Blackdoor Cafe @ Arena Curve, Penang

Blackdoor Cafe is a fairly new cafe at Arena Curve, having a dark and cozy ambiance that reflect its name. This is our first encounter with Cronut, a croissant-doughnut pastry invented by a New York Chef. It has a doughnut shape and possessing croissant alike texture. Apart of cronuts, they do serve an array of Western dishes.

The servers were very attentive upon our arrival. They took the efforts to go through their menu with us, explaining that cronuts are their specialty dishes and recommended us a few of their dishes in a non-pushy ways. Since their specialty is cronut, we ordered a Charcoal Green Tea Cronut (RM 15) with Haegan Dazs ice cream (optional, top up RM 3).

The cronuts, essentially are croissant texture embedded in a doughnut shape. Soft and airy on the inside while flaky on the skin, it did not give out much crumbles upon knifing. Ornamented with red beans, coconuts flakes and some charcoal powders on the side ratcheted the entire serving into pretentious. The cronut did give a nice and special tasting experience, especially coupled with the Haegen Dazs ice cream.

If you have 20-30 minutes to spare, try out their Chicken Wellington (RM 23) because the kitchen would need that amount of time for preparation. Nevertheless, it was worth the waiting. The puff pastry had minced chicken encapsulated within. Taste was decent but somehow we felt the chicken were over minced.

We were introduced by the servers to Chicken Tonkatsu (RM 20), claiming to be one of their best sellers on the menu. The chicken cutlet is coated with flour and panko bread crumbs, giving arises to a crisp texture. The uniqueness of Chicken Tonkatsu served here was the stuffing of cheesy layer within the golden brown crust chicken meat, which channeled a relatively modest cheesy taste. It would be great if the cheese was more vividly tasted.

Tropical Latte (RM 10 hot), their house blend coffee in the addition of natural mango and peach elements to produce elusive fruity aroma, and thus balance the milky sensation.