Vanity Haus Cafe @ Ipoh (Canning Garden)

Vanity Haus Cafe in Canning Garden Ipoh is run by a Dutch family who’s stayed in Ipoh for a long time.  The cafe is set in a midst of residential housing area that doesn’t stand out too much exteriorly but the delectable food is definitely worth a mention.  With “vanity” as its name, it actually sounds more like a beauty salon rather than a cafe – which is exactly the case – it’s a cafe cum salon/beauty house, and the full name is Vanity Haus Boutique Cafe & Spa Salon. The cafe folks in Ipoh are getting more and more creative here.  If Roquette Cafe has combined politics and cafe together, I guess the unconventional pairing of cafe & salon may not seem so unusual after all.

The front part of the cafe is bright and immaculate with a simple white theme. With only one table, one counter looking very much like a hotel check in counter, one customer (me), I almost thought maybe it’s a hotel and not a cafe.

Rest assured, the cafe is functional with the inner part decorated with eclectic and European elements.  The overall European atmosphere is mostly contributed by the palatial, extravagant wall paper, the masquerade masks, and the most sexiest lamp I’ve ever seen.

Before the building became a cafe, it was a hair salon.  The wall used to have a few mirrors but only left with one now, which echoes with the theme of “vanity”, the past and present connection with a salon.

The rest of the cafe is more eclectic with travel-themed and vintage items with the small private room that looks rather Thai, and a few other items like Aboriginal masks, Balinese puppets, etc.

Most of the time I drink warm water as my drink, but the staff mentioned that their juices have no added water and besides the usual fruit selection of orange, carrot, apple, they have kiwi and strawberry, so I decided to mix the two fruits together.  At a first glance, I thought the juice was a strange two-toned juice then I looked again, before realizing that it was an reddish-orange colored juice in purple glass.  So I guess red + green = yellow does not apply in the world of fruits.

The mixture of kiwi and strawberry (RM12) was an adventurous mix that was lightly sour with a sweet tingle.  The juice was intensely fruity, and unbelievably viscous I felt a little filled up just by drinking the juice.


My main was the baked salmon bathed in parsley cream sauce (RM24).  Everything on the plate was presented to please.  The broccoli wasn’t just plain blanched broccoli but topped with grated parmesan cheese; mashed potato wasn’t simply dunked in onto the plate without love but shaped to look a bit like volcano, sprinkled with chili powder atop.

And lastly, the salmon was browned nicely, accompanied by cream sauce with a strong herbal essence – only made possible with the use of freshly chopped Italian parsley. 
  
The baked brownie with marshmallow was a piece of beautiful art and it was DI.VINE.  The warm ensemble was immersed in milky sauce with the nutty brownie topped with so many goodies – chewy marshmallows, crisp almond slivers and chocolate chips – the combination was almost too good to be true.

It would have been perfect if the cake used half less the sugar, and brought up the milky sauce to the same temperature as the baked dessert – I’m just being picky here but I think most of the people would love this dessert.

Check out a few more of the cafe’s decorations below.  Enjoy 🙂

More Info
Vanity Haus Cafe Address : No 8, Jalan Keliling, Canning Garden, 31400 Ipoh, Perak
Tel:  05 541 2047
Opening Hours: 10.30 am – 10.30 pm.  Closed on Wednesdays.

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