Killiney Kopitiam

114 Lygon St, Carlton Vic 3053
Date visited: 3rd January 2013

There is just something about overeating and overindulging during the Christmas and New Year period that makes me want to hide in my house and not eat for the next few weeks.  

Today, MerlinFan and I made a short detour to Lygon St after getting movie tickets at Imax (wanted to watch The Hobbit sooner but tickets had sold too quickly and was too cheapo to pay about $2 each to buy them online!)  

Anyhoo, we made a spontaneous decision to drop into Killiney Kopitiam.  The name Killiney Kopitiam sounded bizarre to me before as a Singaporean/ Malaysian kopitiam (coffee shop) combined with the very Irish sounding Killiney?  

Killiney Kopitiam is actually named after Killiney Road in Singapore where their first shop was opened, and is apparently Singapore's oldest existing Hainanese coffee shop.  There are now many branches all over Asia.  Yes, there are branches in Malaysia, but not in my hometown so I never heard of it. 

How Killiney works:
1. Order at the counter
2. Take your order number
3. Take your own cutlery
4. Meal will be served to your table

Simple enough.  

We came at almost 3pm so it was not particularly busy.

MerlinFan had her Ice Teh Tarik with Grass Jelly and I had the Lime Plum Juice.

Left: Lime Plum Juice $3.30
Right: Ice Teh Tarik with Grass Jelly $3.60

I couldn't really taste much of the lime juice as it was overpowered by the sour plum.  But it was nice and undiluted, the mouth-watering tanginess was refreshing on a hot day and with the oily food we were about to have :)

MerlinFan thought her Ice Teh Tarik could have been a little sweeter.

MerlinFan had the Singapore Laksa which consisted of mixed noodles with boiled egg, fried fish cake, chicken, fried bean curd, bean shoots and fried shallots in creamy coconut gravy.

Singapore Laksa $8.80

Most Malaysian and Singaporean dishes overlap, however may vary slightly in taste and ingredients.  MerlinFan and I are not that familiar with Singapore laksa - whether it differs much from Malaysian laksa I can't say, but we both found the curry broth lacked spiciness and that extra punch of flavour.  The first thing I tasted as well was dried shrimp - MerlinFan agreed, saying it reminded her of a common Malaysian hawker food, pulut panggang, which is basically glutinous rice filled with dried shrimp.  I also thought the thick noodles were slightly overdone.  Otherwise, they were very generous with the toppings.

I had the Killiney Fried Kueh Teow with prawns, fish cake, bean sprouts and egg.

Killiney Fried Kueh Teow $8.80

The kueh teow was really salty.  Now looking at the description on the handout I took home, it says it was supposed to be mildly spicy - had I not read this now, I wouldn't have known as I detected no hint of spiciness at all.  @_@  But... I loved it.  I'm a salt freak and I actually don't like my fried kueh teow spicy.  Throw in ample wok hei, lots of scrambled eggs and I'm pretty much a happy camper.  There were only two prawns in the dish, but I don't like prawns anyway. 

Food was reasonably priced, food came promptly and waitresses were polite and efficient, albeit adamant not to crack a smile.  I would quite happily come back to try their traditional coffees and Hainanese chicken rice.  Apparently their kaya toast is really good too, but I have a jar of kaya in the fridge and bread at home so it didn't make sense to have kaya toast today... maybe another day - after all, we all know things always taste better when someone else makes it XP

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