8 Awesome Breakfast Spots for Traditional Kopi & Kaya Toast

By Maureen & Mu Qin

Everyone has their favourite breakfast dish to wake up to. Like how Americans love their eggs benedict and pancakes with maple syrup, a must-have for Europeans is bread and cheese and Asians typically eat everything from rice to noodles to porridge dishes. Among many Singaporeans’ hot favourites for breakfast is traditional kaya toasts, with two soft-boiled eggs and either coffee or tea.

Singapore’s traditional Kopi beans are wok-roasted with caramel sugar, butter or margarine and sometimes, pineapple skin and maize, to a dark black brown, then grounded and brewed with a sock-like cotton strainer in watering can-sized pots. Our Kopi is distinctively different in taste as compared to international gourmet coffee – it is aromatic, full-bodied and has a more complex taste. Kopi is served according to customers’ preference here and it’s best to learn the “Kopi Lingo” to ensure you’re ordering what you desire.

Before we give you the best of kaya toasts in Singapore, here’s a brief history of how kaya came about. Kaya Toasts originated from the Hainanese. Hainanese cooks used to make these toasts onboard British boats. For them, strawberry jam is too expensive so they mixed coconut with pandan and egg, which became known as kaya. There are two ways of eating kaya. You can either dip the kaya toasts in the eggs or in your coffee. But, we suggest you try a bite without dipping first, so as to taste the natural flavours of Kaya.

Heap Seng Leong

The kaya here is not outstanding but having a cup of coffee with butter (kopi gu you) in a 1950s kopitiam setting is quite an interesting experience. Nothing much has changed here since the 1950s. The signboard, the cabinets and the tiles remain, only the chairs are new (well not that new too). You will get to see kopitiam uncles sipping coffee while reading their newspapers, or some of them taking a quick nap.

Because many of our traditional kopitiams have been converted to a modern facade, it is interesting to see the boss wearing striped pajamas bottom and a white sleeveless shirt making kopi. Usually when we are here, we will request for kopi gu you. The piece of butter melting in our coffee really makes the full-bodied coffee much more fragrant with a caramelised note (like toffee).

Ah Seng (Hai Nam) Coffee

Since young, the owner has been helping his father to run the coffee stall business, hence he has picked up the skills and techniques in brewing traditional Hainanese coffee and toasting bread with charcoal. The coffee is thick with the right balance of sugar and milk. When you bring it close to your nose, you can smell the distinct aromatic coffee smell.

The kaya toast bread is a signature dish that cannot be missed. Crispy bread with tasty butter and kaya plus two half-boiled eggs is the best choice to start your day. They make their own kaya which is neither too sweet nor too greasy. You can also try their French toast which is another signature dish. The bread is coated entirely with eggs and toasted with charcoal. Read about it here.

Chin Mee Chin Confectionery

Stepping into this 60-year-old confectionery felt like I was travelling back to the 50s. The marble tables, wooden round chairs and mosaic tiles exude a nostalgic feel. Unlike the Kaya Toast commonly served at other shops, Chin Mee Chin’s kaya toast comes in bun rather than bread slices. These buns are made in house and toasted till they are slightly burnt. Thick layers of kaya are spread on the buns, and the warm toasted buns melt the butter which makes it taste much better. It gets pretty confusing for first-timers here. The waitresses are really busy and you will have a hard time catching their attention. And if you are alone or in pairs, you will most likely be sharing tables with others.

Coffee Hut

The owner of Coffee Hut was retrenched a few years back and decided to pay $3,000 to a Hainan coffee master to learn how to make kopi. He was definitely a hardworking student because the coffee he made is one of the best around. It was very thick and the aroma of coffee beans was evident.

Moreover, the kind of toast they serve is just so similar to the ones at Toast Box and Yakun, but at a cheaper price of course. They also make their own kaya and peanut butter sauce which can be spread over the toast or their toasted baguette which is very crispy. Do note that Coffee Hut doesn’t serve half boiled eggs during lunch time.

Good Morning Nanyang Cafe

Good Morning Nanyang Cafe started in 2005 and you can have a taste of its kaya toast in various franchise outlets. Its specialty is Orange Ciabatta Toast with butter and kaya spread sandwich between two crispy ciabatta toast. Using Italian bread in our traditional breakfast is a unique concept as the ciabatta is light and crumbly on the outside, yet soft on the inside.

For Orange Ciabatta Toast, orange peel is added into the ciabatta dough to give a pleasant zesty aroma and does not overpower the kaya. Alternatively, you can have the original ciabatta toast or steamed bun with kaya. With a recipe originated from Segamat, the kaya is more grainy and not too sweet.

Toast Hut

29-year-old Melvin Soh picked up his skills at a local kaya toast chain between classes at the Institute of Technical Education when he was 17 years old. After working there for three years, he opened his own stall in Old Airport Road Food Centre in 2007 at the tender age of 23, serving kaya toast paired with home-brewed traditional coffee, of which the art he learnt from his father.

Aside from the signature items, he serves blended ice coffee to cater to his young customers and freshly made sandwiches using traditional kaya toast bread. In response to the health consciousness of Singaporeans, kaya used in Mr. Soh’s stall is specially created to make it less sweet when served with coffee or tea. His mother and two workers help him at the stall, which has a long queue every morning.

Tong Ah Eating House

This no-frills cafe began their business at the iconic landmark building that now houses the very trendy Potato Head Folk. It has been running for over 75 years and their kaya toasts come with thick slabs of butter. If you specially request for ‘super crispy toast’, the bread undergoes three toastings and in between each toasting, the blackened, charred surface is scraped off with the lid from a can of condensed milk. What you get is a light and crumbly wafer texture for the remaining bread, generously spread with Tong Ah’s homemade kaya. Rumour has it that the kaya is cooked over a slow fire for 10 hours.

YY KaFei Dian

This coffeeshop sells traditional Hainanese fare but what they’re most well-known for is the Soft Kaya Buns. Baked in-house, these buns boasts a crisp, light crust and a fluffy and super soft interior. A generous amount of kaya is spread on the soft buns, topped with a slab of savoury butter. We love the texture of the soft buns and the coconut-infused kaya enhanced the overall taste. Get the set ($3.70) which comes with an aromatic cup of kopi and two soft-boiled eggs to complete your breakfast!

These are the coffeeshops to check out if you’re a traditionalist who enjoys dining amidst a rustic setting. Of course, there are other establishments such as Ya Kun, Wang Cafe, Killiney Kopitiam and Toast Box, just to name a few, for those who are seeking a refuge from the scorching hot weather. Try dunking your kaya toast in the soft-boiled eggs and the kopi and let us know which style you prefer!

MissTamChiak.com made anonymous visits and paid its own meals at the stalls featured here.

Let’s build a food community that helps to update the food news in Singapore! Simply comment below if there’s any changes or additional info to the stalls listed above. We will verify and update from our side. Thanks in advance!