I. Old Hen Kitchen
Owen Road, Little India · Filter Coffee & Brunch
First Impressions: A Quiet Nest in Little India
There is something almost conspiratorial about Owen Road at half past nine in the morning. The neighbourhood of Little India has not yet fully wakened — the garland-sellers are just beginning to thread their marigolds, the smell of agarbathi drifting lazily down Serangoon — and yet Old Hen Kitchen is already warm and humming with purpose. It occupies its shophouse with an unassuming confidence, all pale wood and open kitchen, the kind of space that does not try to dazzle you but simply invites you to settle in.
The café is the sophomore venture of the Old Hen Coffee Bar family, whose first nest on Rangoon Road pioneered Singapore’s cold brew wave. Here on Owen Road, the ambition has expanded — there are tables deep enough for a long brunch, an open kitchen you can watch in full honesty, touches of greenery softening the industrial light fixtures above. It is the sort of place where notebooks open easily and conversations do not feel rushed.
“Who could ever complain about finding café grub that marries both style and substance?”
The Coffee: Nylon Precision
Old Hen Kitchen sources exclusively from Nylon Coffee Roasters, a name that carries serious weight in Singapore’s specialty scene. The cold brew arrives in a glass that is the colour of dark amber, almost mahogany if the morning light catches it right. The liquid is arrestingly smooth — there is none of the aggressive bitterness that a lesser cold brew hides behind dilution. Instead, you get a layered sweetness at the front of the palate, a mild chocolate undertone in the mid-sip, and a clean, almost tea-like finish. It is coffee for people who want to understand what they are drinking.
Non-dairy versions are available, and regulars swear by the oat-milk cold brew, which lends the drink a faint cereal sweetness without muffling the roast character. If coffee is not your preference, the Matcha Latte ($6.50+) is a deep, chlorophyll-green that is far more serious than its price suggests — vegetal, slightly bitter, and genuinely matcha rather than a sweetened green-powder approximation.
Signature Dishes: Rosti, Shakshuka & the Avocado Problem
The Rosti
This is the dish that generates the most conversation, and rightly so. The Sour Cream & Chives Rosti arrives as a bronzed, cratered disc — the edges a deep tawny gold, almost mahogany where the potato has pressed hardest against the pan. Reviewers have noted that the best specimens stay crispy even under a generous snowfall of ricotta, the white cheese pooling into the crevices while the potato beneath holds its structure. At the centre, a yielding softness: not mushy, but the kind of yielding you associate with perfectly steamed potato — starchy, earthy, honest. The sour cream adds a lactic tang that cuts the richness beautifully.
Consistency, however, is the rosti’s occasional enemy. Some visitors report a soggy centre — the result, one suspects, of moisture escaping too quickly from the gratings before the crust can seal — and when it goes wrong it is merely a good potato cake rather than a great one. Come on a weekday, when the kitchen is quieter and more methodical, for the best odds.
The Shakshuka ($16.50+)
The shakshuka polarises. Its tomato base is a deep, slow-cooked crimson — brick-red edging toward ochre at the pan’s lip where caramelisation has concentrated the sugars — and the eggs are poached within it to a properly wobbly set, the yolk still liquid and gold beneath a translucent white. The flavour, however, has drawn some criticism for underachieving on spice. The cumin and smoked paprika, which in a great shakshuka create a warmth that builds across the palate, here remain somewhat muted. With flatbread for scooping rather than a more assertive sourdough, the dish can feel like a sketch of the thing rather than the fully realised work. Worth ordering on an adventurous day; probably not the hill to die on for a first visit.
Avocado on Toast ($17.50+)
The avo toast is, against all expectation, a standout. Singapore has enough versions of this dish to constitute a minor epidemic, but Old Hen Kitchen’s iteration earns its $17.50 price tag through sheer attention to texture and seasoning. The bread — dense, with a proper char on the surface — provides genuine structural resistance. The avocado is smashed rather than sliced, retaining enough chunkiness to give the fork something to catch, and it is generously seasoned with dukkah and seeds: the nuts contribute a roasted bitterness, the seeds a fine, almost imperceptible crunch in the background. The hue of the whole plate — jade green against dark toast, scattered with the amber of the dukkah — is genuinely appetising before a single bite is taken.
The Verdict
Old Hen Kitchen is not revolutionary. It does not need to be. It is a neighbourhood café that has figured out how to do reliable, well-sourced brunch and genuinely excellent coffee in a space that feels comfortable rather than posed. The Nylon cold brew alone justifies the detour. Bring a book, order the rosti, and stay longer than you planned.
Address: 127 Owen Road, Singapore 218931
Hours: Daily 9:30am – 5:00pm
Halal: Not halal-certified
Must-order: Cold Brew Coffee, Sour Cream & Chives Rosti, Avocado on Toast
II. Ms Durian
Kelantan Road, Jalan Besar · Durian Patisserie & Café
Arrival: The Temple of the King
You smell Ms Durian before you see the sign. On Kelantan Road, just a short walk from Jalan Besar MRT, the air takes on a particular quality — not the aggressive, petrol-and-custard assault that an outdoor durian stall delivers, but something softer: the ghost of the fruit, filtered through pastry and refrigeration, sweet and faintly sulphurous in the way that only Mao Shan Wang can be. The café occupies a repurposed mid-century building, all brutalist concrete and horizontal lines, renovated with a minimalist restraint that lets the architecture speak. Indoor air-conditioning and a pet-friendly outdoor patio coexist in easy equilibrium.
