The Prep Room @ Sri Hartamas

The Prep Room is ready for its close-up - this new cafe lives up to its name, showcasing the hard work of a kitchen crew that prepares everything from patties & yoghurts to soups & sauces from scratch. For a start, the Big Bear all-day brekkie (available even at 9:30pm) boasts a rustic sausage & hash brown made right here at The Prep Room - the former with minced beef or chicken marinated with basil, rosemary, coriander & paprika; the latter with shredded potatoes sprinkled with sea salt. Combined with scrambled Omega-3 eggs, a chunky potato salad, chicken ham, bread, sauteed shiitake mushrooms & baked beans, it's a heavyweight platter that two can share for RM20.50. There's a reason for the lower-than-expected prices here - The Prep Room is helmed by the founders of Penang's Coffee Elements, & they want to maintain identical prices in both cafes.

 If there's one item to order, it's the soaked-oats bircher muesli (RM12-RM13), offered in varieties like Orange Goji Berry (creamy wholesomeness, flaunting a luscious fruitiness, laced with The Prep Room's own marmalade), Jackfruit Gula Melaka, Apricot Banana or Apple Berry Walnut. The portion is enough for a meal, complemented by a white caffe mocha (RM8.50; espresso with melted white chocolate) or one of the other beverages tinged with the cafe's own-made toffee or caramel sauce.

The Prep Room's repertoire is far-reaching. Its Thai seafood spaghetti (RM18.50) is robustly flavourful but explosively spicy, inspired by The Prep Room founder Akmal Zaki's two-year working stint in Bangkok & his liking for 'pad kee mao.' The Spanish Pan (RM19.50) is a super-thick omelette packed with potatoes, onions, capsicum & cheese, meant to be consumed together with a chicken-&-tomato stew. The pulled chicken burger features tender, slow-cooked breast meat with jalapenos, onions, herbs & spices, but our favourite part of this humongous serving (a real bargain for RM17.50) is the very chunky wedges (made with both potatoes & sweet potatoes), hot & fluffy with a lightly crisp exterior. Some flavours & textures could still be tweaked to be more effective, but these recipes have clearly been created with the customer's satisfaction in mind - we like the thoughtful touches like having a free flow of bread to accompany The Prep Room's broccoli, pumpkin or wild mushroom soups (RM8-RM12; house-made, not canned). Bonus trivia: The Prep Room's main chef is 21 years old but he still looks 16.

We love The Prep Room's table menu booklets, filled with pages of illustrations that are charming & whimsical, overflowing with character & heart. The menu also tells the deeply personal story of how Akmal started both Coffee Elements & The Prep Room - this place is quite the labour of love, & it has the potential to become a genuine stand-out in this neighbourhood.

The Prep Room

Jalan Sri Hartamas 7, Sri Hartamas, Kuala Lumpur. Mon-Fri: 1130am-10 pm; Sat-Sun: 930am-10pm

The Eat Drink KL mobile app is now available, connecting restaurants & customers to promote a positive spirit of community.

For iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/my/app/eat-drink-kl/id958657326?mt=8

For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eatdrinkkl.EatDrinkKL

Every restaurant on this app rewards users with a 6 percent discount, instantly & conveniently, everyday, all day long. 

In return, users share photos of their experiences at these eateries, creating a new community of restaurant lovers.

For every transaction, at least RM0.20 will be channelled to a charity of the month.

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, F&B promotions & other tasty tidbits.

Subscribe to Eat Drink KL Weekly for free via this following link: 

https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/5106C196432BB23D

Note to subscribers on Gmail: The newsletter will be in the Promotions folder of your inbox.

Check out the latest edition of Eat Drink KL: 100 Favourites, with 100 recommended restaurants for Oct-Dec 2015. This eBook is available to read or download at this link: http://issuu.com/eatdrinkkl/docs/ebook

Buckle your seatbelts: Eat Drink KL is partnering with Uber to take restaurant lovers on new adventures across KL & Selangor!

