London calling…

A few weeks ago, my good friend, Robert, and his wife, Angela, dropped by my house to see how I was doing. That was so very sweet of them and thank you so much, you two, for the box of chicken essence. They stayed for a while to chat – we sure had a lot of catching up in our lives since we had not seen one another for so long and of course, we did talk a bit about what is close to our hearts -food!

They were telling me that I should check out this place in Pulau Li Hua, in the vicinity where they are staying, especially their fish and chips. According to them, they use fresh fish and they would fillet it themselves for the dish. Ooooo…I sure would love that! Most places here will just use those cheap bland/tasteless frozen fish fillet sold in the supermarkets that may be rubbery/jelly-like and at times, even smelly!!!

That was why on my birthday, the 2nd of December, we made our way there even though it is like on the other side of the world – so far away, for dinner. It is quite a big place with the typical British telephone booth and post box outside. Inside, it was simple, no elaborate decor and it was very spacious so you would not be sitting shoulder to shoulder with the folks at the next table. I hate that…especially when they talk like they are delivering speeches to everyone in the whole restaurant.

Unfortunately, we were informed that they did not have any fresh fish that day so we could not have that elusive fish & chips dish that we went all the way to eat. Never mind! There were quite a lot for us to pick and choose in their menu and we had their chicken cordon bleu (RM28.00)…

…and their marinara baked cheese rice with pork chop (RM25.00)…

We also had their beef pepperoni pizza (RM35.00)…

…but we did not order any pasta even though they had seafood aglio oilio because my sister is allergic to those crustaceans, and we are not really into bolognese or any of those rich and creamy ones.

We went for their Ceasar salad (RM16.00)…

…and their calamari…

…as well.

The highlight of the dinner was this cajun pork belly (RM68.00)…

…that they recommended on their Facebook page as something worth trying while acknowledging that it was kind of expensive. It was indeed very nice and we sure enjoyed it a lot!

We didn’t tell anybody that it was my birthday, nor did we bring along a cake to cut and sing the birthday song while doing that so there was no way they could know about it but much to our surprise, they served this…

…to our table and duly informed us that it was on the house, a slice of the lovely homemade cheesecake made by one of the bosses’ sister-in-law. I am not a fan of those rich and creamy cheesecakes especially the ones that do not need any baking but we did enjoy this one a lot – so very nice and not sweet!

There were 6 of us altogether – my missus invited her brother and his wife and they brought along these…

…for me, as well as a box of very sweet and very nice black grapes.

As far as our orders went, we did feel to some extent that we may be able to get some nicer ones elsewhere but on the whole, generally, they were good and we did enjoy the dinner a lot. The total came up to RM193.00, inclusive of drinks, that night! Service was excellent and very prompt and we certainly would want to come back here again…if only it isn’t so very far away from our part of town.

LONDON CAFE & BISTRO (2.257899, 111.844136)…

…is located at No. 36, Lorong Pulau Li Hua 2 among the shops to your right after the bridge just before you reach the security check point.