The Workbench Bistro

332 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, #01-1881, 560332

Opening hours: 12-10pm

Cuisine: Western, cafe style

Nearest MRT: Ang Mo Kio

Located in a quiet Ang Mo Kio neighbourhood, the Workbench offers decent main courses and desserts. My friends had the garlic pasta and crab meat linguine which were delicious. There was a generous serving of crab meat to go with the pasta and the sauce was sufficient and tasty. For the garlic pasta, it was slightly undercooked, but the strong overpowering garlic taste would appeal to garlic lovers. For me, I am not such a fan of garlic, so a small bite of the garlic pasta was good enough for me. A friend also ordered garlic fries to share. The portion was average and luckily for me the taste of the garlic was not very strong. They sprinkled grated cheese over the fries which gave it a stronger taste.

crabmeat linguine

garlic fries

On the desserts side, there were several flavours of waffles to choose from. We had the blue velvet and S’moreffles (S’moreffles = S’mores + waffles). Apparently it is the first cafe in Singapore that serves S’moreffles. The blue velvet waffle was not very appealing, it was hard and crispy, not the kind of fluffy waffles that I was looking out for. The only redemption was the unique ice cream flavours, such as Earl Grey and fig, salted caramel, Baileys. We had two scoops of ice cream for each waffle ordered. The fourth flavour that we tried was blueberry cheesecake. The person who scooped it gave more like a half scoop than a full scoop. Surprisingly, the S’mores waffle was not too sweet and I enjoyed the molten marshmellow.

Being located in a heartland area, I think Workbench provides decent value to the table. Another plus point is that there is no GST or service charge at this bistrot, so feel free to tip the staff if they have done a good job. If you are on a budget, head over to the neighbouring coffeeshop for the Western food.