The Great KL Breakfast Challenge

There are people who skip breakfast all their lives, and then there are those of us who know the secret to breakfast. One, that is it the key to keeping your weight at a decent level so that you can continue to enjoy food and secondly, that breakfast is simply a continuation of whatever food dream you had the night before (or an opportunity to realise the gluttony of the day before).

I adore breakfast and my greatest challenge is finding new fresh and interesting places to go for breakfast in KL and PJ. The problem is that Malaysians are very much breakfast people but as much as I enjoy tosai and roti canai or even mee goreng/maggi goreng in the morning with a nice cup of milo ais kosong, I'm also a HUGE fan of Western breakfasts, especially sweet options. My criteria is also quite exacting because it requires not only that the breakfast place have a good set of choices (savoury and sweet), but that the coffee also be up to scratch. The coffee part is a real issue because NOTHING ruins a good breakfast like a so-so cup of coffee.

In no order of preference (and this list will be updated as I go along) here are some of my favourite breakfast haunts, and preferred items:

Here are some of my favourite breakfast places:

Alexis Bangsar/BSC

Breakfast is only available on weekends but the menu is generally well thought out although short in my view on sweet options. My favs:

• The corned beef hash (okay, so we don't know what goes INTO corned beef but Alexis does a pretty good one)
• The pancakes (size has shrunk of late but still good - great to order to share if you want to avoid the temptation of the cakes)
• The Hearty Breakfast - value for money since they throw in juice and a coffee and they have great baked beans - only minus point - no oink.
• Salmon scrambled eggs - worth it for the fabulous dill butter they smack on top of the fluffy omelette.
• Swiss rosti - you might end up in a carb coma after but...it's great with a side of baked beans.

And if you still have room, cake beckons.

Uncle Lims, IKANO

By far in my view the best toast bread around and I like the wholemeal version. This is real butter and proper not overly sweet kaya. The coffee is pretty good too (just don't order the white coffee which obviously comes out of a packet). I like going there on weekdays since the crowd is kind of crazy on weekends and that's when your 3/4 eggs end up coming out runny.Oh, their curry puffs are pretty good too (oddly, Ikea-esque).

Toastbox - Midvalley or Pavillion

I don't tend to order the kaya toast here because I'm not a big fan of that Singaporean methodology of putting a whole thin slice of butter into the bread and I reckon their kaya is too sugary. My preferred poison here - eggs, the peanut thick toast (they use a combination of Skippy and some local peanut butter - smart) and the coffee (although standards have declined at MV since they changed the team there sometime in 2011).

PapaRich (various locations around Klang Valley)

No introduction needed and the expansive menu will cater to just about every Malaysian breakfast craving. Rumour has it that only certain outlets have decent control over the quality of the food, namely, Bangsar, Damansara Utama and Old Klang Road so gastronomic mileage varies. I love the steamed bread with kaya personally and the roti bakar susu - so evil.

Nirwana Maju, Bangsar

I love their tosai, especially the masala tosai. Roti is not too bad, the roti bom is heart-stopping and their maggi goreng generally holds its standard. Beware the early morning retiree crowd, who invariably consume all the fabulously fluffy apam before 930am.

Illy Espressamente @ BSV

This is a great place for a morning start that is slow and languid and Internet connection means you won't feel totally lazy as you stuff down their fabulous maple syrup and peanut butter sauce laced pancakes with a great cup of Illy java. The pastries are pretty good (although the pain au chocolate loses to that of Heistland Bakery downstairs in the Village Grocer) and they have a nice breakfast meal combo. Juices are made fresh in case you feel like abstaining from coffee and must confess a weakness for the cheese-turkey ham Cornetto. The Pavillion outlet is pretty good as well but it always feels like it's been hit by a bomb if you turn up at say 10ish although the management is quite cool about people buying pastries from The Loaf next door.

The Loaf @ BSV

Whilst they don't have as wide a selection of pastries as the Pavillion outlet, the BSV outlet offers a respectable selection for breakfast. The coffee is pretty good and comes in a nice solid mug that makes you feel like wrapping your hands around it and just chilling as you ease into the start of the day. Lots of people do meetings here and I personally quite like meeting clients here for breakfast or lunch. For brekkie, pick something from the counter selection (the toast bread with kaya is not too bad but hardly stunning and stay away from the toast bread with peanut butter - the photos are deceiving). Stick with the pastries instead and you'll be fine.

The Antipodean - making breakfast an art

Strolled past this place in Bangsar last week and finally made it in there this week after my advance scouting party had declared it was pretty good.

No pictures since you can just google the place and all those food blogs that have more images than words will appear. I cater only to the literate gastro-types on my blog, thank you very much.  I have to say I liked the decor very much - decor is not something I pay very much attention to and I maintain that decor and ambiance are not one and the same. This place was not overdone, with comfortable chairs (very important if you want to park yourself there) and no frigging lighting that shines on the table and blinds me when I'm eating my food.

Yes, a certain eatery in Bangsar has bloody spotlights that shine on the table and I'm told the owner likes it that way. I want to eat, not be blinded, for god's sakes. Yes, I like to be able to see my food but not under the fluorescent glare of whatever fancy lighting that is obviously not subtle in any way.

The Antipodean bills itself as Kiwi cafe although the food seems to me to be somewhat indistinguishable from the Australian style breakfast cafes ala Bills based on the menu. Interestingly enough, the word Antipodean according to Wiki, refers to occupants of the Antipodes, which includes Australia and New Zealand. Anyway, let's quibble not because Kiwi or Aussie, this place is a long overdue upstart in the very dull Brunch scene in KL (specifically Bangsar) and from what I can see and what I've eaten, they're doing a heck of a job giving long overdue jolt to Bangsar brekkie/brunch scene.

