Piccadilly Circus: Kahve Dünyasi

After a conversation with a colleague at work about coffee and her description of Turkish coffee (very strong with the coffee grounds still in the cup- my kind of coffee), my quest for Turkish coffee in London brought me to  Kahve Dünyasi: a chocolate shop in London that also has a range of delicious cakes.

Score.

Where?

3, 200 Piccadilly, London. Nearest underground station Piccadilly Circus.

What?

A chocolate shop/ café with a Turkish twist, the first thing you notice on walking in is the very, very tempting counter of posh-looking chocolates.

Then there are is the rainbow of macarons:

And then, of course, there is the cake.

Kahve Dünyasi also serves a few light savoury things such as baguette sandwiches, which are great for lunchtime. Or if you really, really want cake and have to drag a friend along with less of a sweet tooth.

During my first visit, since I was after Turkish coffee, this was what I ordered once I had been seated at a table: along with an iced Turkish coffee, since I was curious about what that would be like.

The waitress smiled when I ordered both coffees in one go. "You really like Turkish coffee?"

"It's been one of those days," I joked.

She asked how sweet I wanted my normal (hot) Turkish coffee. I faltered, not really knowing how it was supposed to be drunk- so the waitress said she'd get me one with 'regular sweetness'.

Soon my coffees arrived, along with a chocolate to go with the normal Turkish coffee (to my delight), and a traditional glass of water for cleansing the palate- I found this interesting because this is also an Italian habit.

Take a closer look at the crema on the coffee!

It was like a little shot of heaven. It was strong without being bitter, and just the right sweetness for me. It's served black like an espresso, but with the coffee grounds still at the bottom: so you have to be sip carefully when you approach the bottom of the cup or else you'll get a mouthful of them (I'm glad my colleague had warned me about this beforehand, and the waitress reminded me too). The chocolate was lovely too- mine was marzipan, but I don't think that you get the same chocolate every time, necessarily.

As for the 'iced Turkish coffee', it was quite different- more like a frappé.

It was a pretty hot day that day, so I followed the hot coffee with this beauty. As you can see, it was pretty epic, and laced with chocolate sauce. Yum, yum.

I also noticed a drink called 'salep' on the menu, and vowed to order it on my next visit once I'd done a little research (in other words, once I'd Googled it).

Salep is a hot milk drink traditionally thickened with the root of a particular type of orchid, and is like a thin white custard. Unfortunately the orchid is a little on the endangered side now, so exporting it out of its home country is now illegal- salep anywhere else is now usually a mixture of cornflour and flavouring.

On my next visit, I also ordered a slice of their chocolate caramel cake along with a mug of Salep.

The salep drink came with cinnamon dusted on top, and was served with an adorable chocolate spoon.

As I mentioned before, the salep was like a thin custard, only without the vanilla or eggy flavour. It was very pleasant, although I regretted my choice quite quickly because it was another hot day when I visited, and the thickness of the drink has quite a warming effect. On that note though, it'd be a brilliant drink for chilly winter days.

As for the cake, I want another one. Right now.

Thin layers of fluffy cake, a thick layer of chocolate brownie, a thick layer of creamy caramel mousse and even more caramel on top. This was one decadent cake.

I can't wait to visit Kahve Dünyasi again, and the prices aren't too bad for Central London. They also do some amazing-looking ice cream sundaes, judging by their menu:

Since the cold weather is setting in though, I don't think I'll be as interested. Luckily enough, they have enough cake to see me through the winter, including a hot chocolate one.

Chinatown: C&R Restaurant

Cendol. In London. I'm all over it like orange on a carrot.

... Wait, what?

It was tough to get the whole restaurant in this shot. See the white sign at the top right of this photo? The wall pretty much began at the right hand side of that sign and my back was against it.

Where?

Chinatown, London, 4-5 Rupert Court, Nearest station is Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus. Rupert Court is a narrow little alleyway that runs from Rupert Street right through to Wardour Street and is pretty easy to miss.

What?

A café offering a selection of Malaysian food, a bit like Rasa Sayang. And like my visit to Rasa Sayang, I chose nasi lemak.

Nasi lemak consists of coconut rice, yellow chicken curry, boiled egg, peanuts, little fried fishies (ikan bilis/ anchovies), archar (picked vegetables) and sambal (mind-blowingly hot chili sauce). Often cucumbers too, to cool off.

As I was eating this, I thought to myself, 'This isn't as hot as Rasa Sayang's... I wish it were hotter.'

Be careful what you wish for.

The heat from C&R's nasi lemak is like a ninja- you don't notice it until it's too late. The heat from Rasa Sayang's hit me instantly and without mercy, but it stayed constant. I don't know what sort of chilies they used at C&R, but I didn't notice how hot it was until I was about a third of the way through- then *WHAM*. It didn't stop there though: it got steadily worse and worse. Well played, C&R, well played.

