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Loysel’s Toy

Situated away from the hustle and bustle of the city and near the greenery and river is Loysel’s Toy. It is near the city centre but is at such an obscure location that there is almost no chance of just “happening to chance upon it while out shopping”. And that makes it an ideal place for brunch!

Big L Breakfast

Hot Chocolate

The Big L Breakfast ($15) consisted of toast, chicken sausage, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, bacon, salad and poached eggs. One word could described the Big L Breakfast – bland. The chicken sausage and mushrooms were bland, under-seasoned and simply lacking in any taste. No doubt the bacon was salty, it was lacking in any fragrance. The mushrooms were dry. The entire dish was lacking some kind of sauce to tie it all together. The accompanying bread lacked the aroma and crunch of toast. On the whole, a rather disappointing breakfast.

The Hot Chocolate was decent, though not spectacular. It was like a good cup of warm, soothing milo and perhaps the most tasty item in our brunch.

Loysel’s Toy
66 Kampong Bugis

La Fondue

Classic Swiss Cheese Fondue

Arguably the most well-known cheese fondue specialty restaurant in Singapore is La Fondue. It is perhaps the 1st restaurant that comes to mind when we talk about cheese fondue in Singapore. Hence, it was quite surprising to find that we were the only customers during the entire lunch service. It just appeared like we had reserved the entire restaurant.

With a wide range of various cheese fondues, we went for the conservative option of the Classic Swiss Cheese Fondue – gruyere, emmentaler swiss cheese, garlic, white wine & kirshwasser, served with sausages, ham, seasonal vegetables and bread. If you are a cheese lover, you would definitely love this. Rich, cheesy, thick, decadent and viscous – we simply adore dipping the accompaniments into the warm bubbling cheese and seeing the strands of cheese twine around our food and forks. You could taste the exquisiteness of the cheese fondue. It wasn’t cheap mediocre cheese. But one of standard quality which was so comforting. Every mouth was full of cheesy goodness.

La Fondue
Dempsey Hill Green
25 Dempsey Road.

320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe

In most ice cream shops, we get to see an array of ice cream flavours at the display counter. We can even request to taste some of the flavours. So based on sight and taste, customers get to choose which flavour they would like to purchase. But at 320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe, there isn’t such a privilege as the ice cream is made on the spot! And that happens within 10 minutes. Freshly made ice cream right in front of eyes. Magic? Nope – just the wonders of liquid nitrogen!

Well, there aren’t any physical samples for us to choose our flavours from, customers just have to choose their flavours from a large blackboard.

Regular flavours ($4.80): banana, black currant, lemon, lime, lychee, pineapple, pink grapefruit, raspberry, summer fruit, strawberry, apple cinnamon, coffee, earl grey, ginger honey, green tea, horlicks, peanut butter, salted caramel, sweet potato, toffee vanilla, milk chocolate.

Premium flavours ($5.20): black sesame, chendol, dark chocolate, thai coconut, passion fruit.

Special flavours ($5.60): christmas horlicks, new york cheese, tim tam toh.

Supreme flavours ($6.00): black forest, tiramisu, baileys coffee, baileys chocolate, kahlua coffee, lychee martini, rum and raisins.

Once the flavour has been decided, the staff would concoct a liquid mixture and into the food mixer it goes.

320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe

320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe

Here comes the secret magical ingredient – liquid nitrogen! Since liquid nitrogen boils at negative 196°C, the liquid mixture immediately freezes into ice cream upon contact with the super cold nitrogen. And of course, the liquid nitrogen vapourizes into the surrounding air, leaving behind the freshly made ice cream.

Tim Tam Toh

We tried one of the special flavours – tim tam toh, which is essentially a vanilla based ice cream with crumbled chunks of the popular tim tam snack. We couldn’t really differentiate this liquid nitrogen made ice cream from the typical ice cream. It was a decent ice cream, but nothing too fantastic.

