Beans N Beans, Uptown Damansara

Hello!

Last weekend was super fun because my family came up to KL! But of course, the actual fun comes when all three sisters go out late at night for supper! Reb is a big Korean fan so every time she comes up to KL we will make it a point to try out new Korean cafe. Mostly for the bingsu, Korean ice dessert.

Ice ice baby

We have been to Dal Komm, Bingsu Cafe, and of course Cafe Bene who started off this Korean bingsu craze. This time, I came across this newly opened Korean cafe at Uptown Damansara on Facebook. Their official FB page was somehow on my news feed wall so off we go to try it out!

Beans N Beans

Uptown Damansara

Facebook

Welcome to Beans N beans, Uptown Damansara! I don't think they have their signboard up yet because they seem very very new. Step into the shop and you still can smell the newly renovated smell haha

Some loose ends being tied up, prolly that explains the ladder LOL

To find Beans N Beans, they are on the same row was Wondermilk, the opposite end of Texas Chicken. We reached there about 11.30pm that day which pretty late, almost reaching their closing time but we were given first class service! Something that I have a weak spot for so I decided to jot it down in my food blog despite the very limited time I have.

First up, their menu. Thought that readers who want to check out the price of the items they offer. They have drinks, bingsu and food as well. I wanted to try their waffle with maple syrup but that's only offered during the day for breakfast. 

Have a look at the bingsu on display! Looks really appetising! Also, they have dessert toast as seen on the last row in the picture but we decided to just go with bingsu since we weren't too hungry. I asked the cashier which bingsu would she recommend and she told me that the green tea and the chocolate one is a favourite! Wanted to go for green tea but they were sold out. 

So we had Red Bean bingsu, RM15.90 because I asked for something not too sweet. Red bean bingsu was pretty good. The shaved ice was made up of milk! Love the milky taste, though subtle. A generous amount of red bean on the top with three bits of sesame glutanious rice balls which was my favourite!!!

The lady boss (I assume?) was really nice to bring us free chrysanthemum tea to try. It is actually a good idea to call for something hot to drink after having your bingsu, somehow the balance makes the bingsu experience even better! But even if you don't want to order any drinks, free water on the house!

Since this chrysanthemum tea was given to us free for sampling, we had a peek at the price. OMG RM9!!! That's pretty pricey for a flower tea I think because I usually make my own tea at home- buy a packet of Chysanthemum tea for RM2.50 from the chinese medicinal shop to boil one big pot of tea. But then again, may be different flower quality? LOL That's why I took a picture of the tea bag brand.

Anyway, I was impressed by the generosity of Beans N Beans even at almost midnight. Thank you for the free tea to warm our belly!

Beans N Beans is a really nice and cosy place to chill out with friends and family, during the time we were there (night time LOL). I might think twice of going there during the day because parking at Uptown Damansara during the day is just crazy. Maybe it's just me but I don't like having the stress of locating for parking and maybe having to resort to illegal parking just to hang out. So yeah, I'll most definitely return. At night. Unless... I decide that I want to try out their breakfast menu.

Since we enjoyed ourselves there, we decided to return to Beans N Beans on the following day! This time we were there earlier, around 9pm maybe? And yes! They have Green Tea bingsu this time!!!

Green Tea bingsu RM17.80. OH MY GOSH, green tea bingsu was DA BOMB! All of us thought that this was definately yummier than the Red Bean one that we had the day before. And to think that we thought that the red bean one was already pretty good.

The soft shaved green tea ice topped with this very smooth green tea ice- cream served with my favoruite sesame glutanious rice balls! And what makes it even more crazily addictive is the green tea powder that they sprinkle on top of the bingsu as a finishing touch. OMG, holy cow super delicious!!!

Delicious. Truly, delicious!

I like that the ice was flavoured and that it was so soft and smooth. Probably not a traditional bingsu, as Beans N Beans' reminds me more of a Hong Kong ice dessert but who cares? It's so good! LOL Bingsu here at Beans N Beans has pretty subtle taste, nothing too empowering, nothing too sweet! Eat two bowls also don't feel fat! Maybe wallet becomes thinner only la lmao

Oh ya, second time we were there the lady boss gave us a new drink to try for FREE again!!! This time it's apple cider banana drink. While Naomi can't stand the apple cider smell, hence she couldn't enjoy the drink without cringing, Reb and I totally loved it!

This apple cider banana drink is priced at RM10.90 if Im not mistaken and I would fork out that money willingly because this drink gave me such a surprise! 

When it was served to us hot, all you could smell was apple cider vinegar. For those who haven't smelt that before, well it smells like rotten apples. Look inside and you can see sliced banana at the bottom of the glass. The thought of banana in hot water can be scary I know LOL But when you take a sip, it will blow your mind!

