China House is similar like Black Kettle nestling in the heritage-rich address of George Town World Heritage site. As seen in the website, China House consists of 3 beautiful refurbished heritage buildings modeled into 14 spaces including a bakery, cafe, restaurant, souvenir shop, gallery, reading room, live entertainment area and an open-air courtyard.
Image via Instagram @tenyenyen
China House was recommended by a hawker whom we bought muachi from him and he mentioned that there's live band performance and great cakes selection at China House. We went to China House after enjoying the famous Penang's Legendary Duck Kway Chap at Kimberley Street. As its shop name sounded, I had the fallacy to think that the interior design would be surrounding China arts/ designs. However, I saw English royal guard and some unknown English arts / paintings hanging at the wall at the entrance.
The menu showed that China House served all-day breakfasts and foods from 3 restaurants with price points for everyone, large range of cakes, muffins, cupcakes and pastries, coffee and alcoholic beverages. At the centre of China House, we were greeted by a large table with assorted cakes and pastries placed on top of it. That's where the section named as Kopi C and Beach Street Bakery. It was almost 8pm and the crowds started to perk in where we had to wait for 10 minutes before seated.
Nutella Doughnut
Some of the cakes selection with Halloween theme
Chocolate Tissimo
The signature tiramisu cake
A blur image captured, I merely remembered there's a corner which offered homemade ice-cream.
The long, narrow corridor of the building had decorated with comprehensive mix of trinkets, striking a balance between traditional and trendy. Artistic paper cups had been hang on the wall of the corridors along with some of the Chinese paintings as decoration.
A closer look on the art pieces from food patrons.
Vine and Single bar
Wide selections of martini were available for your to choose.
The Library section
Books and magazines specializing in art, design, architecture and cooking were available for diners to read too.
Further along the corridor, the reading room was spotted with a space divided into magazines, books and CDs for browsing and buying. The tables here were covered with plain white mahjong paper, beckoning diners to show their artistic side with the provided container of crayons for drawing or create art-pieces. We sat around here to enjoy our beverages and cake. Soft music is being played and we wondered where's the live performance yet only found out China House had several sections which we did not discover yet. Anyway, the first dining experience here was great and we looked forward to come back again.
Signature Tiramisu cake from China House; Penang
This cake was placed separately from the wide array of cakes at Kopi C and we coincidentally chose the signature cake of China House till we found out from the bill later. Generous amount of nuts and almonds covered the top and edge of the cake. Crunchy at first bite due to the generous helping of almonds, following by soft texture in the middle with coffee after-taste. It's quite creamy compared to the tiramisu cake I had earlier, nevertheless it's worth the price for its large portion and a nice departure for the conventional tiramisu cake with shredded almonds as toppings.
Choices of beverages and tiramisu cake
Pineapple Ginger Lime- A sour drink which gave a warming kick, thanks to the ginger! A refreshing drink that's perfect to sip and kill some guiltiness of eating cake at late night :)
Blueberries Mango Coconut Smoothie - An interesting match of mango, blueberries and coconut which suited sweet tooth.
Wine of the House was ordered by my friend in which I did not have a sip hence will skip to comment.
Chocolate Tissimo [ photo from Pinterest ] had been taken away for satisfying chocolate cravings.
Till we meet again!
The service was acceptable as waiters were still being attentive to our request although it's full house during our visit. Overall, it's a nice dining experience for its home-baked cakes in the hipster cafe residing in the Pearl of Orient. We had a cozy chat at China House for almost 3 hours and what's really matter was good people and nice ambiance. China House - definitely worth for the next visit to try their cakes / fine dining and discover other sections especially the Canteen and the courtyard area as well as live band performance.
Address: 155, LEBUH PANTAI, GEORGE TOWN, PENANG
