Maison Ikkoku

It took some effort to stop myself from joining the queue at my favourite nasi padang outlet, Warung Pariaman, but I arrived at Maison Ikkoku (20 Kandahar Street, http://www.maison-ikkoku.net) unscathed and ready to brunch with Diana and Zee.

Told of a 30-minute wait, I took the opportunity to venture to their men's boutique on the second floor and along the way, chatted with a very affable young salesman(boy) who made me feel guilty about not being a guy and not getting anything from the boutique. It’s me, not you.

Fortunately, the wait turned out to be just 15 minutes; the food, on the other hand, took a while to come, making it hard to resist their signature musubi.

As tasty as it was (loved the Japanese rice seasoning), a 3:2 rice-to-spam ratio would have pleased a great deal more than the 4:1 offered. Oh, I’m still convinced Spam is not as gratifying as our Ma Ling brand luncheon meat.

I hope Maison Ikkoku would start serve those sandwiches over the weekend as the All Day Breakfast options were pretty run of the mill if you took away the hip factor of the café. I mean, the food wasn’t bad but I wouldn’t go out of my way or queue up for them again.

But after the savoury stuff, the cakes were unexpectedly scrumptious, in a fastest-fork-first kind of way.

The red velvet was a lovely moist slice hooded by its plain appearance. I could feel myself turning into a red-velvet-person by the minute.

For me, the benchmark for carrot cake has always been Cedele and Maison Ikkoku’s was respectably good. Studded with lots of er, stuff but loose upon bite.

Their method of crowd control is probably their backless seats. After an hour, I had to lean against the wall to relieve a backache. Though I can’t say I will run back for their brunch anytime soon, I had a good time, thanks to my ladies.