Somehow, the pungent apple cider taste was masked by a sweet banana flavour! Not sure if the sweetness came entirely from the banana or was there added sugar but the sweet banana flavour lightly washing over the slightly sour apple cider, just warmly rolling over your tongue... Yup, nuff' said. Take my money pleaseeeeeee!

Thank you Beans N Beans for the very welcoming service! I'm leaving you with some pictures of the interior of the cafe. Have a good week ahead!

Till later :)

Lek & Rut Seafood, Bangkok

Happy New Year 2016 and Happy Chinese New Year!!!! HAHAHAHA

I know it's a little too late for both greetings but hey, better late than never eh! Just noticed that my last post is in November 2015. Yikes! Been busy with my thesis, I know I know, you've read about this excuse throughout my post since 2013. But I'm back with an awesome post!

Took some time off in January this year with my sis to travel to Bangkok because we actually saved up for US but US didn't happen, and it was also a post exam trip for her! And it's also because we wanted to scout the place a bit before our family trip to Bangkok in July. You know, it's always better to know the place before you bring mum. We want the best for her and we ain't got much time in July so only good shopping places and good food please!

Talking about good food, the best food that I had in Bangkok would be my first meal that I had there! Hence, this post!

Lek & Rut Seafood

Yaowarat, Bangkok

Initially, the plan was to go and eat at the famous green shirts seafood shop at Chinatown but we ended up trying Lek & Rut, which is the Red tshirts seafood shop right opposite the green shirts shop. Don't worry about me being a little vague but these two seafood shops are so famous in Yaowarat (Chinatown) that you wouldn't have a problem looking for it on Google Maps or Waze!

This is Chinatown in Bangkok at night! Around 9pm and it's very lively!!

Ha! You see that yellow signboard shop in the middle of the picture? That is the green tshirt seafood shop and there are a lot of good reviews about that shop. But as mentioned we opted for the Red shirts one (notice the guy in red tshirt).

You can choose your seafood outside and have them cook for you or you can just place your order from the menu and let them help you with the selection, which was what we did.

The prawns in Thailand are HUGE! I'm not kidding you. It's probably 100% bigger than our prawns here. I initially thought they were lobsters because of their size.

As for seatings, there is an option to sit outside or inside. Noticed that a lot of people loved sitting outside so outside is full and you have to wait for a table. It was a no brainer for us so we immediately headed inside where there was comfortable seats and less wet floors.

This is how it looks inside Lek & Rut. Once seated they will come to you with their menu. Items are labelled in both Thai language and English so ordering wouldnt be a problem. Plus, they have pictures in the menu as well- better describes the dish this way.

A sample of their menu. This is probably a special pull out. The full menu is in a folder. 

We had in mind a few things that we wanted prior to making this trip because we wanted to taste their signature (food that everyone else raved about) but also stick to our budget. We initially set our budget to a maximum of RM100 for a dinner for two. But... you know, things don't always go as you plan HAHA

Oh ya, I did my research on dishes based on the green shirt's shop but I could actually find everything that I wanted from the green shop in this red shop! I bet they taste as good as the greens. One of the reason we chose to dine at Red as that my sis' friend kinda recommended Red so Red it is!

Upon placing your orders, they will bring over your cutleries and chilli dippings! 

There are two types of dippings, one sweeter than the other but but pretty good especially with fried fish! More on that later.

Our drinks: I think that was guava juice, chrysanthemum and Chang beer that the major really recommended. I didn't had any because I can't hold my liquour LOL 

Something to note is that beverages in Bangkok is generally very sweet. So drinking that chrysanthemum drink without adding ice was little too sweet to handle. In this case you cant ask for "Wan Noi" (Less sweet) because the drinks were prepacked, so just make sure you have ice to dampen the sweetness.

Okay, from here onwards I'm gonna show you what we had for dinner. The total for all of these were about 3000 Baht! That was like tripple of our budget HAHAHAHA But I am really grateful for our dining mates because we evenly split the bill despite us eating most of the food :P

Sorry I can't tell you exactly how much each dish cost because they didn't had an official receipt and I didn't note it down from the menu. But I'll probably give you an estimation if I can.

Thai Steamed Fish with Lime. I was looking forward to having this dish because I had it when I was in Pattaya and it was really good! The one that I had in Pattaya had just the rice sourness from the lime and the right spiciness from the chilli! This one at Lek & Rut, meh.. wouldn't order it again because it tasted just like normal steam fish. I think this was about 400 Baht

Seafood tom yam, about 250 Baht? This is very very very good!! The soup tasted so flavourful and spicy, this is a real good Thai tom yam! Ingrediants were generous and fresh! Tasted a bit like Thai Mama instant noodles broth though haha

This is stir fry morning glory. They call it morning glory there but it's actually kangkung. Not bad, quite yummy. The cooking style is pretty much like what we have here in Malaysia but this tasted yummier, maybe a little more chili and MSG? lmao

Was damnnn hungry that time because it was 9pm (10pm Malaysia time) and we haven't had dinner nor lunch! 

