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

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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

Döner Kebab, Pattaya

Haha didn't expect to take this long to show you the DAMN yummy kebab that I had in Pattaya! So I was in Pattaya for 3 days 2 nights, just a quick getaway. Went for a pretty good seafood dinner on Day 1 and had a chance to go the the fmaous Casa Pascal for buffet breakfast before flying back to Malaysia!

I had this kebab after our trip to Koh Larn, an island about 45 minutes away from Pattaya. We had lunch there but it was just this small portion rice with red curry at the side. Red curry's ingrediants were 3 strands of chicken and a few more strands of long beans:S

Doner Chicken Kebab

In front of The Avenue, Pattaya

Doner's Kebab food truck!

It's just a humble little food stall with one rotating meat station but his kebab sure packs a punch!

He was very generous with the fillings! Gave me so much chicken that's normally used for 2 portion of kebab!! And the best thing is that it's only 60 Baht!!! Very yummy, very worth it!

So give it a try if you're around the vicinity! He'll asked if you want to eat it on the spot or take away. I told him I'm eating it now so he wrapped it half opened like in the picture above! This kebab was intended as a tea time snack but it was so filling that it became my dinner.

That's why I always say that theres no such thing as a bad place to visit. Pattaya may be a little slow- mo for me but that Doner's kebab is probably the best kebab I have ever eaten in my entire life! Serious.

P.S. I just googled and "Doner Kebab" is a Turkish dish made from meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie. That means this kebab stall doesn't really have a specific name:S Good thing I took a picture of his stall so you guys can find him! 

The quite horrible experience @ Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe, Malaysia

Hello!

Back with updates! I know Im suppose to be writing about that kebab stall but I've just been to the newly opened Hello Kitty gourmet cafe so I wanna faster write about this first before it gets stale. So this is the first ever Hello Kitty cafe in Malaysia and this first outlet is in Sunway Pyramid! It's amazing that Sunway Pyramid always gets to woo interesting shops! Like how they managed to rope Palladium in! :D

Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe

Sunway Pyramid, Malaysia

(Outside Sephora)

Entrance to the Hello Kitty cafe, taken when I was about to leave the cafe

I was there with Nay at lunch time and there wasn't a line so we didn't had to queue. The weird thing was when we were attended the waiter made it sound like it was full house, telling us that there are two levels (ground floor and 1st floor) so he gotta check for availability. But, I saw a few table empty from the outside:S

Anyway, I asked for the menu because from the conversation of the customers before me I got to know that different levels have different menu. The ground floor one is the more affordable range menu and the 1st floor serves teatime set. By more affordable I mean one cake RM20+ if compared to the teatime set that can cost more than RM150 I think

The waiter told me that if I want top be on ground floor then there might not be space but if it's the 1st floor surely got space. But he spoke without looking behind him because I spotted 2 empty tables. So I told him I want to be on the ground floor. Resigned, he pointed me to a table at the back. 

It's quite a nice quite corner. Okay, by no means the cafe was quite la. In fact it was so noisy and there were kids' screaming in the background:S But yeah, sitting at a small corner makes things better.

From my view, Nay with her glorious hair checking out what to eat.

This is the menu. I took this shot so you can check out the menu and the price and decide what to have prior to visiting this place. You're welcome. 

Kitty border on the menu

Kitty serviette. Talking about serviette, I was lucky to have a new clean piece.

While Nay had rotten luck so she had a used one! I think that's pretty unacceptable for any eatery standard. It was folded so we didn't notice it beforehand. She only noticed the oil stain when she wanted to wipe her mouth. OMG image if she were to just swipe it across her lips!

So we came to a hypothesis that these people don't change the serviettes on the table for each new customer as long as it 'clean'. Not sure why would they want to safe cost till compromise on dining experience? Hello Kitty cafe some more so everything suppose to be clean and cute. This is so not cute.

Very cute paste coloured Kitty cushion! But later realised that it's stained at one corner also so I faster put it back because I felt a little grossed out. By the way, the seating is very close to the next table so don't expect privacy whatsoever. You wanna camwhore, you just gotta be thick skin and camwhore even if you can sense the next table peering over at you HAHAHA

Finally, we were ready to order! Initially, we decided to have a macaroon, a slice of cake and a coffee. That's because we want to try one from each section of the menu. I wanted Latte because of the Kitty art on the coffee foam!

The waiter came promptly to take orders and guess what? He can only take your drink order so I had to go all the way to the front cake counter to point out which cake I wanted. Since I want a picture of the cakes on display, no problem I went ahead in front.

There you are, cakes!

Don't know why but I felt a bit let down when I saw the cakes because they don't look tasty. I've always knew that I can't expect much from theme cafe because we are paying a premium price for the experience and not for the food quality. With that in mind already, still felt disappointed nevertheless. Anyway, since we are here already I went with the order.

