Eat Drink KL: Lepaq Lepaq @ Ceylon Road, Off Changkat Bukit Bintang

Monday, November 30, 2015

Lepaq Lepaq @ Ceylon Road, Off Changkat Bukit Bintang

Nasi lemak cakes, cotton-candy cloud coffee, a brunch version of Peking Duck, & one of KL's most massive big breakfasts: This intriguing cafe is inundated with culinary novelties, set in a curious two-storey space with a forested view of Bukit Ceylon.

To seize maximum advantage of the ambiance, seek a table upstairs at the front section of this cavernous sanctuary of calm, which is in a secretive soft-launch stage; the sole customers on a recent weekend afternoon were residents of nearby condos.

Nasi lemak cheese cake (RM15+) could become Lepaq Lepaq's best-seller, tinged with morsels of glutinous rice & peanuts, topped with cucumber gelatin, anchovies & sambal - an honourable effort at turning Malaysia's national dish into dessert, evocative of nasi lemak gelato & nasi lemak creme brulee, though the cake's flavours tip toward sweetish; the savoury & spicy components feel comparatively muted, illustrating some of the inherent constraints in making a peculiar cake taste palatable.

The cafe's social media darling is poised to be the 'Rainy Day Coffee,' with a cloud of cotton candy suspended above the steaming-hot cup - it's not wholly original (a simple online search reveals its presence at a couple of cafes in California & Shanghai), but it is pretty fun & exuberantly eye-catching. Sure, by the time the cotton candy melts, the saucer below is a sticky mess, & the coffee may not be for connoisseurs, but the experience should cheer up young-at-heart customers. RM13+.

We respect how The Crepey Duck tries to transpose a Chinese restaurant staple into a cafe setting - it's enjoyable enough, with tender roasted duck breast meat & crispy skin waiting to be folded in crepes; the traditional hoisin sauce is substituted with a kitchen-produced orange mayonnaise, which makes the sum of this recipe more mellow than punchy in flavour. RM40+.

Strictly for sharing, Lepaq Lepaq's Big Breakfast is a whopping serving of (deep breath!) truffle-scrambled eggs, toasted ciabatta, three types of sausages (foot-long chicken, cranberry lamb, & our favourite, smoked chicken with a melted cheese centre), two hash browns, turkey & chicken ham, mixed leaves, halved tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, baked beans, kidney beans & a sweet-spicy dip - some of the elements are more effective than others. It's RM55+, but it can feed three customers. 

Our favourite order turned out to be one of the least-heralded offerings: Sliced lotus roots, deep-fried with a coating of salted egg yolk & butter (RM16+). Hot & fresh, crunchy & deliciously flavoursome; we'd happily have this again. Note though that the menu may change from day to day, so what's available on Friday might not necessarily be the same as Monday's selection.

Drinks range from non-alcoholic mocktails served in boxes to the Yarra Valley's 5.5%-ABV Innocent Bystander Moscato. Service here is welcoming, with an amiable, eager-to-please team; the place has potential, so we wish its founders well.

Lepaq Lepaq
Lot 687, Jalan Ceylon, Kuala Lumpur. Same street as Regency Tower & Lanson Place. Daily, 11am-9pm

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