It has been quite a while since a visit has been made to an “established” coffee joint. Can I say established? I just did. Should the word be a “branded” coffee joint instead? Here it means a well known name with many outlets. To be more precise, a cafe brand with strong financial backing.

Jeannie and I had some time at mid-evening. I asked Jeannie, “Coffee and cake with icing, the soft, mushy, bakery icing that we used to get at cake shops when we were kids. Don’t know what made me come up with this type of cake. I don’t think I was craving for it. Maybe nostalgia had something to do with it. Most important was the coffee, that was a must.

I suggested getting away from our “work stations” for a while, just to chill. Go some place nearby. We wounded up at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. It was our first time at this outlet in Taipan since it went through a renovation transformation. The renovation was quite a while ago.

I think its new look was more clinical – modern, more chairs and tables in which it meant that everyone was sitting closer to each other. Quite nice. The interior design was quite strange though, with a wall (no, not that wall intended to divide two countries), parallel to the counter, starting from the entrance, dividing the room, and stops mid-way. It was almost full house at that time we were there.

At the counter, they had a nice rectangular screen which was about a metre long and 10 inches wide. It brought the menu to us instead of the usual big menu screen boards at the back of the counter (which they had, too). It’s nice to see the menu up close. Maybe, it’s meant for little kids… little kids with lots of money.

We made our orders. We didn’t want anything too heavy as it was close to dinner time. They had a special offer – Iced Mocha with a slice of cake. We decided to have the iced Mocha with whipped cream. We usually don’t have whipped cream to our drinks, but we thought why not “live at the edge” for a change.😉😂 As long as we don’t make it a habit. As for the cake, we went for the cendol cake. Mention “cendol” (spelt “chendol” in the old days), and an image of an Indian uncle with his green (don’t know why but the cendol sellers on tricycles always had their trikes [short for tricycles] in green) tricycle with the manually operated ice-shaving machine. We always asked for more liquid brown sugar.

The cendol slice of cake had the green noodles and red beans, both ingredients for the delicious cold cendol dessert / drink, which is always served cold. That’s the reason for the ice-shaving machine. It had a sort of biscuit as its base and the rest of it kind of cheesy. By the way, the cake served here was about 20% to 30% smaller in size than what you would get at other cafes for the same price.

The Iced Mocha with the whipped cream was quite ordinary.

We were there for the experience. It was quite a pleasant place to hang out, chill and relax.

We definitely will still spend more time with homegrown, entrepreneurial spirit of people who have started up their own cafes like Good Ground Bakery, Bakeyard, Jings, TBX, Contour, Foliage Coffee and many more as they all have their own styles, decor, food and beverage mix – they are less commercial and more people centred. Generally, each of them offer their own unique experience to customers. It’s a nice way of giving reason to why you will be spending more than the coffee shops and mamaks. No doubt that they have their own experiences to share. They, too; are becoming more sophisticated – upscaling the experience for their customers.

We headed home for dinner – one of those rare occasions that we have home cooked dinner. Prepared by the Batik Influencer chef.