Sarnies

It's not often I get the luxury of a leisurely weekday breakfast. When the opportunity came up, I dragged B to check out Sarnies. Such a cute name for a sandwich!

The cafe was pretty empty when we got there at 9am but it started filling up very quickly. It's a small cafe atlong Telok Ayer Road - bright and cheery with cosy seats - looks a lot like the other coffee joints, actually.


We got two coffees and two breakfast sarnies (I love the word!) to try. B has pretty high standards for his daily brew, so it must be good when he approves of his latte. I enjoyed my long black too - although I'm quite indiscriminate with my caffeine, so I'm easy to please.

When the sarnies came, I was bowled over by their sheer size. "I'm going to have to doggy-bag half of this", I announced, digging into the massive pile.

The bread makes a world of difference in a sandwich and the bread at Sarnies (baked inhouse) was excellent. I loved it. I also loved the creamy scrambled egg and generous slices of smoked salmon in my sarnies. B had the bacon and egg sarnie. He liked it, although i must say my sarnie was way more photogenic than his.

I'm definitely coming back for lunch. This time, I will be less greedy and share a sarnie.

Antoinette

My sis is quite mad about all day breakfasts, cakes and pretty pastries. So when I asked her to suggest a venue for a we-are-on-half-day-leave-(yippee) lunch, I wasn’t exactly surprised when “Antoinette!” came up. Antoinette has had a lot of press lately, apparently it’s opened by Chef Pang from Canele and he sounds like a master of desserts. I was definitely psyched to check out the place.

I love it when nice joints like these open up in the east. Penhas Road is quite an obscure area but it’s very near my place. It looks quite out of place amidst its semi-industrial neighbours, but once you walk in, what a lovely setting!

White walls and wood fittings, plush velvet chairs and huge floral arrangements. Copious trays of pastries and meringues. Neat rows of beautiful cake creations that ALL look so good!

It was like walking into wonderland, Sis and I were quite impressed. It was fortunate we had reservations, because the place was packed for a weekday lunchtime crowd.

I am amazed by the amount of food we ordered AND polished off. Sis wanted her favourite French toast (for lunch?) and I wanted something savoury so I ordered the marinara pasta. We also ordered the parma ham and cheese crepe.

I went “wow” when the French toast came. It looked and tasted absolutely delish. The salted caramel and chantilly cream combination was amazing. Definitely something I’ll order again in a heartbeat.

The pasta fared well too. It was cooked al dente with just the right sauce consistency. They were generous with the seafood and I loved the spicy kick in the sauce. Try it.

The crepe looked pretty and it was nice bursting the molten yolk in the centre. Tastewise I found it lacking, the ham was not flavourful and the crepe wasn’t outstanding. Would skip this the next time.

You know what they say about girls having a different stomach for desserts. It’s true. Both Sis and I were stuffed but we couldn’t resist ordering a cake each. At $9 each for the Antoinette and the Tart Cafe Caramel, the cakes were expensive. But they looked so pretty and tasted so good! I really liked the sea salt caramel of the Tart Café Caramel, but the Antoinette’s earl grey infused chocolate mousse and crumble, as well as the raspberry coulis (oohh it oozes when pierced) left a deeper impression.

Overall it was a lovely afternoon and quality time spent gorging with my dear Sis. Would I recommend this place? Most definitely.