Café Hopping

Happy to see Five Oars back in Tanjong Pagar! They now have a brand new space along Tanjong Pagar Road, the same stretch as the many Korean restaurants.

Sat down and immediately went for this Mentaiko Mac & Cheese that I missed a lot! It’s hearty, rich and cheesy, but not too salty. You also get small chunks of prawns and roe on top for extra texture. Would have just liked the top crust to be a bit more charred for the crunch, but still very shiok to have! It’s slightly more expensive now than I remember, but the portion somehow seems a bit bigger too.

Smoked salmon and cream cheese spread in a bagel. Unfortunately, the bagel was a bit too tough. We preferred the Bikini Sandwich ($13).

There’s 1 for 1 here with Burpple Beyond for a couple of different deals like mains, pastry + coffee, etc.

Nothing too fancy, it’s a classic combination of thinly sliced ham and cheese in between bread. Much preferred this to the Smoked Salmon Bagel ($14). Bread was toasted to a good crisp. This was served with a side of chips which can be a little too much as a whole, but think you might be able to request for salad instead here!

There’s 1 for 1 here with Burpple Beyond for a couple of different deals like mains, pastry + coffee, etc.

Popped by Missus, a new Muslim-owned cafe in Jalan Besar. Their whole space is super cute!

If you’re craving for something cheesy, they have 6 types of grilled cheese sandwiches. Missus Melt is one of their signatures that has a combination of a 4 cheese blend + truffle paté, sides of roasted garlic tomato soup and sweet chili tapioca chips. It’s super rich as a whole and I’d personally like it much less salty, but they did the sandwich very nicely crunchy. Look at the cheese ooze! Definitely best to share this.

Fun creation! This seasonal was meant to come with a sesame ciabatta bun, but since they ran out, we had it with their croissant - filling was strips of sweet-savory bacon bak kwa, cheddar, lettuce, spicy Japanese mayo and a clever contrasting touch of pickled radish to cut through the heavier elements.

Was watching @koreanenglishman’s video on their new toasts last night and just HAD to find somewhere to satisfy the craving for toast / something cheesy or crunchy for brunch today 😂 Googled and we went right to Sanity Coffee Bar!

The toastie had a trio mushroom filling made with portobello, white mushrooms and shiitake + cheese sandwiched between well-toasted slices of butter herb bread. You also get a simple salad and a side of black pepper chips. Thought this was pretty reasonably priced for its portion and was tasty too, except that the mushroom flavour was much more pronounced than the cheese - I’d prefer a slightly better balance.

Was a good brunch overall! Only gripe was that the food took quite a while to prepare - we didn’t really mind it though, since we kept ourselves occupied with the cute coloring activity that’s provided on each table heh.

Pork sausage patty with scrambled eggs, ketchup-mayo in a brioche bun, plus mesclun salad and a super crispy hash brown on the side. We topped up for sautéed mushrooms ($4.50) too. Saw comparisons of this to the upz version of McD’s sausage mcmuffin 😂 Got to say that everything here was done spot on for us, but best to share cause it might get just a tiny bit heavy.

Was so funny cause we definitely didn’t expect such a huge portion when we ordered this. I’m typically not a fan of thick-cut fries, but they do theirs very crunchy! Was a tiny bit salty, but nothing else to fault with the generous rich mentaiko sauce + furikake - loved it!

Was in the East & finally removed The Brewing Ground from our bookmarked list to try. While it was indeed pricey, we did enjoy the food a lot! It was a very hearty late lunch in a chill space.

The usual scrambled eggs on sourdough brunch dish but zhng-ed up with ikrua, lime crema and a heap of sautéed crabmeat. Sourdough was a bit hard and got a little soggy halfway through, so perhaps good to separate them to keep the crunch. Other than that, the eggs were silky smooth, crabmeat was flavourful + there were those extra pops of ikura to top it off! Yummm.

The Brewing Ground’s definitely worth checking out and if you’re coming by on a weekday, make sure to just reserve! We were here on a random weekday afternoon and it was still pretty packed.

Couldn’t resist to swing by this new rooftop cafe near home at Hillview! Their indoor seats are in a photogenic red-white tiled space, while if you’re outdoors, there’s the greenery view (but it gets quite hot). The menu has both cafe staples and a number of fusion/local-inspired dishes.

The chili crab sauce base was mostly tomatoey with a sweeter tang. We didn’t get much of the chilli crab flavour and the poached egg could be more runny. Fried mantous had a great crunch though! It was a miss for us but it might be just our plate, as I know friends who’ve had a good experience.

Despite the queue - we waited just about 20min, the service was attentive and warm. Perhaps good to hold from visiting now though, to let the crowd ease out!

This was the main I enjoyed most out of the three we had. Iberico Duroc pork that was sous-vide then grilled, paired with a mustard and citrus sauce. Sides were pumpkin puree and charred cauliflower. This cut of pork is more fatty, but the appetising sauce balanced it out. The juiciness was well locked in and meat had a good bite.

Thank you Willa, Sam & @riderscafe for having us, and @fatpigdiary for the kind invite! ✨

Riders has monthly specials and one of them for April is this pan-seared European seabass with roasted potatoes and long beans. The seabass sits on a zesty butter-based sauce made with lots of citrusy elements like pineapples and oranges, that nicely helped to bring up the acidity. The fish was decently tender, just found the dish a touch bit oilier.

Thank you Willa, Sam & @riderscafe for having us, and @fatpigdiary for the kind invite! ✨