Caffè Diem @ Alor Setar, Kedah

Years ago, the omnipresence of cafes in Northern region of Malaysia had changed the spending habits of people here. However, we were not keen on visiting cafes that time as there were nothing peculiar about it. Majority of them were serving common Western dishes and riveting on certain decoration themes for popularity. Recently, we discovered more and more quality cafes serving outstanding food has been mushrooming in Penang and even in Kedah. When we were in Alor Setar, we bumped into Caffè Diem and deeply impressed by its unique dishes and desserts.

The cafe is tucked within Pekan Cina Alor Setar, a rather quiet and dark place when the night strikes. If you are not from local, do not be discouraged by its unwelcoming surrounding. One of the forte of the cafe is their homemade cakes, which no where else you could find a matching taste.

We were recommended by their attentive servers to try their Tiramisu Walnut (RM 13.00). In fact, it was more like a combination of sponge cake with tiramisu as these two were layering each others, then topped by caramelized walnut pieces. The taste of tiramisu was not as strong as we expected but still well appease to our taste buds.

The Charcoal Matcha (RM 13) came in a very interesting appearance just like zebra. The stripes had Matcha, charcoal and vanilla layer intersecting with each other, and the scented vanilla provided a creamy sensation. Somehow, Matcha taste was not potent, perhaps masked by the strong vanilla taste. It was cushioned with a crispy crust layer on the bottom. Overall, the taste was nice though we Matcha geeks would love to enjoy a much flavorful Matcha sensation.

All the main dishes here bear a creative name with a combination of English and Malay words. For instance, the smoked duck spaghetti is named Seduktive (RM 16.00). The noodles were cooked al-dente and served with a curry spice sauce, alongside with few pieces of decent smoked duck. As a matter of fact, the spaghetti had been modified to a more localized version with its pungent spice and a slight hint of burning sensation. It was one of the special and tantalizing spaghetti in Malaysia we have came across thus far.

Burger Banjir (RM 16.00) is another western dish that had been modified to cater for local taste buds. The succulent and delectable patty is partially drenched with a pepperish sauce, and it tasted a bit like the sauce we had in chicken chops. We thought the sauce was matching to the patty but somehow it caused the buns to soak there and resulted an undesirable texture for the buns.

Softserve Skream is now being featured in Caffè Diem, serving a few options of interesting soft serve ice cream. During the night we were there, they approached us and offered us to purchase either Nasi Lemak Softserve or Matcha Softserve. Wait a moment, did I hear wrong? Nasi Lemak Softserve?

Intrigued by its name, we ordered 1 Nasi Lemak Softserve for RM 10 although we were keen on having the Matcha. Suddenly we realised every dishes in this cafe had been localized, which is a key scoring point.

The softserve is topped with the conventional nasi lemak ingredients - anchovies, peanuts, quill egg, sambal and slices of cucumber. Though the combination of ice cream and nasi lemak might look odd but surprisingly the combination tasted astounding. It yielded a different cooling taste when coupling the ice cream different ingredients, such as salty with anchovies and spicy with sambal. Quill egg then furthered greased the ice cream for a better texture.