The Lokal - Brunch

 Went for a really satisfying post call brunch at the Lokal. It's a hipster cafe located at Neil road just opposite the Pinnacle at Duxton and Bukit Pasoh Road.

Most of us had the pick and mix breakfast - I personally think it's an awesome idea, since I am really fussy about food and whenever I order the 'big breakfast' there will bound to be stuff that I don't eat (i.e. baked beans, bacon, hash brown etc)

I had the poached eggs - egg were slightly overcooked (if I remember correctly). I don't see why the bread (I picked sourdough, but there's a choice of rye or pumpernickel) costs $4.50.
I really liked

Since their ricotta was made from scratch, I definitely had to try it. I haven't eaten ricotta cheese for the longest time, but it went really well with my bread.

 Their maple smoked bacon - super crispy, nitrite free cos it's made in house. I'm still not a fan of bacon though these tasted more like spam fries (minus the salt).

 The scrambled eggs, which looked lovely and not overdone.

The most impressive dish of the day was the French toast, which came topped with a huge dollop of maple cream (super delicious) and bacon. The French toast was nothing short of spectacular - the brioche was fluffy, buttery and not soggy. 

I would strongly recommend everyone trying this dish - if you're a savoury breakfast person like me, just share it with your friends!

The Lokal
136 Neil Road
Tel 64239918
Monday - Friday 9am to 6pm
Saturday - Sunday 9am to 4pm

Gula Melaka Cake at Assembly Ground

 Went to Assembly Ground a while back and had this really awesome cake. It's like ondeh-ondeh in cake form. Unlike the local versions of gula melaka cakes which are usually steamed and are usually very light and airy, this one is an ang-moh style cake with robust cake layers infused with the smokiness of gula melaka, topped with lucious frosting and desiccated coconut. The cake's from Maple and Market, which is somewhere in the East, and I have yet to go there.

They had so many interesting cakes including a nutella/peanutbutter cake, which I really wanted to try but we were so stuffed from chicken collagen ramen we really couldn't eat anymore cake.

The main reason we came here was cos MT bought green tea latte for $1.50 on one of her food apps and she had to use the coupon... Green tea latte was apparently not bad, but I was too freaking stuffed.

Btw, I really hated their pokey metal chairs - I was wearing a dress and the stupid chair left imprints on my legs. Really uncomfortable. Possibly don't want too many people occupying the space and loitering around... Wear jeans if you are visiting - you have been warned.

The Assembly Ground
#01-21 The Cathay
2 Handy Road
Tel 67333375
Closed on Mondays

Fix

 Was surfing the internet for new food places, and saw a review on Fix cafe online. The thing that caught my eye was the liu sha doughnuts. I absolutely had to go and try them! 6 mini doughnuts, piping hot, with liu sha (salted egg yolk) sauce. How amazing is that! I'm such a fan of salted egg sotong, salted egg crab, and salted egg just about anything else. Salted egg doughnuts are a a level up! Can you imagine if they injected the doughnuts with liu sha sauce? They would be selling out faster than you can say Krispy Kreme! The liu sha sauce was a bit cold when served, but since the doughnuts were so warm, it didn't quite matter to me.

Another thing is that Fix is the sister cafe of Grub, which is this insanely popular cafe in Bishan Park, which has immensely long queues so I have't been there cos I don't particularly like standing in the sun, queuing and wasting my life away. Ok I hope that Fix does't get flooded after the word that they have liu sha doughnuts gets out >,<

We also tried their naanwiches, which are essentially open faced sandwiches on a naan base (instead of your normal muffin/bread). I had the chicken tikka naanwich, which was really delicious - soft tender chicken, with crispy achar on the side and a perfectly half boiled egg. The naan was soft and fluffy.

Check out their perfectly half cooked egg - the yolk was gel like and slightly runny. x2. It's so freaking hard to find a cafe which has such perfectly cooked eggs ( I hope the standard remains the same after I blog about it).

The beef kimchi naanwich - which I didn't try but my friend said the beef was so super soft and delicious.

The naanwiches come with a side of cheese nachos, with tomato salsa. Really value for money since the naanwiches are only $10 each. Who says you can't find good quality brunch at decent prices?

 Since I don't drink coffee, I got myself a chocolate peanut butter banana milkshake (there's some offer if you get it together with the main courses, can't remember exactly but it's $1-2 off the original price). Comes with crispy wafer flakes on top. The peanut butter taste wasn't very strong, but the chocolate and banana was really intense. I was so full after drinking this.

 Since I was so full, I had to dapao the cakes - this was a coconut and mango cake, which reminds me of the Kki cake that I really like. The coconut mousse layer was really light and refreshing.

