No. 10, Jalan Solaris 4,
Solaris Mont Kiara,
50480 Kuala Lumpur
Opening Hours:
Mon & Wed to Fri: 11am-10pm
Weekends: 9am-10pm
Time Visited:
1:20pm, Monday afternoon for lunch
Attire worn:
Business
Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):
Frittata with Grilled Salmon, Latte and a Beeramisu for dessert
As I explore Solaris Mont Kiara, I found that it's riddled with many Korean food joints and fancy restaurants where the main attraction would merely be their bar section and yet, despite being just afternoon and those bar restaurants are merely starting to operate, there's already people drinking while some had the office lunch crowd visiting for a meal. I strayed away from it and decided to hunt for something else. Eventually, I ended up at Wanderlust, due to their pretty decorative ways and their vibrant colors. On the outside spots garden like furnitures that doesn't look comfortable to sit in. It was a scorching hot afternoon anyway and so I decided to take refuge indoors over the artificial cooled air of the air condition units.
Wanderlust has few seating area that can easily fill up the cafe with some bar stools set up at bar counters over at where the drinks dispense and one area overlooking the cafe outside. It loves branding their paper plane logo and name over many items inside the cafe, like the Evian glass bottle (1st picture in this post) where they reuse it to make it as their water bottle served to customers once seated. Their coffee machine too is tagged with their cafe named on it, concealing the coffee machine brand from view. There's a large table right in the middle of the cafe that houses a large group of people or as a communal table should the need arises. What's interesting to me is that right above that table, those same Evian glass bottles are used as decorations right above. Filled a little with water and with their cap on suspended with steel wires to keep them hanging. If it were me, I would be too afraid to sit below there because I would be too paranoid thinking about the possibility of the bottles dropping though I'm sure that's never gonna happen. Still, I'm a worry bug.
During my entrance, the 2 foreign worker staff immediately greeted me and ushered me to a vacant table knowing full well that I'm a party of one for some reason after confirmation. The seatings on the left of the cafe uses the wall as a backrest instead of having chairs over there. That allows them the ease to rearrange the tables at the side to cater for various party sizes. There's ample sun rays beaming in to the place on their untinted window and door at the front. When I entered, there were still some place left to sit indoors but after awhile, it started to get crowded for some reason. People somehow started to flock there to have their meals all of a sudden. I took my time browsing through the one page food menu and one page drink menu and a smaller piece of menu indicating on the set lunch. Due to the staff sudden busy state after a crowd walked in, I chilled for a moment even though I was ready to order. To my surprise, one of the staff appeared before me seconds later to take my order without me signalling to him as if he was a mind reader and knew that I'm ready to order! However, his knowledge on his establishment's food item were lacking when he couldn't answer me at all when I dug in to try to find out more about what I'm about to order.
The Frittata with a piece of Grilled Salmon somehow took a longer period of waiting time for the kitchen to prepare as I see one by one the other patrons that walked in later than me receiving their food while me with nothing. I guess the rest must've just went with the set lunch. My latte though didn't take that long to come to me. The coffee has a bitter undertone to it just as I sip onto it. The milk ratio may be perfect and the coffee art may be good, but somehow the milk they use just doesn't cut it for me as it's just too runny. But it did go well with their coffee beans. From what I can see, it looks like their blend contains more dark roast in them. That explains the bitter undertone that hits me when I sip on it. I also didn't like the fact that the latte was too hot for my consumption instead of me being able to drink it immediately. I guess to me that although the barista may be good in her coffee art, she still has room for improvement over certain areas on conjuring up a latte that befits me.
Once the glorious sight of food arriving, it looks gorgeous to me. Stark bright contrasting colors with the piece of salmon stacked neatly atop the Frittata in turn having that on top of the "Cherry Tomato Chutney". Their description on their menu over this dish is right on the money. The tomato sauce right at the bottom does indeed best described as chutney. A few chunky pieces of blended tomato with some onions in the mix does have indeed got it like a chutney texture. It's also very delicious (which is odd to me because I don't usually like tomato based sauce) and got me finishing it off even though my salmon and Frittata has been consumed. The salmon was perfectly cooked and although may looked like it was inconsistent in it's seasoning due to the sprinkles of pepper on it, it wasn't the case at all. The taste was consistent and produced a very satisfying piece of grilled salmon to me. As for the Frittata, it was equally a delight to eat. Fun fact: the difference between a Frittata and a Quiche is that Frittatas don't have a crust while a Quiche has a custard base. This dish certainly was worth the wait to me.
My Beeramisu came after my meal thanks to the very attentive wait staff who politely asked me about it while clearing off my dish. By this time, somehow the crowd that came in suddenly has mostly dispersed and disappeared into the yonder with their ever quick eating habits and hectic working lifestyle.
The Beeramisu came in a candy jar like container where the first layer are chocolate shavings followed by Irish cream, then the Tiramisu pastry and another layer of the Irish cream and finally, a layer of Tiramisu pastry that contains Stout in em. In order to fully enjoy this, I recommend scooping all the way down and eating with a mixture of all layers at once. This is not a bad dessert at all. I most certainly prefer this over the Salted Caramel Tiramisu Jar at Salt 'n Koffie Gallery. The Irish cream produced a fine binding taste over the pastry with the Stout and the chocolate. The chocolate shavings is the thing that gives out sweetness in this dessert the most with the Irish cream meeting in between and while there's Stout in it, it's hoppish, bitter taste were very, very, minimal, almost non-existent and yet you can still taste the Stout also meeting halfway with the Irish cream. A certainly very satisfying way to end my meal.
Total Wallet Damage:
RM64.80. RM28 for the Frittata with Grilled Salmon, RM11 for my Latte and RM18 for the Beeramisu. 6% GST incurred and 10% service charge and a 2 sen rounding adjustment. The 6% GST is on the Latte, Beeramisu and service charge. No GST for the Frittata with Grilled Salmon.
Final Verdict:
7/10. This cafe inspired me in many ways. The design attracted me to visit, the staff made me felt like a VIP, the menu inspired me to take photos in anticipation of the dishes, the food inspired me to write and blog about this which I didn't originally intended to, the unique dessert inspired me to try and in retrospect to everything it inspired me to take more photos than I usually do and write more than I usually do on a single cafe. The only thing that I didn't like was the coffee. Just wasn't to my taste. Else I would've given it an 8. But hey, who knows. It could be the kind of coffee you like with it's bitter undertone.
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