Over the past two weeks, I’ve had a limited selection of food available to me because homegirl had to have her wisdom teeth extracted. Before you say “Eee, you don’t brush your teeth one ah…”, please just let me defend myself by saying that it was impacted and that there was no way I could brush the part that needed to be brushed.
Either ways, the entire experience was a traumatic one and I hated every single moment of it (except the part where I was on MC, because that meant I could laze- I mean rest in bed and not be disturbed by work messages or calls).
Anyhoo, my first literal taste of freedom was at One Man Coffee, because it was immediately after I removed the stitches and had full range of jaw motion. You never know how much you take chewing for granted until you can’t actually… chew.
One Man Coffee is a tiny café, tucked away along a row of shophouses in Upper Thomson. The nearest MRT station is Marymount. We drove there and there’s a plethora of parking space available right outside the café itself. Perhaps because we went on a Thursday, we didn’t have any difficulty finding a parking lot.
The trip to One Man Coffee was kind of special, because rather than going with the other half of em.olts, I went with my boyfriend instead. Throughout the meal, I kept bombarding him with questions on his opinions about the café. Like we keep mentioning – em.olts is also for the clueless boyfriends out there and my boyfriend – thankfully – happens to be one as heavily invested in the world of gastronomy as I am. He also has quite the high standard for date places, which is why I’m deferring authority for the review of One Man Coffee to him.
Wanna know his thoughts and verdict on the café and if he would bring his girlfriend (omg, ma, it’s me! I have a boyfriend!) here for future visits? Stick on to find out.
So, like I said, we went Thursday mid-morning. Surprisingly, there was still quite a fair bit of traffic traipsing in and out of the café. Actually, not that surprising, given how popular and well-reviewed the café is. It’s kind of tiny, but comfortable and not overcrowded, because people ate and left quite quickly.
I was blown away by how friendly the staff there are. They’re amazing and the experience we had with them was phenomenal.
After getting shown to our seats, we were presented with a menu. Spoiler alert, I don’t drink coffee. My boyfriend does, but he’d just chugged a cup in the morning in a bid to try and make it for my dental appointment to remove my stitches. He failed. Terribly. Appeared only after the stitches were yanked out of my mouth.
But he’d only slept two hours the night before. He’s forgiven. (But not before I quipped about how we were going to One Man Coffee, and he was going to be exactly that – One Man going for some Coffee because he’d overslept and missed the appointment when he promised he would be there to hold my hand for stitch-removal).
He ordered a Matcha Latte (S$6.50) and Bacon Carbonara (S$15), whilst I went for a Chai Latte (S$6.50) and the All-In Brekkie (S$19).
Our drinks came first, and I had to resist the temptation of sucking the entire cup dry because good lords above, that is some good Chai Latte. I sneaked a few sips of his Matcha Latte as well, which was equally as awesome.
You know how some places dilute their Chai and Matcha to the point where it just tastes like milk? Well, One Man Coffee certainly didn’t pull their punches with how delightfully strong their Lattes were. You could actually taste the Chai and Matcha, which was great.
I could wax poetic all day about their Lattes, but the food arrived thereafter, and the cups were left abandoned in favour of y’know, actually eating proper food.
His Bacon Carbonara came quite quickly, and looked pretty unassuming (I mean, how spectacular do you want a Bacon Carbonara to look like?). There was an Onsen Egg on the top, which was great. For me, I ordered the All-In Brekkie, which came with a sunny-side up, avocado, bacon strips, sauteed mushrooms, chorizo, side salad and sourdough bread.
Going strong with a bang after not being able to eat properly for a week, y’know. Perhaps you can smell my desperation for solid food after a terrible week of deprivation.
When the food came, we were thoroughly impressed by the substantial portions. They were huuuuuuge.
Upon trying the pasta, my boyfriend immediately commented that the Carbonara could afford more seasoning (But please also note that he drinks soya sauce like water). Okay, but to be honest, I tried it and was quite impressed with it, but had to agree that it could do with slightly more seasoning. The Carbonara was creamy and well-emulsified (his words, not mine), and the Onsen Egg made the dish even creamier and smoother.
There was a good kick of pepper that assaulted your senses (in the most glorious way, of course). The best part of the Carbonara was the bacon, which was super awesome. It was crispy and salty and provided the perfect contrast to the creamy noodles. But then again, it’s hard to go wrong with bacon.
Surprisingly enough, even with such a large portion, the pasta wasn’t jelak at all and my boyfriend managed to finish it with great ease. I was pleasantly surprised, because the sauces for Carbonara is usually quite rich and you usually would get sick of them pretty quickly.
But no, he inhaled the noodles and finished it very quickly.
The Big Brekkie was pretty good as well – I finished the salad first, because I wanted to get the grass off my plate. It served to make me feel less guilty about the greasy food I was about to consume, but to be honest, the salad was kind of oily. I think they drizzled some oil on top of it to top it off, which in my books was kind of redundant, because the rest of the platter was already quite greasy.
The sauteed mushrooms are heckin’ awesome – up till today I still crave them. It was tender and juicy and perfectly salty for me. You can taste the earthiness of the mushroom, because it wasn’t overly salted, and the mushrooms were like flavour bombs that exploded in your mouth when you bit into them.
The Chorizo wasn’t as salty as I expected it to be – because I thought that all sausages would be overly salty. It was chonky, flavourful and delicious. Sometimes, sausages that are overly minced can come off as a clumpy mess, but you could taste the individual flavour profiles of the mince in this Chorizo because the meat and fat were coarsely chopped. You could taste the seasoning spices, which was really nice.
The sunny side-up egg came crispy on the bottom, which was awesome, but my only complaint was that the egg yolk didn’t come runny. I would have loved to slather the sourdough bread in the runny, yolky goodness. Oh, I had to season the egg with more pepper and salt too, but then again, my boyfriend and I like our food heavily flavoured, so…
Also, homegirl here really hates avocado, so I left that to my boyfriend to inhale. He said well, it tastes like avocado – what more can you expect?
The All-In Brekkie had two strips of bacon as well, which I absolutely love. Bacon’s probably my favourite meat. Wrapped around enoki or by itself with eggs, whichever way you prepare it… I’m salivating as I write this. The sourdough bread was pretty good as well, but perhaps I’d left it out for too long before chowing down on it, because it became pretty tough and chewy.
Overall, we paid S$47 for two people, which is quite an alright amount. One Man Coffee absorbs the GST and service charge, so all the dishes are NETT.
The verdict?
I’ll give it a solid 4 out of 5, but perhaps it’s because One Man Coffee was my first taste of proper food after two weeks of porridge with a side serving of pain. Nah, it’s overall quite a pleasant place to visit and I would say it’s worth a try. I’ll probably go back to try the coffee! But considering the only coffee I drink is Iced Americano, perhaps it’ll be a whole other religious experience that we’ll talk about soon.
My boyfriend says that One Man Coffee is a “would visit again but will have to season the food myself in the future. It’s suitable for those with lighter palates – the portion was great for its price. The drinks are great and thick and didn’t cheap out on the ingredients used.” He gave it a 3 out of 5 stars for the overall experience.
But like I said, I’ll defer to him on this, cause he’s a boyfriend… so… 3 out of 5 stars it is!
Till next time, lovelies!
One Man Coffee
Address: 215R Upper Thomson Road, Singapore 574349
Opening Hours: 9am to 5pm (Wed to Mon)
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