Strawberry pistacho rose tart - the rose was only in the blob of cream, but nonetheless, the tart was good - buttery moist base, fresh strawberries 

Ordinarily I would have skipped going to a new cafe if there wasn't any air-conditioning cos it's so humid and hot, but Fix has a really nice poolside view, and lots and lots of ceiling fans so it's nice windy and cool.

Another good place near Novena (sigh) which opens early and are perfect for the people who post call at 830 ;P

FIX
31 Ah Hood Road
At the HomeTeamNS Clubhouse
#01-06
Tel 62561484

St Marcs Chocoro and Dessert

I must be one of the most unenlightened people on earth - I never tried the St Marcs chocoro till very very recently. 

The croissants are really delicious - about half the size of the normal croissants, crispy exterior with many soft buttery whirls inside. 

Kicking myself cos it's really good and I would probably rate it on par with the TBB ones. Plus they're mini-sized so I can try more flavours. I tried the chocolate which was exceptionally good, and the strawberry one. I liked the strawberry filling, but I really disliked the red beans (I don't like red beans to begin with). I think it would be awesome if they could do a strawberry chocolate version. The strawberry tastes like the usual Japanese strawberry sauce (think Yan-yan kind of strawberry, which I really like). 

 They also do ice creme deserts - I had this one (can't remember I think it's Kyoto or something)  - comes with soft serve ice cream, kinako powder, warabimochi(which somehow didn't have a very good texture), mochi balls, and some butter pound cake below.

St Marc Cafe

#01-108-110 

Vivocity

1 Harbour Front Walk

Tel 62222309

Dail 10am to 10pm

Croute

Went for a post call brunch at Croute, which is the sister restaurant of the now defunct Hummerstons (which serves delicious poutines). It's located in a very very sleepy Valley Point, which has so many renovations. I don't know why people go there cos there's hardly anything to do (besides to do yoga). 

Actually, Croute only opened at 10, so we went over to Lins Smoodees first (legs too tired after not sleeping the whole night). Of course, after eating, we have negated all the antioxidant benefits of the green smoothie...

 I had the pulled pork sandwich, which had really nicely marinated pork, coleslaw and a crusty bread. Not bad ( I think this was about $13 or $14?) though it was a bit messy to eat cos of all the sauce.

Extremely messy I must emphasise - I was eating like a barbarian with my hands...

 The bread platter was better than expected - we were crazy over that green dip in the middle, which is actually edamame with truffle oil. Who would have guessed that such a combination would be so heavenly! If I have the luxury of time, and not have to sleep early, I would love to  have to buy a jar of this stuff home, lie on my sofa and watch a good movie.

The other dips were not bad, but compared to the edamame dip, paled in comparison. The babaganoush (eggplant) dip was not bad. The hummus was too garlicky for my liking (if you're looking for good hummus I would suggest Pita Pan, which has awesomely creamy hummus)

The truffle carbonara pasta looked really strange, with the egg being more of a scrambled egg - but taste wise it was tasty, with lots of truffle and mushroom.

Croute (by Hummerstons)
#01-11 Valley Point
491 River Valley Road
Tel9740781
Monday to Sunday 10am to 8pm

Assembly Coffee - Evans Road

Best thing about calls are the post calls that come with it. 

 My pulled pork and apple sandwich ($14.90) - lots of soft pulled pork, some sliced green apples (which really helped balance the heaviness of the pork) topped with smoky bbq sauce

 Hmm I think this was some muffin but I cannot remember what!

 Croissant with scrambled egg and smoked salmon ($13.90)

 Shibuya Thick toast ($12) - sugar overload with honeyed toast, ice cream, icing sugar, plus honey greek yogurt on the side. Would probably recommend that you share this cos its really a bit too sweet to be eaten by one person alone.

I don't know why thick toast hasn't really taken off in Singapore, cos it's so darn awesome. And somehow, I can never ever do it at home unless I buy some really good bread... Last time I had it was when Pasta de Waraku came up with this Hanitoast so many years ago (I'm not sure if they even have it anymore, since it was so long ago and I don't particularly like Waraku).

Buttermilk waffle with New Zealand Natural Vanilla ice cream and salted caramel sauce ($11.50). The waffle has the perfect texture (at least to me) - which is not overly hard or crispy outside, slightly fluffy and 'kueh' like texture inside. A bit like those green colour waffles you get from those neighbourhood bakery stores. 

The seating is really limited cos the place is tiny (don't know how they manage to churn out the food so fast since their kitchen is really micro mini. Food is better than expected (since it's a hipster cafe and a lot of these cafes have been disappointing me). 

Assembly Coffee
20 Evans Lodge
Tel 67355647
Closed Mondays

Santouka Ramen

The first time I tried Santouka Ramen, when it opened its flagship store in back in 2008, before smartphones (the horrors of having to live without my smart phone, GPS and internet on the go).

