Dining in the Dark – Mediocrity amplified

50, Changkat Bukit Bintang, Bukit Bintang, 50200, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We went to Dining in the Dark recently for a very belated Valentine’s Day dinner and I must say it was a pretty disappointing experience.

As I understand it, the idea is to deprive you of visual input so your tastebuds are not influenced by what you see. Your sense of taste is sharpened and you experience your food more intensely. If we follow that logic, then this will only be a good experience if the food is great in the first place, right?

Sadly, much as their website boasts about ‘surprise menus’ that take diners on a ‘marvelous gastronomic journey’ the food is no more than mediocre.

And, I'm guessing, they're not too big on food presentation either.

What they did deliver on – in spades – was the ‘total darkness’ bit. We couldn’t see anything other than the red dots of light on the security cameras – presumably installed to capture footage of clumsy diners for a ‘funniest videos’ show… or to catch kleptomaniac guests emboldened by the cover of darkness.

We weren't allowed to bring phones or anything else that glows into the dining area. This 'picture' of the security camera is an artist's impression.

And in the pitch-black, not able to see my food, tasting something not-so-great makes my mind conjure up some pretty disturbing stuff. For example, the pasta was cold and the room-temperature, watery sauce made me think I was eating someone else’s leftovers. One of the soups tasted like it came out of a can. One of the dessert items tasted like it was cheap chocolate ice-cream that came out of a cardboard box sold off a pushcart. As the darkness enhanced our sense of taste, the mediocre food only tasted even more intensely mediocre.

That’s not all – our sense of hearing got enhanced too, with equally undesirable results. The couple sitting two tables away sounded like they were having their intimate conversation with us instead of each other.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, eating was hugely uncomfortable too. We had to grope about in the dark to find our plates. Then we are encouraged to use our fingers to push the food onto our spoons to avoid scooping up thin air. If this is a ‘fine dining’ experience like they touted on their website, they could have served bite-sized servings of food on individual spoons. Then we would get the right proportions of everything in every bite. But no – they made us use our hands, clumsily shoveling haphazard spoonfuls into our mouths like we were starving refugees.

Finally, perhaps what irritated me most of all about this whole crappy experience was the preachy talk at the end of the meal reminding us how clumsy we were when we couldn’t see what we were doing. Well DUH!

You may think I’m sounding whiney but you have to consider that they did promise an incredible dining experience filled with fresh sensory delights. I was expecting to eat well. But instead, they focused so much on the darkness part of the experience that the food tasted like an afterthought tacked on at the last second.

It’s a shame, really – an interesting concept that was poorly executed. But, much as I dislike it, I guess there will still be people who are interested to go dine in the dark for the experience, so I won’t go into any more detail about the food to avoid spoiling the mystery. Just remember to lower your expectations of the food and you may have a better experience than I did.

Bite-sized review

Eat in pitch darkness. Interesting concept but executed poorly – focused too much on the darkness gimmick and not enough on the food. The result is mediocre food that tastes more intensely mediocre in the darkness.

Stats

Price: RM118++ per person for a 3-course ‘fine dining’ menu that isn’t very fine at all

Hours: 6:00pm to 9:30pm – Tuesdays to Sundays

Reservations: Required – no walk-ins allowed

Coffee Sprex – Basic

No. 9, Jalan SS25/23, Taman Plaza, 47301, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

I normally just write about the food at a restaurant, but here is a rare opportunity for me to furnish a little backstory.

A while back, there was this new cafe that opened up in Damansara Perdana called DiB, which stands for Deaf in Business. It was a Hawaiian-themed joint opened by a doctor to – as its rather unimaginative name indicates – provide jobs for the hearing-impaired. Its name aside, DiB did serve up pretty good food and coffee. They used quality ingredients and I felt that they offered good value for money.

So I was rather saddened when they shifted away to the nearby PJ Trade Center – and thus outside the radius within which Lady Fartsalot would be willing to walk.

Then in August 2013, two of the staff from DiB decided to strike out on their own and thus opened Coffee Sprex. My lazier half found out about it on Facebook and here we are at lunch one weekend.

Firstly, the place is very small. It occupies just half a shoplot and in that space they had to fit their kitchen, coffee machine, a display cabinet with cakes and pies and six tables that can seat two each.

It may only be half a shop, but the food is not half bad!

The menu is interesting, with many items that are probably unique to Coffee Sprex. We’re curious about quite a lot fo them and will definitely go back often to try them out.

