You’ll find an array of tantalising dishes on display, which you can mix and match at your own choosing. Meals ranging from $13-17 are served in sets with 3 choices of salads accompanying the main dish of your choice. On top of that, they have a delectable selection of sandwiches and brunch items on the weekends. This compact café is perfect for doing work or enjoying a quiet day as even when it’s full, the well-behaved clientele of stylish yuppies keep their conversations hushed.

For a café with a name so focused on the main substance found in a cup of joe, you’d expect it to be a coffee purist’s haven with odd names for drinks with different amounts of milk. But Department of Caffeine is nothing like that; instead it’s got a great selection of light meals and lovely desserts to go with your coffee drinks, which aren’t confusing to order at all.

Its Pulled Pork Sandwich with Homemade BBQ Sauce ($13) was a mass of shredded vegetables and tender meat. The first bite holds a myriad of flavours – sweet, tangy and something almost floral, akin to lemongrass, to balance out the pork’s saltiness. The homemade sauce that lightly marinates the pork is the tangiest BBQ sauce we’ve tried, tasting almost Thai. With soft buns that soak up the flavours, this pulled pork sandwich is definitely not your typical café fare.

The Chargrilled Broccoli Salad ($9/11/13), lightly drizzled in olive oil and seasoned with flakes of chilli and garlic, came as a pleasant surprise. Chargrilled to add a certain depth to its flavour, the salad made for a savoury yet refreshingly juicy appetiser.

Though the Poached Salmon with Yoghurt & Dill sauce ($13/15/17) was cooked very well with its tender insides, it proved too salty even with its creamy sauce. If you’re really craving salmon, be sure to order it with the Sesame Soba Noodles Salad($9/11/13). The salad’s nutty and tangy flavour due to the sesame and citrus dressing, will even out and complement the salmon’s strong flavour.

Nothing like the dried-out muffins you find at Starbucks, the desserts at DOC are creative and made to complement your coffee. “You won’t find anything with layers of cream here. Everything is made to enjoy with coffee,” said Andrew.

The Pear & Amaretto Cake ($5) might be a unique pairing of flavours to most of us, but rest assured, both ingredients go great together. Leaving you with a wonderful nutty sweetness, its only improvement would be if the alcoholic presence of amaretto was more prominent. Be sure to get a strong cup of java alongside this cake as its dense, almost bread pudding-like texture grows cloying with each bite.

The standout dessert is definitely the Honey & Lavender Teacake ($4.50) – soft, moist and lovely with a latte. Delicately flavoured with lavender and topped with a complementary lemon drizzle that offsets the floral sweetness, it’s a must-try.

Providing the coffee beans is the Australia roaster Five Senses, the same roaster that supplies 40 Hands, a popular café in Tiong Bahru, that uses a heavier blend.

A great full-bodied blend, its deep roasted taste hits you at your first sip, giving way to a milder slightly sharper taste. This is a crowd pleaser with its versatile and palatable flavour.

They definitely justify their name by making sure to serve coffee from a variety of roasters other than the mainstay, Five Senses. Every month, DOC features a local and international roaster, this week’s being Nylon Coffee Roasters.

A rather unique blend that comes off as sweet, it’s marked by its strong acidic taste. The taste of milk in lattes made with Nylon beans are much more prominent than in Five Senses lattes, making it more suitable for those with a preference for a lighter coffee taste. Although, it might put people off with its evident sourness.

With so many cafes popping up around Singapore, it’s hard to distinguish the good from the mediocre. But DOC definitely has the formula for your new favourite café: a cosy environment, good food, even better desserts and, of course, a great cup of Joe.

Rating: 3.5/5

Price rating: 4/5

Contact details:

Address: 15 Duxton Road

Tel: 6222 4326

Opening Hours:
Mon – Fri: 10:30 am – 7:30 pm
Sat – Sun: 9:30 am – 7:30 pm

From learning the essence of art in cuisine, grasping the business perspective of a budding entrepreneur and making sausages, the 1-day event covered a wide array of topics.

Even if you’re not an aspiring chef or planning to open a restaurant, here are 3 sessions we think might help you impress at your next dinner conversation.

