Jimmy Monkey Cafe & Bar, One North Residences

 Solaris near Fusionopolis (One-North) isn't exactly the best place to get stranded on a Saturday morning because the oddly-located-brunch place you were initially looking for is closed. Luckily for us,  spotted this place on HGW the night before, and a phone call later to confirm that they were open, we were on our way!

Thankfully it was only 10 minutes walk away from Solaris in the blistering heat.

 Jimmy Monkey is a little no-frills cafe housed within the One North Residences complex.

 First thing that struck us was the high ceiling and kinda minimalistic design the place had going on. Second thing was how packed the place was despite the location, though granted it was a Saturday morning. Third thing was this coffee roaster that looked kinda like a cartoon train!

 This contraption took about half the interior space of the cafe, haha. OK the place isn't that small - cozy, more like!

 You get to choose from the breakfast menu, and so I decided on the Breakfast Sandwich (no fancy names or overpromises here!). I was sold on bacon, egg, avocado and rocket. Was quite a substantial sandwich too, and even comes with a small serving of crisps. My meal even attracted the attention of a nearby diner :)

 As the name suggests, this is a soft fluffy ciabatta with everything you would normally have in an american breakfast, in a sandwich! And yes the combination of tomato, avocado, bacon, egg, rocket and relish in a single bite works, awesome and yummy and even the chips were great.

{ Breakfast Sandwich ($12) }

Rocket, bacon, egg, Roma tomato, avocado & Kay's relish

 I was famished so I went for the full cooked breakfast - at $18 they were surprisingly generous with their portions and variery! Three nice thick fluffy toast with jam and butter, two eggs done any way humanly possible, and three sides out of around 10-12 you can choose from. You can add additional sides for around $4 - $5 each, so the set overall is actually pretty worth it.

The chorizo and mushrooms were AWESOME, so simple yet packed with flavour, and nothing quite like having awesome rocket for breakfast. Eggs were great poached but I'd get an omelette or something the next time!

{ Full cooked breakfast with 2 eggs any style, 3 toast, 3 sides ($18) }

I got poached eggs, chorizo, rocket salad and sage mushrooms

 And coffee's great. Perfect brunch!

 Oh good heavens. The coffee was really good in my opinion - kinda brought me back to the loungey cafe days in NZ/OZ. The flat white was full bodied but at the same time not too intense. If I could drink this everyday I'd be a very awake happy, bushy-tailed bunny.

{ Flat white }

 Being in a service apartment style place, the place was packed with expats and kids in batsuits. Presumably the locals either live nearby or are from NUS, but even if you don't live nearby I think the warm service and great brunch food deserves a visit either way.

 This place seems to fill up pretty quickly so get in early and while the morning away with a good cuppa and hearty breakfast. Remember it's the most important meal of the day :) Oh one thing I loved is their stash of food magazines which you can happily browse while eating!

HGW Link (74% recommended at time of writing) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/Jimmy_Monkey_Cafe___Bar/

Rating (out of 4) : 

Barcook Bakery, OUB Centre

After a sumptuous healthy lunch, I headed to pack buns from the legendary Barcook Bakery at OUB Centre. Apparently it's a rather new branch, and one of best places to open it too - this place is absolutely THRONGED with queues throughout the day, with lunchtime reaching it's peak length. You know it's good when investment bankers and important city centre people are willing to take 5-10 minutes out of their lunch breaks to queue for a bun - this place is that good.

This place is most well known for their raisin cream cheese buns, with bread so fluffy it demands this :-

-: to be played everytime you bite into it. It's so fluffy it's bordering on sponge cake, but yet still juicy and bursting with generous sweet cream cheese. Best taken when piping hot, and the bakery knows how popular it is and so always has tons of hot ones in line. Only $1.30, what the heck.

They also lots of interesting other buns in stock, I overheard the people behind me raving on about the nacho potato mash bun. This unsuspecting little round bun houses a dual chamber of nacho cheese dip with potato mash, which fuse together in symphonic harmony upon biting - yum. Only $1.40.

