Foremula Cafe — Restaurant in Petaling Jaya

PARKING! 🤦🏻No, it’s not what you think. Not the parking issues you normally face around Klang Valley.

TLDR === Come during weekends and you can conveniently park in front of the cafe for free despite the clamping warnings. If you come during weekdays, search the main entrance to the basement located under Symphony House as the side entrances may be closed. At the basement, find the stairway labelled D09 and you should be able to access the cafe. Though some stairways could be locked.

Longer story === We’re not familiar with this area so we didn’t know visitors must park at the basement. There are clamping warnings all over the place at the ground level. That’s all good but the two basement entrances we found were blocked off. It was a Friday afternoon. After going around in circles not finding a way we finally gave up.

Only much later I happen to see one reviewer here saying there is a MAIN entrance located some distance away from the block, under Symphony House. It can only be accessed through the main road, rather than within the block. We tried again on a weekend and found it. No signage whatsoever pointing to this particular entrance. From the outside, you probably can’t tell the cafe shares the same basement as this Symphony House building.

When we thought we solved the final piece of the puzzle, there were more curved balls! The stairs connecting directly to the cafe above was locked 😵 and the elevators needed either a fingerprint or password, clearly not for visitors. We thought that’s it we’re really leaving and not coming back ever. As we’re driving away fortunately we spotted one stairway some distance away that wasn’t locked. Then FINALLY (for real now) we’re able to reach the cafe within walking distance.

But that is not all !! After ALL these hassle, we were dumbfounded once again as we saw some customers simply parked in front of the café. Staff said you could do that during weekends. My face: 😑 Welp… we just wasted rm3.30 for following rules.

Now, don’t tell me the whole parking situation is super intuitive for a newcomer and that we’re the only ones facing this fiasco 🙄 Honestly, such parking system is very rare around here. The idea is good for traffic control, but execution is a total disaster.

Rating === Ultimately, I don’t think it’s fair to critique the cafe for the parking so I rated based the food and atmosphere. Negative star for...

I enjoyed going to these 2 cafes (Forbidden cafe, a sister co near by Foremula Cafe) over the years. They serve delicious food, with impeccable service and wonderful coffee. Definitely a spot for good food and great conversation with my wife and friends when we were there. What more , they have revamped and expanded their food offerings, refreshing it and creating more reasons to come back.

Recently I called up and asked about delivery outside Ara Damansara, where they are situated. To my surprise, delivery is free to USJ where I stay and if I order RM 50 or more. I like to help local eateries and try not to order from Grab or Panda as I learnt that they take 30% commission! A rather cut throat commission rate. I used WhatsApp to communicate with them. Soon a lady by the name Sha, sent me their menu and with my food choice ready, ordering was easy. I paid them thru CIMB Click. Food was delivered promptly, less then 25 minutes. And the delivery person didn't even want to accept tips!!

Food was good and I am happy with service and food quality. Will surely order again or if situation allows, will go...

A sister to Therefore Cafe, Foremula definitely resembles Primrose, whilst Therefore exudes first born vibes like Katniss. FOREMULA offers smaller portion size than Therefore, which quite a tad disappointment to me, given the price points. The cafe is quite small in size, only allows few customers at once. During busy hours, customers allowed to only 1.5 hrs of staying time. The food is served faster than I expected. However, do not jump too soon to conclude. The food is pretty much a delicacy than other cafes I've been to with estimated same price points. I ordered mushroom soup with garlic bread on the side(it's a set) and sweet potato fries. A pleasure experience as the sweet potato wasn't oily and sweet enough just as it is. The mushroom soup, wasn't instant, even though I could tell it was microwaved, a trick I learned from the warm bowl and the soup cools quite fast too. Love the bits and texture from the soup, which gives away that the soup was not instant and cooked with legit ingredients. I can taste the cream, mushroom...