Upperhouse serves, amongst other things, some very prettily plated desserts. We dissect their artistic merit and proffer suggested pairings with other works of art.

Miles Davis and Coltrane trade lines on Bye Bye Blackbird. Not over the speakers at Upperhouse, mind you (it’s more of a Top of the Pops vibe there), but over mine at home as I type this review. I’m in a pensive mood. The sugar has long dissolved away into my blood stream, or whatever it is desserts do once they enter my fat-laden sludgepile of a body. I stare at my notes (Uniball Signo DX 0.38, brown, on a Mossery mini notebook). They’re not much help. They’re concrete words, lines on gridless paper, expressions translating the experience from the realm of ideas to the structured land of the living. But that’s not quite sufficient to accurately encapsulate our time at Upperhouse.

Upperhouse is, we quickly came to realize, a parlour of post-painterly abstraction with desserts as the medium of choice. Here, the shortcake is deconstructed into the ideas and preconception surrounding the notion of a shortcake – and reconstructed to challenge the modern viewer (or, in this case, eater). And indeed each person comes to the plate with their own worldview-crafted lens through which they view the dessert, and leaves with a unique impression and a lighter wallet.

It’s reflected in their interiors too. The decor seems scattershot at first glance, a potpourri of influences and child-friendly nooks and Wesselmann without the male gaze. Peer closer, work that noggin harder, and you can just about see a net of connections in the metaphorical madness. It is what you bring to it, and what you bring from it afterwards. Also, it’s very baby-friendly.

We started with some liquid nourishment.

First order of business: kombucha. The green tea unadulterated kombucha to start with. The first sip of a kombucha is always the most interesting one, before your palate acclimatises to the batch at hand. This one has a strong head of vinegar, a sort of general fizziness around the body, and the slight trace of tea around the end. More zippy soda than sparky fermentation. Also, kombucha always makes me think of that line from Amanda Chong’s Professions: “I imagined our intestines lighting up with neon gardens // bouquets of cells watered by milky elixir beginning an interminable dance, spinning into trillions.”

The passionfruit and mint kombucha is a more noteworthy entry. The vinegar is offset by the mint and the passionfruit rounds out the body with a sweetness that is generally welcome though may be overwhelming for some. To the desserts then.

APPLE

Foodgae’s suggested pairings: Xiu Xiu – Plays the Music of Twin Peaks; Seamus Heaney – North

If reconstruction is the new black and Fast Good is the new reconstruction, then maybe the humble apple deserves its time in the limelight of re-imagination too. Here we have hazelnut, chrysanthemum, vanilla and an apple celery sorbet at the centre. The sorbet is more resistive and crumbly than smooth, more like the pulp or the essence of biting into a fleshy apple and around it are the thin slices accentuating the illusion, and the nuts giving it a very, very necessary weight.

And after all, what makes an apple an apple? Is it the apple itself or the sensation and belief that one is indeed eating an apple? APPLE suggests it’s the latter. These are RM18 of non-apple elements thrown together to reference – subtly or otherwise – the mouthfeel and the texture and the smell and the feel of an apple, and create the symbol of an apple from without. Does it work? Quite.

CARROT

Foodgae’s suggested pairings: The Wooden Wolf – 14 ballads Op. 1; Deborah Levy – Hot Milk

Robust (apologies to Veep). There is a solid heaviness to the plate – or, well, what’s on the plate itself. And that’s walnut, greek yoghurt, honeycomb, and burnt honey ice cream. It’s like taking a bit of a carrot cake, slapping on a good yoghurt parfait and finishing it off with some good (but a bit cloying in large portions) burnt honey ice cream. An accomplished dish. It whets our appetite for more. And more we get, followed first by the

STRAWBERRY

Foodgae’s suggested pairings: Meg Myers – Sorry; Lena Andersson – Wilful Disregard

