We tried the seasonal menu at Fifth Palate (no longer available) as well as another dish from their ordinary menu and were impressed enough to recommend this place as a go-to cafe destination. For food, at least! And particularly if you’re in the area.

In today’s review, we look at a number of limited-time-only dishes from Fifth Palate that are no longer available…and why Fifth Palate still warrants a visit despite our very much out-of-date words.

During 18 August to 18 September 2017, Fifth Palate launched its limited-time Merdeka Specials. Attentive readers will note that this time period has long passed. We are in October’s realm now – or rather, we are close to November now. But we are still contractually obligated to deliver our unbiased thoughts on the meal, regardless of whether said meal is still available at good ol Fifth Palate. (Editor’s note: can someone check this please is this how it works). And so we begin our time travelling journey with the MALAYSIAN BREAKFAST (RM 25).

Soooo this is a nasi lemak, right? Yes and no. The marketing material reads “Pandan infused coconut rice with pork rendang, fried squid, papadum, sambal and condiments“. The palate reads a fascinating little twist and shout on our national dish. We dig in very, very quickly indeed. Half the plate is gone before we consciously make an attempt to slow down, isolate and identify individual ingredients, and write out notes beyond just “Damn” and “Good“.

First: the pandan-infused coconut rice. It’s very, very fragrant. Hover the spoon below the nose and the laces of pandan immediately waft in. The scent of pandan is particular, unique, a fragrance caught in between basmati rice and banana leaf and freshly cut grass. It’s a distinct scent. It’s a scent that brings to mind a Malaysian childhood.

But back to the rice – the first surprise is that it isn’t what you’d expect from nasi lemak. It’s sticky without being mushy. It’s almost like pulut, texture-wise, which strangely turns out to be a very good thing indeed. Because lord is it tasty. And then there’s the sambal. The first note is a strong sweetness which immediately horrifies us. Could this be Village Park all over again?

Not quite, friends, not quite. The note of sweetness quickly deepens and darkens in the mouth, then morphs into a pleasant heat coating the back of the throat. It’s not an oppressive spiciness that blots out all other tastes and sensations. Instead, it’s a warmth that lays down the picnic blanket for the rest of the plate, and we happily oblige. In goes the pork rendang, tender as anything. It’s large and chunky but a quick chomp shreds through the willing flesh. Taste-wise, it’s perhaps not quite as punchy as we would want our quintessential rendang to be. It’s a bit of a muddled, muted taste. In go the papadum crackers, still crispy and crunchy, with splotches of oil all over. In goes the sotong, which is the first disappointment. It’s overloaded on the batter outside and disappointingly rubbery inside. Squid is a tough dish to pull off, and Fifth Palate falls short on this account like many others.

On an overall basis, this was a highly enjoyable plate though. It tastes like a sort of amalgamation of lemang and nasi lemak, and strangely enough it works! Now to wait for the Merdeka month of 2018 for this dish to roll out once more.

But that’s not all there was to the MALAYSIAN BREAKFAST. This is Malaysia, after all. We don’t stop at the point of obesity. The feeding never ends. And as such when we ordered the pandan lemak, we also received a complementary gula melaka teh tarik.

Yes, we know it sounds like a terribly overly-sweet idea. That’s what we thought when seeing it on the menu. That’s what we thought while waiting for it to reach. And that’s what we thought up to the point we brought it to our lips and took a few sips.

Because damn this gula melaka teh tarik is good.

It’s like a milky, frothy, creamy teh tarik. The gula melaka gives it a very interesting Xanthan gum-like effect, thickening the tea almost to a latte texture. You can just about chew on it. The mouthfeel is that thick. And it’s really not overly sweet, somehow! The body of the tea still manages to slice through the sugar, and there’s that lovely caramelized-sort-of-taste you get from gula melaka.

But, you ask, what about their non-holiday menu?

Well, there’s this, for starters. Or for a lazy Sunday brunch where you need something to jolt you out of the haze of last night’s alcohol. Yes, folks, it’s the Peruvian Seafood Pasta (RM26). The sauce is bright, zesty and zingy. It’s quite a curious little sauce, actually. There’s the tingling sensation of green chili (a bit like the one from Real Sambal) but without any of the heat, if that makes sense. It’s a bit like…essence of chili? It’s certainly not very spicy. We’re told the inspiration for it is from a small place in Ipoh that the founders visited and fell in love with.

Also, seafood. There are some nice salmon bits in here – proper small chunks of salmon/trout too, not the shredded canned tuna some places opt for. I like it. The squid is very rubbery though. YMMV. Squid-y failings aside, this is a pretty good bet for pasta if you’re in the area.

