Knots Cafe and Living 🌱

The other day I was around the area at Paya Lebar. I was famished as I haven't had my first meal of the day. I went to Google Maps to search for nearby food places.

I found Knots Cafe and Living nearby and the reviews and pictures were good so I decided to visit. It took me a while to find it and I even had to call the cafe for directions but I did find it in the end.

I entered and it was pretty crowded. I had to wait for someone to serve me and took some videos of the interior meanwhile.

The interior was very grassy and full of vegetation and the decor suited the vegetation, being woody and metallic. It overall felt very homely.

I sanitized my hands, did trace together and was ushered to a seat in a relatively nondescript corner. There, I antagonised over what to eat. I had a craving for carbonara, but I felt it was too simple a dish for such a special place. After all carbonara tastes almost the same everywhere. I was SO hungry but I couldn't decide what to eat. To make matters worse, maybe because it was all the way out in Paya Lebar, my phone couldn't get data reception and I could barely download the menu. On hindsight, I should have asked for the cafe Wi-Fi but maybe the problem might have been with my qr-code scanner.

In the end I managed to sneak a peek at the menu and decided to order. Thankfully, there was a menu on the order counter and on impulse, I decided to order a Salmon Benedict and a matcha latte. Whew. My wallet was down by almost $30.

I sat down and waited for my food and decided to take more videos of the interior. I went to the toilet and took video of the cute space outside too.

Then, my food came rather quickly and I enjoyed it. I really liked the sauce as it was slightly tart and sourish without being too overpowering and I thought the combination of ingredients such as egg, salmon, avocado, bread, and sauce went well together. The salad was good too, with just the right amount of olive oil and balsamic so as not to make it too oily but still tangy. I took a video of the egg yolk spilling out.

When brunch was over I was tempted to eat somemore. But settled on asking the staff to help me take a photo of me with the plants instead. I happened to be wearing green so I suited the decor hahahha.

Overall a great place, 9/10 ambience and 7.5/10 food. The staff were very attentive, friendly and helpful too. Wouldn't mind going back again.

Shakshuka

Ever since I saw this dish on a blog and tiktok, I've been wanting to try it out. Yesterday, I bought a long ass $3 baguette and thought it was the apt time.

I bought a red pepper and saw a recipe where they made tomato pasta sauce with cherry tomatoes, so I skipped the tomato sauce and opted to crush cherry tomatoes and tomatoes instead.

Furthermore, my house had many eggs. So I just used that.

Recipe

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion

1 red bell pepper

4 garlic cloves

2 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 container of cherry tomatoes

2 whole tomatoes

3 eggs

Salt and pepper, to taste

Fresh or dried parsley

Prep

Dice the onions, garlic, and bell pepper

Remove the seeds of the bell pepper

Chop the tomatoes into smaller pieces to make them easier to mash

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large saute pan on medium heat. Add the bell pepper and onion and cook for 5 minutes.

2. Add garlic and spices and cook for 1 minute.

3. Mix in the tomatoes and mash then with a potato masher into a sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Crack the eggs into the sauce. Cover the pan and cook until eggs are done.

5. Garnish with parsley.

I did not add the cumin as I didn't have any but taste-tested the sauce and added much more paprika and chili flakes as needed.

I need to buy more chili flakes (!!)

I dipped the baguette pieces in the sauce and ate the leftovers with a spoon 😊

around cafe

I recently downloaded the WIX app on my phone, so its made things much easier for me to post blog posts, and upload photos.

Here's to more fun and exciting blog posts!

Breaking up the monotony of recipe posts, here is a review post about a cafe I visited recently!

It's named Around cafe and it's located in Tampines.

I saw it featured on Mothership website or something like that. I saw the glass-panelled, wood-furnished feature wall on the right side of the cafe, where the model took her ootd and I was instantly sold. I HAD to go there and take a picture.

It was months after that I got an opportunity to go though.

By that time then, I had forgotten about the features of the feature wall and googled pink feature wall cafe in a silly manner. I hadn't forgotten my beloved wall, but I thought that it was pink!

After much trial and error I managed to find Around cafe and instantly sent its address to my group of friends.

On that day itself, one of us couldn't make it and the threat of the event being cancelled loomed above us. But I was adamant about making it there. My beloved feature wall! 😍 and furthermore I had already put on make-up and dressed up. I wasn't about to let this opportunity go.

Ofc I also took some much-needed ootds with that beautiful feature wall. And it was a joy to witness in person. Can you tell I'm in love hahahahah 😆

If the cafe was nearer to my house, both my friend and I agreed that we would be frequent customers. For the ambience and decor and aesthetic was on point and the food wasn't bad either.

My only gripe was that the dark chocolate ice-cream prolly had a bit of alcohol? And it tasted too artificial for my liking.

But otherwise, it was a near-perfect expedition.

Till next time, Around cafe!