When you think of hipster cafés, you’d think of places that are cool and pretentious, industrial almost.
Littlepeople Café is anything but.
Jun of LittlePeople shared with DiscoverKL that they want to humble themselves down and be the “little people” in the situation. As soon as you enter the space, you’ll realise that Littlepeople’s as transparent as it gets.
She noted that the concept of the café is to allow people to feel like they’re right at home or like they’re visiting a place that is dear to them. What stood out the most is their coffee counter. Instead of the generic rectangular-shaped coffee counter, theirs is shaped like an open-ended hexagon. It’s meant to make customers feel welcome and that they can always go up to the counter and chat with their barista.
Personally, the rustic nature-inspired ambiance is something I actually dig. It shows authenticity, and the open spacious concept makes the whole place feel warm and homely.
On top of that, the whole open counter concept allows baristas to showcase their skills to the customers as they wait for the arrival of their beverage. On a personal note, I enjoy watching them as they work and it low-key makes me feel inspired. This is not the norm at cafés where huge coffeemaker machines would often times block both the customer’s view of the barista and vice versa.
On top of that, Littlepeople has a giant show window, that allows guests to look into the kitchen. Customers get the chance to watch the crew at work as they make their meals. In return, the kitchen crew could also see the expressions of the customers when they enjoy their meals.
For starters we were served with their Avocado Toast (RM23). If you were never into healthy dishes, or beetroots for the matter of fact, this meal might change your mind. It’s a healthy, savoury breakfast option with a combination of green pea mashed avocado, tomato salsa, poached egg, mixed greens and a lemon dill vinaigrette. The combination of green peas along with the avocado mixes up the flavour, giving it more texture. As much as I really love avocado, it was a tad bit under seasoned for me. Fortunately, the tomato salsa gave the dish the acidity and balance it needed whilst the sweet potato purée was lusciously smooth.
The next dish was the House Salad (RM16) that had couscous, pickled beetroot, caramelized walnut and maple dressing. As it was my first time trying out couscous, I didn’t know what to expect. To me, it was like a cross between brown rice and quinoa. To my knowledge, cous cous is tasteless. However, for this dish, the cous cous absorbed the flavours of the maple dressing nicely. The citrus factor was also there, with the addition of the burnt orange.
What surprised me about the Duck Rotolo (RM26) was the way the pasta was presented – it’s an entire sheet of pasta. It’s quite a technical and time consuming dish to prepare, where its filling is rolled up in pasta sheets like a roulade, and later poached.
The filling is smoked duck with leek, poached egg, button and porcini mushroom sauce. When the dish arrived, it had this strong earthy flavour and aroma coming from the sprouts and mushroom sauce. A good combo, I would say. As the portions they served are quite huge, I would recommend sharing it with your partner. The flavours were all there but the taste of the duck overpowered the pasta. However, it’s worth the price and is a different take on regular pasta.
Pesto. Oh, my favourite. This is a dish I couldn’t find any faults with. The Pesto Tagliatelle (RM22) is basically the café’s vegetarian dish that comes with fresh basil pesto, cherry tomato, a pine nuts topping and some grated parmesan cheese. With a beautifully-balanced sauce and the perfect creamy texture, this dish definitely pays homage to the signature style of the eatery itself: simple yet beautiful.
Next, we tried their signature dessert of a Homemade Popiah Ice Cream (RM22). I think this is the most unique dish as I have never seen something quite like this anywhere else before. What’s even more mind-blowing about this whole dish is the efforts in making it.
Instead of using an ice cream churner, they handmade it. By serving both steamed and fried popiahs for different textures, and pomegranate seeds for additional acidity, I was left satisfied. As for the ice cream, it comes with two flavours – sweet potato and a rose damascena tea-flavoured ice cream. The flavours of the ice cream were absolutely luscious and creamy and makes you want to keep coming back for more. The edible flowers and peanut brittles as garnish elevated it to a restaurant-quality dish.
Last but not least, we tried their house specialty: the Duoo Set (RM25+). The whole point of this concept is to allow customers the chance to enjoy 2 different coffees for a complete filter coffee experience. We tried a coffee which had a hint of mandarin orange, sweet basil with hojicha. Definitely felt like an odd pairing but after taking a sip of the coffee, you’d get a slight taste of the sweet basil in the aftertaste.
On another note, I had high hopes for the 2nd cup of coffee. Unfortunately, it was a bit of letdown. The coffee tasted a little flat, and was like any other regular coffees that I have tasted before. If I had to choose, I suppose I would go for the coffee with the mandarin orange notes.
A little birdy told me that Littlepeople will be upgrading soon to introduce soft serve ice creams served with coffee and this will be introduced by the end of August 2018. So don’t forget to drop by then to check it out!
Littlepeople Café
Hours: Wednesdays-Mondays: 10am-11pm, Closed on Tuesdays.
Address: Ground Floor 01, Avantas Residences, Jalan Klang Lama, Taman Shanghai
Tel: 03-7971 9209
Website: Littlepeople Café
