Stepping into MICHELIN selected Li Yen in The Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur, it’s as if you’ve been transported into an oasis of calm. Its décor is elegant and refined. It not only sets the tone for the meal ahead, it invites you to leave the hustle and bustle behind, to be present entirely in the moment at Li Yen.
Li Yen’s Lunar New Year menu
First on Li Yen’s Lunar New Year menu tasting was the ‘prosperity salmon and jellyfish yee sang’. This was hands down the prettiest yee sang I’ve come across – it looked like an art piece. It was just such a shame that we had to mess it all up for the yee sang toss. The yee sang was fresh and chilled, and had slices of jackfruit, which made it truly refreshing to dig into.
Next up was the ‘double-boiled chicken soup with dried scallop, dried fish maw and black garlic’. This soup was sweet and garlicky at the same time. The base of this soup is boiled for 6 hours, on a low flame, to bring out the sweetness, which is all naturally derived from the ingredients alone: old chicken (farm chicken), pork ribs and back-bone, and Hokkaido scallops. No extra ingredients are needed to bring out the sweetness in this base.
The base is then boiled for a further 3 hours, on a high flame, to get the soup which we were served. That is a total of 9 hours cook time just for the soup. This effort made a whole world of difference in taste – everyone of us present there that day were quietly sipping on, and savouring the soup.
The ‘Hong Kong-style steamed bamboo fish with Chef’s crafted soy sauce, spring onions and parsley’ was another delight. The fish was sweet and delicate.
‘Deep-fried prawns coated with truffle sauce and tobiko’ was up next on Li Yen’s Lunar New Year menu. The style of this dish isn’t a common way to serve prawns on a Lunar New Year menu (being deep-fried, that is), and hence it was interestingly different. The truffle sauce really came through and I liked the fact that the prawns were deshelled (I might be a bit of a lazy eater). Had the teen been with me, he would’ve cleared his plate in seconds.
The ’Chinese-style barbecued Iberico spare ribs’ was tender, sticky, and sweet, with appropriate amounts of charred bits on the meat. I really enjoyed this as I do love ribs and it reminded me of bakkwa, something we only eat during the Lunar New Year as it’s always been considered a treat for us. Hence, this was an apt dish to have on the menu in my books. The ribs were so good that my fellow diner took to using her hands to clear all the meat off the bone.
‘Wok-fried Australian asparagus with elm fungus, fresh lily bulbs and goji berries’ was also out of the norm in terms of the vegetable dish on a Lunar New Year menu (the standard being broccoli). As such, I completely ate this up. This dish was light, and much appreciated after the previous ribs course, which was sweet. This acted as a sort of a palate cleanser for me.
The last dish before desserts was the ‘Hong Kong-style waxed meat clay pot rice’. This was also a winner for me as I do really love rice (I am Chinese after all). It was really nice that this was not glutinous rice. I liked that the waxed meats are cooked, and presented separately from the rice. The fact that the rice was not soaked in sauce, meant that I could taste the scorched rice, which are the best bits.
For desserts, on Li Yen’s Lunar New Year menu, it was the ‘house crafted walnut cream with sesame glutinous rice dumplings accompanied with steamed glutinous rice cake goldfish nian gao’. The walnut cream was too rich for me and felt really ‘heavy’, but the rice dumplings were soft and chewy, as was the nian gao (which were really cute too).
Chef Alex Au of Li Yen
It is clear that Executive Chinese Chef Alex Au of Li Yen put a lot of thought into this menu: from the style of cooking, to the dishes themselves, to the order of the menu – it contrasted and yet was balanced from dish to dish.
For Chef Alex, creating the menu is a year-long process where he elevates the past year’s menu further by looking at trends (truffle sauce for the prawns dish) and the top selling dishes at Li Yen for that year.
“Lunar New Year is a tradition, which comes round every year. To achieve the feeling that it brings out in all of us, it’s best done through Lunar New Year dishes to evoke memories of previous Lunar New Years to get into the appropriate mood”, Chef Alex. He couldn’t have said it better!
And to that end, I say kudos to Chef Alex for getting me ready and in the mood to welcome this Lunar New Year.
Available from 3 February through 3 March 2026, the lunch set menus are priced from RM498++ for two persons and the lunch and dinner set menus are priced from RM3,398++ per table of 10.
Lunch is served from 12pm to 2.30pm from Monday to Saturday and 10.30am to 2.30pm on Sundays and Public Holidays. Dinner is available from 6.30pm to 10pm daily.
For reservations and enquiries, please WhatsApp +60 18 623 0038.
We were invited by Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur. As always, our opinions are honest and our own.
