lunch @ 84 years old cafe

here i am blogging about food again and this time we went for lunch at this 84 years old cafe in town. "coliseum cafe & hotel" has been around since 1921 and it's located along jalan tuanku abdul rahman where it's next to the coliseum cinema. noticed that it's not just a cafe but a small budget hotel with capacity of 10 rooms which consists of both air condition and non. the hotel is located on the first floor while the cafe and bar is at the ground floor. room rates are as low as RM28 while the highest is RM45 per night.

this isn't my first time there but it's been almost well over 2 years i haven't been there. the decor still looks the same where the left section of the cafe is where the bar counter and old wooden lounge is while the right section is where people dine for food. if i'm not mistaken, it holds quite a large capacity of tables that extends the dining area till the back section of the cafe. in the menu, they have well over 200 dishes with varities of both local and western cuisines. you will be surprise when you looked at how thick the menu is and the drinks menu is fantastic where you can get almost every cocktails or mocktails that you can ever named.

as a start, we were served 2 sets of bread with butter. the best part of this is the butter that tasted a bit salty and it's just perfect when it is spread all over the bread. everytime we were there, that's the first thing we ever wanter to have. we tried looking for the butter from all over the supermarkets and the one that comes closest to it was the "SCS" butter. tried asking the captain there and he just wouldn't want to give any clues. ordering for me today is a blunder as i did not really look into the description of the dish that i have chosen. this is very unlikely to happen to me when ordering as i will take some time but today i just ordered "chicken ala king" without knowing what it is. besides that, i ordered a tom yam soup which is one of their specialties and a glass of fresh orange juice. mom had sizzling lamb with black pepper sauce while dad has his all the time favourite fish n chips. my cousin tasted their spaghetti bolognaise and my aunty tried the grilled chicken.


it didn't take long for our food to served and when mine was served, it's actually a rice casserole. it's fried rice together with roast chicken breast, prawns and button mushroom served in white sauce. although, that's not really what i expected but it tasted very nice with combinations of chinese and western cuisine. another highlight of the dishes were the sizzling lamb where it's cooked in the kitchen but it will not be served onto the sizzling hot plate until it's about to be served. so, the waiter brought the sizzling hot plate and the rest of the dishes out on a tray and then started placing the meat and veges onto the hot plate and pour the black pepper sauce over it. it then causes a huge thick smoke in the cafe and definitely this is not something that other restaurants will do due to the oil smell and discomfort to other patrons. perhaps, this have been their serving tradition since the early days.


so, people, if you want to dine there and whether or not you ordered any sizzling dishes, don't wear your favourite armani or kenneth cole shirts there otherwise be prepared to stink. the most important thing is the food quality that is maintained all the while and up till today, it still taste excellent after so many years. this is a place where it's highly recommended and the price is reasonable for whatever food is in the menu.