LC N LY Cafe: comfortable dining before AEON BIG

Has it been that long? Yup, seems like I bid farewell to 2015 without much special dining opportunity, so is the beginning of 2016. However, since I am near Falim, Ipoh for Aeon BIG CNY shopping, thought that would fill my tummy first before embarking on filling up my car boot with mandarin oranges. On Ong's recommendation, we visited LC N LY cafe, just across Aeon BIG Falim. It is easy to locate, given that the row of shops in front of the hypermarket are relatively unoccupied.

mashed potato with black pepper sauce (RM6.20)

The front deco is rather new, clean and enticing. The inner deco has a tinge of minimalist approach, the tables are comfortably spaced apart, which are rare since most restaurant wanted to max out their patrons. The staff are one of the most attentive waitresses I had encountered. Then comes the menu.

XO fried rice (RM11.50)

As expected, the list is full of fusion kopitiam type offering. The usual pasta, fried noodle and rice, chop and breakfast set. The price range is reasonable, one would expect to spend approximately RM10-20 on food alone.

Since Lyn saw her favourite on the menu, we opted for the quick mashed potato, served here with black pepper sauce (RM6.20). While we were still debating whether the potato is freshly mashed (since the were some chunks) or made from the conventional paste type (beside the chunk, the rest was too finely mashed), both of us agreed that the sauce was too empowering. The amount of black pepper was too much that it shadowed the potato, and we still felt the hot pepper aftertaste after finishing the dish. We could recalled that this experience was similar to what we encountered in Taiwan when everyone asked us "yao jia la ma?" (" do you want you dish to be hot?") and they ended up adding hot black pepper sauce instead of chilli sauce. We did enjoyed the potato, just that we preferred the sauce to be less hot.

grilled chicken with mushroom sauce (RM14.60)

Lyn's grilled chicken with mushroom sauce (RM14.60) was nice. The chicken was evenly grilled, and juicy. The portion is not big, but there were always the fries in case the meat was not enough. I was browsing online and one of the blogger recommended XO sauce fried rice (RM11.50). To be fair, the chef did not skimp on ingredients, as there are shredded chicken and luncheon meat stir fried along with the rice. However, the taste was lacking. Not salty enough, I end up pouring lots of soya sauce in the dish. And I did not taste much XO sauce in the dish. It was a pity, the dish was fried well, with nice "wok hei", but at most, it was a good fried rice, without much taste from XO sauce. Then again, I might be spoiled as I had tasted much better XO sauce fried rice, mostly in those Hong Kong style chachanteng (of course, they may charge more).

Despite all that, dining here is not bad at all (probably our taste palate expected differently). In fact, it was quite an enjoyable outing. Given the reasonable price, the average food, there are many patrons around. There are quite a number of other dishes which I would want to try again in the future.

ratings: 2 half poink~!
comments: reasonable price, good location before shopping, and wide range of dishes.

LC N LY Cafe
15, Persiaran Menglembu Suria
Pusat Perniagaan Menglembu Suria, Ipoh
0166063698