Drury Lane is another new hipster cafe (4-months-old), tucked in a bright red shop house unit along Tanjong Pagar, opposite the row of bridal studios. PS: This is NOT a real lane, but the name of the cafe. This was recommended by my Melbourne trained chiropractor so I trust his taste in food, given Melbourne’s proliferation of good cafes! Drury Cafe turned out to have pretty good food, decent coffee and a lot of space with a nice ambience compared to usual more squeezy hipster cafes. Fun fact: “Drury Lane” came from a nursery rhyme called “The Muffin Man” hence they serve a good selection of muffins!

Drury Lane has spacious seating on the second floor!

We had 4 mains, 1 side and 2 desserts to share. My personal favourite is the Steak and Cheese sandwich ($8). The chunky tender beef slices reminded me of the ones Mortons serve over their martini, while the onions were sweet and juicy. I ordered additional poached eggs ($1) on the side and dipping the sandwich into the eggs and hollandaise sauce was quite heavenly. Also fairly good value for Sunday brunch at $9 in total.

We had the Salmon Baked Eggs ($12), served with Smoked Salmon, Capers, Spinach, Homemade Baked Beans and Cheese, to share. This was my second favourite because of the well blend of tomatoes, salmon and half cooked egg which yolk broke splendidly when we cut into the dish. The server said this was the most popular of the baked eggs selection and it is not difficult to see why.

We also tried the Marmite with Cheese Toasties ($8),  served with 2 half boiled eggs. All who love marmite should love this dish but two bites were enough for me, before the marmite flavour hits diminishing returns. Suggest to crack egg into half and then dip the toast into the half-cooked egg for interesting combi flavour. D calls this THE way to eat marmite toast and I must say I agree!

2 of us had the Eggs Americano ($16), which is BBQ Baked Beans, Beef Patty, Mushrooms, Poached Eggs, Honey Cured Bacon, Hollandaise and Toast. I thought this was going to come as a big breakfast platter, but all the food ended ON the toast, which was beautiful presentation. Every bite had a full bodied flavour, as you can imagine from the list of ingredients. The unifying sauce had a BBQ flavour, and N named this Eggs Americano the beautiful mess. We felt the only improvement that should be is the bacon – it tasted more like bak kwa though we asked for crispy bacon.

Then came dessert time. The Cloud 9.4 ($12) fluffy bacon infused pancakes served with honey. Again, because of the bak kwa texture of the bacon (especially the external ones), this carbs full was tad not worth the calories though the dish conceptually sounds good. The Candy Bar Pie ($5) was a much more worthwhile dessert – a chocolate crumb base filled with salted caramel, peanut butter nougat and topped with chocolate glaze. Pretty calorific intensely sweet dessert that is good for 4 to share. Recommend to share with friends to prevent getting a sore throat! Fairly complex pie that convinced us to go back again and try more desserts especially the Banana Bread ($3.50), which we were too stuffed to try. 

We also had 2 Flat Whites, 1 Latte and 1 Long Black, all $4.50 each. The art was well done. Decent coffee but not mind blowing intensity level like Nylon, Chye Seng Huat or Common Man. The consistency was a bit off too because we ordered 2 Flat Whites, but 1 Flat White tasted like a Latte. My latte also started to bubble a lot after a while; suspect they either over tamped the shot making it too short, or perhaps they heated the milk too fast? The other place this happened was Department of Caffeine, and the coffee was also lacking an intensity punch.

The outstanding aspect of Drury Lane is the service. Firstly, the server taking our order was patient with my questions which ordering at the counter. He  later over-charged us without us realizing it and then, he took the effort to come to our table on Level 2 to return us $1. He also offered Hollandaise sauce with my egg without having me to ask, and didn’t charge us extra for the sauce. He also kept topping up our water supplies and checked if we needed seconds on the coffee. For the outstanding service for a cafe, affordable sandwiches, promising muffins & desserts and good ambience, we will be back to try other dishes!

Oh and to Drury Lane, please help fix your electricity supply. The lights and aircon tripped 3 times we were there, so it started getting a little warm. But still pleasant experience overall. Keep up the good work!

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Drury Lane
Address: 94, Tanjong Pagar Road (Hence, the interesting names of dishes like “Cloud 9”, “Cloud 9.4” and “Big 9.4” is because  Drury’s Lane address is 94, Tanjong Pagar Road)
Operating Hours: Mon: 9am – 10pm, Wed – Fri: 9am – 10pm, Sat – Sun: 10am – 6pm
Tel: 6222 6698