Real and Wholesome (RAW), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

For a place that serves such delightful coffee and scrumptious refection I’d expect to see more people here on a weekend. I’m told though that during the week it gets quite busy serving office workers in the area. Real and Wholesome is a lovely place for a light snack and saporous cup of coffee. It’s spacious with lots of natural light, a handsome coffee maker and plenty of parking. At the moment the cafe menu is light but will shortly expand with a vegetarian restaurant opening up out back as soon as a suitable chef is found. The pesto and mushroom toastie is yum and they offer quirky twists on already healthy dishes such as pumpkin hummus. The number one reason to come here though is the coffee. Beans are freshly roasted by Artisan Roast (a local couple importing beans from Indonesia) and expertly prepared by a well trained barista on a dapper espresso machine. If that’s not enough justification to come, how about the fact that they are attempting to be socially responsible with some design features using sustainable materials, offer you the opportunity to bring your own Tuppaware if you wish to take away meals (otherwise biodegradable packaging is available), focus on healthy vegetarian cuisine and when fully established have plans to donate a percentage of profits every month to charity (beneficiaries changing monthly depending on suggestions and votes by customers). I’d say that is pretty real and wholesome.