Ms Durian began as the project of two bakers — Ling Goh and Jeslyn Tan — the former born into a durian-trading family, bringing both pedigree and access to premium fruit. Their guiding philosophy is straightforward: take the finest Mao Shan Wang durians and refuse to apologise for how much they cost. The result is a menu of startling range, from macarons and craquelins to tiramisu, whisky cakes, and — in a move of inspired absurdity — durian nasi lemak.
“The whole place smells heavenly with the scent of durians. I couldn’t resist myself from buying all these durian goodies.”
The Afternoon Tea Set ($42): A Four-Act Drama
The high tea set — served at 1pm and 3pm daily, with every diner at the table required to order their own — is the most theatrical way to experience Ms Durian. Four durian pastries arrive in sequence, each a meditation on a different texture principle.
Act I: The Craquelin
Ms Durian’s best-selling item deserves its reputation. The craquelin is bite-sized, its crust shatteringly flaky in the manner of a croissant’s outermost lamination — pale gold on the outside, the interior a cream that is unambiguously durian. The filling here is lighter than the fruit in its natural state; the pungency is present but not domineering, and the faint bitterness that characterises premium Mao Shan Wang floats just below the sweetness. The pastry shell provides a dry, buttery counterpoint that prevents the whole thing from becoming cloying. You could eat three.
Act II: The Macaron
The macaron shells use less sugar than conventional recipes, allowing the natural sweetness of ground almonds to surface — a subtle, almost marzipan quality that complements rather than competes with the durian filling between them. The shells have that proper aged-macaron texture: faintly crisp on the outer membrane, chewy at the core. The durian cream is thick and genuinely creamy, mildly sweet, with the characteristic sticky density that distinguishes Mao Shan Wang from lesser cultivars. The colour contrast — the sandy beige of the shells against the pale yellow of the filling — is quietly elegant.
Act III: The Cheese Mousse
This is the most divisive item on the set. The Durian Cheese Mousse carries the highest durian intensity of the four pastries and layers it over a browned butter and cheese foundation. The result is multifaceted — the cheese notes arrive first, savoury and lactic, followed by the fruit’s characteristic custard sweetness, and then a lingering browned butter warmth that persists for several seconds after swallowing. Some tasters find this addictive; others feel the cheese overshadows the durian’s more delicate aromatics. It is not a gentle dessert.
The Whisky Mao Shan Wang Cake ($15.20): The Signature
If the afternoon tea set is the ensemble piece, the Whisky MSW Cake is the soloist. Three layers of pure Mao Shan Wang durian are sandwiched between whisky-infused sponge cake — the sponge so light that it barely registers as a structural element, more a pause between fruit layers than an ingredient in its own right. The whisky’s presence is deliberately subtle: a breath of oak and grain rather than a statement, lifting the durian’s aromatics rather than competing with them. The whole construction is crowned with meringue — crisp and white, the surface lightly scorched to a caramel hue — providing a textural jolt of crunch before the yielding softness of the fruit below.
The portion is modest by European cake standards, which is partly a function of the fruit’s cost and partly, one suspects, a deliberate act of restraint. Durian is best experienced in concentrated doses. A larger slice would risk the kind of richness from which there is no pleasant recovery.
The Durian Ice Blended ($11.50): Unexpected Complexity
The drink arrives pale yellow — the precise hue of Mao Shan Wang flesh — and thick enough that a straw stands upright without assistance. The ice has been blended to a fine slush rather than a coarse granita, giving the whole glass a smooth, consistent body. It is rich without being heavy, the durian flavour direct and unmediated by excessive sweetness. The optional addition of roasted sesame seeds is the menu’s most interesting decision: the seeds sink slowly through the blended ice, releasing a toasty, nutty depth that the fruit alone cannot provide. It is an unexpected pairing — durian and sesame have little historical precedent together — and yet the sesame’s earthiness anchors the fruit’s volatility in a way that feels genuinely considered.
A Note on Value
Ms Durian is not inexpensive. The fruit commands what the fruit commands, and the baking is skilled enough to justify a premium beyond raw ingredient cost. Portions can feel small relative to the price, particularly for international visitors accustomed to European portion sizes. These are, however, the wrong metrics to apply. The correct question is whether each item delivers pleasure commensurate with its cost — and, with the craquelin, the whisky cake, and the ice blended, the answer is yes, unequivocally.
The Verdict
Ms Durian has done something genuinely difficult: it has taken a fruit that inspires almost religious devotion and applied pâtisserie rigour to it without diminishing the fruit’s character. The best items — the craquelin, the whisky cake, the ice blended — are not durian-flavoured desserts in the diluted, mass-market sense. They are vehicles for the Mao Shan Wang, everything else arranged in service of the fruit. For a durian devotee, this is close to the ideal café experience. For the curious but uninitiated, it is a controlled introduction to one of the food world’s most polarising flavours — encountered here in forms that are persuasive rather than overwhelming.
Address: 11 Kelantan Road, Singapore 208604
Hours: Mon, Wed–Thu: 9am–10pm; Fri–Sat: 9am–11pm; Sun: 9am–10pm (Closed Tue)
Halal: Not halal-certified
Must-order: Whisky MSW Durian Cake, Durian Craquelin, Durian Ice Blended