Hi shortcake. Hi exploration and evisceration and amputation of said shortcake. Homemade strawberry sorbet. Refreshing. Cotton cake. Juxtaposition. Of many things, but particularly of the dried and fresh strawberries. The former is sour and resistive to the bite. The latter is sliced and small and tart. I say let’s get drinks and you ask where. Hazelnut. Again the hazelnut, but this time in a different context. It doesn’t ground as much as lift. Basil, across the plate, drawn in scraped lines, and you say you wonder where they’re from, these people standing around the bar, and I’m not sure. Watermelon. Wait, watermelon? It’s there. We return to the cotton cake because it sticks to the teeth. But that’s not the cotton cake. The cotton cake is fine. It’s tasty. That’s the stick of white, soft, candy-whatever. Is it necessary? It’s here. It’s here anyway. Vanilla? There are flowers. Maybe it’s not necessary, but maybe the point isn’t if it’s necessary. Maybe the shortcake isn’t necessary in the grand scheme of things, and maybe few things are, and maybe it depends what the grand scheme even is, but it isn’t as sweet as I thought it’d be and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

Mille-Feuille

Foodgae’s suggested pairings: Low – I Could Live in Hope; Raymond Carver – Beginners

There’s hay ice cream in here. Hay! Is it the Hruskova-style infusion? Perhaps. It looks similar. It tastes like tea, but it’s sweet, very sweet, a sweetness that soothes at first then grows and grows and threatens to envelop everything. On to the mille-feuille itself then. It’s 2015 again. We crunch into the puff pastry, the orange milk chocolate mousse, the pineapple and almonds. It’s the 18th century again. But prettier, so much prettier.

Textures of chocolates

Foodgae’s suggested pairings: La Dispute – Wildlife; A girl who loves Bojack, dive bars, and Ann Dem

Here comes the burnt honey ice cream again. You remember it, of course, from CARROT. It hasn’t changed. Your tongue is quickly reacquainted with it. This time the supporting cast has changed. Or rather the point of the plate has changed. This is, as the name suggests, about the varying textures of the 70% Callebaut dark chocolate, augmented by the toasted rice strewn across the dish. And boy, do they vary. And also, what a pretty plate. They all are, really. The plating at Upperhouse is exquisite.

LEMON

Foodgae’s suggested pairings: Aiko Shimada – Blue Marble; David Maine – Fallen

One of our favourite plates, this. RM22 gets you a reconstructed lemon tart with a refreshing palette of complementary and contrasting flavours. Take for instance the soothing nuttiness of the coconut ice cream against the tanginess of the raspberry, or the vanilla and lavender on the tart lemon curd. Tasty stuff. And likely one of the more accessible desserts on show, which perhaps says a bit about our unrefined Gazer-palates. Would be wonderful after a savoury meal – which, incidentally, Upperhouse has too. They’re not just about desserts here, as we’d soon see with our final item:

Afternoon Tea Set

Foodgae’s suggested pairings: Bottomless stomach; A Sunday afternoon to spare

First off, value. We’re all about value here, mainly due to our penniless wallets and sky-high personal debt. RM65 for the tea set is pretty great value for what you get: two tiers of their dessert selections, one tier of savoury food, and a first floor view of Telawi. It’s really a pretty handy sampler set of Upperhouse’s offerings (Mille-Feuille, macarons, chocolate pralines, dark chocolate cake, passionfruit trifle, raspberry banana bread, Cacao Ravioli, sandwiches and parmesan breadsticks) and it’s our suggested entry point into the world of Upperhouse. That’s quite a wide spread, after all. Or, if you scoff at the idea of toe-dipping, you could dive right in with some of their individual desserts. You do you. 

Opening hours

Tuesday – Friday: 11am – 10pm
Saturday & Sunday: 9am – 10pm
Closed on Monday

Address 27-A, Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur
Telephone +6011-28720083

The post Upperhouse @ Telawi, Bangsar (A Discussion on Abstraction) appeared first on Foodgazer.

Proof Pizza‘s quality varies wildly. It’s easy to see why. The wood-fire oven has in recent time seen rekindled attention as an object of interest in and of itself (inb4 the reductive attacks on hipsters and their influence), but actually managing to master its intricacies takes a great deal of experience. As far as we can tell, Proof Pizza is still working on building that experience.

Given the many different dining experiences we had, this review takes the form of a mini Choose-Your-Adventure. Pick either ONE, TWO, or THREE, and scroll down to the relevant sections to read them.

