It was really a surprise when I get this chance to dine in Fontana Cafe @ Equine Park. The owner of the restaurant is a Malay lady who married with an Italian gentleman whom she met during her study life in Australia.

Just a brief introduction on the owner Kak Riza (Idzauriza Bt Idrus) - She was an accountancy graduate in Australia, and she worked in a Mexican restaurant in Perth during her studies.


So for now, what is so special about this RESTAURANT / CAFE??
This is the only cafe in Malaysia that is being recognized by the Embassy of Australia and it has lots of local Aussie foods (e.g Aussie burger and Billy Tea) which could not be found else where in Malaysia...
The burger patties are minced and form by the cafe staffs and they are without MSG added.
The restaurant serves meats that we seldom have the chance to eat at other place e.g: Venison, Rabbit, Ostrich as well as Australian beef, in a large burger... Apart from that, the cafe provides Thai Cuisine, Malay Cuisine, catering as well as barbecue session.

Now for the food:
1) OZ burger in ostrich meat and turkey ham
Due to my cowardliness, I just tasted one tiny piece of this ostrich meat burger. The texture of the meat is similar to beef but it does not have the smell of beef. With another layer of turkey ham and also egg on top, your mouth will be satisfied by the richness of taste and flavour. And the most special part, is the beet root in it which is the speciality of Australia burger

2) Fontana Burger in ostrich meat
This is another type of burger is this Fontana burger. You will be wondering, what is the difference between OZ burger and Fontana burger when both of them are in ostrich meat? Fontana burger has only one layer of meat and the other layer is with hash brown with cheese. The special in this burger is that it is added with avocado. With the mayo and special tomato sauce added to the burger, it is has a creamy and smooth mouthfeel.

3) Hawaian Grill Chicken Burger
This chicken burger uses chicken drumstick meat but not minced meat like other burgers did. The whole large piece of meat with pineapple cubes and cream spread makes the whole burger feel refreshing and appetizing. You can either choose tomato sauce or chili sauce for this burger.

4) Chicken Chop
This chicken chop is totally different with the other chicken chop. Normally we will have chicken chop with breadcrumb skin, but this is breadcrumb free. The chicken drumstick is being coated with a thin layer of lemon batter, making the chicken chop has a slight sour taste of lemon which makes the fried chicken feel less oily. The sauce is another speciality of this chicken chop. Normally the sauce will has starchy and sticky taste and when you eat more, you will feel the sauce is "too much".

5) Mexican Nachos
This is my favourite dish. The spiciness and crispiness of the nachos are just nice and the minced beef on top of it has no strong smell and I enjoy the taste so much. The green chilies are just nice for the spiciness, and the red kidney beans are soft enough.

6) Drinks

Kak Riza with Billy Tea - the authentic Australian tea used to be drank by the farmers.

Maltose - has oreo in it and taste slightly creamy and milky.

Wattime Cruz - Strawberry taste which I do not like so much, but suitable for strawberry lovers

Alright, this is the end for the food. About the environment, here are some pictures of the cafe.

The signboard which can be seen when you drive thru the main road.

The menu board in the cafe, with brief introduction on the ingredients

The eye-catching kangaroo skin, boomerang and digeridoo (I couldnt make any voice out of that instrument T_T)

Souvenir and kitchen corner

The bar

Bicycles for rent... RM3 per hour if not mistaken~~~

Nice person in charge as well as nice ambient~~~

Tall staircase to go up to bed...

Now, let me just briefly talk about why I was in this factory visit trip.

One of my coursemate has organised this event called "A date with bloggers at Melaka 2012" and he invited me to join. I wasn't really attracted as I just visited Melaka on last November, until he told me that we will be having a visit to JULIE'S factory -- my all time favourite peanut butter sandwich cookies' "mama", and I decided to join him with the other bloggers..
I can still remember everytime when I was packing my stuff to go back to university, my mom will surely ask:" Mei Mei, you want to bring along Julie's with you?" and my answer will definitely: YES!!



Well, as a final year food-techer, I had the opportunity to visit many factory, including bread, packaging materials, oil mill, oil refinery, dairy products..... and yes i had many chances to ask on the technical, quality as well as processing of those factory. However, due to luck or whatsoever causes, those trip has never  let us really walk into their processing line, and JULIE'S is the first factory that I can really stand beside the cookies and watching the sandwiching process of my favourite cookies...

Logo on the building~~

A reliable company with HACCP certified, GMP, ISO 9001 and 22000, OHSAS as well as Halal Certification.

Julie's Factory was the first station of the trip and there were people come all around from different places, so for us who came from KL, have our seat in the meeting room and enjoyed some biscuits...

My new favourite -- Le-mond with lemond flavour~~

The trip started with an opening speech from the GM, followed by safety instructions and company briefing by the QA in charged and lastly by Miss Chiew Ling for the Corporate Social Responsibility - CSR project by Julie's... I was stunned by the "Share The Love" movement by Julie's where they really go down to the floor to show their appreciation to the forgotten groups. In addition, those programmes done by Julie's are really interesting. They had their own concert in the factory, they had fun with the citizens by baking kuih raya with them and send those cookies to the old folks home. They even helped out those victims in Thailand flood and their local distributers went to the flood area to share their love around.. *touched* <3<3


And now, for the processing line trip~~~ the part i loved the most~~~ (sorry, no photos!~)

First of all we are asked to put on face mask, hairnet, over coat as well as shoe cover... Alright, i didnt take any picture on how i dressed like because I can't even recognise myself (LOL)... followed HACCP and GMP standard, proper hand washing procedure before entering the plant, hand sanitizer and HOT!! The 30-year-old baking oven from the Netherlands is just functioning beside me while waiting for the others to join us.The whole factory area is well constructed.. well covered lamps, smooth corners, smooth flooring...

We were brief on how the major works are being done, and while walking along the processing line, the dough are sheeted and you can see from a very thin and tiny dough sheet, the cookies are baked into crispy-golden brown and being sandwiched with peanut butter.. (yummy~~)... People always say - you wont eat what you did, but after watching the processing of Julie's biscuits, I am very confident to consume their product ^^...

<3 <3 Share the Love <3 <3

Before I end this blog, I would like to thank Julie's Biscuits for providing us the chance to visit them~~ Nice factory~~ Thanks for all the gifts and lunch that Julie's Biscuits has provided to us as well as the tee shirt~~

KX and Me in Julie's T-shirt ^^