Metal Box Restaurant and Café, Empire Damansara

Metal Box

Metal Box Café has been generating a lot of buzz lately. Word is, the chef came from The Red Beanbag, the popular and perennially packed eating establishment in Publika. We popped over for breakfast and we were very happy with the food here. It’s a lot more vibrant compared to the (admittedly) bland stuff from The Red Beanbag.

Metal Box Cafe Restaurant

The interior of Metal Box is made to look exactly like the namesake – full of shipping containers. The industrial chic look is accented by the steel girders, faux metal container and pictures of a loading dock. Service here is prompt and friendly. We stayed for a while to chat while eating our dessert and didn’t feel pressured to leave despite the place being full.

Incredible Waffle

Incredible Waffle (RM 23.90)
My better half chose one of their new dishes. This is a crispy liege waffle served with guacamole, choice of beef bacon or turkey ham paired with garden greens and 68 degree egg (slightly higher than a 63 degree egg). I loved the texture of the waffle, it goes very well with the 68°C egg and everything is seasoned well. This place doesn’t serve pork but strangely has a lot of red wine and Guinness infused items/sauces on the menu.

Metal-Box Baked Egg

Metal-Box Baked Egg (RM 19.90)
I was craving for baked eggs and opted to have this. There are 2 soft baked free-range eggs in a pot with sliced smoked chicken breast, diced chicken sausage, potato & eggplant, homemade cannellini beans in tomato coulis baked to perfection. This is topped with freshly grated Gruyère cheese and freshly baked French sour dough on the side. I really liked the zesty flavors in this dish – the abundance of premium homemade ingredients really shines though too.

Salted Egg Chocolate Lava

Salted Egg Chocolate Lava (RM 19.90)
This golden centered lava cake is paired with mixed berries and vanilla bean ice cream. It’s wonderful! It tastes like lau sar pao (Chinese dim sum dessert bun made with salted eggs) meets West. The salted egg is ingenious – people often add sea salt, salted caramel or something else to make the flavors pop but this is the first time I’ve seen salted egg used.

Salted Egg Dessert

It goes perfectly, flavor wise and the quality vanilla bean ice cream (you can even see the small dots) is delicious. I would go again just for this.

Metal Box Empire Damansara

Metal Box Café and Restaurant is located at Empire Damansara and it looks like the most popular F&B outlet there. It can be very packed during weekends and if you want the best seats in the house, go for the al fresco tables at the back. There are green shrubs and flowing water to make your morning even more chill and relaxing. I highly recommend it, it’s the right combination of great food and awesome ambience.

Jumbrella Café

jumbrella cafe

Jumbrella Cafe is an interesting al fresco concept cafe that has a great theme. Jumbrella is a concatenation of the words Jumbo and Umbrella and that’s exactly what the cafe is – a giant outdoor eating establishment under a huge canopy.

jumbrella cafe counter

The place is only open at night since the area (with the exception of the brick and mortar kitchen) is used as a park during daylight hours. Thus, the canopy (umbrella) is modular and constructed at night with the seating arrangements all taken out and set when the place opens at around 7 pm.

dumbrella cafe

I didn’t really notice this place until I sent a friend there to meet up with her coworkers for supper one night. Jumbrella Cafe is tagged as a bakery, cafe, dessert and grill house. I thought the sign said dumbrella Cafe at first glance. Unfortunate choice of font there for the signage. 😉

jumbrella exterior

Jumbrella Cafe has a huge projection screen which attracts football fans during the game. The place serves beer as well, which goes well with a football match, I’m told. It can get a bit crowded during the major events like the Olympics but there are fan and mist units so it’s not warm unless the ambient temperature is.

jumbrella ladyboy

The service at Jumbrella Cafe is inconsistent. The waiter/waitress of undetermined gender above gives excellent service while some of the others felt like taking orders was a huge chore and probably just wanted to curl up in a ball at home.

jumbrella food intro

Anyway, this is one of the very rare occasions where I have to write a bad review about the food. It has dropped below the “nothing to write home about” standard to downright bland. I wouldn’t call it bad per se, but it’s very unimaginative and plain – not exactly adjectives you would want your food to be addressed by. 😉

jumbrella spaghetti

This is Jumbrella Spaghetti (RM 9.50). Bland and tasteless.

jumbrella lamb chop

This is Lamb Chop with Black Pepper Sauce (RM 20). Bones and fatty meat.

jumbrella oj

This is Orange Juice (RM 7). Watered down and diluted.

jumbrella loklok

This is Fried Lok-Lok (RM 4). Over fried and tasteless.

jumbrella autumn

This is Autumn (RM Priceless). Delicious!

jumbrella ending

It’s the only dish I had that was absolutely fabulous. 😉

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...