When was the last time you fabulously sipped coffee while balancing your bum on one of Chye Seng Huat Hardware's rusty stools? Now there's even more reason to return and be seen taking that overhead shot of your latte art.
After a brief hiatus for a facelift at the end of January, the Jalan Besar hipster spot reopens its creaky gates with a more relaxed layout of outdoor seating and concrete planters, and minor visual tweaks to its three-year-old interiors.
On the coffee front, Synesso machines continue to jet out espressos ($3-$7) of CSHH’s house blends while a beer tap pours a creamy-bodied, highly potent nitro-draft coffee ($7). The café's geeky Coffee Bar also earns a sleek new Wilfa Precision maker to brew long blacks – the gorgeous device was made in collaboration with Norwegian roasting superstar Tim Wendelboe and is available for sale ($399) online and on CSHH's retail shelves.
For munching, old favourites like truffle popcorn ($7) and big Huat! breakfast ($18) with eggs, ham steak, chicken sausages, potato salad and butter croissant remain on the menu to pad the stomach from caffeine. Try the newly added open-faced Chicken Ramly ($16) if you're peckish – we relished our forkfuls of juicy thigh meat, eggs, piquant special sauce and bracing pickled veggies heaped on crisp bread.