Oriental Kopi 华阳 • Vivacity Megamall • Kuching — Restaurant in Borneo

It was the main reason I booked a flight to Kuching from KK 4 months ago (right after our trip to Kuching in August last year😆) After hearing so much about this viral kopitiam, I was excited to try it for myself. Here’s my detailed review:

Arrival and Ambience • We arrived at the restaurant around 3:15–3:17 PM. There wasn’t a queue outside, but the place was already packed, and the atmosphere felt a little overwhelming due to the crowd. • The seating arrangement is adequate, but when the restaurant is full, it can feel a bit cramped. • A positive note: They provide power sockets, which was very convenient for charging my phone during the meal.

Menu and Food • The menu offers a variety of interesting Asian dishes. I ordered the Nasi Lemak Ayam Rendang, while my brother chose the Biryani Beef Rendang. We also ordered two pieces of their famous baked egg tarts. • Drinks were served at 3:30 PM, and the egg tarts followed three minutes later. However, there was a delay with my main dish: • My brother’s food arrived promptly, but I had to wait about 10 minutes for mine. When it finally came, it was the wrong dish. After waiting an additional 5–10 minutes, I received the correct order. In total, it took around 20 minutes for my food to arrive.

As for taste: • The Biryani Beef Rendang was authentic, flavorful, and satisfying. • The Nasi Lemak Ayam Rendang was good, but the chicken rendang textured/ tasted more like curry rather than traditional rendang. While it was delicious, it wasn’t exceptional. • The egg tarts were a highlight—Even though we ate them cold, the texture was still perfectly crispy, as if they had just come out of the oven. The filling was creamy, smooth, and rich in flavor. They definitely lived up to their reputation and were worth trying

Additional Offerings • The kopitiam also sells a variety of ready-to-go products, including instant milk tea, instant coffee, Srikaya spread, and pineapple tarts. These add an extra convenience for customers looking for souvenirs or treats to bring home.

Price • The prices are on the higher side. Our total bill for two people, including tax, was over RM 80, which I found quite expensive for the overall experience.

Overall Impression • While I appreciate the variety on the menu and the iconic egg tarts, the long wait for my meal and the high prices made the experience less enjoyable than expected. • The visit was decent, but it didn’t fully live up to the hype.

Would I visit again? Perhaps, but maybe the main reason would be for the egg tarts, and I might also try another menu next time. But yeah, I’d need to save money first and buy another flight ticket to fly over...

After much hype by friends, I decided to give it a try since I am at the vicinity. Luckily enough, I did not need to queue for long and was seated in less than 30 minutes. Here's my take on this place.

Services: Overall, their service was very good. While in the queue, the service crew will enquire on the number of pax and even passed out the menu and order slip so customers can write down their orders while in the queue. Everyone communicate via walkie set, so as soon as table available, they will bring you in swiftly. Considering full crowd when I was there, my orders came rather fast. Crews are polite and attentive. I ordered takeaway tarts and they bothered to check if I have gotten my takeaway already. Kudos to the service crews. 5 stars service there.

Food and beverages: I ordered the double butter kaya toast with kopi o and takeaway egg tarts. After much hype, I have certain expectations on the food and the drinks. Minus the egg tarts, I ordered the same kopi o and kaya butter toast as I would for similar type of establishment, to have a fair comparison. The kopi o was not what I expected. I was expecting stronger taste for the kopi o but although the overall taste was ok, drinking it left a feeling of emptiness. I also find the toast overly sweet for the kaya which overpower the butter. Felt more like eating kaya toast than butter kaya toast. The butter could be more soft as well. The bread used for the toast was ok and the texture was not too hard. The up side is, it goes well with the kopi o as the kopi will balance the sweetness of the toast. The signature portugese egg tarts, however, lived up to its reputation. It was spot on in terms of the crust as well as the fillings. Definitely better to eat while it's hot. I have not tried their other food and drinks so I cannot say for the rest. Overall, the kopi and toast can be better.

Experiences: Overall, the experience there was mostly good. The place is spacious and the choice of food and beverages was a lot. The setup and decoration have that oriental feel to it abeit a little mordern. And being in a mega mall have its perks as well. Parking is not an issue here. There is an option for takeaway if you chose no to dine in, but you might need to wait a while for your orders. However, being a dine in customer, I would expect my takeaway order to be given last to preserve the heat.

Overall: Although the egg tarts live up to its reputation, it was just ok and not to die for. For egg tart lovers, it's worth the try. Perhaps I will come back again to try other food if I happen to be around the vicinity, but I won't go out of my way to come...

2/6/25 - We reached oriental at 8:50am and the line was already long. It's 9am but not yet open. Waited few more minutes but still not open. In the end they opened at 10am (mind you there were no notice at all in front of oriental kopi stating that they will open slighly late maybe due to Gawai?) We queud for 1 hour ++ 😂 After we came in:

1. There were 2 waitress telling us that there will be a slight delay of 45mins because the chefs haven't come (the chef haven't come it's already 10:10am???)
2. We expect that other people's food would delay as well but surprisingly lots of the customers have received them (except us) even some of the customers have finished theirs and proceed to pay. Didn't they say chefs haven't come in and need to wait for 45mins? So only applicable to malay customers like us?? 😂😂
3. Waitress has a very poor communications skills. After submitting order he said "this menu inside the broucher is not avail on public holiday" okay so we would want to cancel but we didn't cancel it inside the menu order because no matter what it's not available right? Just one hour later our food came and the one we wanted to cancel came.... Turns out that the menu we cancelled is available but it will be based on the original menu price. Please sent ur staff for training or maybe hire the one with better communication skills. The menu we wanted to cancelled is as per images attached below

We don't know why it's only us who need to wait for 45 minutes and not other customers. There were other big family coming in to dine as well but they received their food way faster than us. Again, was it because we are...