Special thanks to D’ Fat Mona Lisa Café for extending this food review invitation.
D’ Fat Mona Lisa Café is a new eatery at Jalan Free School. It is located between Penang Free School and Heng Ee High School (恒毅中学), but closer to the latter. The premises is a semi-detached building with ample parking spaces on the side.
The building is meant to be multi-purpose besides merely an eatery. The proprietor, who also runs a lighting solution business, uses this place as an office and product showroom. There are also two conference rooms upstairs which can be leased for corporate events.
The food menu at D’ Fat Mona Lisa is inspired by Scandinavian cuisine, such as Swedish meatballs and Norwegian roasted salmon.
For today’s food tasting session, my choice is the Mona Lisa Meat Ball & Foot Long. If you have visited an IKEA store before, you can find similar dishes in its cafeteria.
The sausage is nearly a foot long, making this dish very filling indeed. However, I believe the amount of gravy should be increased for greater effect. On the other hand, I find the Swedish meatballs rather appetizing. In fact, I think the chef can consider to add some mashed potatoes on the side.
As for the beverage menu, there are several types of gourmet coffee, but the one that deserves most attention is the Crystal.
The Crystal is a caffeinated beverage which is served as three separate components: frozen espresso, milk and gula melaka. The customer can mix all three components according to one’s desired proportion of milk and sugar.
Espresso is provided as frozen cubes. The rationale of using frozen espresso is to allow the coffee to become thicker as the ice melts. This is similar to the Magic Matcha served at Shunka.
As for the milk, it is available in three flavors: original, chocolate and strawberry. Naturally, I went for the original flavor so that the milk does not overwhelm my enjoyment of espresso.
The resultant drink is quite gratifying for a cold coffee beverage. The taste is predominantly bitter especially when most espresso cubes have molten. This is where gula melaka (palm sugar syrup) comes in to neutralize a certain degree of bitterness.
If you are looking for a more conventional drink, the standard Latte is also available. The foam art is pretty standard for now, but the barista will eventually use Mona Lisa’s likeness on the foam.
The Marble Cheese Cake is sourced from a Malay home-based kitchen. The non-baked cheese layer is decently creamy, but I think the taste should be further improved.
Name: D’ Fat Mona Lisa Café
Address: 43, Jalan Free School, 11600 George Town, Pulau Pinang
Contact: 012-407-6290
Business hours: 10:00am-9:00pm
Website: http://www.dfatmonalisacafe.com
Coordinates: 5.40285 N, 100.30760 E
Directions: From Penang Free School, drive along Jalan Free School towards the round-about. D’ Fat Mona Lisa Café is about 100 meters before the round-about, just opposite the retirement home. There is ample parking space within the compound.