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 is a former Design Architect turned Multi-Million Dollar Digital Entrepreneur. 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 and doubled her salary 5 times over 5 organisations but has grown THREE BUSINESSES to 7 FIGURES within an 8 year period. She now shows others EXACTLY HOW after retiring her own husband from employment. He is now the official dog walker, family driver, chef and THE BEST FATHER to their two girls and THE BEST HUSBAND to the woman who CHOSE HIM!

Mamapumpkin is the girl who has nothing but fights for everything including YOU. She is idealistic in her desire to put unbelievable amounts of money and extrardinary happiness into the lives of good people so we can change the world together believing in happiness for ALL. She strives to impact lives authentically wanting to reduce poverty cycles and enable quality education for all and always supports the voiceless. She believes 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 how to propel your life forward guaranteed, be brave to take action. Mamapumpkin's purpose is to build people. Her gift is to help them UNCOVER their HIDDEN GIFTS. She operates fairly and always leaves an impression. You either love her or not and she is alright either way.

She 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 with anyone, as she spends most of her days with her children, having fun, supporting others wherever she can. Also having fun.