Chawan first opened in Bangsar replacing the ever booming Dewi’s Corner which became a polling station for some time in 2008/2009? 3 years on, they are now at Publika too!

What attracted me to Chawan was the raw walls. Being an architectural graduate (no, I would never call myself an architect; I am not registered with PAM!), it was love at first sight. Just don’t think about the cleaning.

Just look, the cavities between the rocks are perfect hide-outs for cockroaches and creepy crawlies, but aren’t the rocks beautiful? Form over function – that was one of our architectural discussions at school.

After having exhausted Chawan in Bangsar for almost a year when T1 went to school in Bangsar (I can’t believe how much time I spent just sitting with Moms chatting all morning – thank God those days are over!), we were forced to go to Chawan in Publika one day because the Hubs was tired of paying big bucks (or what HE defines as big bucks) at the other eateries we usually frequent. To me, you eat what you pay more often than not, and Chawan to me, didn’t exactly have the healthiest of options.

But when I saw that they offered Prawn Mee, my eyes lit up. It’s been a long time since I’ve had prawn mee and although Chawan isn’t probably the best place to have a prawn mee, greed overtook logic and I flew into prawn mee Heaven.

Then I saw the sign saying 11am onward on the menu and my heart sank. It was 10.30am.

But luck was on my side because the waiter said he would check with the kitchen to see if the prawn mee was ready and it was! You know how it is when you’re praying for exam results??? This was it.

Unfortunately, this is what it looked like (very oily) when it arrived and it tasted sweet. Maybe it was catered to the Malay taste buds, but for me it didn’t work. I wasn’t used to sweet prawn mee. Actually, prawn mee is naturally sweet when cooked with fresh prawns but this sweetness didn’t come from prawns. It came from sugar.

And what was worse was that the prawns were so un-fresh that they were actually just powdery. I tried each prawn hoping I’d find one OK prawn but……

I guess the turnover for Prawn Mee at Chawan wasn’t so high which you would expect. I mean, who goes to Chawan to eat Prawn Mee? They have an impressive menu of local coffee though that invites you to savour all flavours of every State of Malaysia. Imagine that? Local coffee tasting!

Then an array of local desserts…..

I ordered a honey lemon juice as I was in need of some Vitamin C. It was OK. How wrong can it go?

The Hubs had his Kopi-O neat as always.

T2 wanted some hard boiled eggs which wasn’t in the menu but half boiled eggs were, so if you could make half boiled eggs, technically you would be able to make hard boiled eggs, don’t you think? I asked and they said no problem!

But when the eggs arrived……………..

There was no way T2 would eat that. Out of hunger, she had some of her sister’s toast immediately and we asked again for HARD boiled eggs.

The toast didn’t quite cut it for her so she decided to wait for her HARD boiled eggs and watched the rest of us eat, poor thing….

Meanwhile, the Hubs noticed that one of their fans were twirling on the ceiling in a fashion that suggested that it could drop any time and slaughter someone’s head off. The fan connection was coming loose so we quickly informed the staff to turn it off for safety measure and suggested they fixed it before turning the that particular fan on again.

When the staff saw the fan swaying like a drunkard, they were startled and quickly ran to turn it off.

We in turn quickly looked up to check if our own fan was a potential death sentence.

Phew, all OK. The fan was firmly adjusted to the ceiling. And then the royal eggs from the royal chicken arrived.

But it was COLD! Man, if they were going to serve their cold nasi lemak eggs from the fridge, why didn’t they just do it much earlier when we’d ordered instead of making my baby wait so long for hard boiled eggs!?? Is it so difficult to turn half boiled eggs that you usually cook for customers into some hard boiled eggs? Just for the record Chawan, it is done by leaving the eggs in very hot or boiling water just a little longer.

That wasn’t a good day at Chawan…………..

But they serve Nasi Dagang! Oh wait, there’s a sticker there that says N/A. There are mot many places one can find Kelantanese Nasi Dagang or even Nasi Kerabu in KL. Anyone with some recommendations???

I love how the menu has stained marks on it. The concept of the store is great. I guess they could do with some solid staff training and a healthier way of cooking their very lovely Malaysian menu. I realise that owners would then say, oh, but cannot sell…..but as Malaysians, we should all change our mind set into moving towards a healthier Malaysia and the Government should start imposing active initiatives on carrying this out. It all starts with education and slowly but surely, the taste buds will alter. As the mind gets cleverer, the body will listen.

 

 

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Who is Mamapumpkin?
Mamapumpkin spent 7 years in London committing crimes to gain her Bartlett degree in Architecture. She then spent 7 years as a Stay At Home Mom raising her children as documented in this blog of over 15 years thereafter returning to the Corporate World stronger than ever as the Country Director of a British Multinational. She sets out to prove to all, that you can have anything and everything that you want; if you have that fire of desire burning within and the drive to work hard. Even better with much love.

Mamapumpkin has not only grown corporate businesses successfully in the past but has grown not one but TWO network marketing businesses in the notorious MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) industry, achieving success in under 2 years. She believes in the MLM business model but realises the DRASTIC PITFALLS and great stigma attached to it, understanding EXACTLY WHY the majority would shy away (or RUN for their lives) from ANY MLM business. But open your eyes and take time to understand it intellectually, remove your hang-ups, confirm your research, and you may just want to seize an opportunity. She did. And no, she never went about chasing people for sales. She had a sophisticated system work for her through technology and a smartphone.

She now impacts lives authentically with proven strategies amassed through the last decade of her own transformation offering online coaching programmes and always supports the underprivileged. She believes that we can all have a life of our own desires to enable real contribution into the world. But first, one needs to understand what this all means.

A beautiful life without limits.

If you wish to learn some tools to propel your life forward guaranteed, be brave enough to make contact as her life's purpose is to build people. She operates through a discovery call after which she will commit to helping you. Or not.

Most lose out on an opportunity because they are afraid they would be sold to, conned or whatever fear resides in their brain without even trying. And that's on them.

Mamapumpkin is a living testimony that women really can have a lot. Being financially and time free has enabled her to travel the world anytime, anywhere, doing anything, and she spends most of her days with her children, having fun, and supporting others wherever she can. Also having fun.