Saw the Cherry Cheese cake that we decided on in our seat and saw the last slice on the counter so I got that. Macaroons no where at sight so I asked the guy at the counter if they have macaroons today? To which he told me that macaroons are only served to customers dining on the first floor. I was surprised because the menu that we had clearly offered macaroons!

I told him that macaroons ARE on the menu even for ground floor diners. He just repeated what he told me earlier. Then I asked, okay even if macaroons are served on top, can we still have them brought down? He stuck to the same reply.

OK. No macaroons for cheapskate ground floor diners like me.

Didn't want to make a scene over a piece of macaroon and it's not that I like them anyway, so I opted for a salted caramel chocolate cupcake. Repeated my order twice. But what arrived was salted caramel chocolate cake, which cost twice the amount =.=

Salted caramel chocolate cake, RM21.90 if I've not mistaken. 

I think this is a steam cake. It tasted very much like those chocolate moist cake that Malay aunties usually sell from home. However, this is not as moist or as chocolatey but it was still not bad. The cream was a little frozen but after a while it got better. Where's the salted caramel? That meager drizzle on top, not too bad either. I rate 5/10. 

With that price, I expect the cake to be at least Secret Recipe's standard la but oh well. I knowingly got conned just for the same of that tiny round chocolate kitty topper LOL

Remember our Cherry Cheese cake? I think this was RM20.90

OMFG, please do not order this! You can't taste the cherry, you can't taste the ricotta cheese or much of any cream cheese and the worst is that there is so much gelatin in the top layer of the cake that it gives it such a weird texture. Once you have a bite of it, all you can think of is Gelatin! This cake real bad, I think I'd rate it 2/10. 

Again, I don't expect fantastic standard tasting cakes in a theme cafe but this was a little too disgusting to even be platted. The good thing about it is that it looks quite pretty with the white chocolate kitty topper.

... which I camwhored with but was too scared to eat after tasting the cake. Cake already like that, what more a cake topper:S

Check out what the next table got! It's a rainbow cake!!! This one very good for instagram! But honestly, the sponge layers look damn dry la. Oh ya, I was envious of her ice latte though!! If you can see it's served in a tall kitty glass with a pink Kitty stirrer.

What happened to my coffee art on my latte?

This! Err... what's this?

Yup, when the waiter served us our coffee it was in this state. I'm pretty sure that it's reasonable to expect them to do a Kitty art on my hot latte because usually normal cafe's also will do those leaf shape coffee art on your latte. So being lazy to not create a Kitty art is downright preposterous!

Wait... this one got me confused too, it look like they did something on it but it was disfigured. If that's the case they still got the cheeks to serve it to the customer ah? We paying for the Kitty experience and all we get is this disfigured foam that confuses us of whether there is any kitty art in the first place:S

Anyway, the coffee tasted decent. Nothing extremely off for me to fuss about so I can deal.

So that is my Hello Kitty cafe experience, I'm leaving you with a few pictures out of the bezillion I took to compensate me. Oh, got one last story at the end of the post which is DAMN SCARY! Enjoy the pictures first, later I'll tell you what it is about!

Last story before I leave! So when we were done with our Kitty desserts (We left the cherry cheese cake almost half unfinished) and wanted to pay, I decided to use my Maybankard. As usual, the waiter shows you the bill, you place your card in that card holder and off it goes to the front counter to be swiped. 

Not long after he returned with an acknowledgement slip for me to sign off. Only after I signed that I notice that it was more three times more than the amount I was shown earlier! I asked him why charge this amount and the waiter was confused as well so he didn't answer me. Somehow I took the card and flip it back to check the signature. THIS IS NOT MY CARD!

I crossed out the signature and told him about the mistake. He looked confused and annoyed. Yeah, like it's my mistake? Then it took him a while to return. I was so damn worried that my card had been wrongly swapped and that if that customer was not as attentive as me, would just sign off and walk away with my card!

Thinking about all the hassle that comes with a missing card made me fume!

I was stretching my neck like a giraffe looking for that waiter and another waiter noticed. He came to me and asked if I wanted something. Told him I was waiting for my card. Just went he wanted to check on the matter, the earlier guy was approaching with the right slip and card. Guess what? I heard him mumbling to the second waiter- grumbling that I signed off the wrong card!!

WHAT THE HECK. Oh, it's my fault that you brought me the wrong card yet not noticing till I pointed it out. And it's my fault that my card was almost off with an unknown.

Ok, story ended. The end.

The Replacement @ Jalan Dhoby, JB

Finally, it's the weekends!

Been down with a cranky stomach lately thanks to my ABC porridge. I realised that these days my stomach can't take too much of fiber or else it will start churning real badly and I'll be visiting the loo like it's my best friend. Good thing my stomach isn't acting up as bad as it did when I had green bean soup.

