Oops, I forgot that I intended to split Singapore into two sections, one about street life, and the other specifically for coffee. Guess I should post that now before I get distracted by my Japan adventures!
I started compiling my Singapore list quite a while ago, and one of the recommendations actually came from some coffee people while I was in Dubai. That was Common Man Coffee, and in a stroke of luck, my accommodation was nearby so I knew that if all else failed, I’d have an easily accessible cafe if I ran out of places to visit. Being part of the 5 Senses group, I also know that it’d have a certain level of reliability to it.
What I didn’t anticipate was the late opening times of cafes here. By late, I mean 7:30am. Some other cafes opened even later than that! It was probably the biggest shock to my system here, since I’m used to cafes being open before I’m awake back in Aus.
The prices here are pretty insane too. Breakfast and two coffees cost me about 40SGD, and my conclusion is that Australia does the best Aussie brunch!
The first thing I noticed about Common Man was how spacious it was. There was a lot of floor area and a whole variety of tables – some benches against the windows for people watching, a massive round table, other communal tables and my favourite, seats at the bar.
I went for two coffees – espresso and filter, since they’re my measure of a cafe. The espresso was the Ethiopia Ardi, which wasn’t too surprising, considering it’s one of 5 Senses’ main beans. Nice and bold.
The filter was considered a special one, and it was the Costa Rica Las Lajas red honey. I don’t know exactly how special it is, since I had it back in Perth too. The filter was done really well and I loved the flavour!
At some point early on, I told the barista that I liked their machine (Synesso MVP Hydra… which seem to be popping up everywhere now), so this happened:
I ended up with a cold brew and a nitro cold brew too! That’s far too much coffee and it was only the morning of day one in Singapore! Plus considering I’m not a fan of cold coffee… but it was still great to try all the different things.
And brekky. This was actually really delicious, even though I say that Aus cafes are better. It was filling and tasty, especially as it was a vegetarian plate! It was far too expensive though…
On another visit, I decided to try their milk coffees, because I became curious as to what these tasted like. The cup it was served in was alarmingly big, probably 12oz? It was hard for me to tell the exact volume, all I knew was that I didn’t want that much coffee.
Some fluffy pancakes. Again it tasted pretty good, though this was my second choice. I had wanted baked eggs and ricotta, but their oven wasn’t working/ready that morning which is how I ended up choosing this instead.
Next up, a place called Nylon Coffee roasters. This place is amazing because getting here was quite the journey for me. It was straightforward enough, except that I was wandering through a housing complex that looked like it belonged to old people – the kind where the apartments look old on the outside and there’s washing hanging from above.
While there were shop fronts at the ground level, a lot of them were also dodgy looking (though by dodgy I mean similar to hawker markets), so probably little family run shops for the residents. How could a specialty coffee shop possibly exist here? Plus I had to walk back and forth before I was able to zone in on exactly where Google was telling me to go – the dot didn’t indicate which side of the apartments the front entrance would be.
Finally, after passing it at first, I confirmed that the N/C sign was indeed for Nylon. And what a cosy little space this is! Very cute with a communal standing table, and also a roastery tucked away called the Maillard Project. They roast their own beans here, so I tried out a filter and an espresso (so totally my standard now).
This San Jose, Nicaragua was really enjoyable! It was right on the cusp of juiciness where I think there could have been a little bit more brought out, but very delicious nonetheless since I could taste its potential. I love it!
A Kenya Kainamui on filter. With so many Kenyan coffees that also start with K, it gets hard to keep track (so far Kagumoini is my favourite), but this one was deliciously strawberry flavoured! Great stuff!
And of course with my orders and my questions, the owner was enthusiastically asking me about coffee back in Perth, so I gave her a small list of my favourite cafes (but did I put Modus down?? This is now bothering me because it’s my favourite Perth cafes – beats Pixel by only a small margin), and then she gave me recommendations for coffee in Singapore! Good trade! It turns out there are a few in this area, so I decided now would be a good time to drop by one on her list, though I was a little worried about my coffee tolerance.
Stranger’s Reuinion is the name of this cafe. Very hipster, and has this really nice glass communal table. Since I was at my coffee limit, I decided a piccolo would be my last coffee for the day. It was quite nice, a tad strong, but only because my piccolo preference is quite specific and the drink can taste vastly different depending on bean (and sometimes it really feels like a double shot).
A crab cake! With stuff! Like asparagus, avocado, egg, salmon roe. Of course I had to get it! Especially because I needed to start padding out all that coffee. Again, expensive, but it was quite nice.
