Meet Ms Ling, Owner of La Promise Café in Taiping, Malaysia
If you’re traveling to TAIPING, a very pleasant city located in Northwestern Malaysia, you’ll definitely want to stop by and pay a visit to La Promise Bakery and Café. A relative newcomer to the scene, La Promise may be the only restaurant in Taiping that specializes in Western Food, a city which is dominated by food shops offering Chinese, Malay and Indian dishes.
Centrally located in downtown Taiping, the café is especially popular with the University crowd and professional people. Very spacious inside with comfortable seating, the café also has free WIFI.
Prices are reasonable and the food – while definitely not gourmet quality - is fairly good. To give you some idea of the prices – a plate of spaghetti is 7.90RM (about 2.30USD) and a Western style Breakfast – complete with eggs, toast, sausage and juice - is all of 5.50RM(1.60USD). The pastries in particular looked absolutely scrumptious. Richard is a genuine pastry artist!
A young Chinese couple - Richard and Ling – own La Promise Café. I had an opportunity to talk extensively with the amiable Ms. Ling. Of all the people that I met in Taiping, Ms Ling probably speaks the best English. She said that her facility with English can be attributed to her being very diligent as a student in both primary and secondary school.
Born and raised in Taiping, Ms. Ling has quite an interesting history leading up to her career as restaurateur.
After graduating from high school in Taiping in 1999, she received a scholarship to study at a University in Penang, where she majored in hotel management and catering. After 2 1/2 years at the University, she left Malaysia for the Gold Coast of Australia, where she finished her studies at Griffiths University.
Upon graduating from the University in 2005, she returned to Penang, Malaysia where she worked as manager for over 2 years at a local Haagen Daas Ice Cream Store. It was there that she met Richard - her future husband and business partner - who worked in the pastry department of a major hotel.
In 2007, she traveled to Ireland where she took courses in accounting and lived with her brother-in-law for over 1½ years, before returning to Taiping in September 2008. Back at home, she decided to pursue career as a restaurateur with her newlywed husband, Richard.
Her parents, who own a local hardware store in Taiping, gave financial backing to Ling and Richard for their “new baby”, La Promise Café. The Grand Opening took place in August 2009.
I give La Promise a big thumbs up!
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Tags: Malaysian people, Restaurants in Malaysia, Taiping, Taiping restaurant
