined’s Hsiao Tung Wei and Johnny Tsai of one-Michelin-starred restaurant T + T in Taipei.

The spotlight is on Northeast Asia here, spanning countries like Tsai’s homeland Taiwan, Japan and Korea, where Tsai rearranges elements of familiar dishes using local ingredients.

He does this with French cooking techniques to create new dishes with balance, restraint and a respect for the locale on Tangram’s tasting menu, just like its namesake puzzle.

Crowning your experience here is top notch service from Jerald Tan, a veteran of the French restaurant scene.

Just like Tsai’s T + T, the tasting menu at RM298+ for eight courses offers great value.

Consider also the wine pairing for RM128+ for three glasses or RM188+ for five glasses, where the wine is skilfully paired with the food. There’s also a non-alcoholic pairing for RM98+ too.

The opening act of a jiggly soft almond milk tofu layered with strands of bird’s nest nudged us down the path of Taiwanese flavours, with a light sweetness from the Chinese apricot kernels balanced with a touch of olive oil and salt.

Next was an unexpected surprise, a garland of Cameron Highlands tomatoes beautifully arranged with herbs and the hidden surprise of Penang-sourced mussels inside.

In the middle, one tomato didn’t look like the others, as it was a molecular sphere inspired by Taiwan’s five flavour sauce that uses tomato, chilli, garlic, scallions and ginger.

While we may not have tried Taiwan’s famous sauce before, it bore an uncanny resemblance to the chilli sauce we often pair with chicken rice, probably because it shares the same balance of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami.

Inspired by a pineapple and bitter gourd soup often served in Taiwanese homes, the chicken is reinvented in different forms.

The skin — crispy and crunchy — acts like an edible utensil, cradling a mound of chicken mixed with fermented pineapple, for a one-bite crunch while the pineapple gives a mild tanginess to allay any oily aftertaste.

A spiral bread golden from deep frying has hints of spices that sit on a sauce using soybean paste as you break it open to nibble and on the side is a soul nourishing chicken broth to sip on.

Inspired by suan cai yu but with more subtle flavours of sweet, sour and spicy, the grouper fillet is presented with a golden broth with a hint of Sichuan peppercorns and combined with lighter baby cabbage.

Home-style silky steamed egg is given a makeover and laden with five types of mushrooms, dried scallops and Taiwanese dried prawns, making each spoonful something to be relished slowly,

Pops of ikura dot the steamed egg to give it a hint of saltiness that it doesn’t really need since you’ll be won over by the savoury combination of mushrooms.

Even though the dishes may be small, by the time we got to the Japanese abalone cooked with small Japanese rice grains we were both almost full.

The old hen broth is brewed using traditional Chinese medicine methods with the use of angelica, goji berries and ginseng and the abalone is cooked till there’s no dreaded chewiness to give your mouth a workout.

On the menu is a lamb saddle or a choice of A5 Wagyu for an extra RM88+, which we both decided to try.

The proteins were top notch; cooked perfectly to a texture that was tender while retaining its rich juices within.

Of course, the lamb pipped the beef with its richer flavour that did not have a hint of gaminess.

With the lamb, it was an odd pairing with a vegetable roll but this was saved by the rich lamb jus enhanced with black garlic paste and sesame oil.

For the Wagyu, you get a century egg with a creamy centre and a surprise hit of mild chillies that made the beef combination rather unusual.

The star of the dish was the juicy beef dumpling hidden under a lace-like disc you crack open.

The sweets are inspired by classic Taiwanese ones like baobing or shaved ice dessert and pineapple cake.

Using sour plum to lightly flavour the shaved ice, you will discover the refreshing Eight Treasures with sweet potato balls and soft cooked sweet potato under the fluffy ice.

The pineapple cake is reinterpreted as a melt in the mouth pineapple phoenix tart and as a flourish, shaved salted egg yolk lends a slight saltiness to the combination.

And to end the meal, you have Taiwanese oolong tea.

This menu will run for the whole quarter after which a new menu will take over, which could be either inspired by Japan or Korea.

Lunch will also be introduced later at an affordable price and most probably be a condensed version of the dinner menu.

Tangram

61, Jalan Telawi 3,

Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.

Open: 6pm to 11pm (Monday to Saturday)

WhatsApp: +6012-5866642

Instagram: @tangram_kl

* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.

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