Mia's Bangkok Travelogue: Roast Cafe

Out of the few cafes we've hopped during our #tkgbkk (stands for TK goes Bangkok, if you're curious), I have to say Roast did it best.

There's two branches located quite near each other, one at Thong Lor and the other at EmQuartier, which is at Phrom Phong BTS, which is nearer to our hostel. But somehow, due to no reviews of the EmQuartier branch found online, we took a cab to the branch at Thong Lor instead, on our last day of #tkgbkk trip. 

The Roast is located at the Top Yard of The COMMONS, which is a 5 mins' drive or 20 minutes walk away from Thong Lo BTS station. If you're insistent on not cabbing, I will recommend you visit the EmQuartier branch instead.

The place is so big and spacious I think it's more of a restaurant (that serves great coffee) instead of a cafe. We visited on a Monday morning and it was pretty empty at 10 plus in the morning, but the crowd came soon enough at 11 plus or so and they were pretty much full house. Are we truly maneki-neko or what? 

We did notice, in both CTC and Platinum Mall, that whenever we step into an empty store, a hoard of shoppers will flood in within minutes. 

It worked, EVERY SINGLE TIME, until a point when J and I were kinda bored from the senseless shopping and we just stepped into the empty store nearest to us and true enough a group of shoppers came in seconds later.

There, we brought you customers. Mission accomplished. 

Of course, let's start off with the free bread! HAHA, kidding.

But I have to say that that's really some decent bread, though. 

Caffe Latte

Comparing this with the one at Gram (review HERE), this definitely won, hands down. Proper latte art, smooth and fragrant coffee with the right amount of bitterness, which doesn't require any sugar added. 

Vanilla Bean Shake

A must try for all vanilla fans out there. Extremely rich, creamy and sweet with a strong vanilla taste. 

American Pancakes

served with crispy bacons and whipped butter

Soft and fluffy pancakes, albeit a little tasteless on their own (you know some pancakes has a slight sweetness? This doesn't.), with a shockingly huge glob of whipped butter. Needless to say that glob of fat was promptly removed from the stack and left on one side of the plate. 

Truffle Alfredo

Not a truffle fan (they smells like petrol, yikes!) but due to addition of bacon, ham and mushroom, this has a more complex and rich taste as compared to the one we had at Karmakamet Diner (review coming up real soon!). 

Seafood Stew

market seafood in tomato & white wine sauce, served with toasted baguette

This was my favourite dish of the day. The sauce/gravy was so rich and flavourful, it's a pity they didn't make a soup out of it. The seafood were generally a little overcooked (slightly tough) but that didn't really matter because the gravy was just heavenly. 

Infused with the sweetness of fresh seafood, slightly tangy from the tomato and with a savoury and mildly spicy kick, this is the dish to go for if you're a seafood fan. 

Crab Cake Benedicts 

served with potato rosti, onion jam and grilled veggies

Well, not a fan of this at all. It might be because all the serving portions were so tiny it's impossible to get a good taste of the food when split among 5 of us. That sorry looking piece of potato rosti was literally a one-bite-only, or two, if you have a smaller mouth. 

The crab cake, albeit tasty with the sweet flavour of crab meat, was the loose and crumbly kind of patty, which really didn't go very well with my palate.

Slow Roasted Fried Chicken

48 hr buttermilk and hot sauce marinated half chicken

The meat was slightly dry and tough (because I got the breast meat) but definitely flavourful. The spiciness was discreet initially and slowly creeps on you as you eat, so don't be too quick to comment that it is not spicy at all. But of course, the overall spiciness isn't something unmanageable for the typical Singaporean. 

The extra hot sauce dip serves alongside the chicken totally reminded me of Nandos, somehow.

Cranberry Brioche French Toast

I hated this. French toast and cream cheese just do not go well with each other, period. 

It was such a pity as this dish has so much potential, but they just decided to kill it by giving the french toast a thick layer of cream cheese cranberry compote filling. 

The french toast itself also pales in comparison to what we had at Gram, by the way.

Chocolate Souffle

Another meh dish. I guess Roast does savoury hot food better than their desserts or were we just plain unlucky to have ordered what they do not do well? The souffle wasn't smooth at all, and you can taste some grains of sugar here and there. It was supposed to be a chocolate souffle, but the everything 'chocolate' about it ends at the appearance. There's absolutely no chocolate taste to it, just a plain sugary sweetness.

And another boo to poor presentation. Looks like the souffle had a case of uncontrollable-diarrhoea, no? 

Roast is located at 

Unit #T1 (Roast), The COMMONS

335 Thonglor Soi 17, Sukhumvit 55

Klongton Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110

for information of their opening hours and menu, visit their website HERE

Till then,

Mia Foo