Brunei Restaurant Review: Kausar Cafe

Kausar Café is located on the same block as Misato Sushi in Qlap. It used to be a simple Sri Langkan restaurant – but has recently gone through good renovation to become the current café, which serves North, South Indian and Sri Langkan cuisines.

 

It’s pretty spacious and I like the touch of these dark wooden furniture. Yellow lights and an aquarium adds a touch to its ambience.

It’s fully air-conditioned for comfortable dining – possible to cater to a simple dinner date or a family gathering.

What’s interesting about this restaurant is their selection of good quality tea and fresh brewed coffee – owing to the hotel background of the owner – one can look forward to having a nice cup of coffee or tea in this café.

I settled for a brewed coffee tarik ~ using Vittoria coffee beans – doesn’t this feel like a cappuccino? Lovely stuff – though you should tell them to put less sugar if you don’t like your coffees sweet.

It’s really funny to see a Café Latte served in an old school kopi tiam glass. A good choice for latte drinkers like me.

Their Marsala Tea is a spiced up brewed tea – very fragrant and highly recommended. We all enjoyed a good sip of this tea.

This is off the menu – but we actually had Affogato – Ice cream served with espresso and Amaretto liquer – our version of course – did not include the Amaretto!

You can’t go wrong with a good glass of Lassi ~~ hmmm ~~

For starters – we tried out their Sri Langkan breakfast item called Aappa – a rice flour item made using special pots to give it’s special shape – crispy sides and soft centre. We ordered the ones with an egg in the centre – and I must say – they go very well with the spicy onion jam. I wouldn’t mind having this for breakfast often!

These are string hoppers – which you can see – are string like texture pancakes served with onion jam and coconut curry gravy. Something unique from Sri Langka!

Another Sri Langkan Special – Fish and Potato Cutlis – it’s got a crispy outer texture with a soft potato centre – almost similar to bagadel but crispier.

Hmm ~~~ beautiful ~~~

This is their Peshwari Naan – stuffed with dried fruits and coconut.

Laccha Paratha – a crispy multi layered bread – very suitable for dipping into rich gravies!

Puri – a puffed up bread – from the steam within the dough during the deep frying. It has quite a soft texture.

My favourite bread is their Tandoori Paratha – Layered bread cooked Tandoori style – crispy and has a strong hint of spices. Very very good.

Their beef vindaloo – a spicy hot beef dish served with potato wedges.

Acharri Gosht – a pickle style lamb curry – with a slightly sweet sour and spicy taste

Lamb Jalfrezi – A very complex tandoori lamb slices cooked in a blend of ginger, green peppers and spices. Rich and delicious!

One can never go wrong with ordering butter chicken – sweet creamy rich sauce served with moist chicken pieces.

You could easily mistaken this as tofu but this is their Tandoori style grilled cottage cheese (home made) – loving the fragrant of the cheese! Tandoori Paneer.

This is my favourite dish of the night – Paneer Makhani – home made cottage cheese – cooked in a tomato and butter cream sauce – I must say I could eat a whole bowl of this dipped with paratha myself! Om nom nom nom nom!

For desserts, we tried their Kheer Badami – a dessert served with ground almonds cooked in milk and sugar – flavoured with saffron and cardamon.

Watalappan – This is a Sri Langkan delicacy – made from gula melaka, coconut milk, eggs and spices – it has the texture of soft bread pudding with the added kick of spices.

Kausar Café has won me over with their comfortable settings, great choices of Indian and Sri Langkan cuisines – as well as having the option of having good quality coffee and tea. The Paneer Makhani alone is enough to make me come back often!

Brunei Restaurant Review: Golden Coffee Restaurant

Lately I’ve been eating at Golden Coffee often. It’s located just behind the famous Taurean Arch in Gadong. One of the reasons is that it’s very strategic and I love the homey feeling it gives whenever I dine in. I was actually quite reluctant to blog about this restaurant as it’s already difficult to get a seat during peak lunch hours but the foodie in me simply must share this ‘not so well kept’ secret!

The pictures in this post are taken with my Samsung SIII under inadequate lighting so do forgive the subpar quality of the photos compared to the usual pictures you’re used to seeing in this blog.

Golden Coffee is popular for it’s daily specials – having different daily specials encourage customers to come and them. There’s usually two specials available daily. Let’s have a look at some of the ones I’ve tried so far.