And they have cold pressed juices too (of course). We sampled the CLEANSE: pineapple, spinach, green apple, mint and lemon. It does feel nice and clean. Which isn’t to say I felt particularly cleansed afterwards, but take what you can get, right? The flavours were bright and bold but did get a bit mushed up together which made it hard to isolate each note. It’s a healthy mush-up, at least.

And oh boy, we almost forgot the Appam Eggettes. These were on the Malaysian Breakfast special menu and it had me scratching my head a bit. It felt structurally precarious, on the verge of collapsing like melted steel beams. It could be the way we cautiously picked at it, gingerly holding the base and taking nibbles while keeping both eyes fixed at all times. Perhaps the proper way was to grab it with conviction, lift it firmly into the air like a burrito, and go to town.

Flavour-wise, it was pretty decent. There was a satisfyingly sturdy exterior outside, shielding the pleasantly fluffy pandan innards. It didn’t get too mushy and soggy inside either. There was some mild (very mild) coconut ice cream, and some corn and desiccated coconut for texture. Nothing particularly spectacular but it looked good!

We also note that the Drunken Frenchman is apparently a hit here and it bears more than a few shades of resemblance with Standing Theory’s BBC: there’s french toast, caramelized banana, bacon (pork bacon ie real bacon), Guinness reduction and in-house peanut butter.

In summation:

Some pretty decent grub…though I suppose it can be notched up to be considered great for the area. It’s slightly off the beaten track but there looks to be a solid lunch crowd on weekends. Worth the visit especially if you’re in the area. May even become your regular neighbourhood haunt, who knows? We all could do with a home-base cafe.

Fifth Palate is located at Block D-G-1, Encorp Strand Garden Office, Kota Damansara. They’re open from 8.30am to 5pm and are closed on Wednesdays. Give them a call at 03-6144 0055. Ask them to bring back the Malaysian breakfast. 

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Ziffy pairs a pun-packed menu with dishes of varying levels of promise, all plated quite prettily. It’s another in the long line of Klang Valley’s ongoing cafe offerings and may well merit a visit if you’re in the area. We didn’t have anything spectacular during our visit but we do hope they continue working on the dishes.

Kota Damansara has come a long way from being a forest reserve. Now a melting pot for various gastronomic points of interest, in recent times it’s undergone a (dare I say gentrification) shift towards more than just local eateries. A short drive (misnomer, the traffic here is something else) through the lanes will showcase the sheer variety of food on display. Dim sum delights, Korean barbecue, modern takes on wantan mee, Melbourne brunch inspired cafes and this Foodgazer’s go-to Penang Nasi Kandar are just a few of the choice ingredients floating to the top of this stew of good eats.

Amidst all the noise is Ziffy, situated inside Sunway Nexis. The facade with all its geometric blocks lends a certain order to the chaos of Kota Damansara and walking in, the feeling of comfort further sinks in. Well-lit, the cafe is modern indeed with wood and metal co-existing in a sort of compromise between the two elements. Up the stairs sits a loft area which lends an air of privacy to caffeine consumers and brunch munchers alike. A little alcove sits at the back, where plans for live music nights are soon to take shape.

The brain-child of a Melbourne University alumni, Ziffy aims to bring to Kota Damansara all the cafe chic from the owner’s student days. Armed with 2 ex-Jibby & Co. cooks, the menu is a puntastic and varied range of brunchy food with local twists. If you’re taco-ing about Mexico, there are tacos and quesadillas. Their salad section is Inspiralized by many eclectic influences ranging from sensual Prawn Stars to the noble Roman Julius Caesar.

We start with some drinks. The Longan Mojito (RM13) is a sweet, light refreshing concoction that teases the palate with that green hit of lime with some longan skewers to go with it. Refreshing, although the longan doesn’t really shine through. Better is the Boss Mojito (RM13), a very interesting mixological concoction of coffee with shots of lime and mint. The combination is surprisingly balanced with the subtle nuances of the coffee being brought out by the lime, tempering the darker shades of the roast.

A trio arrives to save the Foodgaes from their incessant hunger pangs. Not quite Alexandre Dumas, Ziffy’s bao triple threat consists of 2 birds and their fishy friend, chivalrously defending your right to be free from hunger. First up to the tasting plate is the Duck, glazed with teriyaki sauce and sandwiched in between that fluffy bao. The texture of the meat here is quacking, moist and soft while retaining a good bite. Bound to please the local crowd with the sweet and salty interplay. Up next is Chicken, proudly Malaysian with its sweet sambal chili dressing. While the chicken here is well-cooked like the duck, the sauce here falls on the wrong side of sweet and, if not for the absorbent bao, would almost be cloying. Picking up the slack is the Fish, with its crispy batter, flaky meat and a flourish of mayo showing that simplicity can win the day. The best of the bunch in our Gazerly opinion.