We took a step further and decided to customize our ice cream this time. We chose 2 flavours – peanut butter and new york cheesecake, and the staff gladly concocted this mixture for us. The ice cream turned out to be more pleasing that the 1st. At 1st bite, we immediately detected the strong saltiness of the peanut butter and as the ice cream slowly melted in out mouths, the characteristic sourness of the cheesecake emerged.

Interesting concept and a great way to see ice cream made right in front of our eyes.

320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe
#01-01, 33 Mackenzie Road

Penny University

One of the more popular brunch places in the East has got to be Penny University. It was a pretty small cafe though, which probably explained for the long waiting list.

Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon

For $12, the Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon was definitely worth every penny! There was a decent serving of poached eggs and smoked salmon, atop the sourdough toasts. The homemade hollandaise sauce was smooth, rich and slightly buttery. The poached eggs were bit undercooked though, with the egg whites a tad too raw. The smoked salmon wasn’t too salty. The thin slices easily disintegrated in our mouths. The sourdough toasts were fluffy, not too starchy or heavy. Due to the thin layer of jam, it was more towards being sweet than sour.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

The Flourless Chocolate Cake ($8.50) was very dense and packed full of chocolately goodness. The crust was very crumbly and generously dusted and covered with cocoa powder. The chocolate cake was akin to a slab of chocolate fudge. Decadent, smooth and bitter sweet chocolate to satisfy the chocoholics in us.

Penny University
402 East Coast Road

Pat and Stick’s Homemade Ice Cream Co.

Pat and Stick’s Homemade Ice Cream Co’s first retail store has opened, right here in Singapore.

Double Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwich

Double Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwich

At $7.90 each, Pat and Stick’s ice cream sandwich is slightly on the steep side. And indeed, we did feel that it wasn’t worth $7.90. The cookies were decent – crunchy, evident chocolate flavour. The ice cream was decent too – rich and and fudgy. However, putting a slab of ice cream in between 2 cookies just wasn’t worth $7.90. Coupled with the fact that the cookies and ice cream were just average standard, this concept could easily be replicated at home. Well, it is a great and convenient way to enjoy both ice cream and cookies, but the price has got to be something more reasonable.

Pat and Stick’s Homemade Ice Cream Co.
B208-04 Food Hall
Takashimaya Singapore
391 Orchard Road

The Providore

Lobster Mac & Cheese

1st look at The Providore’s Lobster Mac & Cheese ($22.50) and we immediately knew that it would not be up to our expectations. There was just a serious lack of cheese in the dish. And true enough, The Providore’s version of the American comfort food was on the creamy side and seriously lacked a good punch of cheesiness. The sauce was also too liquid-like. It would have been better if the sauce was thicker and more viscous, with the cheese binding the macaroni pieces together. In this case, it seemed like the macaroni was just mixed into the cream sauce. Macaroni wise, it was cooked al-dente. The best part of the dish were the generous chunks of lobster – fresh, slightly sweet, with a chewy texture.

The Providore
#02-05, Mandarin Gallery
333A Orchard Road

Audacious Cakery

Everton Park has slowly evolved into a mini patisserie and coffee neighbourhood, with Audacious Cakery joining its community.

Audacious Cakery

Matcha Cupcake

The Matcha Cupcake ($3.50) was possibly one of the best cupcakes we have tried. The Matcha Italian meringue buttercream wasn’t overly sweet or oily. It had a smooth and creamy texture, while exuding a rich green tea taste. This was supported by a strong, full-bodied and moist green tea cake. Every mouth was dense and rich matcha goodness. A simple cupcake at its best.

Foret Noir

The Foret Noir ($9.80) paled in comparison as it lacked a strong chocolately richness. We also didn’t quite like the gelatine-like rubbery texture of the outer coating. The cherries were probably the star of the cake – plump juicy cherries, which had been thoroughly soaked in Kirsh, exploded with flavours when we bit into them. Other than that, the Foret Noir seemed rather over-rated.

