Hawker food at cosy cafe

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TUCKED in a corner of Centrepoint in Bandar Utama is a casual and contemporary cafe called Kopi Bar.

Despite its rather limited kitchen space, this kopitiam-style cafe serves up a variety of Chinese-inspired hawker food and dishes.

Kopi Bar’s menu ranges from a simple fare of toast, half-boiled eggs and coffee or tea for breakfast, to hawker fare like nasi lemak, mee goreng and fried rice, to individual dishes like Chicken Curry served in Claypot, Crab Meat Taufu and Sweet & Sour Prawn.

The cafe’s speciality is the Hainanese Chicken Rice, which Kopi Bar director Joe Cho said was prepared by himself, a Hainanese.

House recommendation: Kopi Bar director Joe Cho at work preparing the cafe’s speciality — Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Diners who prefer a more satisfying meal can order side dishes like Ipoh Beansprouts, Hong Kong Choy Sum, Chicken Innards or Lemon Chicken.

On what makes his Hainanese Chicken Rice different, was the rice cooked with a mixture of chicken stock, ginger and pandan leaves, and that the dish is served with two types of condiments — homemade sambal and a ginger-spring onion sauce.

Other specialities Cho recommends are Seafood Noodles featuring Shanghai noodles with fish, prawns, oysters and cuttlefish, Cantonese Fried Koay Teow with either beef or seafood, and Thai Fried Rice with Pineapple.

He said the Thai Fried Rice with Pineapple was a weekly promotion permanently featured in Kopi Bar’s menu due to its popularity.

Side dish: Lemon Chicken

“We also have our Kopi Bar Nasi Lemak. It’s a Singapore-style dish, hence the green-hued rice that is flavoured with pandan juice.

“The Kopi Bar Mee Goreng with seafood has an Indonesian influence and is served with our homemade sambal,” said Cho.

Kopi Bar’s other local dishes include Chicken Curry Noodles, Fish Ball Noodles, Hokkien Noodles, Sin Chew Fried Rice, Fried Rice with Salted Fish and Tom Yam Seafood.

Prices of these items range from RM6.90 to RM12.

As for the individual dishes, which are mainly served during dinner, Cho said the chefs also prepared daily specialities in addition to those that were listed in the menu.

“These dishes, like Kam Heong Prawn and Curry Pork Trotter, are served upon request and subject to availability,” he said.

Indonesian style: Kopi Bar Mee Goreng.

Kopi Bar’s drinks menu includes the usual hot and cold beverages like tea, coffee, lemon tea, plum lime and barley, as well as alcoholic beverages like red and white wine, beer and the Heineken Snow/ Chilled Beer.

Cho said the cafe offered him a outlet to express his passion for cooking after a 15-year stint working overseas in various clubs and restaurants in Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore.

“The cafe was opened more than a year ago by some close friends. I took over the management early this year and expanded its menu,” said the chef whose personal favourites are Wok-Fried Noodles and Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Kopi Bar’s revamped layout offers more dining space, including two sets of rice urn-shaped tables and chairs for the smoking area.