Cafe WIP, Bangsar

February 3, 2008 at 6:11 pm · Filed under Eating Out, Food

ok, we’re going to take a break away from eating outside KL & S’gor and eat at somewhere closer to home now. met up with politikus and we headed off to Cafe WIP (Work In Progress) in BSC for dinner.

the concept behind WIP is simple. Work in Progress literally. the owner, Fred (of Souled Out fame) wants to use this cafe to discover the customers’ needs & wants before unveiling a new “baby”. hence their interior deco at this cafe is kept simple and minimalistic. so much so that most surfaces (apart from the tables) are concrete rendered and decorated with only steel tension cables, nuts & bolts which explained the statement “No, we are not a hardware shop nor are we an interior design depot. We are a restaurant and bar that serves some pretty mean food and drinks…” on the flyer playing placemat (which even featured a crossword puzzle & sodoku puzzle!) on our tables.

but being from the ID background, I roughly still know that bare & minimalistic doesn’t always equate lower costs. So, i’m guessing that this cafe is here to stay for years, at least. having the waiting staff to dress in bright yellow tees and brown overalls with matching bandannas in line with the hardware depot concept was quite fresh, though they were literally everywhere! felt as if it was a bit overstaffed. and i definitely felt uncomfortable with how much these people stare. but can’t deny they were very attentive.

i’m one of the rare fews that haven’t been to Souled Out in years so I didn’t realise that the menu here was very similar to the one there, featuring Western, Asian & North Indian food. I was flipping through the menu (using brown paper, mind you) when “Gosht Palak” caught my eye. Gosht Palak is actually mutton and spinach and it’s served with okra & vegetable masala, green salad, raita, naan and papadum.

the gosht palak was unbelievably good. the mutton was tender and i enjoyed every bit of it. even the vegetable masala was good. and i mopped up every bit of it with my naan. portion size was quite big too, could share with politikus even.

politikus chose the “Sake San” pizza, a thin crust pizza with a japanese twist. with a basic cheese & tomato base, lettuce is placed atop the bread, followed by smoked salmon, wasabi and mayonnaise and fish roe.

it tasted pretty good, and my fears that the wasabi’s taste would overpower the rest of the ingredients were unfounded. it was quite mild actually. my only complaint was that it was easy for the salmon to topple over due to the lettuce leaf. lol.

For dessert, we shared a “Fruit Gumbo”, which was an assortment of fruits (kiwi, dragon fruit, mango, honeydew, grapes etc) in strawberry syrup and whipped cream. bit sweet for my liking, but good to clean the palate.

Overall, food was good, ambience decent, though I wish the staff would stop staring! the management even gave us a free gryphon teabag with the receipt after we settled the bill. no qualms about coming back again.

Cafe WIP (www)
Lot G111, Ground Floor, Bangsar Shopping Centre,
285, Jalan Maarof, Bukit Bandaraya,
59000 Kuala Lumpur.

other reviews;
– lyrical lemongrass
– melvinf

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