Chocha Foodstore, similar to Merchant Lane (Merchant Lane -Good Food amidst History), is located a few doors away from one another, near Petaling Street. It has no obvious signage, so look up for Mah Lian Hotel, as this former hotel is where Chocha has decided to open shop.
As you can probably derive from the image above, it does not have the resemblance of a cafe front. It’s pretty closed up and it would not even cross your mind that this is a cafe, unless you get really close to the window or the front door to take a peek inside. The saying – do not judge a book by its cover, seems pretty apt here.
Once you open the front door and head inside ….
The inside of this cafe felt very pleasant and welcoming. It has its own charm and somehow managed to retain it’s old exterior. When you enter this establishment, it would not strike you as a newly opened cafe -when in fact, it actually is only a few months old. Pretty cool huh.
Their menu is limited. In most of their dishes – duck is used and duck is not something I fancy, nope. So, my options were pretty limited, in fact – only 3 to 4 other dishes offered chicken and/or calamari.
Ulam Stew Barley Rice, 28 Ringgit
This dish consisted of salted eggs, dried shrimp, fresh squids, pesto sauce and barley rice. I was not impressed, not at all. For a dish worth 28 ringgit, this was a disappointment. It was a mediocre dish that should have cost no more than 15 ringgit, why 28 ringgit – I may never know. It pretty much tasted like porridge, porridge that consist of hard grain rice, pesto sauce, long thin strips of calamari + salted egg. I did not like this dish – a waste of my $$$.
Biang Biang Inspired Noodles, 16 Ringgit
This dish consisted of fat noodles, chilly oil, soy sauce, peanuts and mixed spice. Now, this noodles, was significantly better than the first dish – sooooo much better. I would have preferred the noodles being thinner, that would have allowed me to relish the dish better, because I think thinner noodles would have allowed me to mix it all up with the gravy and would have provided me with more uummmpphh! The fat noodles, due to its bigger size, there is only so much the sauce can cover, some parts had real little sauce, resulting in me tasting the noodle in its blend form. This is a dry dish, it is not soaked in sauce or curry. This is sometimes a good thing, especially in this case – the fat noodles themselves fills your stomach, making it a wet dish will only make it overwhelming. So, good call on their part making this a dry dish.
Since my choice in this cafe in regards to food selection is pretty limited – this would be a dish I order again.
Would I head here again?
Nope, I would not. Even if I do, it would be more for the surroundings this cafe offer, not for the food. As i mentioned in my blog post on Merchant Lane (Merchant Lane -Good Food amidst History), I would rather head there for better food and an equally welcoming environment.
Address: 156, Jalan Petaling, 50000 Kuala Lumpur.
Opening Hours: Tuesdays to Sundays , 11 am – 10 pm. Mondays, Closed
Signing out now, Ciao.
