I remembered Atmosphere Cafe & Bistro as the. The entire cafe is going for the atas ‘atmosphere’ with tall plush sofas and heavy luxe curtains, as opposed to their other outlet at East Coast which was more of a open-concept bar.
The baristas would vie for starry eyes with unique 3d latte art for everyone on our dining table. Each cup took 10 minutes to arrive, but that’s only sufficient time for us to ogle at it, and take a round of photos.Their extensive menu is made simpler with an iPad ordering system.For appetizers, I would say the Battered Mushrooms (SGD6.80) and Signature Atmosphere Fries (SGD7.80) are good for sharing, while you can safely skip the pastas without missing out much.
Overall, the appetizers and mains that we tried were neither impressive nor memorable, which fell short of expectations because their interior design was done very beautifully.Their desserts were significantly better, and something that I would recommend to enjoy at Atmosphere for sure. Molten lava cakes (SGD12.80) are available in classic chocolate or white chocolate with molten cheese core. The Fluffy Snowfall has got to be the most photogenic of all, with soft pancakes stuffed with banana, chocolate or strawberry, though the topping it off with macarons may not be the most pleasing taste-wise.
Atmosphere is best for having a cuppa (3d latte art!) and a molten lava cake, soaking in the elegant interior. And a good hideout place just right next to IKEA.

Vintage everywhere on Rangoon Road.Vintage must be Brunches Cafe's middle name, with every corner of this roomy hideout having a touch of vintage, including their serving plates and feature shelf. Despite the weekend afternoon's crowd having their brunch (heh heh, what else here?), there are plenty of seats available. As we were there as part of the Sugar Rush event, we probably didn't exactly had an experience of a walk-in customer as they already prepared a menu set for us to try.The service crew at Brunches is very efficient and kindly allowed us in, even though the rest of our team hasn't reached yet. So we had a bit of time to roam around to explore the cafe, and discovered this Halloween-sque shelf with lots of dolls and that the prominent vintage car near the entrance is actually part of a booth. No way, that's too cute. Undoubtedly, another big plus factor is Brunches Cafe's size which made me feel so comfortable. The most photogenic and afternoon sweet treat was the Mixed berries waffles with vanilla ice-cream (SGD13.50) that was quite delicious, but there was some technicalities that didn't meet the mark.. the waffles weren't adequately warm or crispy, and the ice-cream didn't taste the premium sort. If your priority is to take an awesome Instagram photo, this will be your best prop but when it comes to taste, I guess Brunches Cafe can afford to improve the quality of the ice-cream and increase the price accordingly.Their Juicy Beef Burger (SGD19.50) was decent, the grilled beef patty erred on the side of being slightly dry, contrary to its name, but the rest of it was alright. I would personally try something else again if I had the chance. Their BBQ Chicken Wings (SGD11) was more disappointing as it was simply too salty, I think they over-marinated it. It was impossible to eat without downing glasses of water, which the service crew did refill promptly.Brunches Cafe is a lovely place to hang out, perhaps for desserts and coffee (which I haven't tried so by all means I'm not recommending from my own experience) but their mains and sides need a bit more of a boost.

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Pick me up before you go go.The idea of going to East Coast Park is undergoing a metamorphosis... from cycling tandem bikes and kite-flying to eating waffles. Only maybe, I wouldn't know what the new generation does. East Coast Park has changed so much, especially this new wing called Parkland Green which has a row of hipster cafes and restaurants that opens till late. At Pick Me Up, we dined on waffles, big breakfasts at nine-p-m, yogurt gelato... because we were looking for some sugar rush... Something that really stood out was the fact that they serve only yogurt gelato in their gelato bar, alongside their other signatures.Waffle time! Sweet or Savoury?

