Ever heard of the watermelon cake that trended in Australia? Naj & Belle offers the knockoff version of the famous Black Star Pastry’s watermelon cake here.
Naj & Belle
SS 15 is no doubt the spot where you can find a lot of good food. Located on the ground floor of SS 15 Courtyard, just next to main entrance of the mall, is Naj & Belle. It is quite hard for you to miss it.
The ambiance of the place is quite inviting. It’s brightly lit and have large windows that allow natural lighting in as well. The also have an outdoor dining area.
Naj & Belle epitomises both cafe and upscale dining in Selangor / Kuala Lumpur with its local take on Melbournian food culture. They have three outlets, at SS 15 Courtyard, Bangsar and KL East Mall. The outlet that I tried was their SS 15 Courtyard outlet.
The Food
The Naj Big Breakfast – RM35
Who doesn’t like a big breakfast? This type of dish usually contains a wide variety of items. The Naj Big Breakfast comes with egg (scrambled, poached, or sunny side up) with smoked salmon croquette, artisan chicken sausage, sautéed mushroom and baby spinach, capsicum jam, and sourdough bread.
Overall, all the individual items were good, but weren’t outstanding. Nothing in this dish shouted unique. But then again, how different can a big breakfast dish be?
Rib Eye Steak Sandwich – RM42
I had high hopes for their rib eye steak sandwich. Basically this dish is a sandwich with caramelised onion, fresh tomato, iceberg lettuce, roasted capsicum jam, topped with sunny side up egg served with fries.
I must say this was a bit of a let down, given the price of the dish. The steak was well cooked, but the sourdough bread was on the tougher side. I didn’t think it was worth the RM42 that I paid for.
Check out: Premium choices of meats at Abang Butcher @ Alor Setar, Kedah
The watermelon cake – RM19.90
This is the dish that got Naj & Belle famous. Though I have not tried the original one at Black Star Pastry, I’d say it was nice. I guess if you use watermelon, it’s hard for you to go wrong.
The watermelon cake is a lychee sponge cake layered with cream and almond cream with a watermelon slice in the middle, topped with strawberries.
When biting into a full slice of the cake, you get that refreshing burst of watermelon. It’s good that the other parts of the cake weren’t that sweet, because the watermelon is mainly sugar water anyway. The watermelon also provides you that cold feeling in your mouth as you eat the cake.
I also like the fact that the strawberries give you that bit of acid to counter the sweet side of the other parts of the cake. I just wished that the cream layers weren’t that thick, and had more cake instead.
Verdict
Would I be back? Price-wise, it’s just too expensive to dine here. Their price range is on the higher side. RM35 for big breakfast is just too much for me to stomach.
Although I enjoyed the watermelon cake somewhat, I felt that it was also expensive for such a small slice (or cube) of a cake. I don’t think I can bring myself to indulge RM20 again for a slice of their watermelon cake.
My Rating
80%: Ambiance
60%: Price (value for money)
70%: Taste
80%: Location (ease of parking)
80%: Service
74%: Overall Rating
Opening Hours
Open weekdays from 10 AM to 10 PM.
Open weekends from 9.30 AM to 10 PM.
Address / Contact Information
03 5612 7078Lot G-03A
Ground Floor Courtyard
First Subang
Jalan SS 15/4G
47500 Subang Jaya
Selangor