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By Mihar Dias (C) Copyright March 2023
Bungalow 18 by Frankitas is a boutique, a sort of "your second colourful home" as proclaimed by its Facebook page and Instagram account.
The place offers fitness training, nail spa services and pop up cafe. It is an ideal place to hold small events, too.
We were there for the cuisine although the ladies in the group did spend some time browsing through beautiful designer stuff on display in the bungalow making mental notes of so many decorative items for future needs.
We were there at noon on a slow Friday.
When we arrived Frankie the owner, was busy chatting with guests. In her hand was that unmistakable "Good Morning" towel well loved by generations of Malaysians, ready to swipe sweat off her brows that trikle down sides of her face mostly from running table to table attending to needs of guests in the afternoon sun.
One group we saw was getting ready for a birthday party on the verandah facing a large lawn. Her business partner, Gaya was on hand to assist the birthday girl.
Fridays and Saturdays are the only days when they serve meals from 11 to 4. Dishes get sold fast. It's best to order in advance if you're planning to dine in or take away.
At 12, it was getting a bit hot in the open but the well-manicured green grass and the plants did help cool the area around the bungalow.
Anyway, it was quite comfortable where our table was, underneath a pergola overgrown with bougainvillea plants cooled by two large wall fans.
We had pomelo salad, Indonesian satay and Katong style Nyonya curry laksa prepared by Frankie, her partner, Gaya and her aunt, Titin Martini from Pulau Jawa.
Attending to us is another partner Linda, sweet charming lady who is more into fitness than culinary arts spending time helping out on pop up cafe days
We are told that their gado-gado, bakso soup and lontong are equally good because Frankie said they use the best and freshest ingredients for all their dishes. Two ladies at a table next to us highly recommended them too.
Anyway, the pomelo salad before us is mixed with chili padi, spring onions, salt and pepper. It's refreshing. Pomelo is firm as if it's just been plucked from a tree nearby.
This was followed by satay on skewers. They are large made with chunks of fresh choicest chicken breast meat, seasoned with herbs and spices served with delicious chunky peanut sauce.
Surprisingly, it was not sweetened with sugar solution as is commonly the practice with local variety sold at roadside stalls.
It was like the way real satay ought to be; chunky, tasty with herbs and spices known only to Titin Martini and her niece Frankie. We finshed a dozen in no time.
Our last dish before dessert is Nyonya curry laksa, Katong style because Frankie lived in Singapore for some time and she is influenced by the way they serve it across the Causeway.
Locally, we usually serve curry laksa with yellow mee noodles or meehoon or kueh teow but at Bungalow 18 they use shiny slippery laksa noodles made from tapioca flour served at local laksa stalls.
Some of us around the table had difficulty with that kind of noodles. It would have been better if they stuck with rice based noodles used by authentic laksa stall or merely stick with less slippery yellow mee or just meehoon. They blend better with the sauce.
The curry sauce by the way is delicious with the right consistency, "lemak" from the fresh coconut milk well blended with the herbs and spices and adequately seaoned with salt minus MSG and other articial flavourings. Frankie says all her food are organically fresh!
There's a side dish of well prepared "sambal" for the Nyonya curry laksa in case the sauce is not spicy enough for you!
A lady in our group, done eating the slippery noodles with a set of bamboo chopsticks, then picked up her bowl drank the entire contents of soup in one gulp apologising to everyone around, "I am sorry but this sauce is too good to let it go to waste!"
It's one of the best lunches we had in a long time. We are sure you'll be too but do try gado-gado, lontong and bakso soup that we missed. These are on our list for the next visit.
Oh, yes our last dish, a flourless chocolate cake made from almond and chocolate is extremely delicious. Linda recommended that. She is not wrong about the lingering taste!
Don't miss that as your dessert. It makes you want to go back for more. It's a guiltless dessert too. Something Keto dieters would die for!
Address: Bungalow 18, Jalan Damansara Permai, Taman Damansara Endah, 50490 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur.
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