THE annual Malaysian International Gastronomy Festival returns this month with participating restaurants offering specially crafted, one-off menus. One of the region’s most celebrated food events, the 16th edition themed “high octane chefs”, promises diverse cuisine such as Western, international, Asian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Peranakan.

With choices aplenty, trying out degustation menus makes good sense, to sample as much in small portions. At Resorts World Genting’s The Olive Restaurant and Bar Lounge and LTITUDE Restaurant, Bar and Lounge, the creative dishes, using mainly imported ingredients, did not disappoint.

LTITUDE chef Mandy Goh uses her classical French training and modern cooking methods in her creations with unique texture and flavour. These include appetisers Sturia caviar and lemon mascarpone topped with cherry ragout, and purple artichoke soup simmered for four hours for maximum flavour with black truffle and albali white wine.

Main course are wildly caught French sea bass paired with Swiss chard and light frothy vanilla foam, and our favourite — Iberico spare ribs marinated with salt, pepper and barbecue sauce before slowly cooked, making the meat tender and juicy.

Chef Mohamad Radzuan of The Olive spearheaded this year’s festival menu, taking a month to put together a smorgasbord of western continental dishes. Specialising in French and Italian cooking styles, the 42-year-old starts with appetisers such as sea urchin mousse infused with pineapple, cucumber basil and bottarga, and a warm hearty soup of smoked tomato essence, cucumber, roasted onion, caviar and cod.

The lobster carpaccio with hot salt, lemon zest, orange, basil and cilantro cress was outstanding — we even asked for seconds. For the main course of lamb, Radzuan broke tradition, serving it with mint ice cream and not the usual mint sauce, which bodes well for our taste buds.

The Olive’s festival menu is at RM298 nett and RM488 nett  with wine pairing. For more information, visit rwgenting.com.