This is their pumpkin and chicken curry – I believe this is a very Chinese style curry. The chicken is tender and the pumpkin adds a certain natural sweetness to the curry. Goes very well with rice and their complimentary Pandan Water – try taking bite of the curry with rice – then a sip of the pandan water – a very heart warming experience!

This is their Herbal Chicken Soup Mee Sua (rice vermicelli). As you can see – it’s loaded with mushrooms, dates and longans. A slightly sweet herbal soup which I quite fancy (makes me feel healthy as well!) – but I hardly touch the dates and longans.

Prawn Noodles (Har Mee) is one of their specials too. It’s again slightly on the sweeter side and tastes pretty good – but I felt it’s missing something that a superb bowl of Prawn noodles should have. A good dish nevertheless and worth trying.

A lot of people are fans of their Laksa and I can see why. It’s pretty good and if you feel it doesn’t have enough kick – you should request for extra sambal for that Ooomph! It’s more Kuching style for me – not like the rich fragrant curry laksa or the sour fishy assam laksas from Penang.

Pumpkin Chicken Curry with Pumpkin Spiced Fried Rice – another one of their specials. Quite unique!

The Mongolian Chicken Chop has well marinated delicious crispy skin and moist juicy meat, smothered with a spicy creamy Mongolian style sauce.

Simply beef soup with noodles ~~ Tender beef swimming in beefy broth with yellow noodles. Slurp slurp slurps! It has a good star anise spice kick to the soup which goes very well with beef I feel.

Their home made popiah is more on the bigger side and it’s loaded with veggie goodness! Quite a popular dish here and I think it’s available almost daily. Can have this for lunch or tea if you’re watching your weight!

Nasi Lemak is available daily – a whole chicken leg deep fried till crispy and served with coconut rice and sambal.

Who can say no to a good old fashioned chicken and century congee (rice porridge) ~~with a dash of fragrant sesame oil.. hmmm ….

They have Chicken Kolomee or KoloMeePoh as well for only $2.50. Very worth it for me and I personally love their mee poh for their texture. They have beef kolomee as well if you wish to try.

Did I mention that their chicken pie is yummy? Good to tapao home or just as an appetizer!

Desserts wise – they have both egg tarts and pandan tarts.

They also serve butter cake, banana cake and Cottony Cheesecake – Japanese style soft sponge like cheesecake – plus an assortment of home brewed drinks – be sure to ask the waiters what they have available.

Once again – pardon my subpar quality photos from my Samsung SIII – I spent quite some time to gather pictures for most of their specials. I like their small cosy restaurant feel and the presence of the husband and wife team managing the place. It gives a personal homey feeling to the customer. The Golden Coffee restaurant opens from 7AM till 5PM daily to serve hungry customers.

Brunei Restaurant Review: Xinful Cafe

Crumbs café made quite a name on Facebook selling their home made cakes such as Yam Cakes and Durian Cakes. It was not open to public but more of an pre-scheduled appointment basis.

The Xinful Café officially soft opened recently in Gadong Central. The name Xinful Cafe - means Sinful in English and Xing Foo (same as happiness) - both having the same sound. Sinful desserts which brings Xing Foo (Happiness) ~~ hmm .. sounds good to me.

The Xinful Café is still in it’s soft opening stage – still a learning in progress for their staff and chefs. Most of the decorations in the restaurants are DIY by the staff. Be patient and give feedback and advice to the managers.

The Xinful café offers quite a fusion concept to their food. Combining Taiwan, Hongkong style snacks with Western desserts.

Taiwanese style breakfast: Char Kueh with Soya Bean Milk ~~

Taiwanese Scallions Pancake – or we call them Chong You Bing.

Cheesy squid balls to satisfy your snack cravings ~~

Ooooo melted cheese ~~~~

The Xinful café has limited selections for their desserts at the moment and the popular ones run out pretty quick.

Opera Cake

Durian Pancake – Thin crepe like pancakes stuffed with durian cream

One of her popular Yam Cake with desiccated coconut – nom nom

 

If I were to nominate their strongest dish – It would most definitely be their Durian Cheesecakes – a heaven on a plate (unless you hate Durian – which would mean Hell breaks loose). Soft Creamy Durian goodness ~~~ thumbs up! I would come here again and again just for this dessert alone!

Drown all that dessert with a nice cup of Hot Hong Kong Style Milk Tea (Si Mak Nai Char)

Or fancy an ice cold Hong Kong Milk Tea ~~

They had not hang up their mascots – Sinful and XinFoo yet because they are still on soft opening stage. Hopefully the Café would get plenty of good feedback to help them come up with new ideas for food and service.