With stylish new cafes popping out by the dozens since late last year, Publika @ Solaris Dutamas is my current (f00d) playground. This time we found ourselves at The Red Beanbag, a modern contemporary Australian-inspired café situated same row as our favourite French Bistro – Nathalie Gourmet Studio.
The Place – This café interior has a striking combination of contemporary lines, clean, warmth and rustic charm. Adding to the cafe’s rustic flair, a number of bean bags imprinted with words like “play”, “passion” and “creative” adorn the walls.
The Menu – Printed on a corrugated cardboard, the menu item is created with quirky names such as The Nutty Professor (tiramisu), Shroom Shroom (mushroom fettucini), Beef Me Up Scotty (grilled beef fillet) and many more. Apart from serving all day breakfast, there’s also main meal such as pasta and burger.
The Food -We stared with the RBB Signature Breakfast (RM 19.90) with poached, fried or scrambled eggs on toasts, sauteed mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, beef/chicken sausages, beef bacon, baked beans and hash brown(RM 19.90). Everything was decent (but not exceptionally good) except for the rubbery and tasteless scrambled eggs. I am secretly hoping for pork bacon too; but The Red Beanbag is a pork free eatery. Savings grace came in the form of Egg Benedict (RM 15.90). The perfectly runny yolk surrounded by nicely cooked egg white is the greatest part of the pleasure of Eggs Benedict. We poked through the yolk and enjoyed the runny hot mess. RBB’s Specialty Baked Eggs (RM 17.90)was pretty good too; with eggs cracked into a baking dish of lamb bratswurst, sundried tomatoes, potatoes and cheese, baked to perfection and served with crusty bread.
The piece de resistance is Classic French Toast (RM 13.90) coated with almonds, served with seasonal fruits and maple syrup (RM 13.90). It was so soft and fluffy! The almond coating gave it a nice, pleasant crunch too. However, RM 13.90 for ONE piece of roti is quite a steep price to pay.
Since there were 7 of us, each of us picked a dish and somehow Shaun is craving for risotto. Don Scallopino (RM 24.90) is seaweed risotto served with seared scallops and seaweed. A generous hand with the scallops but the risotto were on the bland side. My Crustacean Cousin (RM 27.90) on the other hand; was quite good. With tiger prawns and mixed seafood served with freshly pressed pasta, I felt like having lobster bisque with pasta. The lobster/prawn gravy was probably the key to this delicious seafood pasta. We don’t quite like the Shroom Shroom (entree RM19.90/main RM 24.90), creamy mix of mushroom and beef bacon bits on a bed of creamy fettucini. Those mushrooms and beef bacon bits had appeared for the third time (first & second time in our order of signature breakfast & egg benedict) and we find the pasta to be bland tasting.
Like for all caffeine oriented antipodeans, the key to a treasured breakfast haunt is the coffee. No complains! I also love how the barista tried to create coffee art for everyone around our table.
How do we like The Red Beanbag? It was a tough call. We loved the ambiance, the service (which was way beyond excellence), the vibe but the food was somehow disappointing. Don’t get me wrong. Food was actually decent, but it was a case of setting our expectations too high after reading some of the rave reviews.
p/s: will revisit for the Classic French Toast though.
p/s: still think Antipodean Cafe serves best breakfast
THE RED BEANBAG
Lot A4-1-8, Solaris Dutamas
(opposite Publika’s open space/Ben’s)
Jalan Dutamas 1,
50480 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603-6211 5116
Tue – Fri: 8:30 am - 5:00 pm
Sat – Sun: 9:30 am - 6:00 pm
Pre-booked dinners for functions available.
http://www.facebook.com/theredbeanbag
The RBB Signature Breakfast – poached, fried or scrambled eggs on toasts, sauteed mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, beef/chicken sausages, beef bacon, baked beans and hash brown(RM 19.90)
Egg Benedict – poached eggs with hollandaise, asparagus, mushrooms and streaky beef bacon (RM 15.90)
RBB’s Specialty Baked Eggs – eggs cracked into a baking dish of lamb bratswurst, sundried tomatoes, potatoes and cheese, baked to perfection and served with crusty bread (RM 17.90)
Classic French Toast -coated with almonds, served with seasonal fruits and maple syrup (RM 13.90)
Don Scallopino – seaweed risotto served with seared scallops and seaweed (RM 24.90)
My Crustacean Cousin - tiger prawns and mixed seafood served with freshly pressed pasta (RM 27.90)
Shroom Shroom – a creamy mix of mushroom and beef bacon bits on a bed of creamy fettucini (entree RM19.90/main RM 24.90)
Happy Birthday to my dearest Ivy and Wenchng! No prize for guessing their age right =)
my striking yellow top from The Patbingsu – a Korean Fashion blogshop that carries 100% designed and made in Korea apparels and accessories.
sweet couple no. 1 from eatonlylar
sweet couple no. 2 from broughtup2share
nice! I like the breakfast
Very Very Tempting > . < (feel like having the breakfast on this timing!)
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The pasta look great with seafood, not forgetting their coffee too…
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nice interior deco…good for coffee n chit chat!
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its quite a nice pace to chill after a meal and drink. the french love is definitely worth returning for. been back there twice in a week just for the toast.
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Signature Breakfast is super tempting!
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Love the coffee here. Best Ive had so far and I’m from Aust… Place has awesome ambiance – lots of natural sunlight & breezy. Haven’t tried their food but desserts were satisfying
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Overated
food taste salty and either no taste. Not worth the expensive price paid for. Coffee latte at rm 8 for 4oz size is a ripped off. Better go for myespresso lab for a cup of coffee.
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Hands down the WORST pasta I have ever had.
Not recommended at all
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Justine Reply:
September 15th, 2012 at 1:57 am
AGREED
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just tried My Crustacean Cousin this evening. Thought it was rather awful. It was practically tasteless and the noodles were anything but al dente. Furthermore, unlike the picture above, there were only 2 scallops . not 3! Still, the lack of scallops or other seafood was the lesser evil compared to the insipidnes of the taste. let my Friends have a go at the pasta and all agreed it was not at all good. Think it was the worst pasta (homecooked and non-homecooked) hands down i’d ever had in my life. a plate of rm5 wanton noodles at a road stall would have been better. ! BE WARNED .
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I went to RBB with my hubby last night and it was goodness gracious! very disappointing!!!!
We ordered the chicken burger and the patty was RAW!!. We complained to the waiter and we were offered to change to another dish… it was so easy to change to another dish and very quickly the waiter brought the menu back..and at the back of my mind i was thinking that they knew abt this and were prepared to change our dish.
Then we ordered pasta and… i never tasted such a bad pasta before. I would not suggest anyone to go to RBB and its for sure overrated!!
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