The best thing about Toast Box is…. the laksa!

I was quite excited when Anton over at Our Awesome Planet made a post about the opening of Singapore chain Toast Box in Trinoma. I love these cozy kopi tiams and so made it a point to head over to faraway QC when the opportunity arose just to taste what they had to offer.

My officemate and I ordered a few items from the menu and I must say the best thing about Toast Box is not the toast but their laksa. Laksa is a popular soup in Malaysia and Singapore made of flat hofan noodles. The creaminess of the coconut milk combines with the spiciness of the chili to make it a delectable dish. Toppings consisted of a couple of shelled prawns, hebi (dried shrimp or hibe to us), tofu and parsley.

Toast Box offers a number of thick toasts with a variety of toppings and I settled for kaya with pork floss. The floss in Bread Talk turned out to be better. The sugar-based kaya in Toast Box
also didn’t turn out to be to my liking because I like the green or pandan-based one. If you want to indulge your kaya fixation at home (like spread it over your toast during breakfast), the best place to buy is at the Pastry Boutique of the Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila where they sell one bottle for close to three hundred pesos. It is the best kaya made in town outside of these commercial places.

There has been comparison about Toast Box and its close competitor Kopi Roti which is not too fair really. First of all, Toast Box does not have the kopi bun which is Kopi Roti’s best product. Kopi Roti’s main fault is that they do not have too many food on their line-up. Aside from their “sets” (normally toast with a pair of soft-boiled eggs), Toast Box also has rice meals like Nasi Lemak which is my favorite Malay food. But I still like the coffee at Kopi Roti because it’s placed in a clear transparent cup where I can see the condensed milk at the bottom.

Toast Box’s varied menu consists of a variety of cakes coming from its sister-company Bread Talk. The other noodle dish mee siam is a soupy noodle mixed with asam paste that borders on sweet and sour. This reminded me of our pansit palabok only that our very own palabok is better, in my opinion.

Some more Toast Box pics: