Freshly Hatched

I was pretty egg-cited when I read about the imminent opening of this all-day breakfast cafe some weeks back in Business Times Weekend, and dashed down last week, just 3 days after it opened.

Located in a cosy nook in Evans Lodge, near to Botanic Gardens, the cafe's decor is cheery and inviting. Almost like an upmarket boarding school dining hall, seating comprises mainly of long wooden trestle tables along which diners jostle comfortably side by side. Egg-shaped portholes in the wall cast warm sunshine onto the tables. All very comforting and convivial, as befits a place serving comfort food.

The menu comprises largely of egg dishes - fried, scrambled, boiled, mollet - any way you name it, and is priced very reasonably. My Burly Benedict (one poached egg with mornay sauce, a good-sized piece of corned wagyu and a side of sauteed potatoes and tomato) cost $12, while my companion's Le Rossini (scrambled eggs with truffle oil and a whopping slab of seared foie gras, with toast) cost $18. Some rough patches to be ironed out for both cooking and service standards: my food was cold when it arrived, the foie gras wasn't very tasty, and a couple of the service staff seemed a tad clueless at times. On the positive side, the eggs - both scrambled and poached versions - were cooked just right, soft and fluffy and oozing nice creamy yolk respectively. Hopefully, Hatched will have ironed out its teething problems, given a couple of months, for it is a nice place to hangout and a good alternative to The Wine Company.

Evans Lodge, 26 Evans Road

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Singapore-Singapore/HATCHED/143215963744