The Great Beer Bar at Damansara Uptown: Snapshot

The man behind Solaris Dutamas’ Ales & Lagers has launched The Great Beer Bar in Damansara Uptown with a fresh set of collaborators this week – Kenn Hyn’s clear-eyed, full-hearted mission to propagate craft beers remains unmistakable in how he names his outlets, where the attraction rests in his no-nonsense approach to (possibly) great beer & (probably) good food.

This could become one of PJ’s favourite watering holes. As a bonus, unlike Ales & Lagers, The Great Beer Bar boasts its own kitchen, helmed by two separate independent teams with years of experience in KL’s F&B landscape. The Coolinary Ronins squad cooks Asian-accented fare here every Friday & Saturday, while the Curbside Cantina brigade runs the kitchen Sunday to Thursday with possible offerings like pate milk toast, shrimp quesa-tacos & shrimp-clam parfait.

The Great Beer Bar tries to eschew pub-grub cliches (bye, bacon-wrapped sausages & roasted pork belly!); on Fridays & Saturdays, expect a meticulously considered selection of five or six types of nibbles that change monthly. If you’re here in May, you may enjoy interesting items like crunchy-fried dumplings with a filling of pulled beef & fermented bean curd (six dumplings for RM18), Chinese-style sauteed chicken gizzard (RM15), Kristang-inspired baked prawns (two skewers with a total of four prawns for RM18), spicy smoked mango salsa (RM10), deep-fried broccoli (RM13) & puffed chickpeas (still being fine-tuned).