Hey Hive!
Now that a lot of people here have already gotten vaccinated, I'm very happy to hear that Singapore is now allowing in-house dining again but obviously you have to be vaccinated. Now that there aren't any restrictions so this allows us to try out different eateries again!
Cafe hopping is pretty common among young people but we've never really subscribed to that trend since the hip non-franchise cafes tend to be quite inaccessible and only sell overpriced sandwiches and cakes. But funnily enough I love listening to cafe music when working! It's actually quite conducive for background noise without the actual noise of a cafe.
Anyway, Sean had a friend who was opening a cafe and we thought we'd go visit and check it out for a bit since we were in town that day! She actually worked as a barista back in the day so we were looking forward to visiting this new cafe she opened up with her husband and friends! It's called Grey Area and is kind of understated and hidden along this street of shophouses.
I don't think this is an area we've been to specifically, but we've passed by a few times on the way to elsewhere.
It took some walking from the train station and we had to bear the sweltering afternoon heat but we eventually arrived!
It was the soft opening of their cafe and they invited friends and family to come by and support but we were surprised to see that it was actually kinda packed, so we just took 2 seats by the door.
From the moment we stepped in we could see why they called it Grey Area. The interior design and kind of all grey apart from the back wall and ceiling. It was nice and modern though, and very minimalistic for sure. It also had a clean industrial look to it accented by some rustic furniture pieces which was nice.
The menu was pretty simple, with a number of different types of coffees on the wall and some pastries on the counter. We're not really coffee drinkers (also another reason why we don't visit cafes) so we didn't really know what to order and just went with an iced chocolate with some coffee.
For snacks, they had Fudgy Cookies, Biscoff Cookies, Banana Bread and Yuzu Pound Cake with Pistachios:
We were still pretty full from lunch, but I couldn't resist the smell of the banana bread because it's one of my favourites so we got a slice.
It's so cool that you could see it being prepared on the spot since the cafe is so open. The coffee machine looked really sophisticated. I'm not familiar with Starbucks but I imagine they use something similar.
Most of the cafe is this long aisle with benches and counter seating at the end. While I think these benches are not very conducive for working, it was pretty alright to just sit and chat.
After a few minutes, we were served our yummy banana bread:
And our iced chocolate coffee! Which we were assured has not much coffee taste. I don't know why but the glass reminded me of a beaker or lab equipment of sorts. Maybe it's the clean design of the glass was or the rim of the glass.
It was a very nice snack and dessert! The chocolate was thick and rich so I'm glad the ice was there to water it down a bit because it was a little too sweet but still very good! The banana bread was also deliciously moist and had the right slightly spongy texture. It was delicious and I was bummed when we finished it.
We chilled near the entrance enjoying our dessert and chatted with Sean's friend and they caught up for a bit before we left since it was getting more crowded with some new customers coming in.
It was nice to visit a cafe again though! And Sean's friend was really appreciative of us visiting and supporting them which was the least we could do since they welcomed us to their house for a Christmas party years ago. I don't think this made us want to visit more cafes though since we still have the same perception of them but it was still a nice experience nonetheless. And I really liked the design of the cafe a lot! I hope they'll get to grow their cafe in the future especially now with less restrictions.
Thanks so much for reading!
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