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| Great Eats
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Scrumptious! Café - good grub, great extras
Mother & Baby tracks down a hideaway café at Turf City
By Vera Lye
 The appetising aroma of good coffee and freshly-made waffles hits you the moment you step into Scrumptious! café at Turf City. Indeed, parents who dropped off their tots at KindyRoo children’s gym next door used to be left high and dry if they needed a quick snack or a drink at Singapore’s former race course. Not anymore. Now, they’ve got a new watering hole to relax in, thanks to Scrumptious!
The café is owned and operated by KindyRoo partners, who set it up to cater primarily to families with kids in tow. Some folks find it hard to pass up its family-friendly ambience and fragrant coffee (a number even claim that it’s the best in Singapore) whenever they are in the Bukit Timah area.
Besides brightly-coloured retro children’s furniture, the café features Rubik cubes on every table, and board games are available upon request. The staff also readily provides colouring materials for young doodlers. Generous space in this Aussie-styled café and its seamless connection to the 186 sq m KindyRoo gym keep kids happy, even as mummies enjoy a reviving cup of Joe. Soon to come – an outdoor play area and alfresco dining, complete with views of the old race course.
“We started this café because many of our KindyRoo clients were looking for a place to hang out with their friends and the kids after or before classes,” notes Jackie Loong, one of four women partners in this café venture. Still, Scrumptious! plans to attract executives lunching in the area by introducing set lunches and new hot food items.
Girl power
The café’s dark wood décor and chalkboards that announce the day’s specials were inspired by Australian cafes that two of the partners frequented during their Melbourne university days.
“After we found out how expensive it was to hire professionals, we ended up doing the interior design ourselves,” Loong explains. A nod to the feminine hand in the design is the large chalkboard that features leftover Valentine’s Day poetry on one wall at the entrance.
Not only did the four enterprising women tackle the interiors themselves, they even whipped up cakes and hot dishes on their own at first. Only two months later did the partners hire an executive chef and a pastry chef to take over cooking duties.
With new chefs Ryan Chuang and Edmund Tsang at the helm, you can expect more than standard café fare here as the pair boast stints in five-star establishments like Senso, San Marco, as well as Shangri-La and Regent hotels. These days, the café introduces at least one new dish every fortnight.
 Crowd-pleasing choices
Its all-Western menu features gourmet sandwiches, from corned beef and BLT, to burgers as well as well-loved standards like pastas, soups and salads. The owners also pay special attention to mini munchers – kid-friendly eats include shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash and macaroni, to milkshakes, hot chocolate and juices. A special kids’ menu, featuring dairy-, wheat- and MSG-free dishes to cater to kids with allergies, is likely to go down well with mums.
Also on the cards, healthy breakfast offerings for tots like oatmeal with fruit and cereal with fresh milk. Bagels, waffles, omelettes and Eggs Benedict are all-day breakfast items on order. There’s even a massive set that may well feed an entire family – it consists of bacon, ham, smoked Bratwurst sausages, eggs, mushrooms, potatoes, baked beans and toast.
The sweet-toothed will love the Scrumptious! dessert selection as they can order premium New Zealand Natural ice-cream, frozen yoghurt and sorbet to puddings, brownies, in addition to cakes and muffins. But it’s their signature malt waffles, made with US-imported batter, that are a hit with customers. Crown these waffles, which are served all day, with a scoop of ice-cream and you’ll be in seventh heaven.
Extra mile
A definite plus are the extra services the café dangles. KindyRoo next door offers a host of kid-oriented activities, from open playtime slots and arts and crafts lessons, to cooking classes for children four and above. Anxious parents who prefer to keep an eye on their tots themselves, KindyRoo now even allows patrons to sip their beverages there instead of in the café.
If your nails are in dire need of some TLC, check out the cosy two-seater beauty salon (reservations required), tucked away in a far corner of the café. Though small, the salon offers a full range of services, from classic manis and pedis, nail art and detox treatments, to spa and cracked heel treatments. If you can’t tear yourself away from work, there’s free Wi-Fi access so that you can access the Internet, check e-mails, and bang away on your laptop.
The café, which has also brought in an old-style popcorn machine, will soon start selling freshly-popped popcorn by the bag. Yet another family-friendly frill from this cosy café.
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Scrumptious! Café
#01-19 Turf City 200 Turf Club Road
Tel: 6463-6543
E-mail: writeus@scrumptious.com.sg
Open daily (except Sunday): 9am to 6pm
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- Mother & Baby
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