You Le Yuen

April 2014

Housed in what was a dilapidated and vacant two-storey shophouse in the heritage zone of George Town, You Le Yuen, after around three years of renovation, is now a beautiful four-suite boutique bed and breakfast decorated with wood, old style furniture collected over a few years – some of which are restored pieces.

What’s nice here is a chance to experience gracious style within an old building made new complete with modern amenities such as wifi, ensuite modern bathrooms, air-conditioning, satellite television, queen-sized bed and in-room safe deposit box. There’s a comfortable seating area for each suite and two faces the indoor courtyard. Three of the four suites are duplex-style.

All suites are located on the second floor of the house and downstairs is where you’ll find a spacious dining and living areas sun-lit in the daytime by the indoor courtyard. While these suites are available for individual stay, you’re also able to book the whole-house for RM2,500 per night that is a more comfortable arrangement for two to three small families with children or four couples.


North Studio Suite

Now, for those who are not night-stay guests here, you can still enjoy its welcoming ambience through a meal. You Le Yuen has a pop-up private kitchen that serves intimate meals of contemporary Indian cuisine. Imagine good company, a lovely surrounding, innovative dishes emitting terrific flavours and stimulating conversation in a private setting. Really, you can’t go wrong!

All they need is a one to two-day notice and you choose between a meal of RM49 per person to RM79, depending on the menu of the day. The food served here is prepared by their in-house cook Narish and has a touch of authentic and elegant flavours which match the gracious style and host of the hotel Leong See Kit, plus its restored, retro furniture.

For example, we tasted their meal consisting of a unique, refreshing, lightly tangy and spiced with mustard seed chilled spiced mango soup, toasty gobi roti pratha that was sublime when dipped into the refined smoked chicken masala as it was with Narish’s special mutton curry that has a delicate spicy ending and a lovely mouthful of aloo gobi.

Although, what was truly tasty was the red duck curry with pea aubergines. Tender beyond words, there’s a nice balance of spices that eliminate the duck’s gamey flavour. In fact, all of Narish’s dishes seem to balance spicy and lightly creamy in a most elegant manner. Another innovative yet comforting dish is his fleshy mussels steeping in coconut and lemon grass soup. There’s a light touch of familiarity as well as a modern twist to it that’s quite satisfying.


Curry with gobi-stuffed pratha and rice

There are wines and beers available here too. Their house white or red is from RM73 per bottle or RM15 per glass but there are choices of Chillean, South African, French and New Zealand wines available too from RM98 with a bottle of moscato at RM128. Should you choose to bring your own, cockage is RM20 per bottle.

Each meal, of course, ends with something sweet. Ours is an uncomplicated bowl of vanilla ice cream drizzled with pungent-sweet dark palm sugar and slices of sweet jackfruit. No complaints, there! It was simply the perfect punctuation to one of the most memorable meals we’ve consumed on the island. Su Aziz