Whichever way you like your waffles, Pick Me Up has something. For Sweet, we had The Manuka: Buttermilk Waffles topped with homemade Greek Yogurt gelato (or your choice of yogurt gelato), organic honeycomb and a drizzle of Manuka honey. For Savoury, we had the Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict on Waffles which were dressed with a poached egg and heaps of bonito flakes. This combination was slightly weird but well... savoury waffles have yet to sit well with me because these waffles are supposed to feel more like desserts than anything else. So I would go with the yogurt gelato and waffles combination any day.These, I say aye.

Not everyone likes Big Breakfasts because they are too conventional, too mainstream. Now would you put your hipster lenses aside? Pick Me Up's Big Brekkie is something that I would recommend for brunch at East Coast Park. Firstly, I like the proportion of all the components which I can imagine myself finishing it up with a satisfied stomach on a lazy Sunday. The sausage was springy, delicious and not too salty, and the wholegrain bread was also a good switch-up with the usual white fluffy bread. The quintessential garden mushrooms and cherry tomatoes were included... but the one thing missing was bacon... now where is my streaky bacon?! Their Pizzas are pretty good as well, the cheesy and fluffy.The Real Sugar Rush

I love the plating for this Caramelized Banana French Toast, which was a real sugary treat with fifty shades of sweet. Caution: diabetes-inducing, but if you like it that way, oh yeah.Yogurt-gelato-ing

Pick Me Up Cafe is very adventurous in their flavors, creating a lot of surprising results in their experimentation. A little more fine-tuning needed in the balances of quite a few flavors, but it could be the yogurt creating a natural sweet-and-sour undertone that makes it difficult to reconcile with other unique tastes like red bean, rum-and-raisin, and taro. In the end, I decided to go with Summer Berries - a staff's recommendation, which turned out to be pretty much seems to be the best of all indeed (I tried most of it and got my tastebuds really confused).

I spent quite a while in The Cheese Ark waiting for the meticulous work to be done. The lady in charge took much care preparing the cheese for everyone, and even plating them on this cool charcoal-black platform. Well, by "cool" I meant that it's chilled to maintain the optimum taste of the cheese.

Enjoying cheese definitely requires an acquired taste, not everyone likes it but those who do, will love it. For me? I thought I won't like it, but surprisingly, the cheese presented to us is slanted towards the less strongly flavoured ones and I really appreciate them when pairing them with the figs. I can tell it is of high quality but my palate is not finely attuned to them as I am not very much exposed to cheese. 

There was only one reason why I entered CRAFT Bakery & Cafe... to try out the new Sugar app on my phone. It is one of those cafes that I found appearing to lack a character, it just looked very normal and a little dull. I guess I've been too pampered by fancy hipster cafes which haul bicycles onto tables. Oh well, but anyway I was curious about the functionality of the app so I did not care less about the frills, so I entered eagerly with a phone at hand, with $10 credits which I received upon my sign-up.

The Craft Sandwich was going at $9.60 on the Sugar app after I skimmed it, which was quite perfect for the credits I had stored inside my phone. For the post introducing the Sugar app, click here. The process of using the app was actually quite similar to using the taxi apps - very fuss-free and totally cashless. The Craft Sandwich's sugar immediately dissolved too, which made me realize that there's only one offer available to be claimed until they renew it again. However, after I finished buying the Craft Sandwich, I only had $0.40 left in my credits which meant I needed to top up my Sugar account. To be honest, that makes me very reluctant to use it again because I feel like the money stored in that account could potentially be left untouched for a long while and maybe even forgotten. If there was a way to use credits straight from my credit card without topping up, I'll feel a greater incentive to use the app.Back to the Craft Sandwich since this is supposed to be a food review as well: It was more like a waffle stuffed with bacon and salad. Cutting it was quite a challenge, and my fork met the plate more often than desired with violent clangs. Having said that, the waffle was quite crispy and the bacon was also not too tough to bite. The salad was surprisingly quite fresh and enjoyable though I still don't like vegetables. It was overall decent but nothing spectacular. I wished they could have a more exciting dish on the app to entice people for a second visit.