The staff are hearing-impaired so we ordered by pointing at items on the menu. Then they somehow managed to crank out all the stuff we ordered from a tiny kitchen that has only one burner.

The drinks arrived first. Mine was a macadamia latte that didn’t really taste very much like macadamias, but was still a decent glass of iced coffee.

Let's just call this kopi ais, then.

Lady Fartsalot decided to be more adventurous, and ordered one of their ‘exotic brewed teas’. It was a turmeric milk tea that was incredibly thick, particularly if you stirred up the bits at the bottom of the really, really big teapot they brought to our table. It was sort of like a pale yellow porridge, and tasted of, well, turmeric… and – to me – dried Chinese medicinal herbs. It certainly was exotic, perhaps a bit to much for us.

Seriously an acquired taste.

The food was more successful.

The steamed burgers are very basic, devoid of sides or garnishing, and at a basic price that’s just slightly higher than Ramly Burgers. Steaming made the patties extremely tender and juicy.

The beef burger had some runny sauce that tasted strongly of dried herbs – perhaps oregano – and was sandwiched between incredibly soft steamed buns.

And the cheese was all nice and melty, too.

The pork burger was as juicy, though with a more springy quality. It had a porky taste that was just right and its sauce was more barbecue sauce-like and less herby.

The pork burger is nice, but I still think lamb and beef make the best burger patties.

Our favourite of all was the lamb – which we had on a later visit and didn’t get a picture of – just like the beef burger but with a very nice lamb flavour.

Spicy Joe was a pasta dish with a spicy, tomatoey sauce and minced pork. It tasted hearty and delicious, but the pasta was unfortunately overcooked.

Sigh.. if only the pasta had been a little more al dente... 

Finally, the cheese dip with toasted bread. I was expecting a creamy dip but what we got served was a very watery liquid with strands of half-melted cheese and bits of bacon and mushroom floating in it. It tasted fine but I really wouldn’t call this a dip. I actually ordered this on two separate occasions and was served the same thing – so I guess this wasn’t a mistake and they really meant to make it this way.

They should name this 'cheese soup' instead.

All in all, we had some interesting and creative dishes, though some perhaps not executed as well as others.

I hope they do well and expand to a bigger place with a better-equipped kitchen. In the mean time, we will definitely go back frequently with our support and appetites.

Snack-sized review

A tiny, basic place offering an interesting and creative menu. Decent, no-frills food at no-frills prices. Some items are executed better than others. The steamed burgers are our favourites. Seats 12 max, so don’t bring a large party.

Stats

Hours: 8:00am to 7:00pm

Price: Very good prices with most items below RM10.

Nosh – Too… much… black… peppAAACHOO!

7, Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar Baru, 59100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We went to Nosh in Bangsar for Christmas dinner and found it to be refreshingly quiet and uncrowded. We even found parking within seconds of turning into the Telawi area.

Guess most of the people who frequent Bangsar partied too hard there the night before and were all at home nursing hangovers and feeling sorry for themselves. Great for me, since I am not too fond of crowded places.

So, the food at Nosh. It seemed that they were a little heavy-handed with the black pepper, and this was particularly noticeable for someone who doesn’t like black pepper, like me.

The taste of black pepper dominated my chicken roulade, to the point where I could hardly taste anything else. Besides this, the chicken itself was nice and tender, with what looked like spinach in the middle and a thin, crispy crust. There were some nicely cooked and beautifully carved pieces of vegetables and a huge amount of sweet and extremely heavy pumpkin mash. Fortunately, the tart tomato sauce helped cut some of the mash’s sweetness, and also counter some of the pepperiness of the chicken.

They should have called it black pepper chicken roulade to warn people like me.

Lady Fartsalot’s tagliatelle carbonara with smoked duck was a lot better. It landed on the table in a swirl of amazing smells: cheese and salty ham and deliciousness… topped with a single, beautiful, runny egg yolk. Once everything’s been mixed and given some time to dry out, we were left with a nice, thick sauce that tasted every bit as good as it smelled. There was just the right amount of sauce, too, and it coated the firm and chewy tagliatelle nicely. Everything was great except for an occasional pepper-heavy bite of food. Maybe we didn’t mix the pasta thoroughly enough to spread the pepper out.

An amazing carbonara spoiled slightly by the pepper bombs buried within.

Fortunately, the last item we’ll be talking about is blessedly free of back pepper. The Passion Shy mocktail was a bit like a mojito, and tasted of lime and passionfruit, with a very slight hint of mint. Very refreshing indeed.

One of the few things containing mint that I actually like a lot.

