KIN by us - Macquarie Park

Hi All!

Firstly, apologies as I do realise it has been some time since my last post. I've just been going through quite a bit lately which has taken me away from my blogging duties however I'm now back and ready to post again!

A couple weekends ago, I decided to take Mrs to Macquarie Park. This was so that she could go shopping to her hearts content and so that I could come and stuff my face at a cafe I wanted to check out.

That cafe happened to be KIN. This place has gained quite a bit of publicity on instagram as it was recently opened and run by none other than last years MKR favorites, Uel and Shanelle. Now I'm not one to just give in to star power, but they did have one or two dishes which I just HAD to try. So despite knowing our wallet would suffer dearly when Mrs went shopping, I grabbed her one fine Saturday and drove to Macquarie Park.

We were seated quite quickly despite the crowds which set the afternoon off to a good start, nothing more displeasing than having to wait ages for seating. We started off our meal with a bit of coffee (which they source from Reuben Hills). The cup ware they use is cute and cool, oozing with Asian-chic. I also love the fact that they include a little biscuit with every coffee, all my childhood memories resurfaced upon tasting the little morsel. The coffee though left me a little unsatisfied though as I had been expecting a rich and aromatic cup but found it all too milky, lacking in the flavor of coffee (then again I was rather uncharacteristically adventurous in my choice of the Milo Mocha)

The Mrs left food selection up to me (that's why I love her) and so I chose the three items which appealed the most to me: Snap,Crackle, Plop, Sub-marine and Kaya toast.

The first to come was Snap,Crackle, Plop. This is KIN's take on chicken rice which I have to say is a different and edgy interpretation, but still yummy. Definitely appreciate the onsen tamago and the chicken crackling however the Mrs and I both felt the rice was a bit dry and lacking in the chicken flavour typical Hainanese chicken rices had. Then again, the rice itself isn't something I suppose can be made-to-order so for that they can be forgiven. 

Next to come was the Sub-marine which was a soft-shell crab sub with chilli sauce. This was the dish that I appreacited the most because really who doesn't love Singaporean chilli crab? And to put that in a sandwich? AND take out all dirty work or cracking the shells? Sold. I would have personally preferred the sauce to be a bit more viscous but overall, it was everything I wanted it to be. 

Finally, the one dish to reach out table was the Kaya toast. I have to admit, despite having been to both Malaysia and Singapore, I don't actually know how to legitimately eat Kaya toast. I would have been okay eating the toast with the egg as is but the Mrs berated me for my lack of understanding and told me that it was supposed to be eaten with soy sauce and pepper. Unfortunately, they really have neither of the proper condiments to compliment the dish (the soy sauce provided was standard soy sauce as opposed to the Kecap Manis which I believe the Mrs had described) which meant that according to the Mrs, the dish was incomplete. I however, didn't have a problem with that at all. 

Overall, I felt that our experience at KIN by us was satisfactory. Satisfactory in that the food, atmosphere and service warranted my trip to Macquarie Park however I still felt that they had some minor improvements they will need to make before their dishes become truly impressive. The presentation, techniques and concepts were all there but they just need a little more focus on making the dishes stand out in flavor. 

Would we return? Maybe after a little while.

Recommendations? The Sub-marine was definitely the standout dish to me.

Areas of improvement? The flavors of the food items do need to be a bit more pronounced.