CHOCHA Foodstore goes to Borneo in its seventh year at a transformed old hotel on Petaling Street.

It is a full-fledged restaurant serving modern Malaysian cuisine, using mostly local ingredients from small-batch producers and organic/biodynamic farms.

First, we went to Botak: Liquor, the bar upstairs. Malaysian flavours were seamlessly woven into the cocktails.

We had two before dinner – the Daun Purut and the Jambu Batu.

The first was rum, passionfruit, sparkling wine, kaffir lime oil and mango foam. It was sweet, heady and irresistible.

The second was refreshing in its mix of black lemon, tequila, amaro, agave nectar and guava soda.

We then went downstairs and embarked on a delightful journey through sometimes unfamiliar flavours.

To start, we encountered the shivery tartness of pureed wild mango, or bambangan, with dragon chives and glutinous rice in sweet potato leaf wraps in the Ulam Lemang. The Bornean fruit was not unlike the quinine mango we have here.

The tartness of the bambangan awakened our palates for us to dive into Umai, an East Malaysian appetiser of citrus-cured red snapper, mango shallots and herbs on a laksa Sarawak sauce.

The thick sauce paired well with the raw fish; the fragrance of the spices and a little heat coming through but not overwhelming the raw fish.

Ambuyat – three kinds of sago dumplings: burnt, poached and pan-seared – came next, pierced with satay sticks.

The “burnt” one was like a dark mochi, the black colour derived from torching the ambuyat dumplings and glazing them with tempoyak. I liked the sticky smooth texture of the dumpling and the faint aroma of the tempoyak.

The poached dumpling had cured snapper wrapped around it in a flavourful turmeric fish broth.

The pan-seared dumpling with served with sambal tuhau sinsilog (eel from Sabah). We liked the aromatic, spicy and sweet sambal tuhau sinsilog with shallots and ginger flower surrounding the dumpling. It was pan seared at the last second and topped with latok (sea grapes).

Then came Duck Papas, which was a flat round croquette with Cherry Valley duck confit, mashed potato and herbs, crumbed and deep-fried.

The Malaysian twist was in the gulai it was placed in, giving it a spiced dimension.

Cherry Valley ducks are the original Peking ducks, now reared in Penang.

We also dug into the Grilled Beans with relish – charred okra, petai, winged beans and asparagus.

The vegetables were served atop a pucuk manis hummus drizzled with kulim oil (a native garlic). Crunchy pickled kale stems gave the vegetables a tart lift. We picked the plate clean.

The Salted Sinsilog Noodles were thick-cut noodles tossed in a sauce made from sweating onions and leeks with butter and sinsilog cooked in oil, emulsified with chicken stock.

We crunched on crispy Borneo salted fish crackers while savouring the delicious noodles.

Tapai ice cream with cream cheese, coconut meat and coconut jelly made a light, refreshing dessert, with a sour note from the fermented rice.

Chocha head chef Mui Kai Quan said the Borneo flavours with a contemporary twist appeals to a wider audience.

Chef de cuisine Nazri Gapur, who is from Sabah, informs the Borneo slant in Chocha’s menu.

Chocha Foodstore is located at 156 Jalan Petaling, Kuala Lumpur. Call 03-2022 1100 to book. – July 8, 2023.

* Eu Hooi-Khaw has been writing about food for the longest time, covering all aspects, from restaurant reviews to cooking and recipes, as well as the healthy side of it. She has written for major newspapers and magazines, published the cookbook Fresh Ingredients, and also writes for her website hooikhawandsu.com.