Yellow Brick Road

While some of us miss the old establishments on Jalan Batai, the rest of us can look forward to new places opening up around the area, and the new café on the block is none other than Yellow Brick Road next to Torii. Just like its sister café The Red Beanbag, you can add this to your list of places for brunch. Besides the obvious yellow pathway, don’t expect too much 'Wizard of Oz' gimmicks – no waitresses in gingham dresses and red shoes here. In fact, co-founder Lin Lee explains that the name is more about their journey from their first café to the road ahead.

The café differs from its Australian-influenced sibling by incorporating local flavours in its food. Take 'I Wanna Be Kaya' for example: French toast with poached pear slices, coconut mascarpone cheese and caramel kaya sauce. Some of the other localised dishes include sugar-cured prawn omelette and anchovy sambal served with toasted rye bread, and pasta aglio olio with chicken char siu made in-house.

Coffee-wise, Yellow Brick Road knows its game, what with co-founder Jason Loo being a Malaysia Barista Champion. Their beans are sourced from Artisan Roast, and is a blend of Colombian and Costa Rican beans especially made for the café. If you’d like to see the baristas in action and have a chat with them about their craft, take a seat at the brew bar, which is decked out with bottled coffee beans and pretty blue China cups (a subtle ode to its namesake perhaps?).

Besides being the head barista, Jason (who had trained as a pastry chef before) also supplies the cakes with choices like Nutella mille crepe and Guinness chocolate cake. In the coming months, make your way to the green door next to the café where 'wicked' things are in store – well, wicked pancakes anyway. The group’s next venture would be the Wicked Pancake Parlour, situated right above Yellow Brick Road. How fitting.