The cucumber satay chicken didn't house any surprises - cucumber bits over a cheese glaze with satay sauce chicken inside - it's like multiple satay sticks jammed into one bun, very generous with the chicken, really good, only $1.40.

All buns must be tried!

HGW Link : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/barcook_bakery_raffles_place/

ReStore, Tanjong Pagar

It was a dark afternoon, half starved and grumpy and with the flying spaghetti monster threatening rain on our heads, we were still determined to check out this nifty little hideout called ReStore.

Part vintage-furniture store, part cafe, this tiny establishment is located in Tanjong Pagar. One blink of an eye and you may miss this place.

We stepped in and were greeted by a single Japanese woman, who capably managed customers who were viewing the furniture as well as minding the kitchen. Later we found out that she started out purely on the furniture sales, but then was convinced to bring in her own homemade bagels and waffles to sell to customers. These food are served atop tables which you can later purchase if you take a fancy to it.

The menu is limited, but each item executed well. Famished, we ordered:

Wholewheat bagel with maple syrup walnut cream cheese ($5.50).

Note the wooden board it is served in. The bagel was slightly over toasted (we heard "oh-no!"s and scraping of excessive burnt bagel-parts in the kitchen) but was both crunchy and chewy. The cream cheese was very yummeh! The sweet and salty combination and the occasional crunch of the walnut was perfect.

We also ordered waffles!

We waited so long for this dish, but found out it was handmade from scratch. While we were expecting a huge pile of waffles bathed in maple syrup, this was not meant to be. What we got was actually even better! The waffles were slightly crispy on the outside, and exceedingly fluffy inside. It comes with a little pot of syrup and some whipped cream on the side. We also got an extra scoop of vanilla ice cream to go with it. This was just simplicity done perfectly. While these may be some of the best waffles I've ever had, I wouldn't pay $12 for this again.

Might be worth a revisit if we are in the area. Otherwise, items are slightly pricey and as mentioned, limited. Probably not a full fledged lunch place - more like a nothing-to-do-on-a-Sunday-and-I've-got-$20-to-splurge-on-waffles-and-bagels-and-tea place.

HGW Link : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/ReStore_Cafe/

Hatched, Evans Lodge

Despite located slightly out of the way, we decided to hop on a bus and brave the increasingly heavy drizzle to have breakfast at Hatched. As you would guess, the menu consists of eggs prepared in a number of ways - fried, scrambled, omelette-ed.

The decor of the place was pretty simple and cute, basically it was all chickens and eggs. Nice little S&P shakers and a little M.C Escher going there.

Much like Ryder's cafe at Turf Club, Evans Lodge is freakin' outta the way if you don't have a car. And as expected, the crowd here falls into a slightly higher income bracket (atas).

I had the Burly Benedict - Eggs Benedict with corned Wagyu beef hash and Mornay sauce - set me back about $17. Standard pricing here for Eggs Benedict was about $12 for one and $17 for two. Breakfast here ain't cheap! Granted, the eggs were perfectly poached and yolky when prodded - which went so well with the salty corned beef on the english muffin. Everything was pretty melt in the mouth though i found the Mornay sauce a dash too salty. Along with the muffins came a little greens, sauteed potatoes and caramelized onions. It was good but I definitely will not pay $17 for this again @.@

I had the Smoked Royale - same deal but with smoked salmon and Hollandaise (the standard issue Eggs Benedict sauce) instead of beef. The salmon was a tad bit soggy and not very inspiring - the Hollandaise sauce was a bit off too. There was just something not quite ... right with this dish! In my book the only way to eat smoked salmon is with capers, sour cream and cream cheese on a bagel.

Colours were nice though - this one came with potato mash instead.

All in all I think the eggs benedict were good but the price / portion / taste ratio was off whack. That and the drizzle -> rain as we walked back to the bus stop, along with the noisy smokey roads on a Saturday morning kinda played negatively to Hatched's favour as well. Don't think we'll be back again!

HGW Link : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/hatched/