There’s something about Mari... nara. Ziffy’s rendition of this ever-popular seafood pasta takes the heat up a notch to match our tropical weather. Two Prawn Stars (hehe) join the flavour orgy, lying temptingly over a bed of spaghetti, each strand slick and wet with passion… actually, marinara sauce. Damn, this has some good heat actually. The Foodgazers are in disagreement. One contends that this indeed is a good sauce, the other is again let down by that tinge of sweetness that slightly offsets the delicate balancing act. As we all know, positioning is of paramount importance in the industry in which these two crustaceans perform in. Mussel-bound fans surround the pasta pedestal upon which their objects of desire lay so seductively, beseeching them to pay notice. The Gazers don’t care. We eat all of them. They’re fresh and tasty. Did we mention that the spice here kicks? We did? Good.

The Salted Egg Chick (RM20) is a revamped, spruced-up version of a kopitiam and taichow favourite. Pieces of chicken coated in that addictive salted egg goodness rest above a vegetable medley. Ziffy up the ante by using Basmathi rice in place of the usual short or long grain. They do it right, the rice retaining its bite and providing a medium of transport from plate to palate to stomach. Alas, while the salted egg coating hits the right buttons with its savoury flavour hammer, the chicken inside is slightly dry and not quite up to par. Green is good, however, as the vegetables pick up the slack with crispy, fresh flavours. The peppers crunch well and have a pleasing sweetness.

And so the Foodgazing is done. Ziffy Cafe has potential. The food and drink are all prettily presented in neat, Instagram-worthy packages. When the flavours align, the food is interesting and tasty. Perhaps a bit more work on balancing the flavour profiles is needed. It’s a comfortable spot, as you can see from Yummy Yenchie above, planning his next bout of fat-assery. It’s pretty. There will be live music soon. They offer set lunches too. So! If ever you’re in Sunway Nexis and in search of a quiet spot for some reading, productive thinking or just to laze around away from the humidity, go to Ziffy. See you in a jiffy.

Ziffy Cafe

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Can a kiosk transcend its form? Can it make itself more than just a kiosk, can it devote itself to an ideal, and become something else entirely? I dunno. Maybe. It’s trying to be a neighbourhood eatery in the middle of a mall. But in the capitalistic hell of a KL mall, what is the neighbourhood in question? And more specifically – given that there are some pretty tiny malls out there in actual tiny neighbourhoods – what neighbourhood does Nu Sentral serve? It’s a center of criss-crossing public transport. There aren’t really any houses in the visible vicinity. This is a neighbourhood of hungry office workers.

In any case, we sampled the food at Quartet Nu Sentral at their bequest, and sat on this review for ages. Here’s what we thought of it.

The above photo is a cold brew raspberry latte. It’s peculiar. The uninitiated palate struggles initially to situate the contrasting flavours on the same plane. It strikes one as the sort of vaguely unnecessary flourish done in the name of experimentation by inebriated, moneyed minds. The sort that laugh at the serfdom and subject them to stranger things while simultaneously mocking them for just not getting this intellectual pairing and how it’s a metaphor for the human condition – the milk stands for sustenance and the first elixir of life, the coffee is a stand-in for awakenings and enlightenment, the raspberry is a reference to the Raspberry Pi and its attempt to popularize cheaper technology to a wider audience previously blocked from access to the web at large due to, you know, money, and the combination stands for the encroaching expansion of gentrification and how we move even further from the fundamental truths that constitute a human being and – well, the point is it’s a peculiar little latte.

Here’s a pulled beef sandwich. Upon dissection (digestion?), we discovered slow-cooked beefu, caramelized onions, and good old cheddar. No frills, no worries. Or some aphorism to that effect. The bread is good. It’s baked in-house at Quar Tet TTDI, we’re told, which is the home base to our Quar Tet NuSentral neighbourhood satellite station. There’s a nice crust on the bread. The crumb has a good lattice to it. Very lattice-y. Airy, in other words, and that’s air with a tinge of yeast. Vaguely. It’s there. Somewhere. I may have imagined it. I don’t have my notes on this place anymore. It’s from some time ago and I procrastinated and then dropped a water bottle on the notebook and now I no longer recall the initial impressions of the sandwich in particular and the place as a whole. I’m sorry. We don’t really “remember” anything, I’m told. Each attempt to recall distorts the memory itself, and at some point you can no longer tell if you’re recalling the recollection or the thing in itself.

Mild mustard, tender strands of beef, and cheese that’s nothing much to shout about but this sammie sammie wham bam really surprised us. Great for the price in my opinion. Granted, I can’t remember the price (thank you, alcohol) but if there’s ONE thing I can remember, it’s value. They don’t call us the Valuegazers for nothing!