Art in Cuisine

“I was trained to make carrots look like olives,” said Daniel Sia of The Disgruntled Chef. “But I believe that food should look like what they are. Carrots should not look like olives, and cucumbers should not look like dragons,” he said, earning laughs from the audience.

Together with Chef Janice Wong, owner of the 2am:dessertbar and 2am:lab, they collaborated to create a sweet and savory dish dubbed the “Garden Dessert”. Artfully putting together unlikely bedfellows watermelon, asparagus, carrots, bamboo shoots, with caramelized shallots, the pair then drizzled the ensemble with miso-caramel sauce.

It was a lesson in the importance of food presentation. Instead of relying on the ingenious disguising of food, Wong told UrbanWire that it was more important to “focus on the textures and colours. I also followed my philosophy of art on a plate, but now my new philosophy is food as art. Every chef needs a philosophy… You’ve got to find your own style and your own philosophy.” Wong was just named Asia’s Best Pastry Chef 2013, a new category created by The Diners Club® World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, which is also responsible for the listing of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Dispelling the common myth that dishes are either sweet or savory depending on whether we use “certain ingredients or techniques,” Sia explained that “I can use the same caramelizing technique for apple pies to shallots while retaining its original flavor.”

The Artisan’s Mastery of Fromagerie

Chef David Senia is a Michelin star chef who has worked in distinguished establishments from the Restaurant l’Oasis jn la Napoule, the Old Manila restaurant in Manila, Philippines, to the Ritz Carlton in Osaka, Japan. The bubbly 41-year-old may be dead serious about his craft, but he was kidding around so much that the 30-minute session flew by most pleasurably.

“Do you understand my French accent, by the way?” questioned Senia, “Good, because sometimes I don’t understand it myself,” he continued, to the roar of laughter from the crowd.

The current executive chef of 6-starred Capella Singapore, Senia gave full play to his down-to-earth and jolly personality, and kept the crowd captivated throughout the half-an-hour session dedicated to cheese as non-stop laughter filled the room.

Although his demonstrations of camembert cheese with vanilla, apples and deep-fried breaded goat cheese were impressive, when it came time for questions, a student asked, “How (can) I be like you, a funny chef?”

“How to be like me? Enjoy life. We are not pilots of airplanes, we are just chefs. We are not kings of the world, so just enjoy life,” answered Senia.

Being a Chef As a Profession

“Why do you want to be a chef?” Chef Edmund Toh, Assistant Vice President of Resorts World™ and President of the Singapore Chefs Association asked the students in attendance. “Are you forced to be a chef? Do you want to be a chef for the fun [of it]?”

As long as that driving force is right, and the chef is adaptable, Toh feels success will eventually come.

“To be a good chef, you can’t be too selective. You can start anywhere, from hawker centers to food streets and food carts, all the way to 3-star Michelin restaurants, so your palette has to adapt to all kinds of cuisines,” advised Toh.

After delivering a short inspirational talk on the positive attitude and personality that a chef should have, Toh proceeded with his demonstration on Thai food.

As he showed the audience how to make 3 variations of the same dish, ‘Chicken Rice Balls’ (bite-sized rice balls with steamed chicken inside), student volunteers went up on stage to gain some hands-on learning experience from the culinary expert himself.

The chef added Thai flavours to the rice balls – which were a twist on Singapore’s famous chicken rice – by making his own sauces using typical Thai ingredients such as chilli padi, lemongrass and Thai basil. The sauces were then used as dips for the rice balls.

“The chefs are basically teaching us common sense,” said Chong Ing Wei, 32, student from At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy, “But it motivates us to work towards our goals and ultimately, hope to become as successful as they are in the future.”

From the left: David Senia, Janice Wong, and Daniel Sia

Drawing a successful crowd this year, organisers are already looking to next year’s Youth Chefs’ Day. Senia promised it will be “even bigger”, with more talents from around the world invited to share with the audience. So to gourmet enthusiasts who want to get their hands dirty and learn some culinary tips (or meet their celebrity chef idols), watch out for the next Youth Chefs’ Day.