Since my stomach is feeling unwell, I got the chance to stay at home and rest. And get bored. Hence, blog. I met up with Wawa and Simren a week ago I think when I was back in JB and we decided to catch up at any random cafe. The Replacement was new so we decided to give it a shot

The Replacement

33- 34 Jalan Dhobby, JB

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This is how The Replacement looks from the outside. 

It's a plain white building. It's a lodge too, that explains why their kitchen i.e. cafe isn't very spacious. Actually I thought the space was very limited- almost like a large bedroom size. While there are other cafes that have limited space, I have to say that The Replacement really do not know how to maximize the tiny space that they have. 

Now, I'm telling you the layout of the cafe so you would be prepared. Either you get lucky and get that two seaters by the side of the wall (I think there were 4- 5 two seaters) or you get unlucky and have no choice but to share one huge ass table.

The huge ass Knights of Camelot kinda table

This is the huge ass table I was talking about. I think that this would fit 10 people at least, great for big families you know like those that dine with their grandparents all the way to their grandkids? Yup. 

But a far as what I have seen during my trip to The Replacement, those big ass family doesn't seem to be the primary market. Everyone that came in were young people in pairs or at most in groups of fives. When we arrive, we were seated rather quickly. That's a good thing. The bad thing was that we were seated right in the middle of the huge ass table, sandwiched between groups of unknowns seating at both ends:O

Oh, hi unknowns :S

This made us feel really awkward. We couldn't even talk at our normal volume because it really felt like our private space was violated. Thank God the girls on our right soon finished so we quickly scooch to that end of the table. 

So there we were in the huge ass table, only both poles of the table occupied because NO ONE was willing to take the middle seating like duh! So you see, lots of space wasted. They have this bar seating facing the window but the space is really squeezy so maybe if you want a quick drink that would be okay, if not I'd probably exit. 

They do have pretty lamps hanging over our heads at the Knights table though

The Replacement practised half self service. So you have to get the menu, order and pay at the cashier then be seated and wait for your order to arrive. 

The menu. 

Ordering was also a bit awkward for me because we don't get to seated to decide what to have. Instead everything was done in a hurry in front of the cashier area. They have a few chairs for you there but it was still so weird because I felt like I had to quickly get it over and done with and not hog the tiny area =.=

I wasn't that hungry and most of the menu was bread. You know brunch kind of menu? I had enough bread in KL so I decided to have cake instead. 

Five selection of cakes on display

The best looking on that look worthy to be ordered turns out to be yam cake. Since I was sharing the cake and neither of us fancy yam cake, I decided to order Strawberry Shortcake. It looks like a bad idea but the others weren't far off better so I just settled for the Strawberry cake hoping my prejudice towards their cake was wrong.

Caramel Latte, RM11

Simren's Caramel Latte came pretty quickly. I'm not a big fan of coffee but I did have a sip. Well, al I can say that it tasted almost like the Nescafe that my mum makes at home. Paying RM11, there was a higher expectation. I might as well spend it on the commercialised Starbucks instead. 

FREE water!

Water was free but you would have to go get it yourself. They have these bottles on a cart at one corner of the shop with glasses as well. So please help yourself! Not sure how many can you take but we took 2 bottles of water.

Strawberry Shortcake RM12.90

Then my cake came. As expected, it wasn't that good. Not worth my RM13. The cake tasted a little too dense for liking and it was sweet. To add on to the sweetness of the cake they had this strawberry jam,which tasted like those jar types from the hypermarket, in between the layers and also some buttercream. OH MY GOSH, that was the last straw! Even though we shared the cake, we find it really hard to finish that one tiny slice:(

Corque Madame, RM18.90

Wawa haven't had lunch so she ordered the Corque Madame which was super overpriced! This made me really angry because this dish is just a slice of bread with melted cheese, tomato sauce (I think) and egg on top. It took them 45 minutes to an hour to serve. The portion was really tiny for a RM18.90. I might as well add on RM5 and have a big breakfast in Bangsar!

People say that KL food is expensive. Well, yes no doubt a meal in cafe or restaurants in KL would cost you RM15 at least but the difference is the food is worth the price! Cafe in JB seriously pisses me off. Just because they want to imitate God knows what, they are charging such a high price on disgusting tiny portion food. 

PLUS! The ambience of The Replacement was rather bad- awkward seating, white walls etc so why the heck are you charging so much? It's understandable that all business aims for profit but this is really too much

Approximately RM43 for the tiny things we ordered :S

The Replacement should really be replaced.

But then again, I don't know why are they so many people on Facebook who actually compliment this place like it's one of the best places in JB. It's either they are easily contented people or they are really nuts. Also noticed lots of people who dress up nicely in chiffon dresses and what not, coming to The Replacement with DSLR camera with their nose stuck high up in the air.

Why ah? So glamourous meh drinking overpriced meh coffee here?

We were like, uhhh. Should have gone across the street and spend our money on three portion of chicken chops instead. Nevermind, take picture to compensate our loss LMAO

At least Simren really liked the dried flower