ONE

The Foodgazer intern checks in with us on a daily basis to alert us to the latest murmurs of the food scene. Proof Pizza, she says, is the real deal. The real deal, we ask? She nods and shows us some posts from Instagrammers. Pretty posts and the usual hyperbole. Put in on the list, I tell her. And get back to commenting on people’s stuff. I’ve already uploaded a new series of template comments.

As luck would have it, less than a week after Proof Pizza’s vaunted oven fires up for business, I find myself in front of their doors. Pizza, I tell the waiter. Hi sir, here’s our menu, he replies. I stroke my chin slowly. Pizza, I say.

The oven looks pretty cool. It’s the centrepiece, more or less, of the very pretty space. That’s one thing all these APW spots have going for them. They all look fantastic! From the paper dragon and puzzlingly drab food of Kaiju to the long-standing pioneer Pulp to 52 Barbers (bless McBe and his price-increasing soul – and note he pops up again in section THREE of this post), every single establishment absolutely nails their own signature look. Proof Pizza has the impressive oven. It’s a lot more impressive in real life than in this tiny thumbnail, trust me. It’s true! Trust me, I’m like a smart person. Also, they have a wine wall, pictured below. And this is a good thing, as people who enjoy wine tell me.

I try the pizza. The crust is dense, politely speaking. Impolitely speaking, it is doughy. It is limp and doughy. It is the angry enemy of a thin crust. And the opposite of a thin crust is not, as one may logically suppose, a Chicago deep dish pie, but rather a doughy one – dough that never quite escapes its primordial origins to become a proper crust. The crumb is semi-decent, the corniccione is verging on good, but the crust is the disappointing base that the pizza never quite recovers from. It’s like a soggified crust for a pizza that saw its way from the oven to my table without ever being popped in a cardboard box. The toppings are fine, but they can’t quite save this one. Life is too cruel and brief to suffer un-crust-worthy pizzas. Unless it’s free, of course.

Also, that base! That tomato base is a swamp on the crust. No wonder it’s doughy.

(The astute reader may notice that I refrain here from stating the exact pizza I took. There’s a simple reason for this: post-disappointment, I headed off to drown my pizza-sorrows in a deluge of beer and can no longer recall many details of that night)

I exit stage left, relay my befuddlement to expectant friends (kidding, I have none), and tell our intern to remove Proof Pizza from the list. To my surprise, the entire Foodgazer family would soon find our way back to Proof (see: TWO) and Proof would also subsequently find its way to us for a third encounter (see: THREE). While you are perfectly entitled to stop reading at this point, we strongly recommend you move on to our other two encounters below. They paint a fuller picture of the highs that Proof can reach and gave us some insight into the nourishing benefits of forgiveness and second chances.

TWO

Unlike the typical Chinese father, your friendly neighbourhood Foodgazers believe in second chances. And it’s with that magnanimity in mind that we end up back at Proof Pizza after that first outing marred by a shockingly watery tomato base and a chewy doughy base (See: ONE). This time, we brought along reinforcements in the form of seasoned veteran and experienced eater @thefoodtrooper.

First of all, though, quick shoutout to Becky for the immaculate service and for recommending the pizza polpa di granchio, one of four pies we enjoyed to varying degrees.

I know. There’s only 3 pies in the photo above. We devoured the 4th before it dawned on us that our job entails taking photographs of the food we eat.

We began proceedings with the La Americano (RM45 for a 12″):

This bad boy sounds delicious on paper: hickory-smoked bacon (proper pork bacon!), broccoli, mozzarella, gorgonzola, and cherry tomatoes. Surely that’s a combination that can coast on the sheer deliciousness of its constituent ingredients! So proclaimed the naive Foodgazers. In practice, the rich creamy cheese thoroughly overwhelmed the bacon. Never mind the smokiness, we could barely taste the bacon in itself, the cured porky goodness coming up only in the smallest whispers and gasps of saltiness amidst the sloshing cheese.