Michael Bublé is back with his eighth studio album after a 1½-year hiatus. Like all his other albums, To Be Loved is largely about old standards reinterpreted that showcases Bublé’s voice at its best.

The 14-track album features 4 original songs that were co-written by Bublé himself. Much like his past albums (think Crazy Love released in 2009), the three-time Grammy winner revived old classics with his latest release.

Based in Toronto, his album features artistes of different genre, like Bryan Adams who’s famous for his rock music, and The Puppini Sisters who are known for pop and swing music, which provides To Be Loved with great musical diversity, but it can’t save the singer-songwriter’s album from being just another Michael Bublé album. Not bad, considering it topped the US Billboard 200 chart.

Incredibly pop and upbeat for a break-up song, the tune of the lead single “It’s a Beautiful Day” will remind you of his previous hit “Haven’t Met You Yet” from the album, Crazy Love.

Taking notes from the Robbie Williams-Nicole Kidman duet for “Something Stupid”, Buble has committed the silliest mistake on this album, if not his almost magically perfect musical career, by re-doing this with Reese Witherspoon. Yes, she sang her own songs in Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic, but when she could be heard on this track, Witherspoon’s almost monotonous and largely emotionless back-up vocals on this track could really have been done by anyone. Such a contrast from another duet he did with Nelly Furtado on the beautiful “Quando Quando Quando”.

With hardly anything new, the most impressive track in To Be Loved is the 38-year-old’s remake of Frank Sinatra’s “Come Dance With Me”. The jazz artiste’s rendition of Sinatra’s song features a more playful side of it.

To Be Loved would be more dynamic with more originals, but one can’t help but to enjoy classy Jazz music by the multiple Juno Awards recipient.

Album Details

Artiste: Michael Bublé

Album Name: To Be Loved

Rating: 3/5

Language: English

Genre: Vocal Jazz

Record Label: Reprise Records

Release Date: April 15, 2013

Album Tracklist

1. You Make Me Feel So Young

2. It’s a Beautiful Day

3. To Love Somebody

4. Who’s Lovin You

5.Something Stupid (featuring Reese Witherspoon)

6. Come Dance with Me

7. Close Your Eyes

8. After All (featuring Bryan Adams)

9. Have I Told You Lately (with Naturally 7)

10. To Be Loved

11. You’ve Got a Friend in Me

12. Nevertheless (I’m in Love with You) (featuring The Puppini Sisters)

13. I Got It Easy

14. Young at Heart

Imagine this. The once magnificent Enterprise, now worn out and damaged after having had her guts blown out by the sleek, fully armed USS Vengeance, floating calmly in pitch-black space awaiting her doom. One final blow from the Vengeance – now temporarily out of power thanks to it’s stow-away Scotty (Simon Pegg) – and all her passengers will be obliterated.

On the inside, it is everything but calm. The playful Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), now forced to grow up, is prepared to sacrifice himself for the safety of his ship and crew. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, I only know what I can do,” says a very determined Kirk to his first officer Spock (Zachary Quinto), who naturally objects to Kirk’s plans.

As always, the young captain ignores his Vulcan best friend and teams up with his prisoner, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) to go aboard the enemy ship. However, the plan gets waylaid as the Enterprise lacks even the power to beam the pair across, leaving them to attempt a orbital skydive through the debris filled space by “shooting” from the Enterprise to the Vengeance in only a helmet and suit.

With their navigation displays, Kirk and Harrison project towards a tiny door on the side of the combat ship, that will open once Scotty pushes a button. It seems simple enough, but director J.J. Abrams isn’t one who’ll let an action scene like this one be just that. Along the way, disaster strikes when Kirk bumps into a hunk of debris and gets his helmet cracked, rendering his navigation system useless and setting himself way off course.

At the same time, Scotty is discovered by a guard on board the Vengeance and communication with with those aboard his beloved Enterprise ceases. Panic and fear ensues as helmsman Hikaru Sulu (John Cho) counts down the seconds till his Captain and super villain Harrison either collide terribly into the surface of the opposing ship or shoot through the hanger door.

