Coffee

Coffee and cake

Sonja Leave a comment

Coffee shop I just braved the rain to come to my favourite coffee shop. The criteria of an apartment within five minutes of decent coffee has been throughly met.

Ironically it also has free wireless – I would have investigated a lot earlier if I had known that! Given the mission getting internet connected was, I had been reduced to Starbucks so I could get some free wifi and take the pressure off my mobile data. Everytime I headed down to Starbucks in Solaris I was tempted by a sign literally right next to the door suggesting that good things were just around the corner at the Ministry of Coffee.

Each time I walked past, I was tempted to explore but there was that lure of Starbucks promised connectivity – and in fairness their iced double espresso works as an option in the KL heat. Then on Saturday, Nick asked if I wanted to go out for coffee and I suggested we check it out. It seemed a good Saturday option as being at the back of the building chances were there would be a view over the city.

It is great! I don’t have to ask for a double shot in my latte, it is fair trade, organic, single named plantation sourced coffee. They also have exceptional cake even if I haven’t yet risked the purple yam one. It has the touch of funk that marks the good coffee shops in Wellington, lovely staff and a relaxed approach to people hanging out studying and reading (imagine they would be great with a knitting group)

We were so impressed we headed back Sunday morning for brunch – the menu isn’t massive but what we had was excellent and while I know we are in another culture and should be exploring all the options, some days it is nice to eat something that could have just as easily been dished up in Wellington, Christchurch, Napier or Brisbane.

Once I noticed yesterday that there was free wireless, it was clearly meant to be that it would become my daily coffee hangout where I could justify my caffiene hit with writing as well. Although to be honest I was prepared to sacrifice my phone data plan if it meant I could hang out here.

I have a couple of better photos on my phone I’ll probably add but if you are going to be in Mont Kiara in KL you should definitely check them out!

Ministry of Coffee  (that’s a Facebook link)

The coffee hunt

Sonja Leave a comment

Anyone who knows me, knows that I need my morning coffee. I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of days I have missed a latte in the morning (typically around 9 am on work days later in the morning in the weekends) over the past 5-8 years.

The last few months since I cut down sugar my first thing in the morning coffee has been plunger rather than instant and I have become almost as fussy about that as the latte.

It will be no surprise then that one of my first priorities was to find acceptable substitutes for my NZ preferred options. I had semi-planned to bring a couple of packets of my favourite at home coffee with me but with the chapter of mishaps that befell my last couple old days in NZ that didn’t happen. I’m hoping the youngest child can fit some into his bag in a couple of weeks.

After a rather disastrous foray into a local blend, I grabbed a small tin  of Illy as a reasonably reliable option from our time in Australia. That didn’t last that long, but gave me some time to check out options in the larger supermarkets and I discovered a French brand which is better than OK and will hold me over until some Hummingbird arrives.

The latte was more of a mission. The biggest issue is probably the milk as it all seems to taste like UHT and doesn’t appear to hold steam well. After about half a dozen experiments and having switched to iced double espressos for any coffee later in the day, I was about to switch to Americano with a side of milk. Then we were having brunch on Sunday at one of the coffee shops who guarantee good coffee and I joked with the server about it. He reckoned their’s would pass the test as they always used a double shot. And he was right – it was the first that I genuinely enjoyed drinking and has become my “local”. Plus simple asking for an extra shot has revealed two other good options.

Nevertheless after all these years my coffee habit is breaking and I’m switching more and more to tea…