Audacious Cakery
#01-61, Blk 2 Everton Park

Drips Bakery Cafe

Drips Bakery Cafe

As the print on the window goes, Drips Bakery Cafe specializes in tarts – tarts which are freshly made every day!

Chocolate de Tart

The Chocolate de Tart was pretty decent. The inner chocolate filling was decadent, rich and very smooth. Taste wise, it maintained a mellow bitter-sweetness. This simple tart hit all the right notes but perhaps the fact that it was too predictable, this tart seemed a tad boring.

Macadamia Nuts

We just couldn’t resist the sight of these large macadamia nuts! The nuts were basically the limelight of this tart. They were extremely fresh, crunchy and fragrant – every nut lover’s Achilles’s heel! The macadamia nuts were held together by a sticky caramel glue, which wasn’t too sweet. The cake beneath was pretty bland as well. And in all, it seemed that every thing else was just a sidekick, while the star of the tart was solely the huge tantalizing macadamia nuts!

Drips Bakery Cafe
#01-05, 82 Tiong Poh Road

Tim Ho Wan 添好運

Widely touted as Hong Kong’s most famous dim sum, Tim Ho Wan has never failed to draw long crowds outside their 2 branches since the first outlet opening in March 2013 and its second outlet in September 2013. We are definitely attracted to the Michelin-backed good food, but with mixed reviews about the Singapore outlets not matching up to the Hong Kong’s standards, we stopped short of joining the horrendously long queues during the 1st couple of months of opening. And another way to escape the long queues is to visit the 2nd, off-town outlet outside of peak lunch and dinner times.

Tim Ho Wan

The menu isn’t very extensive and was presented simply on a single page. There aren’t many fanciful offerings, most of them were traditional dim sum fare.

Baked Bun with BBQ Pork 酥皮焗叉烧包

As we observed trays and trays of freshly baked BBQ pork buns being dished out from the ovens and almost every table having at least 1 serving of this, there was no doubt that the most popular dish was the Baked Bun with BBQ Pork 酥皮焗叉烧包 ($4.50 for 3). The buns were unique, and unlike any served in other dim sum restaurants. The crust was crumbly with a tinge of sweetness. The aroma of the freshly baked crumbly crust was irresistible. It wasn’t overly thick and doughy. The inner fillings of the BBQ pork wasn’t as likeable as the outer crust. The quantity of fillings wasn’t to our expectations. It was a bit too sweet as well. Texture wise, the proportion of meat seemed to be lacking, and there just wasn’t enough bite and meaty tenderness to it.

Pan Fried Carrot Cake 香煎萝卜糕

Another one of Tim Ho Wan’s Big 4 Heavenly Kings is the Pan Fried Carrot Cake 香煎萝卜糕 ($4.50 for 3). The searing on the carrot cake was adequately done – just enough to give it that extra crisp and charred flavours, without being overly burnt. The carrot cake seemed pretty soft though, as it was on the verge of disintegrating just be the mere pick up using chopsticks. And there wasn’t any dried shrimps or Chinese sausages embedded in the carrot cake – that was pretty disappointing as it made the carrot cake seemed one-dimensional and boring.

Vermicelli Roll with Pig’s Liver 黄沙猪润肠

One of the more unique items was the Vermicelli Roll with Pig’s Liver 黄沙猪润肠 ($5.50), since in Singapore, pig’s liver is not typically found in vermicelli rolls. The vermicelli roll was thin, semi-translucent, smooth and when immersed in the sauce, it was very fragrant and savoury. The fillings of pig’s liver wasn’t really our favourite, mainly due to the fact that we aren’t fans of pig’s livers to start off with. It had a queer texture and the characteristic taste of pig’s liver just didn’t go well with us.

