Fikcles Cafe, TTDI

The deal: Meal + drink for 2 for RM28 at Fikcles Cafe

What we got:

Lontong goreng (RM10.90)

The lontong goreng seems to be a much raved-about item in the blogs we trawled prior to visiting the cafe (yes, research is important!). Fried rice cake with onions, garlic, ginger, chilli and an egg, the portion was big enough to share. As it was our first time tasting this dish, we have nothing to compare it to, but on a stand-alone basis it proved to be rather decent. We would've loved it more if there was less chilli oil pooled at the bottom of the dish.

 Hearty breakfast (RM14.90)

We wanted to try the salted egg squid, since this also seems to have garnered positive feedback from previous customers. Alas, we were informed that they would not be offering this dish that day, as they did not want to compromise on the taste of the dish as the quality of the ingredients were not up to par that day. We got the hearty breakfast instead upon their recommendation.

The scrambled eggs, unfortunately, suffered from too much of a good thing--with the good thing being butter. Not sure if it was a fluke that day, but like how Kaffa Cafe botched their scrambled eggs with way too much salt, the chef here seems to be a bit too generous with the butter. The sausage was slightly spicy and very delicious, while the mushrooms, baked beans, tomato and croissant was average. 

Green tea extravaganza (RM14.90)

Essentially ice-blended green tea with milk. You'll love this if you love Starbuck's ice-blended green tea cream. Serving size was great too.

Flat white (RM8.90)

If there's one thing we would recommend they improve on, it would be the ventilation of the place. Because the kitchen wasn't properly separated from the dining area, we could smell what's cooking the moment we opened the doors to the establishment; not exactly what we expect when we choose to have our meal at a cafe. That aside, our waiter was really friendly, making for a pleasant dining experience.

Tax: None

How  much we paid: RM28

Bricks & Barrels, Desa Sri Hartamas

The deal: Western lunch at Bricks & Barrels for 2 people at Bricks & Barrels

What we got:

Keeping it short and sweet this time: the deal was for 1 soup of the day, 1 choice of main course and 1 ice lemon tea for each person.

Mushroom soup

Soup of the day. Tastes like the store-bought variety.

Pan-roasted honey mustard pork chop with creamy mustard sauce

Generously sprinkled  with peppercorn, the honey mustard pork was sweetly savoury and well-flavoured, albeit the meat was a bit tougher than we would've liked. The accompanying sauce tasted like a mixture of cream and cheese (somewhat salty) with light hints of mustard. If you ask me, I thought the pork chop is best eaten sans the cream sauce, which rather drowns out the sweetness of the marinated meat.

Italian roast pork loin with wild white mushroom sauce

The Italian roast pork loin looked a lot more appetising in the picture on the deal page, so we were a little disappointed when the meat came looking rather white and dry. On its own, the pork was a little plain-tasting, although it had rather interesting, light hints of lemon. Again, not a fan of the sauce, although it was less cloying than the creamy mustard sauce.

As with the honey mustard pork chop, the Italian roast pork loin came with a strip of roasted pork skin that was too hard to enjoy.

Ice lemon tea

The food was not too shabby in general, although nothing particularly knocked our socks off.

Tax: None

How much we paid: RM29