I liked it. Oh, and if you think you're not a pickles person, you'll find that you're going to need the archar: the sweet vinegar-y-ness will help to balance out the heat of the curry and sambal. Which speaks volumes, because archar has chili in it, too.

Flavour-wise, the curry was weaker than Rasa Sayang's, which was a shame. It certainly wasn't bad- far from it. In fact, I found the coconut rice more fragrant and generally tasty at C&R, whereas it was a bit dry at Rasa Sayang. I can certainly in no way fault the portion size: I could only eat half of the mountain of rice, and only a bit of the sambal sauce... although I admit that in the case of the sauce, it was the chili that defeated me. Next time I'll order the Hainanese chicken rice, which I've heard is pretty good- and devoid of chili.

Now, onto the main reason why I came here: the cendol.

How beautiful is that? (I can hear some people going 'err....')

I've written about cendol before in one of my Australiafiles entries. Just to recap, cendol are green pasta-like noodles made from rice, tapioca or mung bean flour, and coloured and flavoured with pandan extract. Pandan is a plant who's leaves are used to make the green extract, and it's used in Southeast Asia like we use vanilla in the West.

See the green things? That's cendol.

Cendol-The-Drink, also spelled Chendol, consists of these green wormy things, with lots of shaved ice and coconut milk, and sweetened with gula melaka (palm sugar) syrup- which is the brown stuff you see in the picture. It's a bit like dark muscavado sugar in taste, and is very, very yummy.

This is the first time I've seen cendol served like this in the UK, if at all: it's sort of hard to come by, here. Before I'd only ever seen it used with ice kacang in a bowl as a dessert, or has red beans and other things added to it- again more like ice kacang. At C&R, they serve it just how I like it in Malaysia: green worms, ice, coconut milk and palm sugar, in a tall glass with a straw.

C&R put cendol on their dessert menu rather than with the drinks in the main menu, but since it's common in Malaysia to have it alongside or instead of a main meal, the waitress didn't bat an eyelid when I ordered it with my nasi lemak. In fact she seemed mildly impressed that I didn't treat it like a dessert.

The cendol was most definitely my favourite part of the meal: it had just the right amount of actual cendol, plenty of ice and not so much gula melaka syrup that it was sickly. Two thumbs up. As a nice little bonus, the ice and coconut milk helped put out the flames from the nasi lemak, so all was well.

I look forward to coming here again, especially to order the cendol (although apparently they do a pretty mean ice red bean drink too, which I'm also quite fond of- which to chose??) C&R is a great little place for affordable food- and a good portion of it too- in London.

They also seemed to have a bar area directly opposite the café, also named C&R. It was closed, but apparently in the evening when it gets busy you get sat in there. I noticed they also had quite a lot of another one of my favourite drinks too, also popular in Malaysia:

Now that's a lot of Milo.

Chinatown: Rasa Sayang

If you didn't already know, I'm half-Chinese, and my Chinese family lives in Malaysia.

Where?

Chinatown London, 5 Macclesfield Street. Nearest tube station is Leicester Square.

What?

As you can see, it's a Malaysian/ Singaporean restaurant-slash-café. Malaysian eateries are harder to find in London than Chinese, Thai and Japanese places for instance- quite sad for me, since one of this things I love most about visiting Malaysia- aside from seeing my family of course- is the food.

Enter Rasa Sayang. It kills two birds with one stone for me: it offers popular Malay dishes, and scores points on affordability too (a much-prized quality when it comes to eating out in London).

For the main course, I had nasi lemak:

Chicken curry, coconut rice, peanuts, peanut sauce, various veggies and little fried fishies.

This was delicious. It was also really, really spicy. The kind of hot and spicy that makes your nose run and your face steadily go red. In other words, it was perfect. The chicken curry was just like what I remember from previous visits to Malaysia, and the portion size was quite generous- that potato in the far right doesn't look like much, but in real life it was almost the size of my fist (I have really small hands, in case you think this is a bit far-fetched).

For dessert, I had ice kacang (possibly an obvious choice, given that ice kacang is partially known for its colourfulness):

Ice kacang is ice shaved so fine it's like snow, and it usually has all sorts of flavoured syrups and toppings. Rasa Sayang's ice kacang is flavoured with rose syrup and evaporated milk, and also has a rainbow of toppings (well, not really 'toppings'- more like 'bottomings'): creamed sweetcorn, palm seeds in syrup, grass jelly, red beans and cendol (read more about cendol in my Australiafiles post).

Just to recap briefly, cendol is a bit like pasta, flavoured and made green with pandan leaf extract, and often looking a little bit like green worms. It can also be served as its own dessert with ice, coconut cream and syrup.

Rasa Sayang, along with Longji, is definitely one of my go-to places for a cheapish meal when I'm about in the area. Something I keep meaning to try is a drink called a 'Milo dinosaur', made with the malted chocolate Milo drink- anything associated with dinosaurs has to be good, right?