If you're looking for a place to start your CNY feasting then Intercontinental KL is the place to do just that. The ever-so-classy hotel continues to command a steady stream of loyal followers because of its world class food and ambience.

Of course, since it's their CNY menu, we had the tasting session at Tao. It's definitely the place to bring your future in-laws to to impress them this CNY if that's the kind of thing you're looking for.

Or spoil the family with special set menus that start at RM1,988++ for ten.

For the Fortune menu, which is the slightly more expensive set menu, you'd be getting a mouth-wateringly good yee sang with Hokkaido scallop, north Canadian lobster claw drizzled with passion fruit sauce.

We tend to get a little bit jaded when it comes to CNY dinner sets (it is oddly similar to Chinese wedding menus), but Intercontinental KL's CNY menu this year proved to break away from a lot of the traditional dishes but still maintaining authenticity of the festivities.

Part of the menu is a double-boiled black garlic with sea treasures soup. This is a nice dish to start with and really gets your appetite ready for the rest of the meal.

One of the starting dishes we really liked from the menu was the deep-fried stuffed chicken skin with mango mayonnaise. Both pleasing to the eye and the tastebuds, this dish stands out from the typical "four seasons" starters of other menus.

Another dish that easily impressed us was their wok-fried prawns with salted egg yolk sauce, topped off with fresh curry leaves and chilli. Talk about a moreish dish!

To appease the older generation, of course, a whole fish dish must be incorporated into the menu. The steamed king tiger garoupa with cordycep flowers, red dates and ginger is a good way to say, hey, we're still keeping true to the tradition. Not that the young'uns would mind eating this either, because it is one helluva tasty dish.

And it is during the later part of this menu that we find more of these traditional dishes. The stewed abalone with sea cucumbers and duo-coloured dumplings is a marriage of old and new. The classic dish typically comes without the dumplings, but we felt this was such a nice touch to it.

Also part of the same menu is a steamed glutinous rice with preserved duck leg, salted egg yolk and dried oyster. Talk about decadent!

And finally, we come to dessert, which is a really yummy deep-fried sweet potato nien gao (roughly translated to new year cake) served with chilled aloe vera, peach and osmanthus ooling tea syrup, which ended our meal perfectly.

Check out Tao Chinese Cuisine's full list of menus here.

Intercontinental Kuala Lumpur Menara Citibank, 165, Jalan Ampang,

Kuala Lumpur, 50450 Kuala Lumpur.

+60 3-2782 6000

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