Taste Enclave at Avenue K: Restaurant Review

Avenue K’s sprawling new food court is well worth visiting, with a dizzying diversity of dishes that represent street fare from Singapore and the Klang Valley. Comfy, clean and contemporary-looking, Taste Enclave is a tempting lunch and dinnertime alternative for city-center workers fed up with the too-safe, sterile choices at Suria KLCC; this might be the best thing that’s happened to Avenue K.

It’d take more than one or two visits to sample Taste Enclave’s full selection, spanning Singapore’s well-known Jalan Kayu Prata to KL’s respected Heun Kee claypot rice from Pudu.

Chicken Rice

For starters, check out Singapore’s Mandarin Chicken Rice …

… boasting moist, fresh and flavorsome grains, warmly paired with silky-juicy poultry.

Deep-fried Pork

Mr Porky deep-fried streaky pork (RM18.90), crisply coated with oatmeal and achingly addictive in its sumptuous succulence. Love, love, love.

Roast Meats

Can’t have a non-halal food court without roast pork and duck, right?

Noodles

Tong’s Roast serves a satisfactory plate of meaty herbal duck with noodles (RM10.90).

Shunning meat?

Try Hong Kee Vegetarian, where “char siew” proves a caramelized pleasure.

BBQ

Direct from Singapore’s Orchard Road: the Vietnamese-owned Y Thu Wendy, where specialties include “bun thit nuong,” BBQ meat with cold vermicelli and herbs. And yes, all these recipes hail from their original outlets.

Spoilt for Choice

So many more stalls, whipping up everything from Hokkien mee to beef tripe noodles …

Offerings from Mainland China

… Kepong yong tau foo to mainland-Chinese hot-pot servings of cuttlefish and crab sticks.

Tea and Coffee

Iced coffee and tea; Taste Enclave also serves beer but no wine for now. There’s expected to be another Taste Enclave at Damansara Jaya by next year.

Avenue K’s Restaurants

The food court also contains four restaurants: Xi Qing Seafood Restaurant (think chili crabs, fried prawns and steamed fish head) and Grandeur Teppanyaki …

Coming Soon

… plus the soon-to-open Swedish bakery-cafe Svea (meatballs!) and Japanese outlet Omoya, reputedly featuring an Osaka-native chef.

Not inside Taste Enclave or affiliated with the food court, but notable for being on the same floor: Tad’s Rockin’ Hot Dogs (also found at Mid Valley), a 1901 spin-off that includes fun recipes like Negaraku Weenie, with a serunding-topped sausage.