Austin Chase Queensbay Mall

Smoked Salmon with Ciabatta

Austin Chase is the latest coffee outlet to make its way to Penang shore at the Queensbay Mall. This is the 3rd outlet in Malaysia after The Gardens and The Pavilion. Austin Chase is based in Washington in the US and has expanded to the Asia market with the latest being Malaysia, and Singapore next. They already have 30+ stores to-date in Seattle, Boston, Tokyo, Seoul and Manila. The Austin Chase beans are apparently hand roasted in Seattle and air flown to Malaysia. (Source: The Star)

Austin Chase serves espresso-based beverages, fruit smoothies and food. They even have a collaboration with Baskin Robbins. Austin Chase has a fairly elaborate menu with more varieties of food ranging from sandwiches to pasta to cakes etc. They also offer set lunch menu with drinks.

Masala Chai Latte

Albeit the great service by the person manning the counter (we believe he is the manager and he gave us free upgrade from iced tea to Masala Chai Latte), the supposed gourmet food was unfortunately quite a disappointment during our first visit at Austin Chase Queensbay Mall. We blamed it on the teething issues of a new outlet but the Seafood Marinara was a tad bland for my liking with little seafood and overcooked pasta.

To be fair, the Smoked Salmon with Ciabatta fared better than the pasta and the Masala Chai Latte was subtle yet okay. The Tiramisu which was highly recommended to us was also quite special with a very generous coating of chunky roasted nuts.

Tiramisu

Seafood Marinara Pasta

We probably did not do Austin Chase any justice because we did not try its specialty i.e. its coffee (we had way too much coffee that day before we headed for dinner at Austin Chase). So this warrants for another trip to Austin Chase probably after it has settled down a bit in a few weeks time.