Mandolin Cafe which is also known as Elsie Jo Cafe is located in Sri Damansara Club which is a sports and recreational club located in Bandar Sri Damansara. Recently I saw a posting on Facebook saying that they have started serving Banana Leaf Meals at this restaurant and that excited me. This is specifically available daily from 1 pm until 3 pm. As they are located not far away from where I am, I decided to drop by for lunch today.
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| Sri Damansara Club |
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| Lovely View From The Restaurant |
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| Lovely View From The Restaurant |
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| Mandolin Cafe |
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| Mandolin Cafe |
Being a weekday, the place was quiet when we arrived with just a handful of customers. It seems that this restaurant is run by a Portuguese gentleman and is more of a family run business. The place operates as a restaurant cum pub. The view from the restaurant is beautiful. It's so green all over and this has a soothing effect.
The Menu has a wide range of dishes and the prices are'Club' prices. That's acceptable to me. Having already decided that we wanted to have the Banana Leaf Meals, I placed the orders with the waitress and she mentioned that she has to check with the kitchen first to see if it is available. I was instantly disappointed but glad that when she came back to me saying 'Yes'. With that she disappeared.
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| Cutlery |
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| Coca Cola @ RM 4.00 |
In about 10 minutes time, she came back with the cutlery and placed it on the table. I ordered a Coke and that too was served. The Coca Cola is priced at RM 4.00 and that's acceptable bearing in mind that this is a club house.
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| Iced Lemon @ RM 7.00 |
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| Iced Lemon @ RM 7.00 |
My brother's drink arrived only after 20 minutes and that too after numerous times waving at her and asking for the drink. They seriously have a staff shortage problem. After time was passing we were seriously loosing our patience. The drink was just so so and priced at an exorbitant rate of RM 7.00 . I would only rate this at 7/10 .
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| Leaf On A Plate |
I was expecting a leaf but what we got was a leaf on a plate which is cute in itself. They only placed this plate in front of us after 30 minutes had gone. Still no sign of the rice and the rest of the dishes.
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| Banana Leaf Meal Set @ RM 7.00 per person |
Only after 1 hour, the rice and vegetables came. It was only then that I realised that all the dishes including the rice, vegetable, curries were cooked from scratch. It is good that we get fresh dishes but the wait time of 1 hour is simply too long. It is not even practical for those who just have an hour's lunch break to come here for lunch. It would have been good if a certain amount had been cooked and kept as they are heavily advertising this on Facebook and other social medias. The rice here is one off and you cannot add on later like the typical Banana Leaf Meal concept.
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| Vegetable |
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| Vegetable |
The vegetable came in a separate plate and the volume was not much. I was shocked to see that they only serve one vegetable with the set when the menu says 'vegetables' and the photo shows a meal with three vegetables. This is serious misrepresentation. But I was not in the mood to argue as we were already jumping on the waitress a number of times as the meal was delayed. We were actually glad that the food had finally arrived. Coming to the taste, the vegetable was actually very delicious. It was one of the best Cabbage Perattal that I have tried. Anytime better that what you get in most restaurants. I would rate this at 9.5/10 . Very delicious! Do note that top ups are chargeable at RM 2.00 .
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| Papadam |
The Papadam was good too. Well, as we know now, they were just fried minutes ago and therefore should be crispy and good. There are no free top ups for the Papadam too and they are chargeable at RM 2.00 per top up.
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| Sambar |
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| Sambar |
They provided us with three different curries and I decided to try their Sambar first. The Sambar was really good. I would not say that it was thick but the flavours were simply good. There were lots of vegetables too which were added into the Sambar. I would rate this at 9/10 . Definitely good!
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| Fish Curry |
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| Fish Curry |
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| Fish Curry |
Their Fish Curry was awesome! Just look at the colour of the gravy. It was amazing. The curry was thick, mildly spicy and it was just perfect. There is just no room to complain as it was a perfect preparation. This deserves a perfect rating of 10/10 . A must try curry here.
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| Chicken Curry |
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| Chicken Curry |
The Chicken Curry was a disappointment. Everything was good except that it was way too salty. Must have been a preparation error here. When the other two curries were so good, it can't be that this curry had gone wrong as a lack of skill, definitely a misjudgment when adding the salt. A dish gone wrong is still a dish gone wrong and I would only rate this at 3/10 . I still remember clearly at this point when we were almost done with the meal but the plate of Chicken Perattal had still not arrived and I had to go to the kitchen to check if at all it is coming. And it was just about this time, that is after 1 hour and 20 minutes from the time that we placed our orders, that we got our plate of Chicken Perattal.
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| Rasam |
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| Rasam |
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| Rasam |
Their Rasam too was very good. The preparation was thick and it was filled with lavish amounts of spices making it absolutely great. This is definitely one of the best Rasam's in town. I would rate this at a perfect 10/10 .
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| Chicken Perattal @ RM 7.00 |
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| Chicken Perattal @ RM 7.00 |
The long awaited Chicken Perattal finally arrived. For the price of RM 7.00 , I would say that the portion was small, just a mere 6 chunks of chicken which were mostly bones. This was another dish that had technically gone wrong. The gravy that you see in the dish tasted absolutely great but the chicken was flat and tasteless. It was like munching on unflavored steamed meat. The reason for this is clearly because of the meat being frozen and not let to thaw before cooking. Only in this scenario would this situation happen where the gravy would not be able to seep into the meat thus making it tasteless. For me, this is a failed dish and I would only rate it at 2/10 . If only the meat was allowed to thaw and defrost much longer, from the taste of the gravy, it would have been a fantastic dish. But on the contrary, that would have meant that we would only receive this dish after 2 hours of waiting.
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| The Bill |
The dishes here were definitely good except for the two items which went wrong due to a technique error but the wait time was simply not acceptable. The other thing that I was unhappy with was the fact that they only serve one vegetable instead of three as advertised. They should definitely do something about this staff shortage or else, they would loose business as customers would become disgruntled with the service levels. The waitress, which I believe is a family member too has got to learn to be more courteous to customers. At times, when we were getting back to her to check on the status, she just played a deaf ear and continued doing other things which is bad customer service. Would I come back? Perhaps yes as the food was good but only on days when I have the whole afternoon to waste on lunch.
Address: Sri Damansara Club, Lot 23304, Persiaran Perdana,
Bandar Sri Damansara, 52200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Opening Hours: Banana Leaf Meal available from 1300 - 1600 Daily
Telephone: +603 6273 3718
Website: http://www.sdclub.com.my/foodandbeverages.php?id=mandolin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mandolincafesridamansaraclub
