Christmas – 23
Achieve a couple of laps in the 99th floor wellness area’s heated pool at Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur and you feel like a bird looking down at the world below. This is in diamond-shaped Merdeka 118, tallest building in Asia Pacific. Owners PNB, led by Chairman Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Raja Arshad Raja Tun Uda and CEO Dato’ Abdul Rahman Ahmad. Architects Fender Katsalidis, from Melbourne, designers the Singapore branch of GA Group, the story first told by Werner Aeberhard and Harry Gregory in London in 1984. Some two years ago Herman Kemp joined the team, as GM – he’s Dutch-Indonesian, and came to KL from Park Hyatt Siem Reap (this is he, below).
Let’s go for records and numbers. Merdeka (Independence) 118 (number of floors) has 88 Finnish elevators (Kone), supposedly the world’s fastest. Take one up to the 75 th floor hotel lobby, a sanctuary of soft beige and bronze and gold with trellis screens and at either end of the tall area two black-on-white circular representations of maps of Kuala Lumpur. From here, as of every floor, walk around the zigzag triangular building. On the 75th floor you come to the all-day park lounge which serves afternoon tea as well as food all day long. Carry on round to the fine dining Merdeka Grill and the piece de resistance, encouraged by Hyatt’s Hongkong-based food guru Andreas Stalder, is Cacao Mixology and Chocolate. Everything to do with chocolate. The pastry chef Holger Day, who claims to be a chocoholic apparently makes 19 kilo blocks of 70% chocolate but you can just have a little tiny bit or even have a slight taste in your cocktail. The hotel’s signature ‘experience’, says Herman Kemp, is a half-day chocolate carcophany.
More records. The 112th floor Presidential Suite opens shortly. It wraps around an entire floor, and it will be 640sq m total, which is certainly enough to include one grand piano, one LifeFitness jogger, two bedrooms and dining at a circular Lazy Susan for 12. Fortunately ‘ordinary’ rooms are open, and if all 252 of them are like Girlahead’s resting place, #10607 on the 106th floor, they are EXTRA ordinary, zigzagging around part of the building’s triangle, all-wall windows, oodles of mirrors interspersed with oak, colour in the form of tan leather seating and a day-glo yellow lacquered box to hold jewellery or whatever. The bed’s look and the freestanding egg tub can both be described as white, simply sleek and absolutely at sync with brand-Park Hyatt. There’s a Toyo washlet, and toiletries are Le Labo.
The pastel-hued spa, down on the 99th floor, uses brands from Budapest (Omorovicza), and Melbourne (Ground). There’s a highly impressive apothecary table there. In all the eating venues, as much as possible of the food, however, is local – thank goodness for the Cameron Highlands, where US-born Thai silk king Jim Thompson vanished in 1967. The area, named after a Scottish surveyor, William Cameron, is near Ipoh, almost four hours’ drive north of KL, and it’s more properly known for super flavourful produce. Take lunch in Merdeka Grill, full as always. Wood tables were set with Legle china. As well as à la carte, there were daily set meals. The highly recommended salmon was superb, topped with a light cream sauce with black and red caviar, and a side decoration of baby cucumbers. Additional sides of truffle mashed potatoes and magnificent mixed veggies, which included three small portions of the best mushrooms in the world, all showcasing Cameron Highlands.
The culinary quality of this height-boggling sensational hotel continued. Girlahead returned to the good ship Navigator with tin of T’Lur caviar, from sturgeon farmed in Penang. Thanks to ship officers Jeff and Dominic, the caviar , on tiny pancakes with all the accepted accompaniments, was tasted by 12 new friends. Thumbs up, not too fishy, go-get-some-more. Go back to Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur, any time.
