[Tasting] Wang Yuan Desserts and Coffee @ 33 Keong Saik Road

Located at No. 33 Keong Saik Road, Wang Yuan Desserts and Coffee offers a comfortable environment to hide away from the hustles and bustles surrounding it. Want to get some 'bingsu' to counter the ever increasing temperature? Wang Yuan offers localised flavours with maximum yummy-ness while maintaining at a reasonable price point. Oh, you wanted coffee? I tried their 'Barista Signature' and enjoyed that cuppa smooth delicious coffee. How about food then? Why not have an Iced Gula Melaka Latte with a plate of delicious nasi lemak?

Wang Yuan Desserts and Coffee, as seen from opposite side of the road

entrance

let's browse the menu

interior

menu

This was an invited tasting so we got to try a variety of items. For drinks, I wanted a hot coffee, so I ended up choosing the Barista Signature because it sounded special. Liked that the barista actually asked the type of coffee that the diner prefers, and when the cup that was brought forth, hits all the right spot.

Barista Signature coffee @$6 

"not too acidic, smooth and mildly sweetened"

Wang Yuan uses their own house-blend for the coffee resulting in a balanced profile. Well, I liked its moderate strength that's easy to drink with a velvety smoothness overall. Was warned that it would be sweetened and that was fine since it wasn't overly sweet.

Here's a quick look at the other drinks:

milk tea

Butterscotch Caramel Milk @$7

Feeling hungry? Let's dive in to some hot food. Hankering for some Katong laksa? Yes, they serve it here. Cockles (螄蚶), fish cake slices (鱼饼片), beansprouts (豆芽), prawns (虾) and half a hard boiled egg (水煮蛋 - 一半). Ah, yes...not forgetting the finely chopped laksa leaves. The laksa gravy is slurp-able, with a gentle orange hue that does not feel overly rich yet tasty.

Traditional Katong Laksa 传统加东叻沙 @$7

Feel like having rice? How about a plate of good 'ol nasi lemak, one of our national favourite dish? A few options available; with Chicken Katsu or Sambal Chicken/Cuttlefish/Prawns. We tried the one with chicken katsu. The plate came with well fried crunchy chicken katsu, a large piece of mackerel otah, peanuts and ikan bilis, sambal, cucumber slices and half a hard boiled egg. The rice is pandan flavoured. Loved the chicken katsu for its crunchy batter with juicy and well seasoned meat. Thought the sambal could be spicier.

Nasi Lemak Chicken Katsu @$8

Next up, if you would like to have prata with curry chicken, they do have it here. The curry chicken gravy was light and tasted healthy. Do note that this is typically served with chicken winglets and potatoes.

Curry Chicken (winglets) with Prata (招牌咖喱鸡印度煎饼) @$8

Ever heard of Seafood Laksa Risotto? This dish is Wang Yuan's take on modern and traditional fusion. Imagine laksa broth as the base for seafood risotto. Do note that there is a waiting time of 20 minutes for this dish.

Seafood Laksa Risotto 海鲜叻沙烩饭 @$15.80

Overall, for the food, I liked the Katong Laksa and the Nasi Lemak for its flavors and value-for-money. Hmm, if I could just get some of those crunchy ikan bilis or the chicken katsu onto the laksa, then that will be uwu!

Next up, we are completing our meal with dessert, I mean desserts. Plenty of it!

Bobo ChaCha 摩摩喳喳 @$5.80

a good bowl of bobo chacha

Bubur Pulut Hitam 黑糯米粥 @$4.80

my attempt at an 'arty-swirl' on the pulut hitam

Between the bobo chacha and the pulut hitam, both were good. Traditionalist dessert done right. The bobo chacha was fragrant with the coconut milk flavour yet not overly sweet and healthy tasting. The pulut hitam was of the right consistency and slightly sweeter but hey, this is dessert afterall ;)

No worries if you're not a fan of warm dessert. The cold ones were awesome too!

Chendol Coconut Snow Mountain 煎蕊椰子奶雪花冰@$10.80

The Chendol Coconut Snow Mountain was interestingly presented in a coconut husk. Served with a separate side of homebrewed gula melaka, we drizzled every drop of it onto the 'snow'. Sweet but we still liked it! On hindsight, suggest not to drizzle all of it! Packed with toppings like red bean, corn, green rice flour jelly and attap seeds. Lovely!

For some bingsu, we got the Mango Snow Mountain. Just got to love the fact that we could get this dessert for less than $10 and can be shared amongst 2 pax. Came with two drizzles; mango and milk cap.