This is a grilled chicken sandwich. It doesn’t look like much from outside. Inside:

I. Sundried tomatoes that taste like normal tomatoes
II. Cheddar cheese that doesn’t really taste like it’s there
III. Grilled chicken that doesn’t really taste like it’s there
IV. In-house pesto that’s very, very fragrant with a punchy smell to it

The pesto carries it to the finishing line. It’s enough to elevate the sammich to a much better version of what you’d get at London Sandwich Co, that joint that used to serve great value sandwiches once upon a time. It’s really quite a surprising pesto – one imagines pairing it with better quality ingredients all around would lead to a very good sandwich indeed. It’s a pesto even a shortcake could love. Or like at least. In any case, we enjoyed it a fair bit.

In general, these are good sandwiches though I would have loved a good craft / in-house hot sauce with them. Imagine Blair’s Ultra Death on these suckers. Or some caramel sticky spiciness from BLiS. I’m still waiting for hot sauce to be the next trend that Malaysians ride on. Would be worth the hype train if I can get my hands on those beauties once again.

Before our alcohol-drenched minds forget, there’s also coffee on offer. Regular espresso-based wholesome stuff without the pairing of raspberries and other strange bedfellows. It’s a very dark roast, brewed very hot. It’s palatable. It’s certainly not the monstrosity that LOKL, for instance, deems fit for public consumption. If you need a quick caffeine fix, there are worse ways than getting a long black here, I can tell you that.

All things considered, it’s quite a decent little kiosk, is Quar Tet NuSentral. It’s a humble little stall selling better-than-average food and coffee to go, typically manned by a single person (or maybe there’s two at times, we don’t really know). There’s something romantic about the solo kiosk, of course. We love the coffee-only one at Publika (Room 203). The popups Nowhereman Coffee and Outcast Coffee were legitimately some of our favourite places to get coffee before they shut down. We’re romantics! We’re sorry. Go and try Quar Tet if you’re passing by.

Quar Tet NuSentral

Inside NuSentral mall. Opposite 4 Fingers. At that bridge connecting NuSentral to KL Sentral.

Phone: +603-2276-0360

Hours: 8am-10pm

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First of all though, it’s probably pertinent to mention that Battery Acid Club has evolved quite a bit since their debut late-2014. Their lofty initial goals remain largely unchanged (to foster a space for the exchange of ideas between designers and other creatives, all amidst some good food and even better coffee) but much like the functional aspect of design itself, they’ve tweaked the means to the end along the way. The impressive personal library has given way to the no-less-impressive barbershop The Oven Cuttery, with Kevin running month-long waitlists. The menu has seen tweaks and re-jiggling. The no-WIFI rule has been removed to reconnect patrons to the Cloud.

Despite that, some things – the most important things – remain the same. The coffee is stellar (okay fine, this was our first time trying the coffee but we’ve always been told by moderately-reliable sources that the coffee has been good). The food – well, we’ll get to that in a bit. And their ever-popular events continue to run, with the stationery event coming up on 8-9 July.

What’s that? Less talking, more foodguzzling? Ever ready to oblige.

The miso espresso chicken or MEC (RM 22, with an option to + RM 6 for a long black) is quite a dish. It’s visually striking, especially atop their gorgeous plates. It draws the mind and the limited pokedex of the foodgazer to the sublime charred chicken that Littlepeople serves up. Does this chicken dish match the dizzying heights of that purple-mash plate? Not quite, but it stands out enough to be its own beast. Yalar, both also chicken leg, but they taste different wan.

Mr. MEC comes to us with a pretty little coat of its namesake miso espresso caramelised into its crispy skin. Those dots of dark-green around the plate rim? Seaweed mulch. And yes, that’s a nest of alfafa sprouts. And some sweet potatoes to round out the offering.

The clucky chicken leg is always a tricky one to cook. MEC stops just shy of hitting the gold standard with fairly juicy meat being let down by a not-quite-crispy enough skin. We are, of course, to an extent needlessly nitpicking here. This is still one of the stronger chicken dishes out there – especially considering the interesting little dress it has on. It’s a curious marinade that hints at a referential amalgamation of miso cod and a traditional roasted chicken. The espresso gets lost somewhere in between the other prominent flavours though. This Foodgazer also couldn’t help but wonder what this would taste like with the heavenly hickory goodness of My Toast N Roast’s smoked chicken. The flesh is weak to idol thoughts.

Oh, and the seaweed mulch was a tasty little accompaniment. The alfafa I could do without, though that may just be down to personal bias. The alfafa bed has always struck me as a useless accompaniment when some shrubbery is needed, second only in pointless overuse to the default-lettuce-salad. Plant Cartridge‘s arugula has a mean peppery bite to it that would likely be perfect in this dish, though I imagine it would cost a pretty penny. Maybe once the Foodgazers brush off the Half-Baked Ideas book and get started on a farm?