By the way, the fish and the tomyam was in our planned meal as in we budgetted for that earlier before we went to Bangkok. We were thinking, okay one fish, one tom yam, one small grilled river prawns and maybeeee... one oyster omelette. But when the day came for seafood dinner in Bangkok, these were what we actually had:

Fried rice! OMG their fried rice was so so so soooo good! It tasted like crab meat I have no idea why. I don't think this is seafood fried rice but I could be wrong since I wasn't the one doing the ordering. Okay, just so we are clear my sis and I ordered one bowl of steamed rice each. But lo and behold came additional fried rice because major wanted us to try as much food as possible! LOL

Curry crab. Curry crab sauce was sooooo good that I'm really suspecting that they used a lot of MSG haha The crab on the other hand wasn't that meaty but it was worth the order because of the sauce! Eat that with steamed rice is enough already, no need other dishes! Oh, but one thing good about the crab is that it had a lot of crab eggs, I loves!! This serving prolly cost around 500 Baht.

Sauce. Is. Goddamn. Good.

Fried fish. This is another dish that my sis and I didn't order but magically appeared on our table. By magically, it meant that major ordered them LOL When the fish came I was like errr... don't look very appetising. I'm not a fan of fried fish even back from my hometown because I just find fried fish very 'dry'. I don't mind if they fried the fish and drizzle with sauce la but not fried fish by it's own.

But guess what? I shamelessly whacked finish the fried fish here because of the chili dippings!!! It was the ultimate combo I tell you, fresh fried fish and the dippings they gave! I also liked to dip it in the sweeter cili sauce that is slightly greenish in colour. VERY GOOD!

Us again, this time when more food came!

Oh ya, we had our grilled river prawns which were huge as hell. I think the prawns can be ordered in small or big portion but I think major ordered big. I know no Thai language but by his body language, I'm pretty sure this is the big serving LOL The best part was sucking the brains off the prawn!

You see, these kinda prawn has a really big head if compared to body size. 

It doesn't stink really! It was so fresh that all you tasted was the sea!

Initially we didn't know that it's the brains that we are paying for. So we ate the body and left the head. But then our Thai dining mates told us that that's the best part of the prawns!! In fact, there are shops in Bangkok famous for selling Pad Thai that serves a premium version using these prawn brains. Okay, I call them prawn brains because I forgot the correct term that I was told of but you get the idea.

Steamed mussles with bay leaves? This is another dish that I was skeptical about because it looks so... sad and a little scary LOL but, it's true that locals know best!! The mussels were so fresh that when it's steamed/ poached with those leaves the scent is captured in the mussles. Ooh la la, that subtle infusion of scent was so refreshing and good!

Yums, yums, yums, yums, yums!

These were not all because more dining mates came later on! HAHAHA

We were told that more friends were coming for dinner so we ate according to proportion la meaning that we didn't want to finish up all the dishes before other people came but we were told to just eat! 

I got a little worried here because by that time we already ordered a lot and the bill was gonna be over our budget. Not sure if this dinner will be a treat, you know like a welcome treat? If it's a welcome treat then nevermind la, but if it's going dutch... yikes. But no point worry because what is done is done so I just whacked finish all the dishes that I like. HAHAHA

So when more friends came, as expected they ordered more dishes. So we had more grilled prawns and a few other dishes like these:

Siput sedut. They taught us how to pluck the bugger out with a toothpick but this was my least favourite dish la because it was so chewy it was like chewing on rubber and I didn't fancy the taste that much. Not my favourite seafood in Malaysia, definitely still not my favourite seafood in Thailand.

Eeee... that's what it looks like. You dip it with chilli but no thanks LOL

Grilled squids! This wasn't too bad because it was a nice smoky taste to it but it was also very chewy and rather dry so I didn't had much. Plus I was soooooo full, just had a bite to try different dishes that the rest ordered. 

Prawns with soysauce glass noodles. OMG I don't even know who or why they ordered this because no one actually ate this! haha I think it's because everyone was full so nobody was gonna eat up the glass noodles of which was heavily soaked in soysauce. The dish was a little too salty but it went well with the prawns though.

