SALTED EGG YOLK cheesecake, Century Egg Cheesecake – Moody Cow Cafe, Penang, Malaysia

UPDATE:
3rd April 2016:

This is my 2nd time savouring the rich, unique cheesecakes from Moody Cow Cafe Penang, courtesy of my godsis who is in KL for a short holiday.
That also means I didn’t have to put up with the cafe staff surly attitude since I did not have to visit the cafe myself. Thank god!   

The century egg cheesecake is one of Moody Cow’s latest creation and as weird as it sounds, it is actually not as terrible as it sounds.

In fact, Moody Cow’s range of cheesecakes are good (based on those I’ve tried) and their durian salted egg yolk (Hybrid) is one of my personal favourites.
It is just the service that I couldn’t tolerate. Thus if someone is willing to buy it for me, I’ll eat them.

The 2 cakes I got this time are the century egg cheesecake and their best-seller cempedak cheesecake.

Verdict on the century egg cheesecake:
Rich chocolate base and thick cheese provided the main flavours for the cake.
Toppings of sweet spicy anchovies (ikan bilis) and peanuts plus the gelatinous century egg provided the texture.

So imagine this now; with each chew in your mouth (take a forkful from top to bottom and don’t miss the century egg!)  you get sticky thick cheese, sweet and spicy and nutty and crunchy whenever you bit into any of the anchovies and peanuts plus the rubbery century egg with its creamy yolk and distinctive odor thrown in.

Too much?
I agree.

Foul?
No, it is not.

An acquired taste for sure!

Verdict on the cempedak cheesecake:
This was superb!
Pungently rich in both the flavours and scent department thanks to generous amount of cempedak flesh embedded within the cake, the top layer is a lighter mousse-like layer with cempedak flesh blended in while the lower cheese layer is the denser, richer layer.
2 other layers are a slab of rich chocolate and a base of dense chocolate cake (more like brownie).

Thanks Min Sing for the treat!
I’m keeping an eye out for future “interesting” creations from Moody Cow and I’m seriously wondering what could be next!

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Previous post: February 2016.

Does salted egg yolks pair well with cheese?

Yes, it does actually.

In fact, it goes well with DURIANS too. Uh huh.. you haven’t thought of that have you?

And yam. And meatfloss. And maybe bak kua next?
Who knows what else would the current generation of innovative bakers whip up next?

For a start I’ll have to commend the bakers at the Moody Cow cafe in Penang for their ingenuity and daring streak to create and market quite a few unorthodox cheesecake flavours.
It is by far the lone cafe that offers over 20 variants of cheesecakes daily and in slices thicker and taller than any other you’ve seen.
For RM20 – RM25+ per slice, the pricing is premium (especially so for Penang) but if you take a step back and take into consideration the richness of the cheese, the amount of ingredients as well as the type of ingredients used plus the weight (damn these cakes are heavy) for each slice, perhaps RM20+ /slice isn’t all together that exorbitant.

To be frank, each slice can feed 2 pax easily, unless you are the super glutton sort who can digest rich cheese in a jiffy.

BELOW: See? As tall as your standard mug.

Location wise Transfer Road is easy enough to find. Space wise it is a little tight, but there is another floor above should the crowd gets big.

Ambiance wise I find it a bit dim and moody (hence the name perhaps?) but then again I love wide spaces and sunlight.
Service it bordered on hostile and negligible. We were in the shop for merely 15 minutes to take-away and there wasn’t any greeting, any smile or helpfulness offered throughout the transaction.
Good lord, they are taking this “moody” theme to a bit of an extreme level isn’t it? LOL.

I admit I was put-off and I wouldn’t enthusiastically recommend this cafe to friends but to give credit where it is due, the cakes are good and I did enjoy The Hybrid; a 3 tier creation crafted from a hard brownie-like base followed by layers of cheese, durian cheese and creamy, thick salted egg yolk paste on top, sprinkled with macadamia nuts.
The durian cheese layer has a generous amount of durian pulp blended in and is unmistakably pungent.

The Asian Moon consist of a dense, rich layer of brownie-like base and generous amount of almonds flakes between the base and the next layer of salted egg yolk cheese.
Then it was another layer of cheese before more almond flakes and finally the upper slab of creamy yam.

I didn’t enjoy the Asian Moon as much as I did with The Hybrid for the salted egg yolk flavour were more robust in the Th Hybrid version. And of course, durian over yam anytime!

BELOW: Left: The Hybrid. Right: Asian Moon.

Other cheesecake renditions that sound interesting here are the Shanghai Moon (savoury cheesecake with salted egg yolks and meatfloss), cempedak or jackfruit-infused cheesecake as well as alcoholic ones such as the D’Rum, a combination of chocolate and rum cheesecake.

Just remember to be adventurous when you step in as the cheesecakes here may sound weird with the merging of contradictory flavours/ingredients but the positive reviews going around had proven that some of them does work.
No doubt these cheesecakes were result of tried and tested recipes to ensure that the harmony of flavours are achieved before it goes out on the shelves.

Monster Cookies corner:

Not in the mood for cakes? Moody Cow offers gigantic cookies too! These are from RM18+ and are only for takeaways.

For those who prefer to dine in, there are beverages such as juices and smoothies (besides coffee) and food such as pasta.

BELOW: On the right is the new Cheesecake Boutique to be launched soon. Let’s hope they have hired some pleasant, more customer-service inclined staff by then.

Moody Cow Cafe
170 Transfer Road,
10050 George Town, Penang, Malaysia
Contact: 016-410 1995
Time: 1pm–12am
Closed on Mondays
Facebook: www.facebook.com/moodycowpenang.