Mango Snow Mountain @$8.80

it's snowing mango

And for the finale, there was the Milo Dinosaur Snow Mountain. Milo powder ice tower and served with a green dino perched dangerously ontop of the cocoa snow mountain. Instead of red lava, we have the white lava flowing down its slopes.

Milo Dinosaur Snow Mountain 恐龙美禄雪花冰 @$7.80

Thank you to Kris and Ting Feng for the invite, and Wang Yuan Desserts and Coffee for hosting the session. Special thanks to staff who took care of us.

Wang Yuan Desserts and Coffee 

Address: 33 Keong Saik Rd., Singapore 089140
Website: https://www.facebook.com/wangyuancafe/
Contact: 8348 3393
Business Hours:
Mon-Thurs: 9am to 10pm
Fri: 9am to 12am
Sat: 10am to 12am
Closed on Sundays

2019 Road Trip to Malaysia Clocking Mileage in Johor - Melaka - Seremban - 3 Days 2 Nights Part 2

And so, let's continue with our adventure in Melaka. We spent the next 2 nights in Novotel Melaka. Guess what we did immediately after we checked in? Yes, we continued with dinner!

Superior King

amenities

view from room

We knew for sure what we wanted to eat that night. Crabs! Yes, our hotel was really really near Restoran Tong Sheng and we did passed by it but we wanted to go back to Restoran Lee which we enjoyed during our last visit.

Restoran Lee

menu

kacang @ RM3

lime juice @RM3.50

As per our last visit, we did two flavours. We tried the spring onion and salted egg yolk flavour this time round. Last visit, we did their signature carnation milk crab and black pepper crab. Delicious! Waited quite a bit for the crabs. About 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, we started on the side dishes comprising of Muar Otah (don't ask me why we ordered Muar Otah in Melaka...), Hokkien Mee (this aint the black black hokkien mee...) and the customary plate of vegetables. The stir fried cabbages were pretty good. Savoury and chockful of those hae bee (dried shrimp) flavours. Just like homemade. The otah were pretty good too.

Muar Otah @ RM13

stir fried cabbage with hae bee @ RM14

The hokkien noodles tasted like the ones we could get from Singapore zhichar stall. It was basically a plate of braised yee mee in dark soy sauce. The noodles were really inexpensive at RM12 for such a large plate that fed all four of us comfortably.

Hokkien Mee @ RM12

Main course; the crabs. We ordered 3 good sized crabs for 2 flavours for about just SGD88. Lovely! My favourite was the salted egg yolk crabs with its intense flavour and finger-licking goodness.

spring onion crabs @ RM132

salted egg yolk crab @ RM132

It was really satisfying to be able to take your time to slowly savour the food. And, everything tasted better with good company. Thank you foodie buddies and travel kakis. We spent about SGD28.75 per pax for this scrumptious meal. Recommended.

After many hours of eating that started in JB, we decided to get chendol/dessert as the last item before we call it a night. We went to the riverside and decided to check out this place called Straits Werks and Cafe.

Straits Werks and Cafe

riverside

colourful mural

shopfront

Actually, we didn't enter via the riverside entrance. We walked right into its backdoor neighbour, which is a barber shop (albeit unattended at that hour!). The cafe had a very hip feel inside but it was rather hot and stuffy. Its stall front facing the riverside had the 'mamak' stall feels.

Cendol Kampung Hulu

plain 'ol peanut butter toast for supper

forgettable (and regrettable) root-beer float

The chendol was rather nice but it was more of the coconut shake kind of chendol, or even bingsu kind of dessert. It wasn't the Melaka chendol that we were expecting. The root beer float, don't even think about it. It was so flat and thin.

And I thought that was a wrap for our first night in Melaka. But it wasn't. I was wrong. We are foodies. Thus, we ended up at the famous Long Siham back alley.

our table

grilled cuttlefish

most delicious rojak!

We had been to this back alley two years back but we had seafood near the entrance. This time round, we went further in to this stall with the lady selling rojak.

As we sat near her, I could see the entire process of the rojak 'assembling'. Place a few pieces of beancurd skin onto the charcoal grill top and flip after a short while. Meanwhile, cut-up the fruits pieces (mango, turnip, cucumber), cut-up the youtiao, Take out fishballs from a container and cut it into smaller piece. Place the crisp beancurd skin onto the chopping board and cut it up nicely to top the rectangular plate. Pour some dark sauce over and load up the sides with chili sauce. Serve.

