Departure Lounge, Aman Suria

October 31st, 2009 • 16 comments General
Tags: American, breakfast, cafe

Another short quick post since the weekend is here ;)

Come Friday, my thoughts will be on weekend morning runs & gym sessions followed by my favorite, American style brekkie, a far cry from the 5 days week of 2 slices of bread and soya, gobbled down while navigating traffic.

My favourite is still The Pink Sage followed closely by Betty’s MidWest Kitchen and then The Departure Lounge.

Sadly though, the outlet at Aman Suria is re-locating to Uptown.
It won’t be as convenient anymore for me hence future visits are more likely to be limited as weekend treats.

But I’m hooked on their bagels & that made it worth the extra effort/drive.

Turkey Bacon Butty, RM7.90.

Two hearty large slices of bacon, tomato, lettuce with HP sauce and mayo.
The bagel is nicely chewy, hence the satisfaction of having it longer in my mouth as I slowly savour the softness and slight resistance of the dough before it disintegrates into nothingness. Hmmmmm……
Shit, I’m such a bread-whore!

The next round, I put the beef bacon to test.

Suffice to say that the bagel stayed consistent, and the beef bacon aint bad either. Not as juicy as the turkey’s which was more of the soft “ham” texture, this was more of the “dried” kind, yet not crisp.

Of course, for those who know me; a bagel like probably filled all of a 10% of my bottomless pit, especially if its daytime. Hence the next order.

Chicken Puebla, RM13.90.
Grilled chicken breast, roasted peppers, sauteed onions, cheese and salsa in tortilla.

Mistake, mistake, mistake. *smacks oneself on the head*

So, yeah, I got this thick slab of bland chicken breast with a scarce layer of sauce and cheese.
Heck, I take that back…what cheese??
By the way, are those tortillas?? Humrphh.. Of course not, it’s focaccia. So I had mexican salsa with mexican chips on I-don’t taste-no-rosemary-or any herb-for-that-matter Mediterranean bread. Plliithhh…..

The Breakfast Set is customizable, and priced accordingly of course. Pretty decent scrambled eggs and white sausages I would say.

But this outlet is just so comfy and peaceful. Parking’s a breeze and there aren’t many people competing with you for the WIFI bandwidth!
Sigh, that’s probably the reason why they are locating anyways.

STROOPWAFELS in Malaysia!!

October 29th, 2009 • 25 comments General
Tags: desserts, invited review, light bites

I first heard of “Stroopwafels” from wmw’s post and being a dessert-holic, as expected I got curious and did a little research on the internet.
Apparently the closest place to Malaysia for your stash of this diabetic-inducing, glucose – high snack is in Hollandse Club, Singapore.

Alas, my last trip to Singapore was somewhat rushed, and I didn’t manage to buy it then.
So that ended my short -term curiosity with Stroopwafels. Or so I thought.

Stroopwafels originated from Netherlands and each waffle is made up of two thin layers of batter with caramel like syrup filling in the middle.

The technique to eat them is to put one over a cup of steaming hot unsweetened coffee/tea so the gooey caramel within liquidize slightly from the heat whilst absorbing the fragrance from coffee steam.

My liaison with Stroopwafels was revived recently when I got to know Mandy, who enjoyed them so much that now she imports them in so that she could continue to indulge in them.
Not a fan of over-sweet stuffs, I didn’t buy a pack for my own consumption, but as close friend’s birthday pressie (& yea, I was hoping for a trial piece from b’day girl’s pack but I think she finished ‘em already!).

Then came a sudden invite from Mandy herself, for an Afternoon TÊte-À-TÊte, & a chance to appraise the other varieties that she had bought in as well.

So here I am at Coffee Ritual, in section 14 on a Saturday afternoon.
Relaxed, a cup of steaming hot green tea on the table.

We started with the below since I love digestives biscuits and the crumb does look as if they were digestives.
Due to its thicker crumb, it counters the sweetness better compared the rest that followed.

JUMBO – Caramel Syrup filled Cookies.

Koeken – with passion fruit, apricot & peach.
This provides a different aftertaste, as it is more marmalade – like, for the lack of a better word.
Good for those bored of plain ‘ole caramel syrup.

