Shoku / Shisou / Seikatsu: First impressions of d'Good Cafe (Ngee Ann City)

I heard of this cafe fairly recently, thanks to the promotional efforts by some local celebrities who had been to here. Apparently, this cafe is co-owned by a local veteran actor Chew Chor Meng thus his colleagues were invited here before the official opening. Upon entering the cafe, you will a shelf beside the counter and cake shelf with two layers of cups containing coffee beans and signed Polaroid shots of these celebrities so you might want to do some "star-gazing" here to see if your favourites might be among them.

My visit was on a Saturday afternoon so naturally, it was packed with people. There are two dining areas i.e. the "outdoor" section which looks like a dainty English garden while the interior has a somewhat British feel with its London underground signs bearing the names of Holland Village and Orchard which is where its outlets are located at. The utensils and tea pots used also have a similar style. If possible, I think it's better to sit at the outdoor section which is visibly brighter and feels more spacious. I thought that the interior section was kinda cramped and tables were placed too close to one another. However, given that the shop itself does not occupy a lot of space in the first place, it is probably difficult to free up more space during peak periods. It might feel a lot better if the cafe wasn't that crowded.

At the entrance, there is a red telephone booth which again has a British feel but it's probably more for decoration purpose. It naturally attracts customers to want to take a selfie with it as seen from the number of people I saw crowding around this during my visit. As for the post box location just beside the telephone booth, it is there for a purpose. It seems that the management of this cafe are Christians and are offering to pray for customers who need it. As such, you can fill in the card placed at the post box where you provide your details and which area(s) you need prayers for whereby the cafe's team will do the necessary. I thought it was a rather kind gesture on their part regardless of your religion but it can do with a bit of promotion. Unless you walk to the post box and pick up the prayer request card, you probably have no idea what this is for and that you can request for prayers to be made on your behalf. As such, it is easy to miss this and dismiss the post box as a mere ornament even though it has a purpose to fulfill. I will post the contents of the prayer request card below so please take a look if you are interested.

Besides this prayer request service, the shelf beside the cake counter also has a level dedicated to featuring art works from TOUCH Special Crafts where the artistic talents of people with mild intellectual disabilities are discovered and nurtured. I thought that it was good that some of these art works are displayed for all to see and purchase. A lot of these charity initiatives may not be publicised widely so even if you are keen to buy their products to show support, you might not know where to turn to. Sometimes, all it takes is for someone to spread the word and more people can be aware and do something. In this sense, the cafe deserves credit for giving a space to such charity initiatives despite their space constraint.

Despite the fact that this cafe emphasizes coffee as its biggest selling point, being a non-coffee drinker, I have no idea if it's really as good as it is said so you'll have to find out the answer yourself. As it was a rather sweltering day when I visited, I chose a mojito mocktail instead of hot tea even though I was quite tempted to order one just to see the pretty pots which were served with the tea. In the end, the desire for gratification from a cold drink took over so I skipped the hot teas.

Frankly speaking, I thought that the mocktail was pretty much of a disappointment. In a mojito, the mint is one of the key ingredients but I didn't detect any taste of it nor see the crushed mint leaves. In that sense, this drink already didn't qualify as a mojito to me. The lime flavour was slightly overpowering to the point of being sour while the soda added a tingly and rather gassy feel on the palate which I didn't like. Supposedly, there should be tea in this drink as well but I didn't seem to pick that flavour up. Maybe I'm just being too demanding since the cafe's specialty is coffee and tea so I can't expect too much from a non-signature drink. Then again, you probably need to make your alternatives decent enough to attract people who aren't into coffee and tea. Although I wouldn't recommend this drink to people who want something which resembles the mojito but minus the alcohol, you may actually like it more than I do since it's a case of personal preference. It's just that his drink needs a fair bit of adjustment and improvement in order to truly fit the bill as a mojito look-alike and taste-alike.

Since I was just feeling peckish and didn't want to eat too much before dinner, I ordered the warm chocolate lava cake as a teatime snack. Appearance-wise, it's rather no-frills as seen from the photo so it might be good to doll this up a bit to make it more "Instagram-able". I don't have much to complain about the taste which has that chocolate taste without being too rich on the palate but the cake was rather cold when it was served. It certainly took a while before this was served which I was quite surprised since it shouldn't take that long usually. I am not sure if it cooled down too much in the kitchen before it was served or that it wasn't even heated up properly. Although the chocolate lava did flow out as expected, the lack of warmth in this dessert somehow made it feel like an ordinary chocolate cake rather than a chocolate lava cake. If this can be served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, I think it would be the icing on the cake since the hot and cold texture may accentuate the taste of the lava cake even more.

Since the cafe has been open for just a few weeks, there may be time needed to tweak the daily operations. The servers seemed a bit overwhelmed due to the crowds. I probably would go back to try the mains and the famed cheesecake but as for now, I think the cafe needs to distinguish itself a bit more in terms of its F & B offerings due to the tough competition in the Orchard shopping belt.

Here are some of the other photos I took while at the cafe: