Situated in an old shop house on Jalan Tun H S Lee, in an area full of hip cafes, Timothy is actually between a couple of others we fancy trying – Kleptokrat and LOKL. In fact if either had been less busy, we probably would have gone there. It does local food plus pastas and cakes. We would have liked to have tried breakfast, but they do the annoying thing of taking an order at 1059, only to say because it didn’t reach the cook by 1100 you have to order something else…
Staff were the trendy incompetent youth type, characterised by offering our toddler iced tea as they don’t serve juice. Or characterised by staring blankly for a couple of seconds before repeating the item you wanted. There was a lot of stuff that was off the menu, too. Anyway, friendly if dozy.
There’s also a contrast between the decor inside which is fairly basic, with a couple of nice touches, and the alley outside which has lots of nice graffiti style and other artwor, including an awning of umbrellas. Odd way of doing it.
The food was beautifully presented. Wife had nasi ulam rainbow with ayam percik (I suspect Kelantanese purists would insist it was nasi kerabu). This was butterfly pea rice with the ulam mix of herbs, and the rainbow made up of sides of long beans, grated carrot with torch ginger, raw cabbage with kerisik (toasted coconut), a couple of good chilli sauces, some oily fish crackers, and half a salted duck egg. The ‘splashed’ chicken leg was the highlight for her, with its savoury, spicy sauce.
Somewhat similar in its makeup was my “thunder rice”, which had a mysterious thunder sauce along with the same rice and vegetables, plus protein in the form of peanuts, tempeh and tofu, and a side salad of aubergine, mushrooms, and (2 half) cherry tomatoes in a tasty dressing. The thunder sauce turned out to be lei cha, a savoury tea and herb based liquid, here thickened up and with added sesame. It was all ok, if a little dry (the sauce wasn’t enough for the whole meal) and a little unexceptional.
Overall, then, we left feeling that the food – while ok – wasn’t good enough to make us want to go through the same experience, especially not when there are a lot of new places to try even on the same street.
Address: 24 Jalan Tun H S Lee, 50100 Kuala Lumpur
Telephone: 0176993422
Website: https://www.facebook.com/timothy.highstreetkl/
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