If you haven't used Uber yet, it's time to begin! For new users, just follow the steps below to redeem free rides:

1. Download the Uber app from the App Store, Play Store or Windows Store - and register your Uber account.

2. Apply the code EATDRINKKL as your first promotional code & you'll receive 2 Free Rides worth RM30 each.

3. Request a ride through the app and ride for free to any destination (with two ride values of up to RM30 each).

Go-Getter Cafe @ Bukit Jalil

Go-Getter Cafe goes all out to get its customers in a feel-good mood, with a menu that's designed to be energetically distinctive & a setting that's bright & buoyant, with colourful murals inspired partly by Pixar masterpieces 'Brave' & 'Up.'

Highlights include pastas in two possible serving sizes: You can choose 'small' (like we did; the portion works for a light lunch) for RM12 or 'regular' for RM17. For spaghetti with a Malaysian makeover, the Peranakan pasta is a Malaccan-inspired recipe with spicy-savoury dynamics, tossed with chicken, sliced sausage, lemon grass & curry leaves. If you prefer milder subtleties, the seafood spaghetti has shrimp, squid, oyster mushrooms, broccoli & green peas in Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce.

Go-Getter is also nurturing a reputation for inventive interpretations of waffles. From the East: Pandan waffles with shredded coconut, Gula Melaka & coconut ice cream - the recipe is meant to evoke the classic kuih of ondeh-ondeh (RM12). From the West: Angelababy, a crisp, dense red velvet waffle with cream cheese, shredded chocolate, Oreos, strawberries, blueberries & vanilla ice cream (RM18). And for something in between: A charcoal waffle, drizzled with salted caramel sauce & poured over with a rich & smooth salted egg yolk sauce, complemented by vanilla ice cream (RM12). Playful sugary fun at pretty fair prices.

The all-day breakfast selection is extensive; the top temptation may be the fluffy-thick fried bread layered with lots of avocado & an egg - it's sumptuously flavourful but somewhat oily, with accompaniments of lemon wedges, a side salad & honey syrup to help cut through the unctuousness; worth trying nonetheless for RM18. Coffee is available, alongside a couple of surprising beverages: A milky peanut butter latte & a pleasantly mellow avocado lassi. Many thanks to Go-Getter for having us here.

Go-Getter Cafe 

12A-1, First Floor, Block 5, Jalan Jalil Jaya 6, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur,

Mon-Tues, Thurs, 12pm-7pm; Fri-Sat, 12pm-11pm; Sun, 9am-6pm

The Eat Drink KL mobile app is now available, connecting restaurants & customers to promote a positive spirit of community.

For iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/my/app/eat-drink-kl/id958657326?mt=8

For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eatdrinkkl.EatDrinkKL

Every restaurant on this app rewards users with a 6 percent discount, instantly & conveniently, everyday, all day long. 

In return, users share photos of their experiences at these eateries, creating a new community of restaurant lovers.

For every transaction, at least RM0.20 will be channelled to a charity of the month.

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, F&B promotions & other tasty tidbits.

Subscribe to Eat Drink KL Weekly for free via this following link: 

https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/5106C196432BB23D

Note to subscribers on Gmail: The newsletter will be in the Promotions folder of your inbox.

Check out the latest edition of Eat Drink KL: 100 Favourites, with 100 recommended restaurants for Oct-Dec 2015. This eBook is available to read or download at this link: http://issuu.com/eatdrinkkl/docs/ebook

Buckle your seatbelts: Eat Drink KL is partnering with Uber to take restaurant lovers on new adventures across KL & Selangor!

If you haven't used Uber yet, it's time to begin! For new users, just follow the steps below to redeem free rides:

1. Download the Uber app from the App Store, Play Store or Windows Store - and register your Uber account.

2. Apply the code EATDRINKKL as your first promotional code & you'll receive 2 Free Rides worth RM30 each.

3. Request a ride through the app and ride for free to any destination (with two ride values of up to RM30 each).

Coolinary Ronins

In feudal Japan, ronins were masterless samurais who had fallen out of favour & were doomed to disgrace. But in modern-day Malaysia, the Coolinary Ronins represent a gastronomic strike force that's on the rise - this collective of current & former restaurateurs, chefs & baristas has banded together to carve a new niche for themselves & challenge the boundaries of what the public can expect from Malaysia's most intrepid F&B innovators, promising plenty of fun, thrills & surprises in the process.

