31: Pick n' Brew

Pick n' Brew (by infuso.inc)
2, Jalan U1/17, Hicom-Glenmarie Ind Park,
4000, Shah Alam.
Tel: 03 - 55691216

Now we were brought here by my aunt, to celebrate my birthday and my brother's examination results. I didn't sleep too well last night, and I must have dozed off in the car. Who knew we drove all the way down to Shah Alam?!

Why is it called "pick and brew" you ask? Well, the specialty here is that you get to pick your own coffee beans to be brewed. You're going to be that barista that you've always wanted to be.

That aside, the first thing I noticed when I entered was... Well, coffee beans! They're all over the place! They even have latte-art classes here (which looks fun, I must add), so why not head down? Since its in an office block, most of the crowd are of course, your run-of-the-mill office workers. Fret not, good food ahoy!

For starters, the Caesar salad.

Now this is fairly common starter, but I liked the chicken in it. It kinda reminded me of the chicken from chicken rice. Hmm.

Next was the cappuccino wild mushroom soup. Why cappuccino you ask? Well, because of the cappuccino-esque use of "foam".

When I first looked at it, I started recalling an article out of Reader's Digest (Sept. 2007) where an article was doing a write-up on how food critics, I quote, are "rebelling against the latest food craze, deriding it as froth over substance". I may have to agree at some point. Mushroom foam isn't exactly my things, well, since it isn't the creamy kind of foam you find in your coffee of teh-tarik. Well, one man's meat is another man's poison, right?

The soup itself was pretty good (minus the foam, but thats just me). Peppery and home-made. Thats the best thing to look for(ward to) when ordering mushroom soup.

The next dish was the oven-baked oats and almond crusted snapper.

The vegetables below it and the basil-tomato sauce on it really did justice to it. The meat of the fish is also tender. But maybe the basil-tomato was too strong? I'm not sure. My brother gave me a small sample. The dish also reminded me of deep fried prawns coated in oatmeal in some other Chinese restaurant that I've been too. Very nice crust to it.

My grandmother had the grenobloise salmon fillet.

In both of the fish dishes, I really noticed the vegetables. I don't know how, or why, but I really felt it went well with the fishes. The salmon was marinated nicely, so there was no strong fishy smell.

I had moussaka (which is Greek *gasp*).

I really love lasagna dishes, and this one had soft, juicy eggplants, which was a win-over for me. If only the cheese wasn't so salty. Yep, thats my only peeve. But I was told by Jackson (The F&B manager there, as I was told by my aunt) that customers usually order some garlic bread with their moussaka, something solid to lessen the impact of salty. It was too late for me, but be sure to do so if you do come down here! My aunt had the lamb tikka, served with a rice pilaf.

Wow, the lamb was really good. Really meaty and well marinated. I liked it. The lamb tikka was also served with really strong little cubes of cheese. Even a cheese-eater like me couldn't handle it. It wasn't stinky, but it was strong. But it was a good experience.

For dessert, there were 3 choices of cake. Being the greedy people we are, we ordered all 3 (watch them calories, mate!), to share amongst ourselves (hah, not so greedy after all, eh?).

Blueberry cheesecake is your typical classic kind of cheesecake. Nothing much to say about it, but sometimes, original is best, yeah?

Then there was the strawberry cheesecake.

What amazed me about it, that it was served warm/hot! Wow. An eye opener. I've never had warm/hot cheesecakes before!

And the last one, was my aunt's personal favourite. The apple crumble cheesecake, which I was told was inspired by this. Coolio. You really have to try this, its really good! It also reminded me and my brother of the base of cheesecakes my mum makes. Nostalgia? Maybe.