November 8 Cafe

Thomson V is a condo at the intersection of Sin Ming Road and Upper Thomson Road. It has revamped and there are some new food shops in the difficult-to-navigate basements, open to public: The Black Sheep Cafe (rather expensive French restaurant); #1 Baker Street (takeaway cupcake); Berry Jerry Bakes (cake studio, some cakes for takeout); A Little CakeShoppe (cakes, mostly takeout, facebook); three cafes Fluffy White Cloud FWC Cafe (cafe cum watch shop); Oz Specialty Coffee;  and November 8.

November 8 Cafe

11 Sin Ming Rd #01-30 Thomson V Two Singapore 575629
T: 6554 4388
12pm-12am daily
Rating: 3.031/5 stars

“Remember, remember, the 8th of November…” Actually, no, it’s not The Anonymous headquarters. The date was supposed to be opening date, but it was delayed. The service was good, a little tentative, but careful and polite.

The food was artery-choking. One of the poached eggs in eggs royale ($15) was almost hardboiled but when the other egg yolk broke and flowed, the first taste was super extremely buttery (from the hollandaise sauce), then a slight tartness, ending with an Indian-spice-like rosemary focaccia bread. Quite unique if you like rich food.

Chiobu’s big breakfast ($20) scrambled eggs were also very buttery. And the sausage, salami, bacon, and parma ham, though catered, were not bad.

Waffles with ice cream ($8) was tasty. Thin and crispy, our favorite dish. But one thing we didn’t like about the food was that some ingredients can be better quality. For example, the ice cream, with ice-shard texture, ruined the waffles, and the butter, which was used in high quantities in the food, didn’t taste like it was good quality.

The coffee is a special blend from local roaster, Dutch Colony Coffee, with El Salvador, Mexican, Sumatran beans. We had a flat white ($4.50). Chiobu liked its robustness, but it mellowed into a sour alkaline taste that I didn’t like.

Overall, we thought the service was quite sincere, and food was ok, but the cafe was characterless. I always think cafes are opened by passionate people who want to create their own space and show their personalty; November 8 didn’t show character, didn’t have a distinguishing trait, making it forgettable. Given the choice, we might have gone to Oz Specialty Coffee, which was closed that day. Oz did appear to have a little more character from the outside. We paid $45.50 for two, no GST, no service charge.

#1 Baker Street

11 Sin Ming Rd #B2-09 Thomson V Two Singapore 575629
T: 9173 3955
Rating: 2/5 stars

A takeaway cupcake shop, we ordered red velvet cupcake and salted caramel cupcake ($3 each) but when we got home, we discovered they gave us the wrong order: red velvet and chocolate ganache. OUCH. Who would choose chocolate when there is salted caramel?!

Perhaps because we were miffed with the wrong order that we didn’t like the cupcakes. Too crumbly, everything fell apart when we touched them. And overly sweet, which made the cupcakes monotonous. The sugar in the icing wasn’t blended properly and you could eat the crunch of sugar. We didn’t finish the cupcakes, even though they were 5 bites a piece.

Written by A. Nathanael Ho.