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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