Red, red spot

This is the place to let your hair down while you tease your palate.

STEP inside Opiumm, and you’ll see red everywhere. From the plush cushions, carpet, walls and a dance pole in the middle of the floor, little is left to the imagination as to what can happen at this restaurant-cum-nightclub when the sun goes down.

“Yeah, this place is a mix of naughty and cosy,” says Keith Raymond, the 33-year-old owner, cheekily.

Still, it would be in the best interest of the diners to behave because Raymond’s parents, Jeffrey, 58, and Joyce, 52, have made this place their Friday hang-out since it opened on the second week of April this year.

Avid foodie: Keith Raymond has a hand in all the recipes at Opiumm. Red, red spot Spectacular: The Nasi Goreng Kampung. This is the place to let your hair down while you tease your palate. Seeing red: The plush interiors of Opiumm.

“My father is very proud of me because I started all my businesses on my own,” admits Raymond who also has major stakes in a Spanish restaurant and tapas bar called Café Chulo.

This affable bachelor is a bodykits and motor racing parts specialist when the sun is up. A former student of Help College and the eldest of three siblings, Raymond has been working on car interiors since the age of 17. Though he could have joined his family’s 15-year-old car interior business, this enterprising lad decided to venture into the renovation line at the age of 23 before setting up his own business in car interior furnishings.

When it comes to the food business, this entrepreneur of Chinese and Eurasian parentage truthfully admits that profit and his obsessive love for food were his main motivators.

“Just as I am extremely meticulous about the bodykit fittings on a car, I am the same with food,” he says.

With Raymond, every dish that comes out of his kitchen has to have the right blend of ingredients. Laying claim to having a hand in every recipe in the menus of the two restaurants, Raymond says he was introduced to the art of cooking by his mother and grandmother. In what he terms as his “experiments”, Raymond started off with packets of instant noodles.

“I make an awesome assam laksa out of instant noodles with canned sardines, chopped cucumbers and cili padi. My other successful experiment was making curry laksa out of the same with sambal, long beans and chicken strips,” he says.

While the diner at Opiumm will not be privy to Raymond’s superb instant noodle creations, he can take heart in the comforting favourites of a well-planned fusion menu.

For starters, the salmon canapés are recommended. Pretty, dainty and absolutely scrumptious, these little minarets of smoked salmon resting on dollops of mayonnaise and topped with orange caviar are perfect with cocktails. Jumping to the main dish, it may be overdoing it to heap so much attention on the Nasi Goreng Kampung but it does have the appearance of an attractively appetizing dish. At Opiumm, however, it comes topped with a perfectly fried egg, the yolk still intact, and a garnishing of two large, fleshy mussels.

Spectacular: The Nasi Goreng Kampung.

That, coupled with more toppings of fried anchovies and pieces of prawns and squid hidden like treasures within the rice, makes this Asian favourite a winner with the regulars.

The perfect side dish to go with the rice is the seafood tom yum. Tiger prawns, fish, mussels and squid swim deliciously in this spicy soup. Another worthy mention is the claypot lo shee fun (needle noodles). This hearty and authentic dish which comes in a full-bodied gravy of black sauce is a simple blend of minced chicken, fish cake and seafood.

“Many of my guests have come back for the claypot loh shee fun. It is that good,” affirms Raymond.

The satay and the tempura prawns accompanied by a unique mayonnaise and wasabi dip are also worth trying. Ideal as light bites, there seems to be a trend among Opiumm regulars to have them side by side. While most diners pefer beer with the satay and tempura prawns, Raymond strongly recommends a personal favourite of his, a cocktail known as Illusion. Concocted from nips of vodka, coconut rum, melon-flavoured liqueur, Cointreau and pineapple juice, this emerald coloured drink has a soft character that envelops the palate in a comforting embrace.

But first impressions can be deceiving as many unsuspecting diners have been hard hit after a few rounds.

Opiumm is located at K-20-1, Jaya One, Section 13/6, Petaling Jaya, Selangor; 03-7960 0277. Operating hours: 6pm till late.

Published in The Star, Sunday 23, August 2009.