< COFFEE INTERMISSION >

The long black here jolts the eternally-tired synapses, but in a rather pleasurable way. It’s comforting, like getting bespoke shearling gloves or slipping into moleskin pants for the first time. The board says it’s a blend of beans from Columbia and El Salvador. The uncouth, unpolished tongue of the Foodgazer says it’s pretty damn delicious – albeit with more expletives before our editor washed through this copy. It comes at a close-to-perfect drinking temperature. This is good. It also immediately reminds me of the coffee I had at LOKL which, other than being horrendous to the point of being offensive, came at a couple of degrees above burnt-to-shit.

Anyway, this is proper coffee. This beauty has a faintly oily mouthfeel, with just enough heft in the body without being chewy. There’s also the curious property of tasting like a rich, dark roast with the oppressive shadows and darkness being reduced and recovered during post-processing. Strange. But tasty.

And now back to regular programming.

Sweet Potato Fritters (RM 18, same coffee deal thingamajig as before) pictured above. The fritters are perfectly crunchy with enough heft and bite for it to be substantial and not just, well, a crisp. My mouth approves. This rivals some of Fahrenheit 600’s offerings, which has been one of the most surprising breakfast finds recently. I would link to our post on Fahrenheit if not for the fact that we’ve been naughty, lazy, procrastinating boys and have yet to complete it. I did finish this plate of fritters though, because I’ll be damned if it isn’t one of the better breakfast plates around.

We’re told that’s smoked chicken ham inside, but it sure does taste like turkey. Strange inversion of the usual “it tastes like chicken”. Also interesting to note is the poached egg – we’re pretty much at the peak age of eggs in sous vide baths at the moment, and where a perfect one like this would have been cause for celebration a couple of years ago, it’s funny how blasé one becomes to it now. Maybe it’s because this one was verging on cold and could do with a bit of seasoning. Similar problems to the non-descript egg at Common Man’s Malaysian outpost.

The perfectly-ripe avocado gives the fritters a delicious fatty mortgage, and uhm everything else on there is decent as well, but that sauce sure is something else! Our thoughts immediately jumped to a mayo-curry-kunyit blend. Swiss Ooi, part owner, gently navigated us back on course. Turns out it’s a mix of dijon mustard and curry spices in an almost-cliche West meets KL-avocado-eaters twist. Shades of Portofino, that. The mustard is more for texture, we feel, with the graininess giving it a fantastic texture.

As real life begins creeping back in, we quickly move on to the affogato. The kacang tumbuk affogato (RM 13). And what an affogato it is! Easily one of the best I’ve ever had, this is a potent little cup of deliciousness. It’s delightful. And all those other similar adjectives – feel free to apply them here as long as they’re not too superlative. We already established the coffee here is great. Now imagine pairing that with some pounded nuts (phrasing!) and good ol ice cream. Makes a grown man moan and just about forget the Great Beer Bar-y excesses of last night.

Battery Acid Club also features magazines for sale (usual suspects like Monocle and Kinfolk feature prominently) and as a curious collection of clothing. Curious because the vintage Americana appears initially at odds with the modern stylings of the space – one would expect In Aisce a bit more than LL Bean, for instance. In a strange way, it sort of works though. The florals are a substitute for the live specimens they represent, and they add a splash of subdued, desaturated colours right at the entrance. And what says post-modernism quite like the intentional rejection of trends? A number of things, one would assume, but regardless the re-purposing of “vintage” wear is still going strong and Battery Acid Club taps sagaciously into the zeitgeist.

And that’s really the story of Battery Acid Club, at the end of the day. Their owners are shrewd operators who know just when to make measured iterations to build on a very impressive foundation. It makes it a curious little spot to review, but a very rewarding one to visit. And re-visit, once the stationery event lands shortly. And re-re-revisit after, just for some of that coffee. And some grub too, based on the solid primers we had. And…well. You get the drift. We’ll let you know when we’re here again of course. Just check our Instagram stories.

Battery Acid Club.

Located in SS2. Waze it.

Phone: 03-7733 9682

Hours: Tue – Sun // 9am – 7pm

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J&D Espresso sits quietly at the top of Pavilion Elite and provides a decent post-shopping fuelling station with a generally alright menu – and one delightful pork burger.

What’s so elite about Pavilion Elite? Sure, you have COS (probably the best spot for basics at a relatively affordable price point though it’s just that slightly bit more expensive than other high street offerings to dissuade excessive impromptu splurges) but what else is there? The overwhelming majority of the occupants are the usual run-of-the-mill mall fillers. It’s like a strangely self-aware parody that doesn’t merit a wry, knowing laugh as much as a quizzical raise of the eyebrow. But hey, it does have this J&D Espresso branch right at the top, far away from the regular footfall of the hoi polloi. Kinda elite I guess?

