Zak Pelaccio, celebrity chef, restaurateur and practitioner of the dark arts of fusion cuisine (I read fusion described this way in an article and thought it so apt) is stuck. He is stuck deep in a huge fish head cleaning out the cheeks and gills and all those delicious nooks and crannies where flesh exists. We were by a road in Lucky Garden scoffing down fish head curry, smoking fried chicken and crispy-soft squid. If you want to see how hands on a chef is with their food, fish head curry is the way to go.
The night before, in the more gentile surroundings of Eest at Westin KL, Zak sits comfortably in his chef’s get-up and baseball cap talking about the beginnings of his obsession with Malaysian food. The year was 1997 and he was working in Sri Melayu. With fellow food lovers he trawled the streets of KL, the alleys in Bukit Bintang, Imbi, Pudu and Jalan Alor. He went to Penang and ate assam laksa at Ayer Hitam, fell in love with bak kut teh and glazed chicken wings and chilli crabs. “Basically I just eat, eat, eat. You got to walk around to get to the good stuff”.
It was then that a friend took him to Fatty Crab. Years later he paid homage to this restaurant by opening a Malaysian inspired bar and eaterie smack in the middle of Manhattan and called it Fatty Crab. So how are the New Yorkers responding to the pungent and spicy Malaysian food? “They are digging it,” he says with a smile. “Most people really like it. It’s a fun place, casual but the food is very serious. Of course some people don’t really know how to respond to it. It’s not as accessible as Thai food and the whole place just stinks,” he laughs.
"Ah… he must be doing something right then."
The Dark Arts of Malaysian Fusion
Ah… he must be doing something right then. At Fatty crab they use budu and cincaluk in their cooking. They make their own sambal belacan and curry pastes. On the menu they have chilli crabs of course and beef short rib rendang. There is a version of nasi lemak where he slow poaches egg in the shell and then mixes it in with coconut rice. He then braises the chicken leg in curry until it’s tender. And then serves it with sambal belacan, peanuts and ikan bilis. “I think it’s very good, the version that we do.” I don’t doubt it. It sounds good. I’m hungry just thinking about it. They also do a version of assam laksa with fresh sardines. Zak sometimes consults on bar food. In one bar he does a version of otak-otak, where he fries it up and serves it with a cincaluk salsa (cincaluk, chopped chillis and lime juice).
There is something gratifying talking to a person who is passionate about your food and understands it. Zak owns another successful restaurant called 5 Ninth that is more market driven. He still does fusion but not with such abandon as the Fatty Crab with dishes on the menu like coconut chicken broths and recipes using more recognisable Asian roots like ginger and galangal. “You can’t get fresh bunga kantan in New York but you can get fresh daun kesum,” he says. Fatty Crab is more audacious, an experiment to see if the more robust flavours of Malaysian food can pass muster. It appears that Malaysian food makes very good bar snacks. Think of the Alor chicken wings and rendang ribs and you get the picture.
Conjuring up for the Locals...
That night at Kuala Lumpur Westin's Eest, he cooks a more restrained menu to complement the excellent wines from Barrosa Valley. The halibut that night with baby clam green curry was superb. Flesh soft, it sits coyly amongst the clams delicately soaking coconut gravy. Hamachi served almost raw plays with your tastebuds complementing the plump foie gras and a kerabu-like garnish of pickled chilli, beansprouts and small shavings of bunga kantan. A crisp skin at the side added dimensions to the dish.
The crispy chicken salad was almost like a playful nod to nasi lemak. The rice was delicately coconut tinged with the eggs sinking into the pores. The crispy chicken pieces were slightly spicy with chilli. Following this was the rib eye, sliced into red slivers next to the short rib with all the interlacing layers of meat and fat. The marrow was rich and you can lift it out like pudding.
We ended the meal with a Sichuan pepper and raspberry sorbet and a self-saucing chocolate toffee pudding with a chocolate mint sherbet. Both were delicious though by this time despite the light portions we were already stuffed with all the glorious food. Zak does his fusion with a light hand, knowing when to hold back. All that we have eaten that night was definitely Western food cooked with Eastern ingredients and discipline. And yet it’s subtle and joyful and most would not even think it as fusion.
What next for the busy Zak
So what now for Zak? He is a busy man these days. There are his three restaurants (latest being Suka at London's The Sanderson Hotel) and a bar newly opened that demands attention. For this bar he got dim sum carts and painted it all groovy but the bar was so packed, “we can’t even wheel them, it’s just sitting in storage. Maybe sometime down the line. I’m exhausted anyway.” He has been approached to do a Malaysian food event. He is creating new dishes and goes around Asia researching for new ideas. After KL he’s in Seoul cooking at another hotel. And then it’s back to NY to deal with his three establishments. When I talked about foodcrawls that we at Friedchillies do he smiles, “I can relate to that. In the outer burbs like Queens and Brooklyns there are over 100 different ethnicities. You’ll be eating Uzbeki homecooking one day and the next stuff from small towns in Sczehuan. A few of us do it when we are not working. It seems to be getting fewer and far in between,” he sighs.
Zak Pelaccio is a man with good problems. Problems of growing fame, packed restaurants and being in demand to cook all over the world. But right now, Zak orders another plate of rice and pours more curry on top. He’s licking the fishbones clean and dropping hot chicken on his plate. He’s having a good time just sitting by a roadside in humid KL indulging in his favourite pastime.
Fatty Crab,
643, Hudson Street,
New York, NY 10014
Tel: 212- 352 3590
http://www.fattycrab.com
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