It was a magical concoction. Everything tasted so good together. What a good night it was!

Restoran Lee

Address: 155, Jalan Bendahara, 75100 Melaka, Malaysia
Contact: +60 6-284 6601
Business Hours:
Daily 4pm to 11pm

Cendol Kampung Hulu @ Straits Werks and Cafe

Address: No, 30, Jalan Kampung Hulu, Kampung Dua, 75200, Melaka, Malaysia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/cendolkampunghulu
Contact: +60 0173540524
Business Hours:
Daily 12am to 12pm

Capitol Seafood-Longkang Siham 佳必多祖传海鲜小吃

Address: 120, Jalan Munshi Abdullah, Kampung Jawa, 75100 Melaka, Malaysia
Business Hours:
Wed to Mon - 5.30pm to 1100pm
Closed on Tues

2019 Road Trip to Malaysia Clocking Mileage in Johor - Melaka - Seremban - 3 Days 2 Nights Part 1

Blessed to have like-minded friends whom we can travel together with similar styles (and eating preferences!). It all started way back in May 2016, and with Bangkok as our first destination. Kind of funny how we all flew in at different dates, yet able to stay together at the same place for the next two days for the rest of the journey. Next was South Korea, Melaka and then Taiwan, and this time round back to Melaka. Wanted to do more of Johor initially but there was the Pasir Gudang incident at that time so we went further up and ended up back in Melaka.

Exited Singapore at about 2pm and wanted to find a bak kut teh place to have lunch. Found one called Restoran Tong 东肉骨茶馆 at Taman Skudai Baru. Thank you Tracy for trawling the web in the car to search for this.

first stop - late lunch in Johor at Restoran Tong

Unfortunately, the bak kut teh was sold out by the time we reached at about 230pm. The only other things remaining were the BKT side-dishes, while the main course items only had steamed chicken or steamed fish. Decided to get half a chicken, a pot of tea (hey, this was one-half of the original intent *lol*) and some side-dishes.

half steamed kampong chicken @RM30

preserved vegetable (mei cai)  @RM3 and braised beancurd skin (tau gi) @RM6

White rice is at RM2 per bowl and a pot of pu-er was RM15. Our lunch expenses was RM14.50 per pax. The kampong chicken was delicious and its meat was not tough. Dip into the special chili sauce for extra oomph. Good comeback from the earlier disappointment of no bak kut teh. However, we also vowed to try to find a bak kut teh place for at least one of the subsequent meal.

powerful chili sauce for the chicken

super steeped pu-er

With lunch done, we continued our journey to Melaka with the aim to reach before the Friday evening end-of-work traffic starts. It began to rain at about that time as well.

Reached Melaka town at about 6.15pm and the first thing we did, was to queue up for putu piring! Yes, this remained fresh in my mind since the last visit two years ago where we only bought one to eat. This time round, we wanted two for each of us. Hehe.

queue starts from 6pm

various write-ups for this delicious dessert

putu piring @RM1.20 per piece

look at that fillings~

There was someone in front of the queue who ordered 40 pieces. But it was ok since the staff are churning each batch of 20s within about 5 minutes. Happy with our purchase, and we ate it while it was still hot. Hmm, actually one piece was enough to make me a bit full. So I kept the other piece in the fridge for the next day. Not recommended actually. Best to consume within the same day or within the next one two hours.

After which, we proceeded to check-in to our hotel at Novotel Melaka. Previously, we stayed at The Hatten and this time round, we tried a different hotel. If interested, here's my review on Novotel Melaka.

Watch out for the next episode on our travelmakanlogue. The episodes made possible by Hence and Tracy (@chubbybotakkoala), and Ivan (@ivan_teh_runningman).

Restoran Tong 东肉骨茶馆

Address: 41, Jalan Hang Lekir 10, Taman Skudai Baru, 81300 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
Contact: +60 7-558 5367
Business Hours:
Mon-Fri: 9am to 330pm
Sat-Sun: 8am to 330pm

Putu Piring Tengkera

Address: 252, Jalan Tengkera, 75200 Melaka, Malaysia
Contact:  +60 6-282 1505
Business Hours: 
Mon-Sat: 6pm to 10pm
Closed on Sundays.

Novotel Melaka

Address: Jalan Melaka Raya 2, Taman Melaka Raya, 75000 Melaka, Malaysia
Website: https://www.accorhotels.com/gb/hotel-8155-novotel-melaka/index.shtml
Contact: +6062898222
Business Hours:  Check-in from 3pm and Check-out at 12pm