Albion @ Berangan

Albion is now fully up and running; the place is still quiet on weekdays, making it perfect for a peaceful, intimate dinner. And yep, the menu finally has prices on it: the starters and desserts generally cost below RM20, while the mains are between RM20-RM40.

Fish cakes with baby spinach & strawberry salad. Crisp and piping-hot.

Pork & prawn kofta with herb salad. Rather mild-tasting and ordinary.

Potato-wrapped pompano with asparagus, sweet corn and lemon butter sauce. A terrific fish, really moist and flavourful.

Quinoa & asparagus. Fewer guilt-inducing carbs compared to risotto, but (nearly) as tasty.

Slow-roasted pork belly with root veggies and apple. Tasted surprisingly healthy (but still reasonably succulent) for a pork belly dish.

Lemon tart and fruit compote. Had that lovely "freshly baked" aroma.

Espresso panna cotta. Silky smooth and bouncy.

Last Rites and Peanut Butter Martini. Really, really good cocktails.

House-pouring Chardonnay.

Albion,
Jalan Berangan (beside Bar Italia).

Offering "modern British cuisine," Albion provides a calm refuge from the bustle of Changkat Bukit Bintang. The service is wonderful, the setting is beautiful, while the food and booze are plentiful (just don't look for roast beef with Yorkshire pudding on the menu for now).

Kick off the meal with warm bread in what kinda looks like a dim sum basket. We lapped up the thick, fresh-tasting sun-dried tomato dip.

Spinach & ricotta dumplings. Not bad, though this does seem more Italian than British.

Chorizo a la plancha. Heaped with generously sliced, nicely salted pork sausages; a snack that we would gladly have eaten all evening.

Duck confit with braised red cabbage & panfried potatoes. Frankly, the duck was a disaster. Utterly overcooked to the brink of being burnt. Thankfully, the cabbage and potatoes were quite tasty, redeeming what would otherwise be a dry, nearly inedible dish.

Pan-fried grey mullet with roasted Mediterranean veggies. A moist, wonderfully flaky fish.

Ballotine of chicken with champ and baby French beans. Tender and well-prepared.