The Minis (25 pieces x 1.5inch rounds) – 1 Pkt at RM32.00, 3 Pkts at RM86.00.
This scores points in my books for it’s rich buttery aroma.
Sweet yes, but that’s Stroopwafels for you.

Kanjers, comes in individual packs of 3, 12 packs per box.
I liked this the least. It is akin eating a butter cake & then discovering that it is actually made with planta.
The caramel within is overwhelmingly fake – saccharine sweetness and the wafer itself lacks the buttery aroma that I expect of Stroopwafels.

BakkerJoop
The Original (10pcs x 3inch diameter rounds) – 1 roll at RM30.00, 3 Rolls at RM78.00.

This is the least “spiced“.. just sweet unadulterated caramel. Well balanced with the buttery wafer. To me this was the best of the lot. Not that I am a fan of stroopwafels.

Daelmans, with comes with the “prettiest” packaging. Great as a Christmas pressie right?

A cross in between Kanjers & BakkerJoop in terms of taste.
Ah well, I’m tired of describing so that will be my verdict!
(hey..its the same thing ok, imagine being asked to describe 5 butter cakes from 5 different bakers…how many different adjectives can i use???)

Generally, the caramel within is all melted and gooey after a short stint with the coffee/tea cup. Due to its thick caramel filling, the thin wafer didn’t remain crisp.
Somehow, I detected a bit of “spiced” aftertaste with each stroopwafel but I’m not sure if its just me.
But look at this, perhaps there was spice after all?

And yeah, we had this as well; Speculaas which are also known as spiced biscuits.
The moment Mandy said “spiced”, my immediate reaction was “It’s ok, no need to try“. ;p
Sorry, a personal preference really, I dislike biscuits with spices of any sort.

I am done with stroopwafels for now and for those of you who would like to buy or have been looking high and low for stroopwafels, Mandy’s contact is as below.
She will advise you on the pricing. The Stroopwafles are flown in using air freight as they have a short shelf life of 2 to 3 months in room temperature and up to 1 year in the freezer.

An Italian Evening of Food & Linguistics

October 26th, 2009 • 18 comments General
Tags: italian, KL events

Flaky apple tarts. I love these as the filling was not the jam-my & sticky kind, but purely stewed green apples; nicely moist and naturally sweet.

My favourite, the Tiramisu, though a bit lacking in the coffee liqueur department while the shortcrust apple pie (on the right) were alright.

Below: The amazing repertoire of Italian food.
Grilled Zucchini, eggplants, capsicum and mushrooms in Olive oil and Garlic, Baked Layered Eggplant with Mushrooms, gorgeous Tender Chunks of Lamb in Rosemary Sauce, Lasagna of Mushrooms & Eggplant and Ciabatta Pizzas.

And more….

Crumbed rice balls. ( is this French??)

Ravioli of chicken in Mushroom sauce.

And nothing beats delectable, juicy rawish red meat… Carpaccio of Beef with Tuna Dressing.
I think I polished off half the platter!

The feast, prepared by CIPOLLA Ristorante Pizzeria, Jalan Telawi 2, Bangsar, which under its umbrella runs ciccio in Changkat Bukit Bintang as well as the lesser – known CIAO Caffe Ristorante on Jalan Tun Razak, was indeed a feast, with extensive myriad of dishes and abundance in portions.

All for the 9th Week of the Italian Language in the World, 2009, jointly hosted by Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University Malaya and the Italian Embassy here in Kuala Lumpur.

The theme “The Italian between Science, Art and Technology“, takes place from 19th t0 25th Oct ’09, with exhibitions, Italian films reviews and screenings throughout the week.

Yup, the buffet was in Universiti Malaya on Jalan University.

My lucky self was invited to attend the academic talk by Dacia Maraini, one of the most renowned Italian writers in the world, by Marian Eu (thank you! thank you!) .
Throughout the evening, Marian kindly shared with me tips on creative writing, patiently explained the speech given by Dacia, introduced me to some of her friends & also ensured that I was well fed ;)

The ambassador of the Italian Embassy giving his welcoming speech for Dacia Maraini.