The pork cheeks are still as delicious as I remember them to be. The broth creamy, slightly salty (can request for less salty when you order) and has a robust pork flavour.

The pork cheek - which has one side of fats, and the other side of really soft melt in the mouth meat - it has a different texture from the regular charsiew which comes with most ramne. Also, there's black fungus, sliced spring onions, bamboo shoots and a piece of fishcake.

The noodles, like all good Japanese ramen, came al dente. The average sized bowl is pretty filling, and I was regretting having my dessert before my dinner.

I personally prefer Santouka over Ippudo, because of the pork cheek ramen, and because I like their tonkotsu broth. Plus we had dinner really late and most of the other restaurants were closed.

 The gyoza was not bad, but not spectacular, not remarkable or memorable.

The reason why we were in that part of town, was none other than to eat Ilao Ilao (at least, for me), which is my new ice cream yogurt addiction. I heard that they're opening a new branch in United Square, so all you people near Novena can go hurry down for your yogurt fix (I'm superbly envious btw!). The queue is insane at all times. But I'm such a sucker so I just queue anyway.

Santouka Ramen
Cuppage Terrace
Cuppage Road Singapore 229452
Tel 62351059
Openes from 12-3pm, 5.30-12am

Spathe - Brunch

I dropped by Spathe for a Saturday brunch as I was running errands nearby, and it seemed to have pretty good food reviews online.

Their menu - like Kilo, the menu was different from the one online. I don't know why these places don't update their websites in this day and age...

We had the eggs ben and the eggs royale. Portion was good, and the garlic fries were awesome.

My Croque Madame - which was pretty good - soft bread, enough béchamel sauce to keep everything moist but not soggy, lots of cheese and a runny sunny side up egg. And of course, the wonderful garlic fries.

The eggs benedict - with lovely garlic fries - bursting with crispy brown minced garlic. You can probably tell how much I like the garlic fries here - I'm not a big fan of plain french fries, but toss on some flavourings and I'll be unable to resist them.

The hard boiled yolk in the poached egg. Very consistent as all the yolks from all 4 of the poached eggs were hard boiled. Since we were sharing, I got 1 egg. I probably would have returned my eggs if I had to eat 2 hard boiled eggs.

Our sticky toffee pudding. The pudding itself isn't bad per say, but I really prefer my gold standard Maramalade pantry sticky date and toffee pudding. I'm definitely biased.

Again the service was a letdown - we asked if the sticky toffee pudding comes with ice cream (as being the ice cream junkies we were, we absolutely needed ice cream with it). Our server said no, it only comes with whipped cream. So we topped up a scoop of ice cream (chocolate hazelnut) and told the server that it was specifically cos there was no ice cream with the toffee pudding.

Of course, the ice cream had to come out a good 15 minutes before the toffee pudding. We sent it back cos we didn't want it all melted when the toffee pudding came.

And when it finally came out, there was a heaping huge scoop of hokeypokey ice cream on top! We called the manager over and returned the chocolate hazelnut ice cream - doesn't make sense for me to pay another $6 for ice cream since the toffee pudding already comes with it.

Extremely exasperating end to the meal.

The food's above average, prices average, service poor. I'm not sure if I will come back - I suppose if you have a whole load of patience, by all means, do come and give the food a try, it's really quite decent for the price.

Spathe 
#01-01
8 Mohamed Sultan Road
Tel 67351035
Daily 11am to 11pm

The Provision Shop

Went to try the Provision shop for a snack on a weekday afternoon. It was nice and quiet, and the food was pretty good for the price. The Everton area has lots of these quaint little cafes, and it's quite nice to explore that area. 

Blueberry lemon cake - tastes much better than it looks. I'm still not a fan of lemon. Though my other dining companions liked it

Polish Dumplings ($5)

 The polish dumpling, which had lots of fluffy potato, ricotta cheese, and some fried bacon and sour cream. Not really something that I'll be craving for, but it was pretty interesting. Haven't tried anything like this before - just carbs inside carbs topped with streaky bacon and cream.

Traditional Carbonara ($14)

The pasta noodles are all made fresh in-house, so I die die had to order a pasta dish. This is the carbonara, and it's supposedly done in a very traditional style, with just eggs and cheese (parmigiano, no less, which costs more than parmesan. You can check out this link to see what's the difference).
It wasn't really piping hot when served, so it got a bit clumpy and I thought it could have tasted much better hot.

It's really worth a try if you're in the area. Their meat based mains are all sub $20, and their pasta is made fresh in house. Do note that the restaurant is really small so you might want to call for a reservation to avoid disappointment. 

The Provision Shop
#01-79
3 Everton Park
Tel 62259931
Daily 11am - 9pm