Thrilling the audience and getting blood pumping, this beautifully executed sequence manages to surpass that of Iron Man 3’s amusing “barrel of monkeys” in the sky. Abrams never fails to please with first-class special effects and action scenes as seen when the Vengeance crashes and plows through San Francisco.

However, it’s obvious where JJ Abrams draws his inspirations. In another scene, Kirk, Spock and Uhura are chased by Klingons and narrowly escape by manoeuvring their spacecraft through a horribly small gap between 2 colliding structures.

It brings to mind the asteroid chase in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, if you can imagine Kirk playing the over confident Han Solo and Spock as the ever-calculating C-3PO. The familiar disc shaped ship and the way they escape their assailants is uncanny. Or is that just to confirm that the 46-year-old director’s an apt choice to take on the seventh instalment of the Star Wars franchise due out in 2015?

The newest addition to the charming cast of Star Trek, is Benedict Cumberbatch who plays – contrary to his beloved titular character in the popular BBC series Sherlock – John Harrison, (spoiler alert!) who is in fact the ancient warrior and intergalactic terrorist Khan Noonien Singh. Voted as 1 of the top 10 greatest film villians of all time by the Online Film Critics Society, the iconic baddie does more in the film than in both Space Seed (episode one of the original television series released in 1967) and The Wrath of Khan together. This excites fans, needless to say. But casting a white actor for a role of one surnamed Singh and is suspected to be an Sikh, is a horrid throwback to the dark ages in Hollywood where Asians were portrayed by Caucasians, think Peter Sellers, Jerry Lewis and Sir John Gielgud as any number of unconvincing orientals.

Still, with a superb performance shown by the blue-eyed Briton who mixes magnificence and maleficence with his commanding voice and stately air, he successfully brings Khan back to the silver screen. Though Abrams falls slightly short trying to portray him as the cunning and all evil superhuman he is, Cumberbatch’s rich baritone voice still sends chills down the spine especially when he proclaims that he will “walk over your cold corpses”. It’s even more so when amplified through the cinema’s surround sound speakers. All throughout, Cumberbatch’s assailants seem to always be 1 step behind, bumbling about, while Khan’s a marvelous specimen of a full-on ice-cold, diabolically super nasty miscrent.

Story-wise, the sequel manages to pull off a predictable storyline of terrorism and the enemy within even their elite and noble ranks, by throwing in a few unexpected plot twists. Even the most loyal members of the crew find themselves antagonized by the changing plot. “It seems so military, I thought we were explorers!” exclaims an unsettled Scotty (Simon Pegg) when he realises the Enterprise is loading up with 72 military-grade torpedos to hunt down John Harrison and proceeds to resign.

At the esteemed admiral Pike’s funeral, Kirk quotes the Enterprise’s original mission statement: “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It’s 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

And in hindsight, one will feel that using that statement in closing was cunning of Abrams, and that the film largely (with exception of the splendid first 15 minutes) didn’t “explore strange new worlds” but instead was focused on protecting good ol’ Mother Earth and her inhabitants. Thus placing Star Trek with other cliché superhero films like last year’s The Avengers. Newly explored and revealed in the film, was perhaps immense character growth. (Spoiler alert!) For one, hearing Spock explain to Uhura why he chose not to feel, and then later watching Spock lose control of his emotions to shed tears, left the audience emotional and in awe.

But, if “you can’t even break a rule, how can you be expected to break bones?” Khan asks Spock in a tone frigid enough to take aback the supposedly unfeeling Vulcan. The same can be said about Star Trek: Into Darkness. One can’t expect a fresh story with exciting new characters from the timeless sci-fi series by harping on how the film deviated so far from the original series. By taking risks and pushing the boundaries with Star Trek, by being the first to film using IMAX cameras which were then converted to 3D, audiences and critics alike await Abrams’ next fabulous film.