At this point, it’s worth taking a very brief detour to talk about what some deem the pernicious nature of food criticism. After all, surely this is all just food and not particularly bad food either, the way we sometimes make it out to be? And behind that faceless grub are kitchens full of earnest cooks and behind that, well-meaning owners and such and such. We get that. And it’s important to note that we aren’t out to nitpick restaurants into non-existence. There are times we run into the sort of meandering chains that clearly couldn’t care less about the quality of food being sent out unless it very directly impacts their customer count (Sushi Zanmai and the like come to mind), and then there are times we find places that have the fundamentals and potential for an excellent kitchen but for any number of reasons aren’t quite at the level we suspect they can operate at. Proof Pizza very obviously falls into the latter category. And we nitpick because we’ve had better pizzas from them, we’ve had differing experiences when we visit, and because ultimately the last thing we need more of in KL’s food scene is complacent acceptance of mediocrity.

We know the La Americano can be better. By virtue of the time lapse between when we visited and the time of this posting, it’s entirely possible it’s already better. We sure hope that’s the case.

Onwards, then, to the Luganega pork sausage (RM 50 for 12″). It’s better. Marginally. The toppings (aforementioned sausage, cauliflower, egg, yoghurt, feta cheese) are thick, soppy and hearty but they threaten to blend into a mesh from which individual components are indecipherable. We would have preferred a slight citrusy or spicy element to lift the richness a tad. Most of all, though, the pizza is let down by the inconsistent dough. For it is here that the doughy dough of our first visit (see section ONE above) strikes again with a vengeance. The crust is uneven. It’s thin at spots. It’s thick and doughy at others. And sure, it’s sourdough but it lacks the exuberant bite and sour airiness of, say, Yin’s Sourdough Bakery in Penang.

Third time lucky: the Umbrian Black Truffle (RM53 for 12″) proved Proof Pizza’s mettle. It’s simple enough on the menu (mushrooms, black truffle paste and taleggio). When it finally pops off the paper and into the mouth, the Foodgazers are taken aback. In a good way, of course. The savouriness is complex, the saltiness is potent but just on the brink of being overwhelming, and the crust is – dare we say it – finally quite good! Sure, it lacks the previously mentioned bite and heft of other sourdough crusts, and it’s not the thin crispy sort some parties enjoy, but it’s hard to fault it too much. This time, we held back the lashing tongues and set them to work on the pizza. And yet the evening wasn’t quite over yet.

Did we save the best for last? This (un)humble Foodgazer certainly thinks so. The pizza polpa di granchio (RM53 for 12″) set up a grandstand finale with one of the tastiest pizzas we’ve had in KL. It’s not just a burst of flavours, it’s a collection of multiple bursts. There’s the striking sweetness from the crab claw meat, shining through brightly amidst the throaty base of the herbed pesto. There’s the mozzarrella and pecorino romano jousting for centre stage. There’s the zingy cleanliness granted by the lemon zest and cherry tomatoes. Excellent stuff. Great flavour profile, brilliant balance (finally!) and the crust didn’t let it down either. Well recommended if they consistently swirl it out as good as the time we tried it.

Oh, and of course there was some Inside Scoop ice cream to round out the night. The wooden spoons were a nice touch. We thought of heading over to Case Study two doors down for drinks but they were already in the transition to closing and becoming Watermark, if that’s what they’re called now. We do know some of the most promising bartenders from Case Study went over to Birch @ DC Mall.

If nothing else, it’s heartening to see a KL eatery that actually progresses and improves, especially one at this price point. The only similar place that comes to mind is KGB, with their increased patty and bun sizes, and immediate nixing of the faux-poutine. Proof Pizza is promising. And in a disjointed, emerging culinary landscape where consistency tends to only slip downstream (link to other post here), we are genuinely happy to find a place open to incorporating feedback and improving. Granted, it’s still early days for Proof Pizza (okay, not so early once you get around to reading this), but deep down under our gruffygazer exteriors, we’re optimists at heart. Make us proud, Proof.

THREE

We didn’t visit Proof Pizza a third time. Or, well, we haven’t yet. It’s not because we were disappointed in the food – we’re well aware of their ability to toss out some of the best pizzas in town on a good day. It’s more of a time constraint thing, really. Our Gazing obligations pull us to all sorts of new places around the good old Klang Valley and we seldom have time to revisit places at our own leisure. Unless, of course, it’s Great Beer Bar and we’re looking to knock back some craft beers – which has been happening a wallet-shocking number of times recently. Could we perhaps be alcoholics?

