Second time at Carpenter & Cook

Brunch with girlfriends is a lot cheaper than therapy and alot more fun too. Throw in some waist-unfriendly bites and we are on our way to Villa Nirvana. 

One late Saturday morning, a few of us trekked up to Carpenter & Cook (www.carpenterandcook.com/) for some cattle bonding. The cafe was busy when we arrived but the crowds thinned out by the time lunch time rolled by. 

This time round, the counter top was packed with more treats, spelling trouble for the indecisive and gluttonous. Things don’t get any easier as they kept bringing out freshly baked goodies from the kitchen throughout our stay.

If you love citrus, you will find yourself in the good hands of the lemon cream tart and lemon drizzle cake. Total conversation breakers.

The lemon cream tart was such a dream. A puckerish sweet treat that is extremely delicate so I would suggest  eating this with a spoon if you aren't keen on sharing this with the table. Then again, I would extend my five-second rule to 20 seconds for this.

I finally got my hands on their carrot cake, a cutely name White Rabbit Carrot Cake. With lashings of gilded cream cheese, this might not qualify as rabbit food but tucking into a carrot cake makes me feel as if I'm going from salad to dessert in a few bites. Unlike the airy, fairy offerings at Cedele, this was compact, dense and filled with loads of indistinguishable tasty stuff.

Carpenter & Cook’s strong suit might be sweets but that doesn’t mean you should ignore their savoury options entirely. 

Since I have had my "salad", I moved onto my main, a sundried tomato savory brioche. This brioche flatbread was airy and soft, and topped with black olives and whole sundried tomatoes. I'm going through a sundried tomatoes phase so this was especially satisfying. 

Poking into the ham and cheese brioche bun was like pricking into a cloud, a cheese-topped ham-strewn cloud that is. Wouldn't it be Les Marvellous if you could build a castle on this cloud?


I remember there to be tomatoes and pine nuts in the Lazy Meal Muffin (not pictured) but that didn’t register as strongly as the other goodies we had.

Cook’s Amazing Quiche – forgot to try this.

I didn't set out to pick purely fruity items for my family but it just somehow happened that way. 

The passionfruit meringue tart was still as good as ever. An unpretentious fruit frangipane - what you see is what you gets multipled by the goodness of a summer's bounty. The soft spongey raspberry bunt cake might not sound as sexy as the tarts but it's a lovely three-bite pick-me-up.

I really liked the stuff at Carpenter & Cook. They might not be the fanciest or the most decadent but everything was, how should i put it ... good and honest.