Colbar

C says:

Instead of brunch at Relish, we opted for something simpler and went to Colbar instead. Colbar (short for colonial bar) has such a devoted following that when they were evicted from their previous location just down the road due to construction of new roads, loyal customers (a large number of whom are expats) rallied round and raised funds to help them reconstruct the entire building about 200 metres down the road.

I must say the place is quite quaint and charming, and you don’t quite feel like you’re in Singapore. It serves very old-school Hainanese-style Asian and Western dishes, from chicken curry and fried mee hoon to mixed grills and all manner of combinations of sausages/bacon/eggs/chips/beans/mushrooms/peas.


A, expecting the sausages to be cheapo frankfurters, ordered the sausage, eggs, chips and mushrooms. Unfortunately they’re not as low-end as you think, because it turned out to be fat link sausages, the kind A doesn’t like. Having said that, their button mushrooms are of the *shudder* canned Narcissus variety.


I had the dry fried mamee, again expecting the noodles to be like instant noodles, but they turned out to be thick fat noodles instead. Still, their Asian food seems to be better than their Western. This was on the salty and oily side, but still much better than A’s fry up, where the standard was hawker centre Western food at best.

Frankly, apart from the old-fashioned charm, I think this place is way overrated. The novelty of the ambience wears off pretty quickly, especially when you’re sitting in the heat and having to swat away numerous flies. I guess price-wise it may initially seem a lot cheaper than going to a chi-chi brunch place, but bear in mind you have to factor in the quality of what you’re getting for the price as well.

A says:

I can see why expats (and some locals) might like the old school al fresco ambience, but really, it’s not for me. Plus these flies kept disturbing our meal.

Plus the food is really around hawker centre standard so I really can’t see myself paying the higher prices for it.

Colbar
9A Whitchurch Road
Wessex Estate
Tel: 6779-4859
Tues – Sun: 11 am to 10 pm
Closed Monday