Anyway, we were at APW for a different reason. It was after our meal at J&D Espresso. We were over at APW for a haircut at 52 Barbers, run by a certain barber named McBe. And like Peter in The Book of Strange New Things, he took us in and preached to us words of wisdom. Words like “Enjoy life, bro” while dispensing whisky and classic haircuts amidst the delta blues in the background. These were different times, you understand, different, cheaper times. McBe, in his selvedge denim, snipped hair, snapped shots on his X-Pro 1, and after the hair was shed, turned with us to pizza. Or, more accurately, he bestowed upon us two pies from Proof.

And by god strike me down like the heathen husk I am if this wasn’t the best damn pizza we’ve had from Proof.

Not this one, mind you, which was pretty damn good.

Fair to say, even, that it rivalled the better pizzas of Round TWO (see section above).

But this is the bad boy who took home the metaphorical cake. Readers of section TWO will recognize it as the black umbian truffle.

And it had a great crust. A great crust! From Proof! Had they unlocked the secret after all? Who knows. The toppings didn’t want to be outshined. They were gorgeous. In fact, the entire thing was nothing short of sublime.

We huddled around, grabbed slice after slice, shoveled them into our greedy gobs, and were struck silent and dumb by the pulsating savoury pleasures of the truffle-flesh. And when we were done, we stumbled off in a pizza-daze and washed our hands and headed home and slept and woke the next morning with the taste gone from our mouths but never from our minds and months later I write this and think back to the good old days at 52 Barbers when a Malaysian living in Singapore, two gluttonous Gazers and a McBe found some measure of temporary contentment and peace in a few slices of pizza.

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The first resident of APW before APW became the weekend hotspot it now is. The coffee doesn’t match Chye Seng Huat Hardware but it’s still a pleasant little cafe to spend time at – if you can get a seat, that is!

22 Oct 2017 update: In its current form, Pulp drops down to the second tier of our upcoming Best Coffee in Town list.

First things first: PULP cafe is easily one of my favourite cafes in Malaysia. The coffee is consistently great, they sell loads of beans and equipment (although not always at the best prices), and it’s in a former paper-cutting space. It’s not quite as pretty as its Singaporean parent Chye Seng Huat Hardware, but one could argue that it’s a lot cozier. And cozy-factor aside, it’s hard to deny that PULP remains one of Malaysia’s best-looking cafes: Merchant’s Lane may have the old-Chinatown chic and VCR the welcome-to-the-third-wave cornerhouse sheen, but PULP cafe pares it down with bare-bones industrial elements incorporating the odd machinery or two from its former life.

With all that in mind, please note that the horrendous shots below are not reflective of PULP’s beauty.

Beautiful crema, perfect temperature for drinking immediately, ergonomic cup, delicious brew. On the other hand, it’s a rm10 long black. Such is the conundrum of PULP. Inevitably a portion of the expense goes towards the experience and not just the coffee or the labour, but it’s partly the experience that makes the coffee so enjoyable. It’s very much a “3rd wave” experience though. You don’t have the atmosphere of the neighbourhood coffee joint which I suppose isn’t so bad considering Malaysia never really had neighbourhood coffee joints in place.

Remember when I said they also sell beans and equipment? I got my Aeropress from PULP (while waiting for my upcoming Aeropress post, you can also get one at my online store for a good deal cheaper than most Malaysian outlets).

Naturally, PULP cafe also dabbles in more than just milk/water+espresso and filter single origins. Their cold brew is usually pretty solid, and the fairly new Nitro-infused coffee on tap is an interesting addition to the lineup.

One of the interesting things about coffee is it’s such a counter-productive interest to explore. With absolutely no prior experience in the roasted beans, a great cup of coffee will taste like a 9/10 to you. You can then pour in time, effort and money into exploring different brewing methods and bean localities but at the end of the day the greatest cup of coffee that you can now find will likely still taste like a 9/10 at most. On the other side of the spectrum, the burnt watered down swill that most places serve – and that once tasted pretty decent to you – will now seem absolutely disgusting. It’s not a very inclusive hobby.

And yet once you start smelling the freshly ground beans and taste just how different each of them are, it’s difficult to resist being hooked.

Is this a full review for Pulp? Of course not. That’s in the works.

PULP cafe’s FB page

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