Ms. Yin Wah, the owner of Aku Cafe Gallery was once an office staff, working from 9 to 6, five days a week. The work piling in front of her never comes to an end, until one day, she started to think: Why am I so busy? Why peoples around me are so busy? Are they happy? Am I happy with my life?
She began to reset her mindset, asking herself what she actually wants. In the end she decided to quit her job, and moved on to a whole new world -running a small business named Aku Cafe and Gallery, a place where you can find calm and tranquility.
To her, the world is so sick. Many peoples are living in one dimensional life, busy and stressed out. This has bring her the motivation to open this cafe, aiming to provide a place for people to lay back, and relax.
Located along Jalan Panggong, Aku Cafe & Gallery is quite hidden but once we pushed the door in during our visit last Sunday, we felt the quietness and calmness filling the air, a big contrast to the hustle and bustle of city outside. The entire space was more spacious than we initially thought of, with wooden tables lining up in the center of corridor-like hall space.
Examined in details, vintage elements such as antique vase, fan, chairs, cupboard, cushion came in sight to conclude the furnishing, bringing us back to decades of a century. A combination of present and past.
Since the main focus of the cafe is to provide a cozy environment for relax, the menu is kept simple with coffee, tea and light bites such as cakes and sandwiches. Nonetheless, everything is carefully prepared, and the hand brewed coffee here is definitely noteworthy.
For hot drinks, diners can have mocha yigacheffee, gold top mandheling, coffee blend, and espresso. Hand brewed or siphon method can be chosen to prepare your coffee, priced RM8 to RM12.If you are not a coffee lover, they do have earl grey, lemon, English breakfast, lemongrass and honey lemon tea to choose from.
Brewed using yigacheffee, a mocha coffee beans grown in a sub region of Sidamo in Southern Ethiopia, our Mocca Yigacheffee coffee carries a smooth, light fruity notes.
For cold drinks, we liked their iced drip coffee. Other choices including Iced Coffee, Iced Coffee Blend, Mint Iced Coffee and Lemon Iced Coffee.
It is always great to have a piece of cake to go with coffee and tea. Cake choices here aren’t extensive, but all handmade with quality to give the best to customer.
We tried out chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and ginger honey. Very dense and thick chocolaty flavour with bites of nuts for extra texture, good but a tad too dry. The vanilla ice cream topping over came in just right to give some moisture, compensating the dry texture.
Continued on we had Aku Special Cake for Coffee. Soft and spongy, very much like a enhanced version of butter cake with unknown secret ingredients, sided with creamy sauce made from fruits. As the name called, the cake was meant to be paired with coffee, so we found that it was on sweeter side, turned just perfect when the sweetness was toned down by the bitterness of coffee.
If you were here with hungry stomach and seeking for hot dishes, you would be disappointed with the limited choices available. Hainan toast and sandwiches are all you can find on the menu. Anyhow, the cafe is trying to bring out more varieties such as spaghetti.
Hot and complicated dishes would not be available near future, seeing that she and another staff are the only two persons there to take down the order, brew coffee, prepare food and receive payment.
Simple tossed pasta may be the most complete meal you will get in Aku Cafe & Gallery soon, such as this hand tossed spiral pasta brimming with texture from chewy pasta, crunchy crushed penuts, juicy onions and creamy dressing. Overall is good with heavy onion flavours mingled within, great for onion lovers.
In short, what makes the cafe special besides the good coffee and relaxing ambience? – The occasionally screening of movie directed by Tsai Ming Liang, the Malaysian born director who has won numerous film festival awards and with films acclaimed worldwide. Admission is free, location will be the ‘lobby’ area in the cafe. so run through their Facebook page more often for the lates screening time. More reasons to visit this place now- good ambience, good coffee, good movie. Do drop by one day!
Photographer: Summer
Writer: YLing
Address:
Aku Cafe & Gallery
No.8, 1st Floor,
Jalan Panggong,
50000 Kuala Lumpur.
Business Hours: 11:00am – 8:00pm (closed on Mondays)
Contact: 03-28576887
Email: akucafegallery@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/akucafegallery