Rating: 4/5

Release Date: May 16

Runtime: 2 hrs 12 mins

Language: English

Censorship Rating: PG

Genre: Sci-fi drama / Action

Director: J. J. Abrams

Main Actors: Chris Pine, Zachery Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch

Release Date: 6 June 2013

Rating: TBA

Directed By Louis Leterrier

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Mélanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine

Now You See Me pits an elite FBI squad in a game of cat and mouse against “The Four Horsemen,” a super-team of the world’s greatest illusionists lead by Michael Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg). “The Four Horsemen” pull off a series of daring heists against corrupt business leaders during their performances, showering the stolen profits on their audiences while staying one step ahead of the law.

The UrbanWire is giving away 5 sets of movie premiums (a pack of playing cards, a t-shirt, a poster and a keychain) to five lucky winners.

Question: Who is the director of Now You See Me? 

Submit your answers here!

Prizes are sponsored by Shaw Organisation.

Affectionately nicknamed ‘Kerby’ by its 1000 followers, the former truck started serving meals on wheels since the start of 2013.

“We saw the truck as more than just a vehicle. It has a personality to it. It has become a symbol of what is portable out there in the streets of Singapore,” its owner, Ee Poh Luan, 48, told UrbanWire.

With its candy striped doors and its chocolate coloured body, the environmentally-friendly Toyota-Hino truck, standing at a towering height of 2.6 metres, is a definite standout on Singapore’s streets. Kerby also boasts a fully functioning kitchenette for the ultimate mobile cooking experience.

Serving fusion dishes of Western-Asian origin, Kerby places emphasis on good quality ingredients, allowing customers to enjoy gourmet food at street side prices. Track the truck down and you’ll find a constant crowd standing around the vehicle, eating al fresco style from make shift standing tables.

A hot favourite among customers is the Pea Purée with Sous-Vide Egg ($10). Slow cooked to perfection in a vacuum plastic bag, the half boiled egg is nestled in a creamy blend of fresh peas; a texture strikingly similar to the ubiquitous potato mash. The ingenious, hearty combination of the barely cooked yolk and the buttery essence of the purée was indeed a savory delight even to pea haters.

Sprinkled with cracked black pepper and splashed with a generous amount of truffle oil, even Kerby’s humble fries ($5) are a must-try. Crisp to the touch, each golden digit cracked up to offer a molten goodness of steaming potato upon first bite. Unlike overly salty fast food chain fries, these chips surprisingly had just the right amount of seasoning while still retaining its fresh taste despite being fried. Think MOS Burger’s crisp chips, but with a kick of the nutty truffle aroma.

Other main dishes include the Japanese Cold Pasta with Crabmeat ($12) as well as Fish Curry Pasta ($10), yet another unexpected but well loved fusion dish. Delightfully refreshing, the chilled angel hair pasta is well loved for its velvety yet light aftertaste– especially when paired with the richness of the crabmeat. Each serving is plated up in a whirl of delicate pasta with the nuggets of crabmeat tucked between.

Luan Ee, gave up the corporate world of stakeholding engagement as a communications executive to embark on this food-based social enterprise that aims to assist the under-privileged and the elderly. With every meal sold, Luan ensures a free one is given back to the beneficiaries under the Social Enterprise Association.

“We want to bring a buzz to the streets of Singapore while, and at the same time, to fulfill our social vision of solving the issue of hunger here,” said Luan.

Never having a definite answer to its locations, the elusive food vehicle keeps its loyal followers, (mainly the office crowd and dedicated foodies), in the loop of its whereabouts on its Facebook page. Despite its nomadic nature, Kerby can usually be found at the History Gallery Carpark in the National Musuem of Singapore or the Ministry of Social and Family Development at Thomson. Business usually operates from 12–7 PM.

Kicking up a fresh start to the local food scene, Kerbside Gourmet will definitely hail as one of the pioneers of food trucks in Singapore  will follow suit in this new breed of dining in time to come. The newfangled, or some would say, revisited combination concept of alfresco with mobile dining has brought a fresh approach to the eating experience. So grab some friends in good fun of tracking Kerby down and slurp that cold pasta– kerbside style.

Rating: 3.5/5

Price rating: $$

Telephone: 9298 4888

Site: www.kerbsidegourmet.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kerbsidegourmet?fref=ts