Overall, the food at Nosh is pretty good. The black pepper thing is probably a very personal gripe based on my own taste preferences. I am curious to go back again to try other items on the menu, perhaps on normal days when the cooks are less likely to have been out getting hammered the previous night.

Bite-sized review

Good food, ambience and service. The food seemed to have a little too much black pepper, but that could be because I don’t like black pepper and am particularly sensitive to it. I would go back again to try other stuff on the menu.

Stats

Price: Mid-range for Bangsar. The two mains were RM34 each. The drink was RM12.

Hours: Closed on Mondays. Opening hours on other days vary. Check their website at nosh.my/theplace.html for details.

Tange – Very good value

Metropolitan Square, Damansara Perdana, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

I am happy to report that, just a few posts in, this blog is already beginning to serve its primary purpose of helping me discover new and interesting places to eat.

This hasn’t always been easy because Lady Fartsalot and I are very much creatures of habit. Most weekdays, we’d walk to either one of two coffee shops near our place for dinner. We’d eat more or less the same utilitarian food that, though cheap and decent, was nothing worth blogging about.

Our lack of new food discoveries was not helped by Lady Fartsalot’s shameless commitment to being lazy. Usually, even the thought of walking from one end of 1 Utama to another is enough to make her complain incessantly. So walking a little further to look for new places to eat was usually out of the question.

I won’t be surprised if this guy moves more meters/day than she does.

But, in pursuit of new material for the blog, she was finally willing to do some exploring at dinnertime.

That’s how we came across Tange. I believe the name is shortened from ‘tangerine’ and should therefore be pronounced ‘Tanj’. Can’t be sure, though.

Doesn’t matter. What matters most is, of course, the food.

They serve mainly western food, with some Asian and fusion thrown in. We’ve been there twice to date, and have had mostly set meals – one main course and a drink – that come up to just a little over RM10 each. They have good-sized portions and the quality of food is good for the prices they charge.

Straight-up olive oil and garlic is one of my favourite ways to prepare pasta. So the first time we were there, I just had to order their smoked salmon aglio olio. Nice firm pasta with a generous amount of salty smoked salmon made for a really nice plateful of comfort food for me.

I could probably eat this every day.

The kung poh pasta had good amount of kung poh chicken cooked with some al dente spaghetti. The flavour quite smoky, and didn’t taste very much like kung poh. Not bad, but not great either.

Be careful not to get any of this on your shirt.

On our second visit, I got the chicken parmigiana. The chicken was a little on the dry side and not very big; they added a fair amount of fried potatoes for volume. This is understandable since it only costs around RM10 and comes with a free drink. The greens on the side were light and crunchy and a refreshing change from the coleslaw I was expecting.

Nowhere near as good as the one from, say, Dave’s Deli… but nowhere near as expensive, either.

My favourite dish so far has been the pesto prawn pasta. The pesto was nice and flavourful and the prawns were great. I’ve complained before about how too many places overcook their prawns. Well, these were cooked just right – they were fresh and firm and translucent and still had a nice pop when you bite into them.

Interestingly, they garnished this with dill, which is more specifically suited to match with seafood compared with the one-size-fits-all parsley that most restaurants would use.

The shop itself has a nice neighbourhood eatery feel. Mismatched furniture and an exposed drinks station sort of let you know you won’t get posh prices. They made great use of mirrors to make the dining area feel light and airy and spacious.

This mezzanine area would have been great to put additional tables, but they’re using it as office space instead.

Another thing to note is that there is very little overlap between items on their set menu (the value meals) and their main menu… which I guess means that their value items aren’t just half-assed versions of their main menu items, but well-thought-out dishes specifically designed with a lower price range in mind.

But even on their main menu, prices are very budget-friendly: pretty much everything is below RM20.

They also have a breakfast menu with surprisingly low prices.

This is a really nice little neighbourhood eatery and a great find for me personally. Yes, not all the food is brilliant, but one tends to forgive a lot when taking the low prices into account.

I wouldn’t recommend making a special trip to eat here. But if you live nearby – as I do – Tange is a great place to have a casual, wallet-friendly weekday (or even weekend) meal.

Mirrors make the place look much larger than it actually is.

Snack-sized review

Great neighbourhood casual dining joint that offers decent food at good prices. Not worth a special trip, but if you live in Damansara Perdana, it’s a nice place you can eat at regularly without breaking the bank.

Stats

Hours: 10am to 10pm daily.

Price: Very good prices for the quality of food offered. About RM10 to RM20 per person.