Five & Dime @ River Valley Road

This place has been around for quite some time now. Visited on a Friday night, past 930pm and people were still waiting outside for a table. Mainly because its upstairs section are closed by then. Though dinner menu had ended, a couple of tables were still willing to wait about 20 minutes to half hour for supper menu which starts at 10pm. Parking is available.

menu

Shop is small and packed. Service crew young, friendly and bright. Customers are youthful, and perhaps only one out of five would be above 40 years old? Quite an attractive crowd. Atmosphere was vibrant as the noise gets trapped in such small space. But that's alright, since most were minding our own business and carried on with our own thing.

while waiting for a table...

coffee machinery, liquors and flavours

chalkboard

Supper menu only has a couple of items, so decisions were made pretty fast. A bowl of soba, some fries, beef cubes and drinks.

table seats

One could opt for a bar counter seat, as the wait for those would probably be 10 minutes less than waiting for a table.

finally seated

First up, chips with rosemary sea-salt. The word 'chips' had conjured up an expectation of chunky fries. Either that, or really thin sliced potato crisp.

Though it was just regular fries, this bunch was quite enjoyable as its outer shell remained crips. Pretty salty so have it with a drink, or dabs of ketchup to balance (well sort-of).

chips @$7++ with ketchup

What to drink?

old school

Ordered the Garden Gnome cocktail. Again, the word 'garden' conjured up an image of a mojito-like drink. Moreover, this one was rum-based too!

Garden Gnome @$16++, no greens though

Tasted pretty much like lemon-juice, with a dash of alcohol. Probably two teaspoon more of Bacardi rum would be good.

Bailey's based cocktail with coffee and milk foam

Friend's drink was milky and predominantly coffee. Likeable though she found it a tad too sweet.

Do not drink on an empty stomach, so we had food.

koro koro beef cubes @$12++

The beef cubes were marinated. Tasted strongly of herbs. Was that oregano? And there was soy-sauce in it, I think and topped with garlic bits. Asian-style. Beef was chewy but not overly so.

soba noodle soup with duck slices @$12++

As with supper, one would want to whip things up pretty quickly. Looked like this bowl was it. Anything warm on a hungry tummy, would be comforting.

Wanted a bit more variety, so tried their popular lava chocolate cake with salted egg yolk center. This dessert came out in a dim sum basket so that was pretty fun.

lava cake with salted egg custard @$12++

golden salted egg lava

Served piping hot, so be careful when biting down on the cake. Salted egg yolk custard was extremely flowy and because this is a dense cake instead of a bun, there was nothing to soak up the sauce. Good to be shared amongst 3 pax.

cup of good 'ol flat white

Coffee served in a blazing red teacup? Yes, I'll have one. Not too acidic, just the perfect nightcap.

Expect to pay between $40 to $50 per pax.