Singapore style

Published on November 16, 2007

Toast Box is a Singaporean-style breakfast eatery, offering toast with jam and butter, traditional sweet honey-flavoured kaya and warm yuan yang – a special mix of coffee and milk tea that is typical to Chinese restaurants in Singapore.

Toast Box is reminiscent of an old-style Singaporean breakfast eatery, where you can enjoy a slow start to the day, starting with toast with jam and butter, and traditional sweet honey-flavoured kaya. Then wash it all down with a cup of warm yuan yang - a special mix of coffee and milk tea that is typical to Chinese restaurants in Singapore.

 "We wanted to bring the old-style atmosphere back when we established Toast Box first in Singapore," explains Mathuros Wongpradoo, operation manager of BreadTalk Thailand, who oversees BreadTalk bakeries and the Toast Box shop in Bangkok. BreadTalk is a big Singaporean restaurateur whose first Bangkok bakery was launched with the opening of Siam Paragon.

Toast Box at CentralWorld is inside the BreadTalk bakery, which serves special toast, set breakfast, other snacks, as well as old-style drinks. It makes a perfect spot for catching up with friends.

 "We have a breakfast set which is typical to the Singaporean cuisine," says Mathuros. "Singaporeans usually have toast with kaya, two poached eggs served with special dark and thick soy sauce along with your choice of hot or cold drinks of tea, coffee with milk or yuan yong if you want to."

A set of those delicious things is Bt90, or you can choose from items on the normal menu such as a soft bun inserted with he bi hiam (savoury shrimp) or thick toast with choices of peanut butter or kaya.

Mathuros joined BreadTalk when the bakery opened two years ago. She went on to receive extensive experience on the job, where she was exposed to the company's ways of baking and preparing toast, she says while slow toasting pieces of bread. She also learned the subtle art of how to properly poach eggs.

"You must try our eggs with our special dark soy sauce," says Mathuros. "The sauce is thicker than the usual soy sauce, it is slightly sweet and salty and most importantly, it clings well to the egg, thus enhancing the taste of each bite very well."

Toast Box does more than toast and eggs, although their freshly baked breads are all but impossible to resist. Simple, yet hard to find, dishes like mee siam, Bt65, is a typical snack dish of Malaysia of rice vermicelli loaded with rich savoury sauce that is tangy for its tamarind juice and chilli paste. It comes with half of a hard-boiled egg and sprinkles of crispy fried tofu.

The place usually has a special promotion on chosen snacks. When we visited, they were offering Thai-style tauhu (Bt50), which is fried cubes of tofu topped with sweet and sour sauce and pumpkin and yam cakes (Bt45).

For those who have frequented Singapore and like their staple barley drink, you can find it, hot and cold, at Toast Box for Bt40. Many claim that the drink is helpful in relieving symptoms if you have a cold - its nourishing natural elements are all good for your health.

People at Toast Box prepare the drink daily, fresh from dried barley grains and patiently simmered for at least two hours before serving it with softened barley grains for those to like to munch something healthy along with it.

Toast Box's other dishes include toast with various toppings like peanut butter. Thick slices of French toast with honey (Bt38) are also a good treat for any time of day.

Toast Box

A 308-309, third floor, CentralWorld

Daily, 10am to 10pm

(02) 613 1482

Sirin P Wongpanit  

For more review visit www.ohsirin.blogspot.com.