These guys have a nice looking menu, it was kind of Market Lane like in terms of font and design (the horizontal bars above and below). Not only did they have coffee and food, but their tea menu actually looked like they put effort into their teas. I wasn’t disappointed! This white tea came in a lovely set, except I don’t understand why there were two little cups. I either didn’t know what the tea etiquette was, or, this was just fancy? Either way, this tea was great.
Next on my list? VXX Collective. now this oozes hipster. The marble tables, the Aesop bottles, it was all so hipster artsy, with a dash of the “I just set this up as a temporary station” kind of look. That’s the vibe I got from the bench that the coffee machine was sitting on, as well as the visible water filtration system (with Matt Perger’s EK sticker stuck on it). I thought it was just the front, but they also have an open air back dining area, where the kitchen lives too. It’s a very sleek place, and has great coffee.
I don’t remember who this was roasted by, but it’s the Chelelectu, Ethopia, as espresso and milk. The shot looked really short, and the milk cup was just larger than a piccolo, so both had a strong flavour.
Decided to order the chilli crab omelette while I was here, since it was unlikely that I’d actually get the chance to eat singapore chilli crab. This was delicious! It did burn a bit, but it’s not that spicy. For the most part, I could still taste the coffee through this.
And Koppi roasters makes an appearance here! A Tanzania Majinja. Since I was slightly burning, I think the fig tasting note was there, though it was definitely harder to tell!
Don’t you love these little coasters for the coffee?
Candour Coffee was next, and this one went onto my list from one of my Perth Baristas, because the owner here had visited my local cafe. These guys have guest roasters rotating, so today it was Square Mile. The owner was away at MICE though.
The Colombia Las Brisas, tasting really good! The flavour of the milk coffee was also quite close to what I get in Aus, which I was really pleased with. I noticed they used Meiji milk, and after paying attention, I think most of the cafes I visited use that.
Went for the egg sandwich option too… which caught me off guard because I was expecting a sandwich… when in fact it was a roll! Well, same same but different :)
When there’s a Panama coffee, I tend to want to try it. Especially when it’s by a roaster I haven’t tried before. Here’s the Panama Boquete by Amano. I was actually surprised because it tasted dark. For some reason I just wasn’t expecting it.
Because I had ordered a second filter coffee, the Ethiopia Wegida from Square Mile, which tasted better, I decided to take a side by side shot:
Panama on the left, Ethiopia on the right. Luckily I had some nice backlighting, so I could compare these two. They looked roughly the same to me. So then I looked at the Amano bag – and the roast date was back in January! Maybe that’s why it tasted not quite right! That being said, there were still some really nice fruity flavours coming through (it was a natural processed coffee) so I was impressed that it held up so well over time!
Drinking so many coffees so many days in a row is pretty damaging to my heart. But it was my last day. so I did my best to drink responsibly. This was on the Nylon Roaster’s barista’s list, a place called The Botanist. She recommended searching it with the word “pacamara” otherwise the results wouldn’t show this cafe. A nice little place which I think was near the rich part just outside Chinatown (where Burnt Ends is), and they roast their own coffee (Pacamara roasters, that is, because they’re the one and the same).
The coffee for some reason took a really long time to come out – while I didn’t ask to check up on my coffee, it definitely felt like they’d forgotten my order. That being said, it did actually come out without me needing to do anything (and the waitstaff didn’t give me an update) so not sure what happened there.
This was a Kenya Gatina Peaberry. Not really too memorable, but it’s hard to complete with some of the top end Kenyan coffees out there.
I was about dying, so I was debating whether to skip coffee altogether and take a trip to 2AM Dessert Bar by Janice Wong, or to go to one last cafe. In the end I decided a cafe visit was more worthwhile… but of course, as luck would have it, there was a lot of coffee to choose from… so I decided that enduring the symptoms of heart palpitations and shallow breath and general dehydration and faintness would be worth it.
I ordered a Honduras COE #17 El Matazano, roasted by Two Degrees North (which was okay but not mind blowing, but hard to tell why at this point), and also, since they had three blends, the barista recommended a cappuccino of the Calderra blend (can’t remember what was in it).
I had to order food to try and cope with the amount of coffee I had, and barely got through this. Some really delicious fried chicken on an okay spring onion and corn pancake.
That chicken! So juicy!
And thus ends my Singapore coffee adventures. There are some great cafes out there, and their filter coffees are great. Espressos are quite good, though Sydney’s still my favourite place for espresso. The milk coffees… stick to Australia :)