Their kitchen knives are their swords, their aprons are their armour: The enigmatic Coolinary Ronins, who insist on anonymity for now (but who've been instrumental in shepherding high-profile restaurants from Bangsar to Changkat Bukit Bintang & Mont Kiara) unleashed their opening salvo this year as a pop-up kitchen on Fri-Sat at Damansara Uptown's The Great Beer Bar, but their stint there will end Nov. 30. If you'd like an early peek at their potential, visit the bar this month for singular creations like the Malaysian-Mexican quixotic quesadillas (RM14) - folded tortillas filled with mutton varuval, layered with mayo, mango chutney & cheddar cheese, commandingly flavourful while still distinctively nuanced enough to deliver a dynamic impression.

The Ronins are people after our own heart - they adore offal too, & their fetishes are unmasked in the dim sum basket of bao-styled steamed mantao stuffed with ox tripe, tongue, lung & meat in Chinese soy sauce (RM10; nicknamed 'bovine harakiri'); bak-chang glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves & studded with pieces of pope's nose, duck sausage (or 'ngap cheong') & duck fat, tinged with Straits Settlements' sambal serai spices (RM8); & gyoza packed with a Franken-fowl blend of chicken meat, duck meat & crunchy duck gizzard, laced with salt & chilli flakes, accompanied by black vinegar sauce with ginger (RM12). Every dish is expertly tuned, with memorably robust dimensions that put a fresh spin on familiar local flavours.

Versatility is a strong suit of the Ronins - meat-free options are no obstacle; our top recommendation from their repertoire may be the vegetarian sliders, showcasing eryngii mushrooms with a juicy bite, pulled & pan-seared, sauteed in home-made spicy BBQ sauce, crowned with coleslaw in wholemeal buns, served with an unexpected accompaniment of dehydrated jackfruit pulp, flash-fried & lightly salted to function as sweet-savoury crisps - an ingenious display of talent (RM10). But for mindless munching, order a packet of popcorn, sweetly infused with Gula Melaka caramel & toasted dessicated coconut 'kerisik' (RM5).

The Coolinary Ronins have cool ambitions - in the next two years, they hope to help budding F&B aspirants take charge of their dishes & their destiny, making the leap to become warriors in the Klang Valley's bone-crushing F&B landscape. There's not much more that can be revealed for now, as ronins are so often shrouded in secrecy, but if you'd like to contact the collective for collaborations, email coolinaryronins@gmail.com - many thanks to the Ronins for having us over their sanctum.

Coolinary Ronins

Pop-up kitchen at The Great Beer Bar, Damansara Uptown, on Fridays & Saturdays only until November 30. 

Available for collaboration & consultation by request: coolinaryronins@gmail.com

The Eat Drink KL mobile app is now available, connecting restaurants & customers to promote a positive spirit of community.

For iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/my/app/eat-drink-kl/id958657326?mt=8

For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eatdrinkkl.EatDrinkKL

Every restaurant on this app rewards users with a 6 percent discount, instantly & conveniently, everyday, all day long. 

In return, users share photos of their experiences at these eateries, creating a new community of restaurant lovers.

For every transaction, at least RM0.20 will be channelled to a charity of the month.

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, F&B promotions & other tasty tidbits.

Subscribe to Eat Drink KL Weekly for free via this following link: 

https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/5106C196432BB23D

Note to subscribers on Gmail: The newsletter will be in the Promotions folder of your inbox.

Check out the latest edition of Eat Drink KL: 100 Favourites, with 100 recommended restaurants for Oct-Dec 2015. This eBook is available to read or download at this link: http://issuu.com/eatdrinkkl/docs/ebook

Buckle your seatbelts: Eat Drink KL is partnering with Uber to take restaurant lovers on new adventures across KL & Selangor!

If you haven't used Uber yet, it's time to begin! For new users, just follow the steps below to redeem free rides:

1. Download the Uber app from the App Store, Play Store or Windows Store - and register your Uber account.

2. Apply the code EATDRINKKL as your first promotional code & you'll receive 2 Free Rides worth RM30 each.

3. Request a ride through the app and ride for free to any destination (with two ride values of up to RM30 each).