In the end, everyone was pushing the remaining food to everyone else HAHAHAHA It was obvious that we over ordered but it was such an amazing experience of having seafood with the locals! Also, we went dutch! But the bill was evenly split even if my sis and I ate like 70% of the food. So each of us had to fork out only 500 Baht, still within our budget after all! Thank you generous new friends of ours haha

Dining with us Malaysians! Really funny bunch of Thai friends:)

Flaky Buttery Pastries @ Huckleberry Food & Fare

I was about to abandon this blog of mine (again) because I'm just too caught up with my thesis writing. Every time I 'have' some time to write about things on my blog I feel so damn guilty because I could have been data analysing or re- writing the chapters of the thesis that I have wrote, or writing the findings or reading journals. But! Today I receive an email notifying me about a certain someone who left a very encouraging comment on my Tangkuban Perahu post. He/ she quite like my post and so I am encouraged to keep this blog alive LOL

So here I am, writing about my experience to Huckleberry instead of... completing my data analysis:S 

I've always wanted to visit Huckleberry because I'm a big pastry fan! This is especially so when it comes to those laminated pastries likes croissants!!! OMG I love those buttery multilayer folds! I'm also very amazed because the weather in Malaysia is not quite suitable for folding butter in dough. I can imagine how quick the bakers gotta move and how often they had to refreeze their butter dough just to work it right.

Huckleberry Food & Fare

Jalan Medan Setia 1, Plaza Damansara

Facebook

Sorry I don't have the shop's picture because I was just too excited when I reached there so all I wanted to do is plunk my butt down to a seat and start ordering! If you know where humble chef is, it's the same row but opposite end of Hunble chef. Huckleberry is a corner lot so its easy to spot but parking there is really an ass!

Glad that someone else was driving so all I had to do was get down the car as soon as the car is parked LOL Anyway, I was there around 12pm and the cafe was full! The good thing was that I was first on the waiting list. Asked how long will I have to wait and the polite waiter told me 15mins. But we got our seats in about 10mins!

Waiter asked if we mind sitting outside? Though the haze hasnt really subsided yet at that time, I immediately said OK! because I was too excited. Suck in dirty air nevermind, I'd do anything for you buttery pastry :')

This is how it looks inside! It's semi self service so you have to place your order at the counter and foot the bill. Then they will send you your orders. Oh ya, I don't remember telling them where I sat but they manage to find me anyway.

Before reaching the counter you will pass this counter of bakes! Everything looks so good!! If my budget allows, I would have wanted every single pastry on the counter!! The special on that day was a coconut bun but I have a cheap perception of coconut bun so I decline. The baker looked rather dissapointed though when I rejected his offer:( It almost made me buy the coconut bun out of pity LOL

It wasn't like the coconut bun was sad looking or anything. It's just that I'm too used to those 6- pieces of coconut buns that you buy from Tesco that type. You know the cheap type with caramelised coconut fillings inside? Not my favourite bun la so I immediately cringe when he mentioned coconut bun. But I'm pretty sure it wouldn't taste cheap because Oh my goshhhh!!! The pastries here are really good. More on that later.

Oh ya, if you would like a takeaway load bread they can help you slice. They serve cakes too!

Oh no, I lost the receipt that I was supposed to reference to. Oh well, this is what we had that day. Pineapple & coconut juice was pretty good! Not too sweet and its very very fresh!! I think it cost around RM10 per glass. Can't really taste the coconut but it was good.

You see the 2 slices of crusty bread? That was the multigrain bread if I have not mistaken. You can choose either fluffy or crusty type and they will recommend you their famous sourdough bread. 2 slices for RM1 if I've not mistaken. It comes with butter. The jam was an add on. Forgot what jam it was but I know it was a citrus homemade jam. Quite good, very fresh tasting and light on sweetness.

Talking about butter, Huckleberry is so damn awesome when it comes to butter. The next time I'm there I'd just order bread and butter because the combination of both is enough already! The bread was so good and so cheap (I should have bought a loaf back!) and the butter damn yums!!!

You see that pasty with nuts on top? The one with a knife on the plate? That is super yummy as well!! I think the name of the pastry rhymes with sticky nuts. The bun was so soft and there was a generous serving of nuts of top! The sweet stickyness that glued them together is heavenly! I'm thinking honey. Or maple syrup? Dunno, lol. My sis found that too sweet but it was such a balance for me because the bread was a little bland. My favourite! Gosh everything here is gonna be my favourite!

The triangular pastry was an apple pastry I think. As expected, my favouite! HAHAHAHA The thing is everything fits my sweetness threshold (I don't have a sweet tooth) and is just overloading with BUTTER! I love love love butter. Butter is an ingredient that is just so rich tasting here and they never skimp on it!

CAN YOU SEE THE DEFINE FOLDS OF THE CROISSANT??? It's just crazy! My sis loves that cheese and ham croissant! That was tripple yums because its buttery croissant AND ham AND cheese! What's there not to love right! Can down 3 of them on shot if I'm not on a budget teehee 

Especially if you order butter folded pastries like this! The BUTTERRRRR. Wah, can die now looking at it while I write now. Think gotta go back this weekend!

The pastries are priced from around RM5- RM10 but they are worth it. Trust me! All the buttery flaky goodness, you will soon forget that you spent RM40 on pastries for lunch! LOL