Breaking bread: Ling’s Focacceria in Mutiara Damansara stands out with fantastic focaccia and sandwiches

PETALING JAYA, Oct 29 — A byproduct of the home cooking/baking boom on platforms like TikTok and Instagram is the wildly viral creations that, for the most part, often look and sound better than they taste.

A satisfying squeeze here, a crunchy bite there, and a gleeful look at the camera can go a long way in selling almost anything.

Still, one stood out in particular with its relatively humble, simple, and — when done right, utterly delicious nature.

No, it’s not the feta pasta bake — though it is undeniably delicious and worth the hype — it’s the ancient, classic Italian focaccia that recaptured the minds and hearts of millions, inspiring countless videos of oily disembodied fingers rummaging through jiggly wet dough, that transforms into gorgeous, golden hunks of soft, tender bread.

In a curious (and chewy) case of an online-to-offline phenomenon, focaccia has found its way onto menus and display cases of bakeries and cafes in Malaysia at a higher rate than before, though without the kind of prevalence that sourdough has achieved.

Loaves of freshly baked focaccia on display.

Even when I sleep, I can’t escape sourdough — send help!

Help arrives in the form of Ling’s Focacceria, located in a collection of shophouses in Mutiara Damansara where Ana Patin House, renowned for its patin tempoyak, also resides.

As I traipsed through the red door, my ears perked up at the cool breeze that was Paul Desmond on the saxophone.

It has been a while since I’ve walked into a bakery/cafe for breakfast and heard anything but acoustic covers of pop songs, so The Dave Brubeck Quartet was quite literally music to my ears.

In addition to loaves of focaccia (some feature jalapeno, miso butter, and fried shallots), the signature “sammiches” on the menu caught my eye.

A pressing matter: sandwiches being prepared.

All-the-Meats (RM36) features a collection of cold cuts (chicken and beef, all halal) stacked with a substantial amount of arugula and enveloped between tender wedges of focaccia.

The bright greens look almost airbrushed, and are thankfully as fresh as they look, offering a much-needed peppery balance to the smorgasbord of sliced meat.

Each bite starts with a taste of olive oil and coarse, flaky salt on the pillowy bread itself, and as your pearly whites make it through each layer of the sandwich, you get hints of tomato and oregano from a sauce sporting a hue best described as “peaches-and-cream”.

More of that sauce is served on the side for your dipping pleasure, which I wholeheartedly recommend doing more of.

Focroque Monsieur (RM32) is a cute take on the French classic, featuring the expected fillings of chicken ham, cheese, and a cheese-crust formed by grilling the focaccia that’s been swapped in for the usual pain de mie (sandwich bread).

The Focroque Monsieur is an Italian-French mashup that works really well.

The web-like shape on the inside of the focaccia dough.

It’s a much richer, more unctuous and filling bite than the previous sandwich, with the juicy cornichons on the side offering a briny respite in between mouthfuls of cheesy and salty goodness.

The same dipping sauce is served with it too, though I think this crispy gentleman of a sandwich is already so rich and intense that he doesn’t need it.

An even cheesier but less meat-laden affair, the Grilled 4Cheese (RM17 for half) makes full use of the bubbles that dot the inside of the dough, balancing the perfect amount of chew with a crispy crust from the grill.

Sharp and creamy, the melted assortment of Monterey Jack, Emmenthal, Cheddar and Mozzarella cheese oozes out of the bread to great effect, calling to mind the drool-inducing grilled cheese scene from the movie Chef.

I couldn’t leave without a taste of the soup of the day: a Spanish classic, Gazpacho.

Half of the Grilled 4Cheese sandwich.

Gazpacho, the perfect soup for our weather. I hope they bring it back soon.

This cold soup of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and more with plenty of olive oil is the perfect tonic for our blistering hot days, and I think it’s a real shame it hasn’t caught on.

At the time of writing, the soup of the day has since changed to an “Asian spiced pumpkin soup”, but keep an eye out for the return of the gazpacho.

Coming home with me was half a loaf of focaccia with sundried tomatoes and olives (RM20), which came with a very detailed list of instructions for reheating.

Of course, I couldn’t really wait that long.

While eating it later that day, I found it full of what J. Kenji López-Alt, award-winning cookbook author and chef likes to call “micro-blisters”, which are “teeny tiny bubbles of expanded dough that dot the surface of good bread”.

Good bread it was, indeed.