Delicious food from kitchen in the cloud

You’ve heard of saving your data on the cloud … now there are cloud kitchens which are community-based co-sharing cooking spaces, specially designed to boost small-home food businesses which want to go bigger but don’t have the capital to have their own place just yet. Four locations offer this ingenious concept – Cookhouses @ Glo Damansara TTDI, Seventeen PJ, GMBB Bukit Bintang and Growers Market on Jalan Ipoh.

According to Cookhouse founder Heun Su San, the idea behind these cloud kitchens is to lift the investment burden of brick and mortar imposed on F&B operators, while offering larger spaces and dining capacity with the addition of studios and event spaces for a fraction of the cost. These hybrid kitchens give entrepreneurs a feasible platform to run their online food businesses, receiving and delivering orders as well as run dine-in options with just a small outfit preparing and serving customers.  

All the Cookhouses have more than adequate facilities for a wide range of F&B businesses such as baking, cooking utilities for Asian and Western cuisine, and even space for artisan workshops. Cookhouse also takes care of the all-in-one web app for deliveries which takes the load off the busy cooks.

I had a chance to experience the food @Cookhouse TTDI which features halal food merchants.

Warung Wok

Features an assortment of rice dishes – this was one of my top two favourites among the list of many entrepreneurs here, though all of them were very good. The Nasi Kerabu, coloured blue by butterfly pea flower, came decked with ingredients with as curry/rempah/fried chicken, fried fish/gulai and salted egg, starts from an unbelievably low price tag of RM7.50! Tastewise, this was da bomb as the curries were aromatic, laden with various spices and multi-facet on the flavour spectrum.  You can choose from a variety of Nasi Kak Wok which comes with deep fried chicken; Nasi Berlauk which comes with Gulai Ikan or coated Ikan Tongkol; Nasi Kerabu with either chicken or fish, cooked in different styles; and Nasi Kukus wih fish or chicken.

Lobster Mobster

This is not something to be had every day as lobster doesn’t come cheap. Oh, but the heavenly combination of lobster on freshly made brioche … totally to die for! The brioche was soft and cottony on the inside with a light crisp outer crust, the perfect foil to fresh lobster. We tried the Classic which has lobster lightly tossed with homemade mayo and celery/scallion on a hot toasted brioche bun, The Original – lobster meat in drawn butter with toasted brioche bun and Sambal – lobster meat lightly tossed with ML sighnature sambal sauce on brioche. This was the show-stealer, with scintillating piquant spice, salty with a touch of sweet, melding into the soft bread. Prices start from RM91. I also thoroughly enjoyed the ML Bisque (RM25) which definitely trumps some of the ones I’ve tried at five-star establishments. If you have money to splash, I highly recommend Mobster Lobster. There’s also a stupendous Truffle Lobster roll if you’re feeling generous.

ML by Madchef Fhaizal who is also the head chef at The Red Beanbag, started in 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

Bap’s The Name

Korean is all-the-rage, especially if you’ve been binge-watching K-dramas! At first glance, the Bulgogi Beef Bowl (RM24) looked pretty ordinary, but I must say it passed the taste test with top marks. The secret to a good bulgogi bowl lies in the bibim sauce and Bap’s has nailed it. The kimchi pancake (RM10) and Soy Garlic chicken (RM16) were commendable too. For home-cooked Korean flavours at prices that don’t burn a hole in your pocket, Bap’s is a good bet.

To order, look for the Cookhouse’s website and under TTDI location, for the full menu. Stay tuned for the next instalment on the next 3 vendors at Cookhouse TTDI.