Ms Dacia herself, with her speech focusing on the history, culture and evolvement of the Italian language.

While her speech was detailed, the gist of it was pretty much the struggle of the Italian language,
since the early centuries in Italy.
Italian was the languages of the masses, a unified form of communication for the various parts of the country, where each region has their own languages, but with Italian, it was an easy & direct instrument of unity, in various regions & among social classes.

The Church on the other hand, imposed Latin as a common language.

Scholars, poets, inventors and scientists are all told to use Latin, for it was considered “plebeian” and undignified to use the common Italian in their research and written articles.

Fast forward a few centuries later, to now…and the Italian language is facing another form of servility, which was the focus of debate in Dacia’s speech.

She laments, that “instead of making an effort in coining new words, we conform to words already in use in a language that doesn’t belong to us, & which a larger percentage of Italians wasn’t even aware of“.

While I can relate, in the sense that even our national language BM has been caught in the onslaught of English terms and jargons (even in Malay publications, how often do writers uses the term ” ” elegant” instead of “anggun”, “jam” instead of “sesak” ??), or in everyday conversations; “Boleh pinjam tetikus (mouse) kamu?” , “sudah sedia untuk meeting (mesyuarat) nanti?”
Also the mindless direct translation of “collection” to “koleksi”, “ceiling” to “siling” and “vocal” to “vokal”, etc…

A mind opening speech indeed, especially when the audience started to voice their opinions, and topics that went around was on Dacia’s published books (she has written numerous novels and plays, translated to over 12 langauges all over the world), the tainting the purity of the language due to the “borrowed” usage of words in English and what are a writer’s responsibilities in preserving the authenticity of the language. Should you allow the use of foreign words and jargons in your published works?

One of the sentence in her speech that got imprinted in my memory was this;
“How do we behave with a dominant language, which forces on us their literature, their cinema, their business, and also their culture and even their bombs?”

Food for thought indeed.

Brekkie at Betty’s Midwest Kitchen

October 23rd, 2009 • 16 comments General
Tags: aman suria, American, breakfast, cafe

A quick and fast post this time ;) since tomorrow is the weekend already.

Also cos we only had one dish before I got distracted by the Sun paper and dragged Unka to hunt for the next location as featured in METRO ;p
(this one is next next post ok!)

Back to our brekkie; the picture above pretty much sums up the breakfast platter, with one fat pork sausage, crispy slightly charred bacon and fluffy buttermilk pancakes.

Let’s start with the bacon.
Smoky, charred and crispy. Nice streaky layers of fat and meat. This is good, really good.

The sausage, now that’s another level of “good” altogether. I am still salivating thinking and looking at this pic now.

Should I say awesome? Lip smacking delicious?
I don’t know.
It’s just so so good!!

Look at the sausage above..

& imagine this..

Taut, crisp casing.
One bite.
Resistance….then………… the skin cracks.
Moist, sweet lava of meat juices burst into your mouth cavity.
Proceed to chew.
More juices, coupled with hot cheese and gritty smoky meat floods the sensory palate.
Savour & swallow with absolute satisfaction.

Hmmmm…
Note to oneself: I really need to know where they got their sausages from!

Having said all that, the rest of the platter wasn’t that drool-worthy. I find the scrambled eggs a bit overdone.

The coffee was generic.

And lastly, the pancakes failed to impress, it was a bit burnt at the sides and ain’t fluffy enough. I would say The Pink Sage does a better version.
Anyhow, Eve says the pancakes are meant to be that way. So I guess I will have to make a special request the next time I order their pancakes! No burnt edges for me please!

Betty’s MidWest Kitchen, Aman Suria

October 21st, 2009 • 27 comments General
Tags: aman suria, American, cafe

Aman Suria, an area alien to me until recent months, is suddenly such a delightful place.
Less parking woes, decent pricing for food (with the exception of Kayu) and lotsa new outlets to try (at least for me) makes this area my current favourite food haunt.

The Departure Lounge here is great for chilling out with a laptop, for the human traffic is considerable less compared to the Mt Kiara outlet. Likewise for JM Briyani which serves pretty decent nasi briyani.

