A fresh renaissance is dawning for health-food restaurants in the Klang Valley: This month, we bid a wholesome welcome to Konscious, a reincarnation of the now-closed Nadalama Spa cafe (Konscious is run partly by the folks who owned Nadalama). It's perhaps more of a hippie cafe than a hipster one.
Konscious is consciously evocative of Nadalama; there's an open kitchen that feels like something in someone's home, set amid a rustic, Balinese-inspired ambiance with hypnotic New Age music wafting in the background. Sure, these could all have ended up looking cliched, but there's a sincere charm to Konscious Cafe.
Eastern influences permeate a menu of intriguing temptations like Thai khanom jeen, featuring rice noodles with fish sauce & plenty of leaves (some washed in pure baking soda to remove possible pesticides & chemicals), all served in recyclable bowls.
Vietnamese beef 'pho' is also available; Konscious says its beef & chicken are of the free-range, antibiotic-free sort; these noodle recipes taste light, perhaps not as robust as some might prefer, but they work very well for a low-guilt lunch or dinner.
Think Pink: Falafel burger laced with pistachios & herbs, topped with pink beet hummus, sandwiched in organic sourdough. No refined flour, sugar, dairy or wheat products, that's the hook at Konscious Cafe.
Konscious' interpretation of Vietnamese banh mi comes with chicken marinated in kefir probiotic fermented milk. If what you're looking for is uniqueness, well, you've found it right here.
Naturally, there are some salads: Choose from a surprisingly spicy Fuji apple & mint preparation (RM10) or organic Japanese daikon with snow lotus dressing (RM12.80). Konscious is still very much in a soft-launch stage, so the menu is limited for now.
Gluten-free basil oatmeal quiche? OK. Stinky tofu? Hmmm, could prove an acquired taste.
Coffee (RM9 for an espresso) isn't spared from Konscious' ethical eating & drinking: Inca Fe organic beans are used here, cultivated in Peruvian plantations & blended & roasted in New Zealand.
And course, juices like the Little Miracles range, which promises 'organic energy' with components like green tea, ginseng, pomegrate, acai & agave. We've misplaced our receipt, so we've not listed the price for many of these items, but most cost between RM10 & RM20.
Bamboo straws, organic sweeteners, Ayurvedic Himalayan salts: The folks of Konscious have an all-encompassing philosophy to their cafe, signalling that their heart is entirely in what they advocate.
Konscious is rather hidden, inconspicuously nestled without a signboard next to a laundromat. But now that it's been found, reviewed & revealed, the floodgates are thrown wide-open, so expect to see & hear more about Konscious in the months ahead.
Konscious Cafe Health Food Restaurant
10 Jalan PJU 8/3A, Damansara Perdana, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Tue-Sun, 12pm-1130pm. Tel: 03-7710-0129
Check out the latest edition of Eat Drink KL: 100 Favourites, featuring 100 recommended restaurants for July-September 2014, including more than 20 new entries for this quarter.
This eBook is available to read or download at this link: http://eatdrinkkl.publ.com/2014C
Link expires Sept 30, 2014; see blog entries after that date for new link.
Stay up to date: The Eat Drink KL newsletter is sent by email to subscribers every Monday; it's the Klang Valley's foremost weekly round-up of new restaurant openings (even before they're featured on this blog), F&B promotions & other tasty tidbits.
Subscribe to Eat Drink KL Weekly for free via this following link:
Note to subscribers on Gmail: The newsletter will be in the Promotions folder of your inbox.
Sausages to sambal. Muffins to marshmallows. Peanut butter to mango chutney. Cornflake ice cream to honey aloe yogurt. Lavender-laced lemonades to lychee-&-guava juices.
Eat Drink KL: Small Businesses, Huge Flavours is the first eBook to help customers navigate the diversity of independent F&B entrepreneurs who bake & boil in their own kitchens, offering some of Malaysia's finest, most fascinating food products.
This resource will be continuously updated with new listings: www.eatdrinkkl.publ.com/businesses