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2014-05-10
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When I asked around among coffee lovers I know or drink coffee with about cafes in Singapore, Common Man Coffee Roasters (C'mon man from now) came out as an interesting good place to visit. I quite hesitated from my experience in Hong Kong with Five Senses, the roaster C’mon man has a close relationship with. You can try an iteration of Five Senses in Hong Kong at Cafe Deadend. Still, let see how the 'enthusiast' talks translate into the real experience.C'mon man is located at AIG Building so th
C'mon man is located at AIG Building so the address itself should add $$$ to the price. It's not obvious to see the shop from the street as the stainless steel facade and trees kinda block the shopfront a bit so be on the look out when you enter the leafy Martin road. After the cab dropped me off (the cab driver is very kind, making sure I reach the right destination) and I walked closer to the window, there stood a Giesen roaster staring right back at me, kinda greeted me in a way as if it says 'hello/welcome' to good coffee, considering how prominent it shows itself at the window. I was told there were other larger roasters, 45kg IIRC, at its factory/warehouse somewhere far away in Singapore also. Sound impressive, indeed.
The counter is long and I kinda like it from the look. C'mon man sports two Uber boilers so I guess they have lots of filter coffee business. This is interesting as I initially thought cafe with Aussie influence will go after the espresso market mostly as the Aussie/NZ seemed to be an espresso nation. Things change, I guess. For espresso, C'mon man uses Synesso and it is likely a two group painted matt black like The Cupping Room in Hong Kong. Its grinders are likely Mazzer as I didn't really see it clearly, sitting at the other end of the counter. In addition, staff has a cool vibe almost on the border of doing too much but not quite so it's good. While the picture did not show most of the cafe, it is a sit down service with waiters/waitresses serving you food so that's a part of the reason why it is $$$. You pay for the cool vibe naked light bulb hipster kinda thing too, I guess.
Once I sat at the counter, I see the tongue in cheek advertising/wordings which seem to be a theme as I saw lots in Singapore. Not just for this trip but anytime I visit Singapore. If you like it... Looking toward the right from where I sat, it is the pastry/cake glass container and the cash register, which takeout orders were taken. In front of the cash register, there were bags of coffee for you to take home. I didn't buy any.
This is what I saw in front of me on the counter. Peppershaker and utensil container are understandable but the amber glass bottle... What is it for? Salt that can't resist light? It turned out to be a sort of brown sugar I grew up having it with glass jelly and bean curd. This type of sugar is not what I found in HK café, AFAIR. Mostly what is used over in Hong Kong is just an unbleached sugar which does not add/insert much of its taste into the cup. However, this 'brown' sugar is probably closer to Muscovado or something like that which adds taste to the thing you add. I really wonder why C'mon man needs to use this type of sugar to "adulterate" the taste of good coffee. Growing up with it I know what it tastes like so I skip.
The price here at C’mon man is on a steep side. Dishes here are mostly in the S$20s which is very expensive for breakfast for me. I saw lots post Egg Benedict so I get one. Egg Benedict looked even more strange in the real thing with those veggie and strange sauce on top with not what I expect kinda bread under. Twisted and weird in a way. Instead of English muffin, the sour dough bread has a crust that is hard to almost impervious to the knife and my teeth.
The meat that got sandwiched between the egg and the bread tasted similar to an ox tongue but I found out later it is the ox cheek. It is the highlight of the dish, soft and tasty enough to round things up nicely. The hollandaise sauce, if you want to call it that way, was bearable only. Neither good nor bad. Just some liquid to add some moisture to dish. The egg itself wasn’t anything to write home about. To nitpicking it, the egg yolk does not have much eggy taste to it like what is common in Hong Kong and the egg white was a bit too harden for poaching but nothing is really bad or good in particular. It’s eatable afterall. While the cooking may not be totally bad, this shows that how important the quality of the material is to the dish. If you prefer to try something new and pay $$$ for it, this dish is for you. Not bad but I would rather they serve it in a more traditional way.
This is a coffee roaster and a café so the highlight should be the coffee itself. I made my first coffee order with cappuccino. I need to specify that I don't want any chocolate/cocoa powder with my cappuccino as from my own experience drinking coffee at cafe with roots from Australia/New Zealand it is very common to shake chocolate powder in once you call for cappuccino. I don’t recall it elsewhere and I prefer my milk drink with no powdery stuff. Why do one require ‘additives’ if the coffee itself is good.
Cappuccino was served on a hot side to my liking. The coffee had those yogurt/curdled milk tasting note, which should not be in the drink and I don't like it at all. It had something like caramel and spice at the back but the curdled milk was so distracting I began to lose track on any other taste except the unpleasant sourness in the cup that the coffee steals the show from the milk in a not so nice way. The cup is trying hard to be complex with lots of taste, which, to me, is an overdone in a way. Fortunately, its frothed milk had a decent texture but that's the only good thing I can say about this. I can only finish half of the coffee as the colder the drink gets, the less palatable it becomes to me with all those coffee base making itself known like a spoiled child seeking for your attention.