Along this same row, Betty’s Midwest Kitchen finally opened several weeks ago.
Eve, whom I had acquainted from my Bellygood review outing, had told me of her plan to open her own restaurant when I met her at Food and Hotel Malaysia (FHM) 2009 earlier this year.

Not entirely familiar with “Midwest” food, I dragged 2 friends along as soon as I could once I saw the place was in business.

Yes yes..the food’s all porky goodness too.

I love these cute wall boards below.

The menu explains of the outlet’s concept..

Sitting area both inside with air conditioning and alfresco, with free WIFI. Yea!!

The open kitchen, the bar and the cashier counter.

A family run restaurant; Betty, the chef, mans the kitchen with her son, while Dad and Eve is in charge of front- line service.
All the recipes are originally midwest, as proclaimed by Betty, who had traveled & lived in the midwest of America for years with her daughter.

We didn’t order much that night since there were only 3 of us. Plus, we had a late 5pm lunch hence we settled for just 2 mains and 2 beers. Quiet and comfortable, it was a perfect place for a dinner meeting.

The Classical MidWest style Meatloaf, RM15.00, served with mash, peas and onions relish is their signature dish and highly recommended by Eve herself.

This was a really GOOD hearty dish!
Soft & moist, with the pork and beef juices oozing into my mouth with every bite, hhmmmm…I instantly regretted sharing..
Boy, if there’s a better meatloaf in town, please do tell me!

The mash is splendid, buttery smooth (though I do generally prefer the ones with bits of roasted skin swirled in) I don’t see a reason to complain about this version, especially with the bits of fragrant bacon on top.

We even polished off every single pea, for they are soft, fresh & sweet!!
Marvelous with the gravy, palatable even on its own really.
I wonder if these are Watties’? Sure aint those generic cheapo supermarkets brands.

It came with this beer sauce, which still reminisce strongly of alcohol, though the meatloaf is undeniably wonderful just on its own.

They have pork burgers on the menu, and never one to resist burgers, I forced my other dining partner to order it ;p

Pulled Pork Burger.
Shredded or ‘pulled’ pork, slow – roasted and braised in special sauce. Served in a bun with coleslaw and fries. RM12.

This somewhat reminded us of Chinese cuisine and my dining partner actually wondered aloud if he could ask for a bowl of rice to eat with this! LOL. That’s a chinese man for you!

Having said that, the flaky pork is flavourful, and the coleslaw was perfect in my books.
Lightly dressed, slightly tangy, fresh and crunchy, it’s just LOVELY really.

The way Midwestern-ers take their chilli sauce is with a dollop of mustard, I was told.

Personal attention from Betty herself. She enjoys going around and speaking to the guests whenever she could get herself out from the kitchen.
Yup, she personally sees to every dish that comes out from the kitchen. With such strict quality control, I certainly hope that the food remains consistent cos I definitely liked my meatloaf that night!

Dessert of the week was the apple crumble with ice cream that was again highly recommended by Eve herself.
Alas, my lack of exercise for the past month didn’t allow much room for indulgence, hence was duly turned down.
TS, however, who was neither concerned on his weight nor the time of the day, ordered a Frutti Ice Cream, RM6.50.
I stole a bite and concluded that the ice cream was nice and creamy, again not those cheapo brand ones.

2 Budweiser at RM24.00.
Eve said theirs is the only outlet that is allowed to display the Budweiser logo.

They do breakfast as well, but it is only available from 10am to 1pm on Sat and Suns.
I was told their pancakes are heavenly and their breakfast sets huge, “just like how an American breakfast should be” said Betty and eyeing me, added “You need someone to share it with you”.

Hurmphh.
She has no idea what a pig I am ;p

Betty’s Midwest Kitchen definitely got the thumbs up from me on my first visit.
I was keen for a re-visit and dragged Unka with me for their brekkie sets just last Sunday.
(Will post that review next!)

Meanwhile, you can check them out on their website – www.midwestkitchen.com.my, follow their tweets (My, more and more dining outlets have twitter accounts!) and join them on Facebook.