COMMENTARY, March 9 — Wake up with croissants, wind down with cocktails.
This seems to be the mantra of a friendly neighbourhood shop in the quiet enclave of Taman Desa. In the morning, as early as 8am, the shop opens its doors as Café Superfluous and offers residents freshly baked pastries and flat whites. By sundown, the café transforms into Conti’, a speakeasy for chill-out evenings.
Imagine tucking into a chicken bakkwa & floss croissant a little after dawn, while slowly sipping on a milky latte. A perfect pick-me-up to get one ready for the day ahead.
Twelve hours later, when dusk has come and gone, that same latte can take on a new coat in the form of a Moutai Latte (known as máotái nátiě in Mandarin, a blend of espresso, milk and Moutai, a type of Chinese clear liquor).
One location, two spaces. One location, two functions.
This approach to dividing the use of a venue between two times of day isn’t entirely new, of course. There is no better example than our traditional coffee shop, where it fulfils the role of a kopitiam in the morning, with myriad stalls offering different local delicacies, and gets taken over by a daichow in the evening, which is more like a casual Chinese restaurant.
But more Western-style establishments like bakeries, cafés, pâtisseries and cocktail bars tend to stay on a more conventional path of opening and closing as a single eatery.
I never understood why.
Seems like a waste of resources.
So colour me curious when, some months ago, I noticed that Café Superfluous had put up a notice that another entity would utilise the same space in the evenings.
Did this mean I could get a soy gula Melaka cruffin (“croissant + muffin”) paired with an intense piccolo latte at night now?
Not quite.
Instead what we do get is the same gently lit, salmon-hued interior with lime-green accents further darkened with lamps at each table. Cocktails, rather than coffee (though the latter isn’t necessarily missing; more on that later).
Instead of chamomile tea, one could order a Chamomile Elixir made from chamomile infused gin, bitter bianco and lilet blanc; the elegant herbal notes belying its strong kick.
If, by day, one is greeted by the verdant shrubs in the plant box at the café entrance, this potent hit of greenery is echoed in the single mint leaf in Conti’s Clarity Zero, a clarified concoction that juxtaposes white rum and soda with refreshing mint and lime.
And perhaps the perfect nightcap for hardcore night owls: Conti’s Junglebird which features aged rum, Campari and lime, topped with a slice of hand-torched dehydrated pineapple.
This last ingredient makes me wonder if I would find a pineapple studded pastry when I return to Café Superfluous the next morning. The world loves patterns, after all. We seek them exhaustively.
Beyond an obsessive compulsive predilection for identifying motifs (where none might actually exist in the first place), I am forever guided by the old adage of “Waste not, want not.”
There is something pleasing in seeing how some entrepreneurial spirits (no pun intended) have found ways to make most of what they have.
Perhaps too few to matter, you might think.
There is a sea change, however. More and more eateries are discovering the benefits of sharing a location (and thus, splitting up the rent), particularly if one serves a daytime crowd and the other more of an evening audience.
Another example would be Airplane Mode Coffee, a café in Taman Rasa Sayang, PJ run by veteran barista Sing Thong. Offering excellent cuppas and charcoal grilled cha siu by day, the space is then taken up by OrenoShokuji, a creative and casual Japanese bar and restaurant at night.
Other possibilities abound. An economy rice shop in the AM, a ramen-ya in the PM, maybe? And so on.
Earlier I confessed a penchant for seeing designs where none exist.
Yet when the bartender at Conti’ decides to conjure up some off-menu coffee-infused cocktail (more like shots, to be honest), the way it harkens back to the coffee that is served by Café Superfluous in the morning is deeply pleasurable.
Wake up with croissants, wind down with cocktails. Waste not, want not. Seek the patterns, and be pleased.
Café Superfluous
35, Jalan Bukit Desa 5, Taman Bukit Desa, KL
Open daily 8am-5pm
FB: facebook.com/cafesuperfluous/
IG: instagram.com/cafesuperfluous/
Conti’
35, Jalan Bukit Desa 5, Taman Bukit Desa, KL
Open daily (except Mon closed) 6pm–1am
IG: instagram.com/conti.apostrophe/
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