Misleading…

I must say that the name of this sparkling new place…

…in town is somewhat misleading. From afar, I thought it would be one of those very popular coffee places where what’s actually nothing more than just a cup of kopi susu (coffee with milk) with some kind of art in the froth on top will burn a big hole in your pocket.

Well, it is actually a coffee shop though it does not really look like one – I would say it comes across as a little nicer with the brick stalls instead of the regular simple, cheap ones. There are five stalls, the first one being a kampua mee stall and the next one some kind of a noodle stall and at the third one, they have a few choices – I may want to try their pork leg rice should I happen to drop by here again.

These are the fourth and fifth stalls…

…and at the back, they have the chu char (cook & fry) section. I did take a look at their chap fan (mixed rice) choices but I did not think there was anything alluring. At the fourth stall, I saw some nice photographs of Foochow fried noodles, tomato kway teow and so on that I would have loved to try but I was told that they only open at night.

In the end, we decided to try something from the Malay stall, the fifth one, that is…

…and I had the nasi lemak special with beef rendang (RM7.00)…

The guy kept saying that they only use Australian beef but I did not think that made much of a difference as the rendang…

…was not that great, nowhere near what I had here. Even the so-so one that I had here was nicer but of course, this one here is a whole lot cheaper than the two aforementioned places.

The rice was not lemak (creamy rich in santan/coconut milk) and the egg was overdone…

At best, I would say it was all right but if this is the best they can do, I would much sooner go for something else like what they called their Bangladesh mee (RM6.00)…

…that my missus had, for instance.

I don’t know what qualifies it as Bangladesh mee which if you’ve noticed, is not on the menu at the stall – the guy showed me something like chopped green peppers of different colours, green, red and yellow and my missus said she could detect the curry powder in it. It was very spicy, probably because my missus specifically requested for that but whether that is how the Bangladeshis cook their noodles or some concoction of their own, I would say it was nice and something worth a  try.

COFFEE & TEA (2.325932, 111.841566) is located at the junction of Jalan Teng Chin Hua and Jalan Ulu Sg Merah in the blocks of shops to the right of the traffic lights junction turning left into Lorong Sg Merah 2. if you are coming from town. On the other hand, if you are heading towards town, the blocks of shops are after St Teresa’s Catholic Church and the SIB Church on that same side of the road.