The Carbuyer team visits five of Singapore’s best café/restaurants in Mazda’s stylish new MX-5

SINGAPORE — The new Mazda MX-5 may be small, but us motoring writers come with big appetites. So when the folks at Mazda suggested we go on a café/restaurant hop in their new fourth-generation Miata, we turn down for what?

Yes we were aware of the fact that we would be totally undercutting Mazda’s engineers’ efforts in cutting 100kg off the last model, but that wasn’t going to stop us from gorging ourselves silly.

We met bright and early at 8am on a Wednesday at the Mazda showroom located at 5 Ubi Close, with empty stomachs. Before they could start growling, we were passed the keys to one white six-speed manual transmission and another automatic in Soul Red, Mazda’s proposed colour for its new generation of cars.

Our first stop of the morning was Populus Coffee & Food Co. (146 Nei Rd, 6635-8420) for a hearty brekkie. Nestled in a shophouse along Neil Road, this cozy cafe’s must-try dishes include its all-day breakfast items like its signature soft scrambled eggs with streaky bacon on top of a toasted croissant marinated with fresh herb melange and feta. 
There’s also the spring pancake and fried chicken combo with a hint of cumin and in-house ranch dressing. Finally the one that got our tags wagging was the buckwheat pancake with berry fruit compote, passion fruit curd and a drizzling of thyme-infused maple syrup.

Next, we drop our soft tops and made our way to Gillman barracks where we indulged in fresh seafood at a little quaint restaurant called The Naked Finn (Blk 39 Malan Rd., 6694-0807). With high ceilings and glass sheet walls, the interior was minimalist but not the food. 
We ordered the giant tiger prawns served with salted egg yolk dip, farmed marble goby deep-fried in olive oil, a Connecticut-style lobster roll with homemade mayonnaise, grilled baby squid and New Zealand littleneck clams flambéed in white wine and barramundi stock.
At the end of our love affair with the sea, we took what space was left in our tummies and adjourned to the Spuds & Aprons (109 Mount Faber Rd., 6377-9688) at top of Mount Faber.

There, we tucked into a yoghurt gelato sandwich and vanilla ice cream with warm berry compote while taking in views of Sentosa and running cable cars. Out our sheer curiosity (and perhaps greediness), we also ordered a side of chili crab stuffed in potato skins.

Because there is always more room for dessert, we navigated the narrow streets of Singapore’s Arab Quarter for Shop Wonderland (37 Haji Ln., 6299-5848), a hipster café/shop/florist that bakes the most delicious Thai milk tea loaf, Gula Melaka and Earl Grey Lavender cakes.

While waiting for the bill, we went upstairs to check out the locally-made curios that were being sold.

Our last stop of the day was also the newest. Smoke & Mirrors (#06-01 National Gallery Singapore, 6384-5575), located at the top of the newly-opened National Gallery Singapore, serves both cocktails and mocktails.

There, we had the truffle fries, prawn toasts with homemade dip and crispy Chinese whitebait otherwise known as “Chinese french fries” or fried “silver fish”. We accompanied the fried goodness with handcrafted sodas Salted Plum Fizz and Hibiscus Soda.

As the sun started to set, we realised it was almost six o’clock. And though we started on an empty stomach, we were now full to the brim. Driving the Mazda MX-5, and beating the peak hour traffic home was the icing on the cake.