First, the coffee.  Brunch with Bad Coffee is a travesty in itself and reason for epicurean aneurysm. The Antipodean has not just a respectable list of coffee choices, but a list of coffee choices that makes it clear that they are not amateurs when it comes to coffee.

Incorrectly, I thought the giant mixing machine in the back of the cafe was for making bread. Then when I stepped out and looked at the sandwich board and saw the words 'Coffee Roasters' I realised, the bags that looked like flour bags were coffee beans. Me suspects they are somehow related to those gourmet bags of coffee that have appeared in BSV under the Merdeka brand.

In any case, it's obvious that the people behind Antipodean are serious about the coffee in the place (and the food too). In my not so humble opinion, only a place with a real barista (you know the ones at Starbucks are not real baristas right?) would list a Bicerin on their coffee menu and separate between a piccolo latte and a standard latte. A Bicerin is a technically complicated drink to make - it's essentially what Starbucks called a mocha except in Starbucks, they don't bother with the art form of it and just shovel everything into one cup and slosh it all up. Properly presented, a Bicerin should look like the three layer tea - you should be able to see the individual layers of chocolate, espresso and milk. Since making the drink involves three liquids of different viscosity whilst not allowing them to mix, this is not for the novice coffee maker.

I will open myself to criticism by saying that the presence of a gwai loh behind the espresso machine says something about how serious these Antipodeans are about their coffee. No, there's nothing wrong with local baristas per se and i will save this for another debate but suffice to say, Asians (bar the Japanese) very rarely demonstrate a level of commitment to perfection in the merely ordinary, such as a cup of coffee, compared to Westerners.  And if we can't commit to excellent in something as fundamental as making a good cup of coffee, then is it a wonder that the quality of product when it comes to more complicated dishes is often mediocre if not average at best in Malaysia? And is it any surprise that the food scenes in Singapore and Hong Kong continue to be heavily dominated by Western chefs?

On the point of the coffee: to what extent it is the beans, the machine or the barista or all three? I maintain that the human touch is essential to a cup of good coffee. The invisible factor of effort put into each cup, and dedication to perfection often makes the difference between any old dogsbody making coffee with great beans and a superb machine, and a BARISTA.

Anyway, the coffee which was fantastic (better than Illy Espressamente - my regular coffee stop) and a proper flat white it was. I look forward to trying the Bicerin on my next visit and might even brave an espresso.

Another major plus for the Antipodean is that they serve bacon. And by bacon, I mean PORK BACON, not beef bacon. I am not here to offer political or religious correctness with regards food. Bacon, like ham, should be used to refer to items made from pork meat, not chicken or turkey or whatever else. For the longest time, places that served oink with their breakfast menu (and you can count them more or less on one hand - J&R and The Blue Cow) could get away with serving so-so food and so-so Big Breakfasts/All Day Breakfasts because they had bacon on the menu. And the places that had decent breakfast options (Plan B, Alexis) in turn were hobbled by the absence of bacon on their menu, which would have complimented their generally excellent breakfasts choices. The pancakes at Alexis for example, would have SUNG with the addition of a side order of bacon.

Now admittedly I am writing this only having sampled the French Toast at Antipodean. The French toast wasn't quite up to my expectations (neither sufficiently fluffy, nor richly custardy) but the bacon was excellent (a perfect mix of fat and lean) and the chicken sausages were excellent. And a friend on the next table who had the scrambled eggs said they were excellent, with fairly generous portions as well. And you know what, my waiter asked me how I wanted my bacon - normal or extra crispy. And you just know, this is a place that takes breakfast SERIOUSLY.

Further, a place that is bold enough to offer porridge on the menu (hopefully Malaysians know what porridge is - no, not the Teochew variety) wins my respect off the bat. I will be back to try the Butterscotch Pancakes (with a nice side of crispy bacon), and the Porridge with Honey and Banana. The post 11am menu also looks very interesting and well worth a second visit (for lunch) to explore those options. The limited selection of cakes and baked goods are also pretty enticing and hopefully will complement their excellent coffee.

Update: was there today again. The scrambled eggs at this place are pretty good although I just realised from the menu that they don't have that absolute classic, fried eggs with bacon. Hmm. Something has to be done about that. The scrambled eggs with bacon on Croissant however was pretty good, with a healthy stuffing of rocket so that you don't feel completely like your arteries are clogging over. and managed to have a taster of the apple pie and Apple + Cashew cake. Whilst not too bad, I will certainly not hold up my stamp of approval on these two. The apple pie had a nice tasting crust but was too crumbly for my liking and the cinnamon was too strong. The Apple + Cashew cake was interesting enough but again, seemed to suffer from an overdose of clove spice. Coffee still good (had the iced Americano this time in lieu of the insanely hot weather.)

The final plus point for the Antipodean is prices that I consider fairly reasonable, and which hopefully will put some pressure on Plan B and Alexis to do something about their prices (more so Alexis, which has been raising prices and cutting portions of late). The big breakfast is RM18, a good RM10 less than Alexis although admittedly Alexis provides coffee and a glass of juice. But given that the Antipodean has bacon AND great coffee,  I'd say their lower price is just feather in their cap, alongside the other advantages the already have.

A quick word of caution: the place is obviously getting quite a reputation - at 11am only two tables were occupied but half an hour later, the place was more than half full. So it's best to visit early or avoid being in the middle of the weekend Brunch hour squash.

Antipodean Cafe,
20, Jalan Telawi 2, Bangsar.
Tel: 03-2282-0411