We popped over recently to assess. And by we, we mean the Foodgazer team + the illustrious @euniceeunny.

One half of Foodgazer had already had an excellent caffeine dose at Artelier Coffee in Pavilion proper, so the remaining Foodgae took on a sole long black. Here is a photo of it:

With that out of the way, the team moved into the food-eating portion of the meal.

Most of the fare ranged from decent to good to pretty good to not-too-bad to the standout dish The Pork Burger. We can’t remember its actual name, but we’re pretty sure there’s only one porku burger on the menu. And what a burger it was!

Wondrously juicy and fatty, this was easily the highlight of the meal. Ah, Foodgae, I hear you crying out excitedly, you’ve messed up now! Surely only the most fresh-faced of food critics would place their highlight dish at the START of the review! To which I say, yeah okay, maybe. But I have a peculiar weakness for porcine pleasures and I’m already being rushed on this review so maybe I’ll just write what I remember the most first, okay? Okay.

The buns were fairly non-descript (my memory says they were light but not much else, and I don’t know what that means, so I’m assuming they were nothing particularly special). I have literally no recollection of the salad. But it’s still very much worth returning for this delicious burger. Some places take a pork patty and Ninja Joe it into a dry puck drenched with lots of goop on top. And that just doesn’t roll in our books. The juice should be inside the patty, not outside. Luckily J&D doesn’t miss this crucial point – good on them!

We also enjoyed the relatively frills-free pesto, pictured here. Decent texture on the pasta and decent body to the sauce. It’s good. Fully aware that this may come across as a wholly unenthusiastic account of the pesto but please bear in mind the context: many a Malaysian food outlet churns out an endless noodlage of awful pasta. It’s almost like the national pastime for eateries at this point. Kimchi on your limp overcooked spaghetti, sir? Or perhaps some carbonara home-made from cans of cream? The scope for scalping consumers with overpriced mediocrity is limitless (at least up to the point where they shut down). And so a slightly-above-average pesto like J&D’s deserves a measured degree of commendation from us.

Oh right. The oyster and spinach gratin. And the pizza. The pizza first:

This is a proper thin-crust pizza. Those more used to the thicker cardboard of Pizza Hut and its ilk may balk at this. And hey, there’s no shame in that! Everyone has their own preferences, right? You do you. Except FYI if this IS you, your opinion is wrong, unless you prefer Chicago deep dish pizza, which is another beast altogether, but it’s also a rare enough beast in Malaysia (for that matter, are there any joints here that do this properly?) to be an extremely unlikely preference.

Onward to the oyster and spinach gratin then, which just falls behind the pork burger in our copyrighted Foodrating scale. It’s a very respectable gratin which balances a hefty amount of cheesiness with a crisp baguette that stands up to the challenge. It’s a good gratin. We enjoyed it. It has oysters. And it’s fair to say we enjoyed most of the dishes, and the entire meal as a whole, which perhaps doesn’t happen as often as it should in our food expeditions.

J&D Espresso ultimately doesn’t serve award-winning, genre-defying food, but does it have to? Maybe that’s not its intention. And maybe, in a sort of Death of the Restaurant twist, it doesn’t matter what its intention was. We went in befuddled and perplexed after going through the winding escalators through un-elite stores, but left with the feeling that this was a very pleasant brunch place indeed. Plus it’s quite a strategic location for post-brunch activities, isn’t it? You can head over to the previously-mentioned Artelier for some excellent coffee, or over to Kronoz at Fahrenheit for some McBe-approved denim, or on to Isetan Lot 10 (review coming soon) for the tough choice between the beer bar (review coming soon) and the pillowy cheesecakes (review coming soon). We settled for touching the ridiculously cloud-like fluffy towels at Isetan. But the point is: options! The older you get, the more the path ahead narrows and options get choked off. Luckily, with J&D Espresso, you’ll always have those post-brunch options available to you. Does that make sense? Am I done with the review? Will you be going to J&D? You should. That pork burger is good and the economy needs you to buy it and capitalism needs your constant supplication to consumerism to continue.

Oh, also, this place isn’t halal.

J&D Espresso, Pavilion Elite
LOT 7.105.00 Pavilion Elite
168, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Bukit Bintang,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
+6 03 2110 5918
www.jnd.com.my

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Littlepeople serves handmade pasta and rice bowls in the serene setting of the corner lot at Avantas Residences along Old Klang Road. It’s worth a trip to.

By the time you read this, Littlepeople will have changed substantially – even as we write these words, they’ve revamped their interiors and their menu. Which I suppose says something about the laggardly pace of our blog postings, contrasted with the never-ending waves of new eateries in Malaysia and their eagerness to constantly refresh their offerings.

