C'est LA viE

  It was early January this year, when I finally got to meet up with Ping and Natasya after like 4 years!

The last time we met each others perhaps was in 2010, then I moved to North Island while Ping and Nat gone back Malaysia for working life.

But I never got to meet them since back home in 2013, I did chat with Nat via facebook PM or whatapps, just rarely with Ping (dint even gt her number).

So thanks for Nat's initiative, we finally got to catch up after so long! Just shame that we did not take a usie or group photo!

How could we miss it?! Especially the paper pandas attacking Publika!!

The worldwide tour of the pandas for promoting and educating the environmental conservation and sustainable development (also animal welfare) finally arrived Malaysia after touring in a few countries like Italy, Netherland, HK, Taiwan etc. 

There are 1600 pandas in total!! They were made by recycled paper (yes you get me right) by a French artist, Paulo Grangeon, in collaboration with WWF for this ongoing meaningful exhibition worldwide. 

These pandas had been paraded in Dataran Merdeka, Pinang....(15 places in total), and finally displayed in Publika, the last pit stop for almost 2 wks. 

I admitted that I chose Publika as a meeting point for a reason =P 

Yes, I finally gone to Publika after looking forward to visit this popular check-in place for teenagers in Malaysia at the moment for a few months...

Open rice, rakyat post, eat drink KL blogs had been highly promoting cafes or cuisines in Publika, tho my colleague was commenting the food might be over-rated (which I would not doubt) but as a foodie, I still wish to pay a visit.

Nat and I met earlier at the KL central, and her brother fetch us to Publika.

I was thinking to drive there initially but I was hesistate to do so as I never drive to KL area and really worried about using GPS while driving. 

Thanks for Nat's kindness for offering me a seat in her brother's car, and her funny brother even fetched me to home all the way from KL to Klang!

Nat and I reached Publika earlier while Ping met us after finished work (thankful I am not working on Sat), hence we took the opportunity to choose places for lunch.

There were plenty of cafes to choose....eventually I chose The Red Bean Bag based on the ranking recommendation on Open rice

Guess what, there's already a long queue when we arrived around 12.40pm! We waited for almost an hour for a table. 

This was the "number" I got, felt like dining in a government department, take turns just to eat lunch...

I ordered the Signature baked egg because I seldom see this kind of dish in a western menu (even in NZ, or maybe I was not aware).

The egg was runny and flow over the hot pot which was really sastifying, but I was kinda dissapointed when found out the "meat" underneath was a lamb sausage rather than chunked steak or pulled meat. 

The texture of sausage under the baked egg with cheese is not matched, and personally, I really think the sausage idea spoiled the dish.

However, flavor of the dish itself was well done, just I am really picky with the texture. 

Ping was only able to catch us for dessert, but Publika was getting crowded after lunch especially the pandas exhibition attracted more crowds to the place. 

Each panda is different!! 1600 different looks! Unbelievable, no wonder everyone was queueing for a photo...

We were not able to get a seat in every dessert point we planned to drop by (Salon Du Chocolat, Namoo, Mad about coco, Swich cafe etc), eventually we only took away a slice of pricy and fancy cake at the Switch cafe (which is also ranked in the top ten eateries in open rice)

Swich cafe is famous with their unique combination on bakings, I was tempting to buy their infamous mangosteen or cempedak cake which was super amazing just hearing the names...but they were sold out and we had to wait for 30mins to get them baked and re-displayed in their kiosk. 

Therefore I took the remaining, which was the last cake - The Aphrodite - gula malacca based sponge cake embedded with FIGS, and topped with strawberries, blueberries, and ....POMEGRANATES!

What a unique combination! I never think of using figs and pomegranates together, especially in a cake!

The taste was very good, flavor was rounded and the sticky figs within each layers just brought up a new sensation on my taste bud! Pomegranates on top are juicy, and the watery texture balanced the sweet gula malacca based sponge.

It worthed RM13.90, but I guess it is for effort of creating this wonderful piece of art and taste using the fresh and quality ingredients (I hope, finger-crossed).  

Nat bought their durian mud cake which was really attractive as well, but I am not interested with durian flavored products, tho I am a durian lover.

Anyways, we got to meet up and chit chat for almost 2 hrs, it is good to know everyone is doing good and move forward in life.

Guess we just need another catch up for another group photo

 =P