Healthy Breakfast at Tanjong Pagar

Some of the best breakfasts I’ve had are in hotels when I’m on a holiday. The primary reason is having the huge spread of food in front of me. You see, many times, such breakfasts are buffets, which allow me to have a solid filled breakfast! Alas! This only happens during the holidays. Then, I found out there’s a breakfast bar which serves a variety of choices right in the business district–in Tanjong Pagar!

Imagine, a buffet of the healthiest nature, and starting at a very affordable $4.50 (that’s for a regular female office worker) to a largest bowl of $8.50 (for a very hungry male).  This is Singapore’s 1st Breakfast bar which serves wholesome homemade yoghurt, organic oats, cereals, honeys, butters, and a huge range of toppings. This is an open-concept takeaway breakfast place.

Ok. This isn’t a buffet. But trust me, when you can fill up your bowl yourself, that’s just like a buffet! So how does it work?

Simple enough ya? Now if you are like me, a TOTAL NON-Yoghurt lover, I wasn’t looking forward to breakfast at all when I arrived. Since young, I always avoided yoghurt. I don’t like milk, I don’t like cream, and I don’t like yoghurt at all. When I arrived, I thought I would just let the kids do the breakfast, I’ll get their comments and put it down in my review.

We started with Christine, a very friendly and passionate healthy-eating boss of this little restaurant/cafe. She is a mummy too, and the shop started cos she realised how important breakfast was. And when her kids loved her home-made breakfast, she naturally thought it would be great to sell her healthy breakfasts to the busy people in the business district.

She told us how she prepares the yoghurt, allows them to culture and grow, and explain the healthy benefits of yoghurt. And she proceeded to show them the add-ons they can put in their breakfast bowls. And wow, they are really very healthy!

Check out the toppings:

 

 

How was it? Well, I was really surprised my kids loved it. Yes, my kids who love the hash brown at Mac’s, the Carrot Cake from the markets, the Butter-Sugar Toast from the coffeeshops, and the boring kaya bread from home. They loved this whole & hearty breakfast. And the best part, they kept asking me to grab a bowl and try.

I couldn’t hide behind the camera any longer. So I grabbed the smallest bowl (honestly, I wanted to save my tummy space for some good old market breakfast after the review!) and took a small scoop of yoghurt. (remember, I’m not a fan!) and I topped it with some healthy options that I recognise–sunflower seeds, wheatgerm and granola. And Christine recommended some Nut Butters! OMG!!!

They were so so good! With no preservatives, no sugar. These were pure peanut butters, or almond butters or Pistachio butters. So smooth, so delicious!! And naturally, the yoghurt was very palatable with the butters.

I decided to try the yoghurt plain. Take it with just regular chia seed topping. And it was unexpectedly good. I was really surprised. I expected myself to cringe at the sour-ness of the yoghurt, or do a quick swallow to ignore the taste. But I honestly didn’t have to do that. It was … nice. yes, homemade yoghurt is nice!

Christine was very kind, she let me fill up the bowl proper, I did half the bowl of yoghurt, another half with toppings and we chatted as I had my breakfast. IT.WAS.VERY.FILLING. I was really quite surprised! I guess a small bit of healthy food really goes a long way.

It was very clear that everything sold at Whole&Hearty is very fresh, and very natural. This is why what I saw at that day, would probably not be the same as what  you would see when you drop by. Everything that’s on display is dependent on what’s available at the markets. Christine only sells the freshest foods, and makes a fresh batch of yoghurt daily.

On top of what’s available at the Breakfast Bar, Whole&Hearty also sells cultured, probiotic foods such as Kefir Juice, Milk Kefir and Fresh Home-made Yoghurt. There’s also Almond Milk available. Low-fat gelato is also available from 12 noon, as well as a micro-retail section featuring a range of curated products such as Single-origin Chocolates, The Edible Company Granola and Hunter’s Kitchenette Nut Butter. 

Whole&Hearty is open daily for Breakfast from 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. (or when the stuff is sold out), and till 8 p.m. for Gelato. According to Christine, every morning, many of the office workers go to the shop, grab the preferred bowl size, hang out at the bar to fill their bowls, pay up and off they go to work. They will eat their very personalised healthy breakfast in office. And for a large majority, they come by after their work out at the gym. (Gosh! These people are really fit!) and the same happens, grab a bowl, fill it up, pay and off to work!

So if you work at the Tanjong Pagar area, do check out Whole&Hearty. They converted a non-yoghurt person to enjoy a yoghurt breakfast. Definitely worth a trip down if you want to have a healthy breakfast

The cafe/bar is located at 12, Gopeng Street, Icon Village, #01-84.

*Our trip to Whole&Healthy was sponsored. No compensation was received and all opinions are 100% my own.