Saturday 25 October 2014

Ngopi

Greetings ladles and jelly-spoons~

On the last day of uni this year, I(Jia) went to lunch with Tiffany(see her awesome blog here) and her friend Kharishma. There were going to be 5 people but 2 didn't come, so the 3 of us were just occupying a big table by ourselves hahaha. My high school friend Jiyun mentioned this place to me when we met on the bus once, and I was pretty keen to try it. I would definitely say it's a student friendly place; although the price is much higher than it would be in Singapore, for New Zealand I'd say it's reasonable. It's not a place you would immediately notice but when you know what you're looking for it's quite easy to find via the painted sign. To be honest though I thought it was just a tidy bit of graffiti every time my bus passed it, until I realised it was a restaurant name.



Atmosphere
From the outside it's nothing impressive, and once near the entrance I was assaulted with the smell of cigarette smoke. There are two parts to the place; a place closer to the door with chairs and some tables and some colourful art on the wall. after a glass partition with glass doors(nearly walked into them), there is the main part. It's kinda cute, with its mix of brick walls and painted wood. Very colourful, yet somehow dark too. It does have lights, but the ceiling is black and it has a sort of 'underground' feeling to it. As you sit for a while the cigarette smell is not as strong(Or at least, I couldn't smell it anymore. Tiffany still could).One corner had a shelf with magazines, games and books.

 
photo credit to Tiff because the one I took was not as clear :D


Isn't she cute?

I love how it has a hint of a rustic feel to it, with framed menu choices on the wall written in chalk, wooden block table numbers, colourful wooden palettes separating the eating area from the kitchen. It's a nice and casual feeling you get sitting there. The background noise is pleasantly like the hubbub of an Asian food-court but not as loud because of considerably less people.  I also had a nice surprise of discovering that one of the waitresses was a camp friend Irna(who looks cute in the uniform by the way :D).

I also like this.



Food               
K and T ordered an iced coffee and iced milk tea. I tried both of them and I liked the fact that the coffee wasn't as bitter so it was much easier to drink. The milk tea tasted like a milk tea without pearls so... I liked that too(I do like pearls okay, just describing the taste). Hahaha we mistook a customer for the waiter that bought  a hot coffee instead of cold, and we were trying to get his attention by waving politely and saying "Excuse me". He ended up sitting at the table next to ours and they were all friendly uncles. One of them is from Singapore. Now, I did not get to try the laksa because of my aversion to spicy food, so I'll just have to trust T, K and the uncles at the next table as they were praising it.

Anyway back to the food; I had Char  Koay Teow (pronounced chah kwei teow, I believe). This basically had omelette, prawns, flat noodles, bean sprouts, and -I think it was- squid?

It doesn't look it but trust me it's pretty darn big.

As a person who has eaten such dishes back in Singapore, I can honestly say it tastes delicious, and just like the Char Koay Teow back in SG. Pretty big portion though. I wont lie, my appetite isn't exactly that tiny but I had trouble forcing the last few bites in. I was the only one who finished my dish haha.

Tiffany had the Chicken Hor Fun, which had (again)squid, thin noodles and flat noodles(that's what I'm more used to), chicken, prawn, a runny egg sauce(my favourite part of any Hor Fun with the noodles), and shallots.


 It is nice but I prefer my Char Koay Teow. I found the chicken a bit dry. It might also be that I really really liked my CKT(hahaha wow those are my mother's initials)?


Kharishma and I -photo creds to Tiff again :D
Tiff being cute again~



Service            
The cashier was friendly, and quite funny. She explained about the lunch rush, and asked if we were about to die of hunger, because the food was going to be out in probably 30 minutes. As mentioned earlier, my camp friend was one of the waitresses so she was of course friendly and smiley so that was nice. There was the little mix up of the drinks order but other than that it was fine.

Price              
The price range was about $10-12 for all the dishes(that I could see, anyway), which I thought was pretty good. Plus it tastes good and fills you up.But mayne bring 20 for including drinks?

A little late-night doodle for our readers' pleasure

So overall I liked this place. Not sure if I'll go again any time soon because I probably want to try a lot of different places, but I'll definitely keep the option open.

 
Just the one Lamb

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