To be fair, Foodgazer doesn’t exist to chronicle the latest spots before they soft launch. Our raison d’blog is slightly different. And we would like to think that this piece stands alone, even divorced as it is from the current updated guise of Littlepeople. After all, restaurants and cafes change. And sometimes, eventually, they close down (tip of the hat to the recently demised stalwart of the third wave, Standing Theory). But as we write this in the first half of 2017 and think back to our visit to Littlepeople, we hope that final chapter stays a long, long way off for this joint, and we additionally hope that this piece captures how we felt about our special little visit to Littlepeople.

We started with a Kenya AA filter.

The incredible smell punches you in the nose first. There’s nothing meek about it. It hits with a roundhouse and it’s a telegraphed roundhouse – the first few notes trickle in before you bring your nose closer for a proper sniff – but it’s an enjoyable one, if that makes sense. You feel it connect and slam against you, jerk your head back to roll with the punch, then bring your nose back down for another go. It’s like living out an episode of Being Cheryl Thunt. Then you sip it and it quickly, effortlessly blooms in the mouth with a swirling, earthy depth. It caresses the mouth and coats it. And then, ever so slowly, it mellows into an almost candied body.

Once it cools down in the air conditioned climate of the cafe, the initial head gives way to an even brighter, more acidic snap. A very enjoyable (and promising) filter to start the night. And we know from previous individual staff visits that Littlepeople serves some very good brews.

Our meal started with the mushroom soup. The mushroom soup was decent. Most people have a particular preference for soup – some like chunky dinner soups, and some prefer the light caress of the chilled, watery afternoon soup. As far as soups go, this was a soup.

Then the proper food started arriving and our Foodgazer team descended on it with a flurry of limbs and chomping teeth. We get paid criminal wages at Foodgazer and we subsist largely on the Foodgazer sponsored meals and the kindness of strangers. In fact, hint hint our Sponsor-A-Foodgazer program is about to launch in a few weeks’ time and will hopefully bring us some much-needed eatery funds. Which is all a roundabout way of saying that we went in with an appetite appropriate for our starved and deprived stomachs.

Thankfully, Littlepeople delivered a great deal better than Pos Malaysia.

First, we fell rabidly on the polenta. The cornmeal was airy and fluffy inside, but with a slight crispiness around the edges. I could personally have done with a richer, more substantial corn taste, but it’s hard to knock a good polenta. Anyway, we are very much corn-based addicts now after (1) Sean Brock on Mind of a Chef, and (2) the corn-based empanadas at Sebastian‘s. In any case, the polenta paired magnificently with the feta cheese and tangy sauce.

There is an old Italian saying that good corn, like a good lady, must always be followed closely by a good bolognese. And so it was that we were served with the conchiglie bolognese, a curiously satisfying plate of pasta. Little-known Foodgazer fact: Bolognese was first invented by Robert Johnson, that sprightly lad who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for some groovy delta blues riffs and an even groovier meat sauce. This particular bolognese we had was spoon-coating, chunky and substantial, which some people say is the only way bolognese should be served. We are some people.

This was a proper bolognese, which is a step above a good bolognese and a brisk running jump above the average Malaysian bolognese. It is (was? how do we use tenses in a food review?) a rich, umami-laden, unapologetically meaty sauce with the slightest lacing of tartness around the edges. What a deeply pleasing dish. As good as ordering an Uber and having it arrive immediately. Although the shells themselves were a wee bit soft since we didn’t ask it to be done al dente. One wonders why the Malaysian palate is socially engineered for soft mushy carbs. Al dente or go home, we say!

Somewhere along the way, we also partook of an arabiata tagliatelle. It came with some squiggly wiggly squid that bounced (literally) between mediocre and rubbery. The prawns were similarly non-descript which always makes us wonder why people opt for mediocre prawns in dishes. Is it because they’re cheap? I remember surviving the 2nd and final year of uni in Canada on flash frozen prawns and instant noodles, so there’s that I guess. Anyway, the seafood accompaniments aside, this was actually a very delectable dish. The sauce has an initially mild taste to it that partially masks a sparky, spicy and ridiculously addictive note. The tagliatelle itself (handmade, we’re told) has a very peculiarly interesting texture to it too. Is it chewy? Not particularly. Is it a rough hand-pulled pan mee kind of shindig? Not really either. But I’ll be damned if it isn’t great in its own right. I have a particular weakness for handmade noodles and their rough-hewn, unpolished textures.

And that just about wraps up our food outing to Littlepeople. We had too few dishes. It ended too quickly. And we left wishing we had spent more time enjoying the time we had spent. So in a way, the entire experience resembled the path of the very own lives of us little people. And regardless of all the fine changes that they’ve been implementing lately, there’s something special about this trip that we hope we captured in the proverbial bottle of this Foodgazer look-back review. Here’s to many more special moments from Littlepeople.

