La Casa @ Mont Kiara

Ever since I saw photos of this place online (especially The Yum List's), I earmarked it as a 'must visit' place in my next "makan" trip with friends.  The place I'm talking about is La Casa @ Mont Kiara.

On reaching La Casa, you'll find abundant parking spaces in the Verve Suites parking lots or, if you're lucky enough, you'll get to park by the road directly facing the restaurant.

Of the many cafes I've been to so far, I've not adored the ambience of the place as much (since Yellow Brick Road) till now plus this one felt more spacious because of the high ceilings and I was happy to see long tables that can cater to larger groups.  There is the indoor dining area but you can also choose to dine in the alfresco area.

La Casa exudes a cosy and casual vibe, yet stylish in appearance, and you can certainly feel relaxed in an environment like this that you'll want to spend many hours here.  Their Facebook Page says that they serve Italian/Western cuisine from thin crust pizzas to pastas, mains, seafood, sweet delicacies, pastries, cakes and macaroons but I also noticed some French dishes on the menu.

Although we were here at lunch time, we could still order from the breakfast menu.  We started with the ever popular and singularly most ordered item in any café breakfast menu...the Big Breakfast which is known by many different names in different cafes.  The one here is called the One Pan Breakfast @ RM32 which comes with a choice of homemade chicken, spicy Italian chicken or beef sausage, turkey bacon, sautéed mushrooms, roasted potatoes, cherry tomatoes, hash brown baked beans, two sunny side up eggs with wild rocket and toast (but we didn't get any hash brown and wild rocket though).

The sausages at La Casa are all made from scratch and the spicy Italian chicken sausage was simply amazing (not to worry, it wasn't spicy at all).  Freshly made sausages are worlds apart from those processed ones.  Everything on the plate, we were happy with....even the toast was soft, fluffy and toasted to a crisp and great accompanied by Elle & Vire French butter (absolutely creamy and decadent).  This is everything you'd want in a pan....and more!

For our next breakfast item, we went on a more Italian route (you could say) and chose the Breakfast Gnocchi @ RM28.  [#Tip: Gnocchi is basically an Italian soft dough dumpling commonly accompanied with melted butter with sage, pesto or some other sauces.]  The ones here were homemade gnocchi with pesto, chicken sausage, egg cocotte (unfortunately a bit overdone) and wild rocket with balsamic dressing.

I requested for the original homemade chicken sausage for this plate since we've already had the spicy Italian chicken sausage with the previous dish.  I definitely preferred the original to the spicy Italian one.  The gnocchi was really nice, well-seasoned, soft and fluffy to the bite.  I enjoyed this tremendously.

After two breakfast dishes, we went with pasta for our next two orders.  The first was the Teriyaki Salmon with Spinach @ RM42 which featured a pan-fried Norwegian salmon on a bed of spinach and garlic pasta finished with a drizzle of teriyaki sauce.

We asked for the salmon to be cooked to medium and it was perfectly pan-fried to that doneness.  The salmon was superbly fresh, moist and flaky.  The teriyaki sauce brought some sweetness to the salmon and the dish overall.  Only downside was that the spaghetti was a tad oily (when we got to the bottom of the plate) but it was still a very good dish nevertheless. 

Our next pasta was the Duck Confit & Wild Rocket @ RM29 (as stated in the menu) but the dish didn't contain any wild rocket.  I chose linguine for our pasta and it was tossed with shreds of pulled duck confit, sundried tomatoes and bits of chillies, onions, garlic and herbs. 

The pulled duck confit was rich, tender and immensely flavourful.  We were happy that this turned out to be yet another very successful and delicious pasta dish.

Although my friends and I would be heading elsewhere for dessert, there was no turning back once I took a peek of their cake counter.  But since we did order one main less (as we had plans to go to another two dessert places after this), I thought a few 'extra' desserts here wouldn't 'hurt'.....I ended up ordering three! ;D

I didn't order the Framboisier that I saw as we've already tasted one before in Frisky Goat.  A framboisier is basically a raspberry cake but La Casa describes it (in more detail) as a biscuit joconde infused with raspberry syrup, layered by raspberry butter cream and a thin layer of berries jelly, topped with seedy raspberry jam.  If this one is as good as the one from Frisky Goat, this will be a good cake =)

I ordered the Mont Blanc @ RM13 as it intrigued me from the way it looked plus I've never had one before.  [#Tip: On googling, I realised that it's a dessert of pureed, sweetened chestnust topped with whipped cream.]  Secondly, I picked the Lemon Tart @ RM12 as I was attracted by the shiny, smooth lemon curd on top.

The swirls of pureed chestnut sat on top of a crumbly cake base and the cross-section revealed a filling of whipped cream in the centre.  The dusted icing sugar on top made the cake look like a snow-capped mountain (and hence the name, I presume).  This Mont Blanc was not too sweet and it's not very common to find this cake at cafes, so try it here if you have the chance.

The Lemon Tart was made up of a mini buttery shortbread crust filled with the most luscious lemon custard that had just the right balance of tangy and sweet.  The little specks on top were lemon (or lime) zest which probably intensified the flavour.  The velvety lemon flavoured filling was totally fresh, lemony, zesty, vibrant and refreshing...all at once :)  It was oh-so-good!

Our final dessert was a slice of Sweet Pleasure @ RM14 which was essentially a chocolate cake....but just not any chocolate...it's Valrhona chocolate!  Since I didn't take a snapshot of La Casa's description of this cake, I'm just going to do the best I can with my description.  I can't recognise all the layers but I do see a layer of chocolate ganache and chocolate mousse and three very thin layers of tempered milk chocolate in between (other blogs mentioned a layer of hazelnut praline).

This one piece of cake highlighted various textures in perfect harmony, from the crunch of the perfectly tempered chocolate to the luxurious chocolate mousse and ganache, when you take a bite...and, most importantly, it wasn't overwhelmingly sweet.  It was met with a thumping approval from everyone (in fact, all three desserts did).  Like its namesake...sweet pleasure, indeed!  A slice of heaven, to be exact!

This being our first stop of the day, we had to have our coffees.  And here were the hot ones...Cappuccino @ RM11, Mocha @ RM13 and Flat White @ RM11.

The cold ones...Iced Latte @ RM12 and Iced Hazelnut Chocolate @ RM14 (a bit sweet).  All the coffees were fab!

I like the look of these cute and colourful metal-type seats, so I thought they deserved a few extra shots with my Flat White.

My Personal Opinion

Everything I tried here, I liked....and some I loved!  The terrific homemade salt and pepper breakfast sausages...I loved....they were fragrant and peppery with just the right amount of saltiness.  The gnocchi was manifico....the duck confit pasta was fantastique.

All three desserts knocked it out of the park but, if I really had to choose my top favourite....hmmm, I can't and I won't!

The menu here is quite extensive, so it'll take quite a few trips to sample everything but it's certainly a place worth returning to over and over again.  It's a place where all three components are impressive...the food, the desserts and the coffee.  A trip (or trips) back is definitely on the horizon! ;)

La Casa
Verve Suites Shops Mont Kiara
G-5 Ground Floor
No 8 Jalan Kiara 5
50480 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-6211 8825