Steam Spinach Dumpling with Shrimp 鲜虾菠菜饺

The Steam Spinach Dumpling with Shrimp 鲜虾菠菜饺 ($3.80 for 3) was pretty mediocre. The proportion of spinach was overwhelming and completely masked out any taste of prawns. It was just too much spinach and every mouth was just spinach leaves and stalks, which was just not appetizing given that the spinach was under-flavoured and the prawns were just non-existent.

Beancurd Skin Roll with Pork and Shrimp 美味燜鲜竹卷

The Beancurd Skin Roll with Pork and Shrimp 美味燜鲜竹卷 ($4 for 3) was a simple and comforting dish. The sauce was very thick and savoury. There was a good balance of pork and shrimp, with neither outshining the other. Fresh crunchy prawns with the sweet minced pork, tied together with a thin layer of beancurd skin, and drenched in a viscous thick sauce – nicely done.

Tonic Medlar and Osmanthus Cake 杞子桂花糕

The meal ended on a perfect note with a sweet and refreshing Tonic Medlar and Osmanthus Cake 杞子桂花糕 ($3.50 for 3). The jelly wasn’t too soft, was still bouncy and chewy. The wolfberries were almost like raisins, they added burst of sweetness to the jelly. The osmanthus fragrance and flavour formed the backdrop of this jelly. This cold dessert drew a perfect closure to an otherwise porky dim sum feast.

Tim Ho Wan
#02-02, ERA Centre Toa Payoh
450 Toa Payoh Lorong 6

St. Marc Cafe

(from left to right) Green Tea Latte and Hot Chocolate

Nothing like a cup of Green Tea Latte and Hot Chocolate to end a day. And St. Marc Cafe offers a decent version of both beverages.

The Green Tea Latte displayed a well balance between the characteristic bitterness of green tea and the richness from milk. The sweetness level also hit the right note and overall, a very likeable and addictive cup of green tea latte.

The Hot Chocolate, though not overwhelming strong compared to Laurent’s and Max Brenner, still carried a decent chocolately fragrance and taste. The Hot Chocolate was very comforting, in the sense that it wasn’t too heavy on the palate, yet the chocolately goodness was enough to satisfy any chocolate lover.

St. Marc Cafe
#02-105/184/185, Marina Square
6 Raffles Boulevard

Lady M

Hailing from New York City, Lady M makes its first debut in Singapore at Marina Square! Decked in a white-washed and spacious shop space, Lady M has been drawing a steady flow of crowd with its signature Mille Crêpe cake. Straying away from the mainstream folks, we skipped the Mille Crêpe and headed for another 2 cakes which appealed more to us.

Banana Mille Feuilles

Raspberry Chocolate

Banana Mille Feuilles ($8) – puff pastry, whipped cream with layers of vanilla sponge and bananas. Though the Banana Mille Feuilles looked overwhelmingly overladen with cream, the whipped cream turned out to be pretty light, surprisingly refreshing and not oily, and came with a tinge of sweetness. The soft airy cream, together with the slightly moist vanilla sponge, was a good complement to the fragrant, flaky puff pastry. And with the bananas adding the extra bite to the cake, this Banana Mille Feuilles was pretty unique and interesting.

Raspberry Chocolate ($7.50) – chocolate ganache layers with raspberry puree. The only chocolate cake on display for the day, the Raspberry Chocolate looked pretty nondescript and common to the rest of the cakes. But it did stand out as the only dark cake on display. The dark chocolate ganache was very rich, dense and sticky. The bitter-sweetness hit the right note, with the top raspberry glaze and raspberry puree within the cake providing sufficient acidity and sourness to cut through the richness of the chocolate. There were also bits of gianduja-laced feuilletine which added bursts of crunchiness to the cake. A decadent chocolate cake for the chocolate lover.

Lady M
#02-103, Marina Square Shopping Centre
6 Raffles Boulevard

Smoulder

Smoulder specializes in molten chocolate cakes – to be more specific, bite-sized molten chocolate cakes!

