29 Oct – Asia's most significant movie icon has done it again. Not only does Jackie Chan have his name on one of Kuala Lumpur's most prominent fitness centres since its grand launch in Mid Valley Megamall two years ago, he now has a cafe too. After packing in a tight schedule of launching his Singapore outlet on Friday and Starhill Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, Jackie Chan jets off to China to open his third outlet over the weekend. Since it wasn't really a movie event, Cinema Online gave the launch a miss but decided to pop in the day after its opening to check it out. "This can't be it..." was all that could be said. Unlike the glamour-packed fitness centres of a scale and satisfaction befitting the association with Jackie, the cafe is even less than what one would expect of a 'fly by night' makeshift operation. The impression it gave from having to find it, to the first glance, to the whole coffee and cake experience and service left little to be desired.
The intended concept of the casual sidewalk cafe by the galleries, made it look more like a last minute afterthought to slot it a KL branch in between the ones in Singapore and China. Tables only seat two, cut to fit snugly along one side of the walkway going in either direction of the awkwardly located main counter at the lift waiting area. Even the pastries and cake displays were merely mobile units placed on temporary banquet tables by the side looking like an afternoon catering event. Other than the name, two plasma screens playing a Jackie Chan presentation reel and his pictures on the menu, the cafe really feels and looks like anyone could have opened it. Who knows, perhaps it was just a simple casual cafe idea by Starhill and Jackie was just in the mood to say, "Ok, you can use my name."