Aspresso, a cozy first-floor hideout at the Danau Kota commercial blocks where customers can customize their all-day-brekkie platters to choose what exactly they want to eat.Five items in one serving cost a very fair RM11.90: An egg-pork-potato fiesta of scrambled/sunny-side-up/omelet (six eggs in one shot!), bacon & hash brown.Other possibilities that can be ordered for this plate include chicken sausages, mashed potatoes, mushrooms & baked beans. Aspresso also offers light meals of sandwiches & pastas.The coffee comprises specials ranging from Indonesian Gayo Highland Acehnese single-origin to Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, crafted meticulously through V60, aeropress, chemex & siphon methods.Aspresso's affogato? Pleasantly creamy.Caution: Wi-fi is not yet available at Aspresso; since Maxis' connection erodes to an E here, phone surfers won't want to linger very long for now.

Lucid Lounge serves a remarkably distinctive menu: All its starters, salads, pastas & pizzas comprise components cooked with alcohol, from tomato soup tinged with red wine to lasagna laced with beer & chili cheese fries enhanced with gin.This burger boasts a juicy 200-gram beef patty marinated in whisky for a smoky-sweet boost that makes its RM36++ price tag easier to swallow.Lucid Lounge's variation of the Filipino sizzling 'sisig,' this one with chicken flakes mingled with beer, chilies, onions, mayo & a raw egg (RM24++). An ideal bar snack.Spicy butter prawns prepared with vodka (RM21++), mixed with curry leaves & cili padi. The liquor is intended to increase the intensity of flavor; the results are debatable but nonetheless deserving of consumption.Service is fairly friendly here, but if we could quibble, the music's too loud at this watering hole, which might force some customers to retreat to the outdoor seats.

If we had to paint a mental picture of Watercolour, it's one of those cafes that flies under the radar, quietly churning out good sandwiches & pastries for its fans.Watercolour isn't content to serve the same old stuff available anywhere. Its Beef Burger Gipfel (RM19) features an Aussie meat patty stuffed with fresh veggies in between croissant-like flakiness. A fun change from ordinary burgers (tastes healthier too, like a real balanced meal).European bread recipes do feature prominently on the menu: Watercolour's hot dog takes a chicken mushroom sausage & jams it into a laugen lye roll, topped with mustard, mayo, olives, onions & gherkins. With potato crisps on the side, it's a fair bargain for RM14.Much more available, from baguettes, bagels, pain au chocolate, sourdough & rye bread ...... to cupcakes, cookies, doughnuts & muffins. It's a smorgasbord of starch; note that air-conditioned seating is limited here, so most customers will have to take a table outdoors. On the bright side, parking is a breeze; plenty of visitors' space inside the Mont Kiara Meridin building.Watercolour's coffee is OK, though not the memorable highlight of this cafe.

Singapore's Twelve Cupcakes has opened its first Malaysian outpost in Sunway Pyramid, stepping up a regional expansion that's taking the brand to Jakarta, Taipei, Hong Kong & Manila.Grinches will grumble that cupcakes are past the prime of their popularity, but the reality is that cupcakes have been around for two centuries and will continue to be baked, sold & served for a long time to come. Many people enjoy eating cupcakes; others shouldn't scoff at their pleasure.Twelve Cupcakes' confections are pretty good, mostly avoiding the pitfalls that sink other cupcakes. They taste fresh & not too sweet, striking a careful balance between being fluffy & moist, topped with heaps of fine-flavored frosting. Reputedly handmade daily.Our top picks in a RM36 box of six comprise the chocolate cupcake with salted caramel, rose cupcake with rose-flavored cream cheese, black forest cupcake with vanilla buttercream & cherry ...... vanilla cupcake with peanut butter frosting & jelly, Nutella cupcake with hazelnuts & coffee cupcake with espresso-infused buttercream.

Fans of chocolate can seek asylum starting this month at Mad About Coco, where an insanely broad compilation of cacao-based treats is now available.From choc fondue to churros with choc sauce, choc brownies to muffins & marshmallows, waffles to pancakes, cookies to crepes, there's a dessert for nearly every type of sweet tooth at this Solaris Dutamas cafe headed by two Malaysian sisters."Innocent Devil Tiramisu Ball," likely the most fun of Mad About Coco's concoctions.Tiramisu within a hollow globe of Belgian white & dark choc, melted down with hot choc sauce turned into one tasty mess, creamy-gooey but not cloying. RM20 before taxes.Mad About Coco's signature cake also endures a similar transformation ...... becoming an inventive variation of choc lava cakes, with the molten heat pouring forth from without, not within. RM18.50.Other interesting items here include the babka-inspired sweet yeast cake with chocolate sauce & vanilla ice cream (RM13.50) ...... & crunchy pizza topped with melted chocolate, cornflakes & marshmallows (RM18.50). The chocolate's commendably though not commandingly deep in flavor.