Merchant's Lane | Petaling Street Café — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

Entrance to this eatery is very vague. You can miss the entrance, other than the fact that people entering the vague door, or the occasional line that gets too long and spills out the door. Good thing the staff took initiative to manage the customers and get the line moving. The environment is unique. I'm guessing it's trying to go for a hipster and old school look. Unfortunately, I think that the owners need to paint the wall at least, paint seems to be peeling of the wall. High ceiling and a secondary eating area which look way better than the main eating space. The seat and table may not be too comfortable. Forgot to mention, there is stairs heading to the place, so it's not disable friendly. The place look like its understaffed as the waiters seems very rushed, but they were very attentive even in high crowd situation. Yes this place is very packed. Be prepared to line up.

Now to the food, I had the breakfast and my friend had a salmon dish fusion with asian spicy take on it. Super fruit drink and Rose Honey Milk for drinks. And a unique dessert, with a weird name of " Better than sex".

The breakfast was actually quite normal continental breakfast, but quite good. There is bread under the eggs. The eggs is well done, I didnt like the mushrooms. The hashbrown is overcooked and too thin.

My friend's food was actually much better than mine. The dish is actually salmon cooked ala masak Lemak Chili Api, the name of the dish is Kampung Sg Tua. Please keep that item. It is spicy and delicious. Has a side of vegetable. Be prepared for a flood of taste into your mouth. The name of the dish on the menu written as Kg Sg Tua.

Now to the drinks, we ordered Superfruit drink and Rose Honey Milk. The superfruit drink is very unique and delicious. I recommend this. The Rose Honey Milk is a healthy version of bandung drink popular amongst stalls in Malaysia.

Finally to the dessert, we ordered "Better than sex" It is actually pandan pancake or crepe made fresh and hot, topped with cheese and almonds or nuts and strawberry slices, with two scoops side of delicious ice cream. Its very delicious. This dessert feeds two person, unless you are very hungry.

The food and drink is very delicious and generally well done. The prices is quite high, 4 star prices, too high for too frequent, but once and a while will be fine. For me, the place is quite pricey. The environment is unique, but need some improvement on the main eating space, the wall needs a repaint, unless this is the design that they were going for. Good...

5 October 2024 | Brunch - total of 109++ walk in without booking disambut dengan lelaki botak which if dia owner kedai tu i think that might be last time I come to the place other crew sambut by “welcome, how many pax. Any reservation” but the man terus ada booking. Ok laa no big deal. I dont know why this abang botak have the service lower than mamak stall but kerja at place wth M40 above cafe. The price of the food is kinda hotel standard hence you should come wth the best service.

Food Italian Chow Mein - spaghetti with ayam rendang. Interesting taste kinda likey but will never repeat the order. The Gray Burger - mindblow 🤯🤯🤯. A must order. Better than sex - roti jala wth ice cream. It’s not better than sex for sure but better than italian chow mein yes. It doesn’t give you the foodgasm. But please try if you wanna taste the uniqueness.

Suggestion to OWNER we order roti jala with ice cream and didn’t put any instructions or remark. For me i ok if the food came together wth all main course. usually if the waiter wanna check if the dessert come together or not, they will ask “come together or after main course” but the abang botak suddenly next time put at the remark tulis after. Nnt chef buat terus keluar sekali pula. I was like it’s your platform. You can make the editing if there’s a lot of issues from people ordering it. Just put remark please indicate in the instructions to serve wth main or course. Before or after. Ni customer pula kena tegur kenapa x put remark when there’s no issue at all. the online ordering coming from your sistem. Hence if there’s dessert section and you crew got issue wrh customer want before. Semasa or after then you put it there. zzzzz

Because of this abang botak service. I totally didnt enjoy much the ambiance.

The food is nice. The other crew is nice. The abang...

Subpar food for insane prices

I went to this café because my friend wanted to try it after seeing the food online, and we thought it’d be a cozy place to work on a project. The entrance was intriguing, it was just a tiny doorway tucked at the edge of the shoplots, and the upstairs space looked quite inviting. Staff was quite decent I would say. And yet, unfortunately, our experience went downhill after ordering.

Limited menu options For starters, the menu was surprisingly sparse. My friend and I kept flipping it back and forth because there really wasn’t much to choose from. To make it worse, several items were unavailable, which could probably have been because we visited in the late afternoon?

Disappointing food quality I ordered the Shakshuka (RM29), mainly because the fried mantous looked tempting. The mantous were great, but the Shakshuka itself fell flat after a few bites. The flavours were unbalanced, and while the eggs were cooked perfectly, the overall taste just didn’t deliver.

My friend had the Italian Chow Mein (RM26). The chicken smelled strongly, (almost like it wasn’t fresh or cooked well perhaps?) and after one bite, she couldn’t eat it at all. It ended up being one of the most disappointing meals we’ve ever had, especially given how excited we were beforehand.

Drinks were the only highlight We both ordered hot and iced chocolate, and they were actually good. The latte art was cute, and I’d recommend the drinks if anything.

Overall I get that café prices are usually higher, but if you’re charging that much, the quality should at least match. Our total came to RM97 for just two mains and two drinks, and it felt completely unjustified. Honestly, the experience left us regretful and not at all...