After my first visit to Dynasty Ice N’ Snacks, I knew I might pay them another visit, just didn’t know when. By chance, I wanted to go Cheng to collect something from a friend and without hesitation, I picked this cafe for my dinner place.

As promised, the cafe introduces new dishes and beverages every month and I was delighted to see more varieties this time. There were about 20 different food and drinks introduced within the span of two months. Probably the less popular items during the previous month are removed and replaced with new ones, and the cycle repeats itself till the menu is filled with good stuffs.

After some pondering, we ordered our stuffs and it didn’t take long for the food to be served. First up was the fish balls and spring rolls varieties, or more widely known as “Wu Xiang 五香”.

This dish definitely didn’t pass my standard. Not only the very diluted sweet sauce tasted weird, the fish balls didn’t have any texture or springiness in it. It was like eating mashed potatoes, soft and mushy. The crackers weren’t as bad as the fish balls though.

The Xia Men Spring Rolls 厦门春卷…

Was absolutely finger licking good. Crunchy on the outside, soft and meaty on the inside. It was like a fusion of nuggets and meatballs. Yes, meatballs covered with batter and then deep fried. It cannot be anymore awesome than that. This is going to be my must-order-item if I dine here in the future.

Another note though, chilies sauce goes better with this finger food than the sweet and sour sauce they provided. Isaac, do you sell ready made ones so that I can deep fry them myself? Ha!

Jian had the lemon grass chicken with rice set meal, that came with a free drink with every order.

The sauce used to marinate the chicken tasted really or closely resembled or perhaps was the same sauce used to marinate satays. I told Jian that they should have grilled the chicken on a BBQ pit instead of pan fried it to give the chicken a satay- taste and feel. Not too bad, as I managed to taste a bit by sneaking up on Jian’s plate.

I went for something normal, seafood fried rice, which turned out really delicious after all. There were quite a reasonable amount of meat, squids, a few tiny prawns. It was served with a small plate of coleslaw and sambal. The rice were fluffy and didn’t stick together into a lump. Prawns were really small though, an upgrade to a slightly bigger prawn with a cut down of the number of prawns in a plate would be better.

The owner, Isaac, was kind enough to let me sample another in house specialty of theirs free of charge, the Sze Chuan Hot & Spicy Soup 四川麻辣汤.

Issac : “The soup is really hot and we have toned it down to suit Malaysians’ taste buds. If you can take spicy food, I can cook the original version of it.”

Jason : “How spicy can it be, right? Give us the original one.”

Considering that I came from a family who eats chilies almost on daily basis, how spicy can outside food be, right?

How wrong I was and I went o.0””’ when I saw the pot of soup being served on our table.

A close up.

Yes, those red tiny dots were cili padis. Shit loads of them. Moreover, the amount of chili oil on top of the soup was “remarkable”.

Jian and I were literally sweating off while drinking the soup and finishing the fish fillets and potatoes in it. The soup was boiled using fish fillets, potatoes, cabbages, Japanese cucumbers, herbs and spices imported from Sze Chuan and other ingredients. Knowing that if I drink too much, I would definitely be having diarrhea the next day. I stopped drinking, fearing that it would affect my events tomorrow.

Honestly, it was horrifying. Haha! Yet, it was quite an experience to be able to taste the true Sze Chuan Hot & Spicy soup. It was numb-fying and definitely lived up to its name.

Last but not least, it was my chilled double boiled white fungus with red dates and lychees.

Instead of just putting ice into a bowl or chilling it before serving, Isaac went the extra mile by buying a bigger half-bowl to make ice around the tub containing the dessert. Here’s a close up picture for better description. The layer around the container wasn’t just water but ice.

The icy cold dessert was just nice to wash down the numb and spicy feeling that lingered on my tongue and lips. Just the right sweetness, coupled with generous amount of white fungus, red dates and two lychees (from those canned lychees), the price of RM3.50 was definitely justifiable.

The bill came up to RM26.15, including 5% service tax. Do take note that the Sze Chuan Hot & Spicy soup was on the house. Again, reasonably priced and I am definitely coming back for more. If you are a Malaccan and looking for good food, this is one of eateries that you can consider, albeit the distance.

I am not a cafe lover because I don’t have much faith in their food quality. Most of the time, cafes here are mostly smoke filled and serve lame ass food that do not deserved to be blogged about.

However, someone tipped me off about a new cafe in Cheng recently and he assured me that the food there has a certain standard. Moreover, its new and has received positive feedback from the others.

No harm giving it a try. Again, the scapegoats were Sleepy Hao, Akiraceo Jian and Sleepy Hao’s sister, Jia Rou.

Finding the cafe is relatively easy as it is the commercial area right after Cowboy Town if you are coming from Batu Berendam direction and behind Mobil if you are coming from the Alor Gajah-Melaka-Jasin Highway.

With the brightly lit orange signboard, you shouldn’t miss it especially during night time. The cafe is called Dynasty Ice N’ Snack Cafe and judging from its new outlook and interior, it was opened for business less than two or three weeks ago. There were quite a lot of customers throughout our 60 minutes ordeal there.

As written on the menu, the cafe wants to give its patrons’ a home feeling. Hence, the rather simple seating arrangement and not too yellowish lighting. The whole restaurant is brightly lit (Damn nice for photography, if you ask me.) and best of all, it is fully air conditioned. However, there’s no door at the front to trap all the cold air inside. It’s like an open air air conditioned room, a huge wastage of energy and electricity. First and foremost, the owner needs to install a glass panel / door to save his electricity bill.

