Today I was feeling very grouchy and sulking away in the car refusing to choose a place to eat, so it was lucky that *Shinta could read my mind and know that the best thing to do was to head straight for Dempsey to cheer me up. There's something about the sight of spaceous white bungalows surrounded by lush greenary that just cheers me up. Lured by the smell of good coffee, my bad mood dissipated once I stepped into Jones.
This was our 3rd attempt at getting a table here. On our previous 2 tries, we had unfortunately arrived after 12.30pm on a weekend, and the place was packed packed packed. Today at barely 11.30am, we even had the luxury of choosing whether to sit inside (air conditioned, wonderful smell of fresh coffee brewing, but shared wooden tables) or outside (breezy view of green trees, nice view of the other white bungalows, blue sky!!! but ants, counter like seats and view slightly obstructed by parked cars barely 1m away). What tipped the scales was the presence of little kids sitting inside and making not-so-little noises. *Shinta and I headed outside right away.
A few weeks ago, we had been eating at Culina just a stone throw away (literally) and was lured into checking out Jones as our next possible hangout. The place is what I would call a high-class bakery / coffee store, filled with tons of baked melt-in-your-mouth delights.
(I had my Canon Ixus with me today, and so was slightly trigger happy)
One of the things I knew I had to order was coffee. It was a pleasant surprise when my milk coffee came with an ice-cream. The sweet milky mixture thankfully didn't drown the rich coffee taste.
When we asked the waitress what she recommended, she didn't even hesitate to suggest the full breakfast. Given that we had also seen (on our previous try-to-get-table-but-got-turned-away visits) many others ordering it, my expectations for this were pretty high. I'm not sure if its just my tastes being slightly different, but it was unfortunately not what I expected.
We would have preferred the tomato to be grilled a little longer and softer. (yes, "we". When it comes to food, we are very very Singaporean in our habits and tend to share meals, especially when we go somewhere new. If its an old favourite however and I know exactly what I want, God forbid if *Shinta tries to touch my food!!!!!) We love runny yolks and hence had ordered the poached eggs. Unfortunately we weren't too fond of the vinegar on it, nor were we fond of the too thick and yucky tasting white. The bread was sourdough (not my fav), and not warm enough for the slab of butter on it to melt right away.
One thing we did like though, was the bacon. Liked it enough to order an extra side portion of it. Look how greedy we were:
This was our 3rd attempt at getting a table here. On our previous 2 tries, we had unfortunately arrived after 12.30pm on a weekend, and the place was packed packed packed. Today at barely 11.30am, we even had the luxury of choosing whether to sit inside (air conditioned, wonderful smell of fresh coffee brewing, but shared wooden tables) or outside (breezy view of green trees, nice view of the other white bungalows, blue sky!!! but ants, counter like seats and view slightly obstructed by parked cars barely 1m away). What tipped the scales was the presence of little kids sitting inside and making not-so-little noises. *Shinta and I headed outside right away.
A few weeks ago, we had been eating at Culina just a stone throw away (literally) and was lured into checking out Jones as our next possible hangout. The place is what I would call a high-class bakery / coffee store, filled with tons of baked melt-in-your-mouth delights.
(I had my Canon Ixus with me today, and so was slightly trigger happy)
One of the things I knew I had to order was coffee. It was a pleasant surprise when my milk coffee came with an ice-cream. The sweet milky mixture thankfully didn't drown the rich coffee taste.
When we asked the waitress what she recommended, she didn't even hesitate to suggest the full breakfast. Given that we had also seen (on our previous try-to-get-table-but-got-turned-away visits) many others ordering it, my expectations for this were pretty high. I'm not sure if its just my tastes being slightly different, but it was unfortunately not what I expected.
We would have preferred the tomato to be grilled a little longer and softer. (yes, "we". When it comes to food, we are very very Singaporean in our habits and tend to share meals, especially when we go somewhere new. If its an old favourite however and I know exactly what I want, God forbid if *Shinta tries to touch my food!!!!!) We love runny yolks and hence had ordered the poached eggs. Unfortunately we weren't too fond of the vinegar on it, nor were we fond of the too thick and yucky tasting white. The bread was sourdough (not my fav), and not warm enough for the slab of butter on it to melt right away.
One thing we did like though, was the bacon. Liked it enough to order an extra side portion of it. Look how greedy we were:
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*Shinta: (picks up one piece and pops whole thing into mouth)
Me: Are you not going to cut away the fat bits?
*Shinta: (silence)
Me: Here you go. I'll cut it away for you
*Shinta: (picks up piece and puts it grudgingly into mouth)
*Shinta: (sulky voice) It's not as nice
Me: .......
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Next up was the coconut pancakes with ice-cream and fruit bits. It was pretty good actually, the pancakes were light and fluffy and the coconut wasn't too overpowering. For some strange reason, I can't remember what the fruit bits were. I suspect its because *Shinta ate most of them.
The problem with pancakes and me (actually the problem is probably only with me) is that I love the idea of pancakes, but whenever I order them, I never like them as much as I thought I would. Or as much as they probably deserve to be liked. And I get tired of them after a few mouthfuls.
*Shinta says its because I have been spoilt by McDonalds hot cakes, which are cheap and although tasteless and not very good, very effective in soaking up the sweet sticky syrup which I like. Therefore my mind is wired to think that all pancakes should be sweet and sticky, and serve solely as a conduit to bring the syrup to my mouth. Leading to my inability to appreciate the light fluffy well made ones... Very sad. I am a plebeian
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Jones The Grocer
#01-12, 9 Dempsey Road, Tanglin Village
Tel: 64761512
Hours: 9am-11pm
http://www.jonesthegrocer.com/
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