Littlepeople’s IG page. They can be found over at Avantas Residences along Old Klang Road. At the time of writing, they are open Mon-Sun (closed on Tuesdays) 10 am-11pm.

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As at 22 Oct 2017, Chocha Foodstore is a mixed bag of a cafe. Some dishes were good the last time we tried them (especially the cincalok fried chicken and the cold brewed tea) but others lacked seasoning and spark…and the eye-watering prices added insult to the injury. There’s a neat little bar on top though (Botak Liquor Bar in its current iteration) and it’s one of the prettiest cafes in KL.

Chocha is a new resto-cafe-bar a couple of doors down from PS 150 and Merchant’s Lane that has quickly become one of my favourite places in KL (interior-wise). Here’s why.

I’m not a huge fan of tea. I get my caffeine fix from coffee. But a good tea brew still excites me in ways coffee just can’t – teas tend to span a much more diverse (and less subtle!) range of flavours. At Chocha, they serve everything from lapsang souchong (deliciously smoky with a deep, mellow body) to dong ding jin xuan (a fresh, fruity oolong) to a cold brew version of dong ding oolong. And they’re all fantastic. The tea is reason enough to visit this beautiful eatery that sits in a restored, reclaimed former brothel. There are herbs and plants everywhere, high ceilings, bare brick walls, the whole works. It’s a gorgeous, contemplative place well matched by the equally slow pace of tea-drinking. Relative to coffee, that is.

The food itself is a bit of a toss-up at the moment. While they’re tweaking the menu and getting the kitchen in gear (for August, they’ll be closing at 6pm instead of 9pm), some of the dishes don’t quite hit the mark. Case in point, the “Chinese pesto flat noodle” below:

It sounds delicious on the menu. Housemade noodle, ulam pesto (with ulam partially picked from the garden), charred capsicum, semi-dried tomato, peanut, sesame seed. Shades of Sitka, eh?

Taste-wise though, it doesn’t quite hit the mark. It’s hard to make out the pesto at all, the capsicums are soggy and wilted instead of crisp and charred, and the peanuts and sesame seed compound a very, very dry dish. Without the tea and water at the table, it would’ve been pretty hard to get this entire plate down.

The base of the dish, the housemade noodles themselves, are good. They’re promising. And Chocha‘s kitchen clearly knows that, since they’ve spun it out into 3 of the 5 main dishes on the menu. It’s pan mee with a satisfying bite, a rough tumbled sheen to an already rough hawker food that has polished itself down through the years to the point where the typical hawker store dishes out factory-rolled noodles while the new Chocha labours away in the methods of old. But that’s part of the shtick, isn’t it? This is locavorism and Pollan homecooking and the narrative of conscious consumerism, hand-pulled and instafiltered through 20-something influencers to 20-something upper middle class Malaysians.

Side-rant aside, it’s a pity that Chocha have yet to do something more interesting with what they have. The ulam pesto tasted pretty great too…the little of it that I managed to taste at all. It’s ultimately a plate that left me wishing they spent a bit more time on fine-tuning it, especially given the price (RM20).

The aglio olio with roast duck breast fared slightly better, with a rather tasty spiced duck confit pared with garlic confit, thai basil and lemongrass. Unfortunately, the last 3 ingredients were again almost entirely missing from the taste profile. Although it did remind me to oven-roast some garlic for my pasta next time.

Oh, and the duck was alright. But do you know Ah Bong’s Italian in Singapore? Yeah, yeah, I’ll write about it next time – all you need to know for now is they serve stunning food for cheap and their duck confit is sublime.

Back to Chocha though, it’s not all doom and gloom. Their Cincalok fried chicken with summer salsa is as advertised. The salsa is alright. The house tomato chutney is incredible. And the chicken itself is even better.

Druggists Beer Bar in Singapore serves a delectable Har Cheong Gai (prawn paste chicken) to go with their top-tier beer. Chocha‘s Cincalok fried chicken comes across as Malaysia’s formidable equivalent. It’s a dish of pure, concentrated bliss. The chicken is juicy, succulent and has the subtle salty briny taste of cincalok deeply infused, the skin is satisfyingly crunchy and crispy without being overly battered, and that homemade tomato chutney brings it to another level. We can only hope that the upcoming bar dishes out some top notch craft beers to go with this beauty (though we hear it may be a wine bar).

In short, go for the fried chicken and the tea. They’re some of the best in town. And hey, maybe the rest of the dishes will get better as they tweak the recipes. We’re certainly going to keep trying until they do. Also, who’s we? I’m alone as fuck ayyy lmaooo

KL isn’t exactly the prettiest of cities nowadays. Chocha and their ilk are doing their best to slowly change that. Give them a helping hand.

Chocha Foodstore

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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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