KARA Cafe and Dessert Bar, Bukit Timah
Venturing off away from the restaurants we frequent around town and the CBD area, we found this quaint café by Bukit Timah, just a short walk away from Tan Kah Kee MRT station.
As this place isn’t far from Ngee Ann Poly and SIM, you can spot students here with their laptops furiously typing away trying to finish up their assignments. KARA is quite the student-friendly café, with wifi and power sockets provided at almost every table, so your laptop will always stay connected and powered up.
With the cute interior, I wish that there was a place like this back when I was still studying!
And since KARA is a café brought to you by frozen yogurt brand, Sogurt, you’d find the frozen yogurt counter right at the back where you’d get to help yourself to froyo and a huge array of toppings for $3.20 per 100g.
Apart from froyo, KARA serves up Los Angeles-inspired “all-day dining” comfort food. We started with some Korean Wings ($13). In my opinion, this could very well be one of the best wings I’ve ever tasted. Similar to Korean wings, it’s fried to a nice crisp and coated in a sweet thick sauce.
If you’re looking for some greens, the KARA Super Salad ($16) sure doesn’t disappoint. It includes a whole bunch of nutritious superfoods including roasted spiced pumpkins (that pack a punch), quinoa, berries and a whole lot more. All tossed in KARA’s homemade vinaigrette “super” dressing.
Then, we tried one of KARA’s signature Pork Belly Miso Grain Bowl ($16), which comes with garlic Japanese rice. For those of you on a diet, fret not, you may opt to switch the rice out for a healthier quinoa salad bowl (extra $3). I love how “ramen crisps” were added into this dish, which reminded me of everyone’s all-time favourite snack – Mamee Monster! It gave a nice crunch to every bite and evened out the heavy taste you’d get from eating a fatty piece of pork belly.
Feeling something brunch-y instead? The Smoked Bacon Blues Grilled Toastie ($15) was absolutely delightful, because how can you ever go wrong with bacon? Served with blue cheese and homemade sweet apple chutney, I was chomping down on this sandwich pretty quickly.
And top up just $3.50 for a small bowl of KARA Homemade Soup (Regular bowl: $6). An interesting twist to the boring tomato soup, this had miso, seaweed and roasted sesame added to give you an interesting umami taste.
Since KARA is also a dessert bar, I was very excited to try out their desserts.
We had the Matcha Berry Homemade Mochi Waffles ($12.50). The waffle was quite interesting as unlike typical crispy or soft waffles, this was slightly crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. I personally loved the texture and the green tea flavour in the waffle wasn’t too overpowering, making it a good combination with the Dark Chocolate froyo and cookie crumble toppings it came with. I would definitely recommend this!
To wash everything down, we tried something from KARA’s new menu – Chia Avocado Shake ($8.50). I guess you can’t really go wrong with an avocado shake, but I typically prefer mine done the Indonesian way, with palm sugar or Gula Melaka.
The Roselle Iced-tea ($5) came highly recommended. I personally prefer this one, because I’m not too big on milky drinks. This tea-based drink has a sour hint from the roselle juice and comes with a side of nata de coco for you to add it in.
If I’m ever in need of a place to sit down, grab a drink and do some writing, I’ll definitely pick KARA over your average café chains any day!
KARA Cafe and Dessert Bar
617 Bukit Timah Road,
269718 Singapore
Tel: +65 6468 8940
Opening hours:
Monday to Friday - 11am to 10pm
Saturday & Sunday - 10.30am to 10pm