The sweetness and texture of frothed milk and its milk frothing skill were hard to get appreciated if the coffee base was designed this way to be so aggressive. Still, one can insist on calling it by the book but I won't call it delicious. Ok. Better than nothing if I live here in Singapore. Sometimes lots of skill and effort won’t return a good cup of coffee. This seems to be one of them.
After sitting at the counter for a while, my knees began to get hurt, rubbing with this wavy marble with super sharp angle. Is this a wrong design or by design not to let any customer sit there for long? It is just half an hour into my stay at the café and I didn't feel good while I'm still waiting for more coffees. Whatever the reason of the design is, it failed on the level of comfort and is not good in my opinion as a customer here.Espresso of its house blend (I believe it's call CMCR espresso). It is a boasty blend no wonder it shows up aggressively in the milk on the bold side. However, as a black coffee it is too overwhelmed, IMHO. Intense liquid on a thick side with a grapefruit tone but it does not flow nicely, more like an orchestra without the conductor everything just raced to show that they are there.
The pull is kinda ok in a way and could be partly due to the contribution of the cup clarity from Synesso. However, the coffee has a hint of almost savory but not quite kinda feel. IMHO, this type of coffee is not easy to design/formulate/roast etc. Still, I don’t get it while one needs to use all the skill to go extra mile for this kind of taste.
It might work well with those palates that are fatigue with lots of cups of coffee as it further pushes the taste bud but for me I would rather have something I can call delicious and balance than a torture like this. Also, this type of coffee could be an interesting first start for newbie in a sense that they may want to know how different coffee can be vs. Starbucks and, of course, is a cause for them to find out more about good coffee later in the journey. And, yes, it got a trademarked roasty tone at the back. I don't like this taste, which lasts so long for hours in my mouth no matter what attempt you try to rinse this nasty bits down with any drink. Some enthusiasts told me why one has to pay for a coffee just to leave you mouth with dirty tasting notes and further need to buy another drink to try to wash those uncomfortable feeling away.
Nevertheless, C'mon man serves its espresso with a small bottle of soda water to clean you palate. An Aussie roaster told me about this trick a while back on drinking coke or any carbonated beverage to help reduce those nasty dark roast taste at the back that stays in your mouth hours on end after coffee. In a way, you feel like being 'hypnotized' and when you wake up, i.e. after drinking soda water, which is equivalent to you leaving the shop, you might not feel those roasty tone in your mouth any more. Nice touch indeed. Nevertheless, some of this dirty back is quite stubborn to deal with and will come back to haunt you hours later no matter how you try to forget/get rid of them. Of course, unless you like it…
For me, I try not to drink the soda water right away during all of my coffee at C’mon man to see how much and how far it will torture me. I gave them a chance to the last drop to see how far the coffee will deliver as they might be a good thing at the back no matter how tiny the chance is. Nevertheless, for your own good, I highly suggest you drink soda water to the benefit of your taste bud and to be fair to next cafes you plan to visit right after this one.
For really good coffee, you don’t need soda and you are supposed to enjoy the aftertaste as long as it lasts, IMHO.
The very nice barista gave me a small cup of the sample of microlot Guatemala that just came in last week. Brewed via Aeropress, it reminds me my experience years back at Toby's Estate just across the road toward the river at 8 Rodyk Street that I remember the tone vividly, i.e. light roast not there yet/almost grassy but showing that it seems to try very very hard to be different but... It is almost as grassy like light roast Colombian coffee in the old days. I think the bean quality is good but the roasting approach is the issue for me. As I'm not a fan of almost grassy coffee like the first cup, I order another Guat that C’mon man carried as I'm a fan of Central American coffee. Nevertheless, I got the same tone as the first one in the cup but more mellowed, probably due to the age of coffee if I have to guess. The brew was watery at the back which indicated the level of the brew skill. I can't sense any obvious overextraction but with the roast profile like this it is hard for me to really focus or concentrate on the cup, let alone drinking it. I give a benefit of the doubt the brew was ok and can be better then but definitely not a cup of coffee I enjoy to drink. It was aeropressed by the same nice barista.
Anytime I had coffee in Singapore, the final bill usually shocked me. This one was no exception. Imagine I have to stay there, pay this much for coffee and have the quality of the cups I had. I wonder how long I will continue to drink “artisan” coffee. I might have to resort to Starbucks which should be less expensive and is drinkable in a way. While I can't say this is a bad coffee as it is not, I have a hard time accepting/understanding what they try to accomplish with this type of coffee.At the end of the day, I am very impressed with the hospitality Singaporean shows to me and C'mon man’s staff is no exception. C'mon man did lots of things right to the service and that's the good side I will remember for this cafe. On the coffee, I can't recommend people to drink here unless you missed a taste of home, being adventurous or, OMG, you really like it! Yes, we all have different preferences but even that I had a hard time understanding why people want to drink this type of coffee. Yes, your mileage may vary...
The OK rating I gave was actually on a borderline which benefits significantly from the level of service I receive over there. Coffee itself to me is a 'crying' face.
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