Wakey Wakey, it's time for brunch at new cafe in Concourse Skyline

Concourse Skyline is the residential part of the spaceship-looking complex known as The Concourse along Beach Road. The other tower next to it houses the office block. The retail space at the bottom of Concourse Skyline appears to be a fledging collection of interesting eateries. One of them is the Wakey Wakey Cafe where we went for brunch recently. The other cafes in the stretch include Pizza Face, TORA Japanese restaurant, Big Sake Bar, Canelé Bordelais (specialty shop serving canele and beverages) and others.

The row of shops and restaurants at the ground floor of Concourse Skyline enjoy a wide sheltered walkway with uniform outdoor tables and chairs. Wakey Wakey Cafe lies at the middle of this row and had the most activity when we were there.

The decor of the Wakey Wakey cafe is simple and industrial. Bare concrete floors, exposed pipes and ventilation vents but the designers managed to pull off an attractive look. I think the huge all-glass frontage bathing the whole space in indirect natural light was the secret to success.

The variety of coffee-making equipment on display and the counter space allocated to them gave some clues as to the priorities of this restaurant.

Wakey Wakey Menu

The Wakey Wakey menu is a simple one offering some basic food choices – spreads and dips, salads and grain bowls. A new item recently introduced is the pulled pork burger.

The pulled pork burger ($16.90) was an attractively presented burger that also tasted good.

The begedils ($15.90) were a more unusual dish. More expensive than the typical deep-fried potato cutlets that we are used to, these had more spices and flavouring built into them. The use of fried curry leaves was a clever idea.

We tried the grain bowl with pan-seared salmon and miso garlic butter as toppings of our choice ($15). It was a successful combination. The slight oiliness of the salmon was a good combination with the grain and vegetables in the bowl.

For desserts we had the salted egg maple pie ($8) and Speculoos Chocolate cake ($8.50). Both were good tasting cakes that were certainly not “run of the mill”. The introduction of salted egg yolk in the pie made one think of mooncakes. The highlight of the Speculoos cake was the great tasting chocolate that was used on the cake.