(from left to right) Intense Dark Chocolate, White Chocolate Oreo, Milk Chocolate Rum and Raisin

At price of $8.20 for 3, we had the Intense Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate Rum and Raisin as well as the seasonal White Chocolate Oreo.

The cores of the mini cakes weren’t as fluid-like and molten as we had imagined. In fact, a better description would be soft-core, not molten core. The White Chocolate Oreo didn’t really have a strong Oreo taste. The outer cake was rather soft, moist and heavy – almost reminiscent of Chinese kueh. Taste wise, there was a very rich buttery taste, nothing of white chocolate.

The Milk Chocolate Rum and Raisins were slightly more up to expectations. There was an evident, though faint, rum flavour. The juicy, rum-soaked raisins embedded within the cake provided additional burst of flavours and textures. However, the outer cake was pretty bland and lackluster.

The Intense Dark Chocolate was really intense. The strong bitterness from the 70% cocoa content hit us immediately at the 1st bite. The soft core was rich and definitely more molten-like compared to the previous two. Terms of taste and texture, the Intense Dark Chocolate hit all the right notes.

Smoulder
B1-68, Raffles City Shopping Centre
252 North Bridge Road

Toby’s Estate

Brunch at Toby’s Estate!

Toby’s Estate

Situated amongst the private condos at Roberston quay is Toby’s Estate – a name synonymous with good coffee and all-day-breakfast.

Toby’s Breakfast

We went for the crowd favourite’s Toby’s Breakfast ($18) – bard laid eggs (poached), espresso maple bacon, roasted cherry tomatoes, sauteed mixed mushrooms, brioche toast and classic hollandaise sauce (+$2). It was a pretty sight – a hearty breakfast full of colours and flavours. The espresso maple bacon was pretty unique – on 1st bite, the saltiness was pretty mild but there was a strong charred fragrance. With each gradual chew, the saltiness started to intensify. Complementing the bacon and mushrooms together with the bread  significantly reduced the saltiness. The hollandaise sauce was smooth, creamy and buttery, but not overly rich. The poached eggs were perhaps the most disappointing element of the breakfast. It was overcooked and the egg yolk had already tended towards a slightly solid curd, rather than it being an oozy liquid. And sadly, the lettuce which was placed beneath all the elements had turned into a soggy mess after absorbed all the oil from the bacon and mushrooms.

On the whole, it was still a delightful fulfilling breakfast set from Toby’s Estate.

Toby’s Estate
#01-03/04, 8 Rodyk Street

Strangers’ Reunion

Baked Eggs in Shakshuka

Brunch session at Strangers’ Reunion saw us trying the Baked Eggs in Shakshuka ($17). Shakshuka is a Tunisian/Moroccan dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, onions, and various spices. This dish was more soupy than we thought, as we had expected a thicker and more gooey gravy. The middle-easten origins were quite evident as the shakshuka was accentuated with lots of spices, with the sour tomato-based sauce forming the backdrop. The eggs were pretty raw – on the surface, the egg white seemed cooked, but within the soup, the egg white were still in its original raw colourless form. It seemed like the egg was only cracked and added onto the shakshuka after the dish was removed from the oven. Still, the soupy shakshuka did make an interesting middle-eastern flavoured dip for the accompanying bread.

Matcha Azuki

Be it brunch, lunch or dinner, we can never escape the temptations of having a cake to end our meal. The Matcha Azuki ($7.50) wasn’t too sweet though, as it exhibited the characteristic bitter green tea flavours. This cake consisted of alternating layers of matcha sponge and matcha cream. It was rather light, typical of a Japanese-inspired cake. The red beans embedded in the matcha cream provided that slight additional crunch and sweetness to the cake. Overall, there wasn’t much surprises to the cake – a straightforward matcha cake, everything that you can expect.

Strangers’ Reunion
33/35/37 Kampong Bahru Road