A big no-no is sticking yellow stickers across your menu item that you have planned to serve but decided to pull it off the menu after your opening. While I am fine with two or three, 10 or 20 yellow stickers across the menu is definitely a sight I don’t want to see when I patronize a restaurant. The management might as well reprint the menu and make it add-on-able at a later stage. The whole menu was literally plastered with yellow stickers and I actually forgot to take a picture of it.

They have the usual stuffs, ice blended, ABC, bubble tea and the normal stuffs you find in any other cafes. Hao and Jian both ordered the Blue Fairy, soda mixed with colouring, I supposed. Ah Rou ordered a variation of Blue Fairy, comes with a scoop of vanilla flavoured ice cream.

As for me, I ordered this really weird combination drink, mocha at the bottom with coke on the top. Stir them together and you get the mocha-ed coke, which didn’t taste as good as I thought. It was ok only lah! The fact that the drink wasn’t cold enough didn’t help at all. I am not going to order this the next time, for sure.

First up was Ah Rou’s herbal mee sua, which smelled surprisingly nice. The aroma was a good start. The various mushrooms, herbal ingredients and other ingredients made the whole pot looked really tempting and delicious. Instead of yee mee, they used a thinner version of the same kind, almost like bee hoons.

I didn’t manage to try it as it wasn’t my order. However, I took a sip of the soup and it was slightly disappointing as the taste wasn’t strong enough to make it a truly and double boiled herbal soup. It tasted ok, but lacked the ummppphhhh that I was looking for in herbal soup. Well, it is pretty easy to overcome this problem. Double the ingredients and boil it longer so that the ingredients are able to simmer and release their taste and flavour.

Jian ordered their special udon noodles. I don’t know about Jian, but I absolutely love the noodles. They were cooked just the way how I like them. Not too wet till it is overflowing the plate yet not too dry till as if I am eating a piece of plain white bread. A little bit of black fungus, a few prawns, some mushrooms and the right seasoning to dish out this noodle dish. However, I reckon it would taste even better when its hot or right from the wok. By the time we finished our “ritual”, the plate of noodles have cooled down. I am so gonna order this for my next visit.

Hao ordered the “treasure box” or more commonly known as the chicken curry in a bun dish. It was served with a layer of egg on it ala nasi goreng pattaya style. I didn’t try the bread but I did try the chicken curry. It was too dry, definitely not suitable to be eaten with bread. Moreover, it was powder-ish, probably too much curry powder or too little water. Lots of improvement needed if they want this dish to be their specialty. For now, its below average. It was really small too!

I ordered their Thai style mango chicken chop, which was another specialty of theirs, according to the source I read from. Served with a handful of frieds, spoonful of coleslaw and a few chunks of fruits with (Duh!) deep fried chicken chop. You have the option to choose whether to deep fry or pan fry your white meat though and I opted for the former, of course. The skin was really crunchy and delicious; most importantly, it wasn’t as oily as I expected. Probably, not oily at all. Two thumbs up for the chicken chop! The coleslaw passed and the honey dew cubes were just nice to wash off the sourness at a later time.

The problem with this dish is the fries used. I absolutely hate such al cheapo fries. It is thin, it doesn’t have the texture and most importantly, it tastes like craps especially after it is cooled down. They could have change the fries to those bigger and fatter fries instead and that is going to add a few points to the dish.

The amount of mangoes on top was too little for my liking. After all, I ordered Thai-style mango chicken chop and that few strands of tasteless mangoes weren’t justifying the name of the dish. Probably, Thai style chicken chop would be more suitable.

Lastly, instead of pouring the sweet and sour sauce on top of the chicken chop before serving, they could have served it in a small bowl and let the customers pour it by themselves. Not only the patron is able to control how much sauce he or she wants, the crispiness of the chop won’t be soaked away and then lose its crunchy texture after some time. Moreover, they sort of poured too much sauce into my chicken chop and even my honey dew tasted sweet and sour.

We also ordered their pan fried dumplings which tasted surprisingly yummy for Malacca standard. There were lots of juices the moment I tore the skin apart with my teeth and the gravy was gushing down my throat in no time. Heh! A little exaggerating, I know, but I totally didn’t expect it to be that juicy. However, the amount of meat inside was too little. Put more, can ah?

As for the “sunflower”, it was nothing special to me. The boss took the time to explain to us why it was special. After biting it, it was just another deep fried kind of thingy.

The bill came up to roughly about RM10 per head. It was definitely cheaper than what I had expected initially and / or compared to other cafes that I have patronized who charged RM4.90 for a glasss of honey green tea. That said, RM0.50 for a glass of Diamond RO water? Hmm…

Will I return? Definitely.

However, there’s one problem. The distance from Bukit Beruang to Cheng Baru is not anywhere near and with the current petrol price, it is not a very good idea to go there that often, considering Cheng Baru has nothing to offer in terms of entertainment after the meal.

Unlike town, which I think is more or less the same distance, I still have places to roam around after my meal. That being said, if I am on my way back to Tampin using the Alor Gajah-Melaka-Jasin road or have something going on around Cheng or for those who stays nearby, it’s definitely worth visiting.

The boss asked for my contact and said he was looking forward to read my review. Hopefully, after reading, he would consider my suggestions / comments and make some adjustments. It should be a pretty good cafe if things go well for them. It was definitely satisfying compare to how shitty I always felt whenever I walked out a cafe.

Oh, did I mention they have free wi-fi?

Dynasty Ice N’ Snacks
No. 2A, Jalan CB1,
Taman Cheng Bestari,
75250 Melaka.

06-3373371
http://icensnacks.com.my