Jimmy Monkey Cafe & Bar

Located at the ground of a block of private housing is this tiny café. The dine in area was limited. Menu was a simple clip board, some sliced cakes on the display shelf. Although it was air-​con indoor, we could barely feel the air-​con, so we did try to adjust the standing fan next to us.
Mocha
The drink was quite rich and thick, but not enough coffee taste.
Carrot cake
Quite a huge silce but I would prefer it to be more moist.
Dom Pedro ($ 18)
Fresh Milk, Vanilla Ice-​Cream + Black Nikka Whisky
It looked just like another plain vanilla milkshake. In just a single taste, I could feel the heat of the alcohol down my throat. Feeling high fast. It was rather strong drink to have.
Overall the drinks were great. But in the warm dine in area, one tended to feel sleepy easily.

Jimmy Monkey came highly recommended for its coffee and that was the main reason behind my visit to this off location. The space sort of screams hipster in name, design and look of the staff. That is not necessarily a bad thing as it often can deliver some good food and beverages.
The coffee was pretty good and clearly better than any random place but still not really impressive wither. If it would have been around the corner I could have visited again but not at all worth traveling this far for. Also had a decent brekkie muffin and a pasta with mushrooms. Not bad but also a bit overpriced.
What was however a pleasant surprise was that the staff were friendly and helpful. Service was also smooth and fast despite the place being packed.

A quaint place with a really interesting design.
Perfect for a catch-​up with buddies over a cup of coffee instead of hustling in town.
There were books in the bathroom and a rubix cube too. HAHA

Cool, little nook with compact seating, 9 tables and 2 benches. Industrial, 3 levels exposed which must be helping to absorb all the sound. A plus in my book compared to other places that look über cool, but once seated is a cacophony, reveberated in a too enclosed space. Becomes quite a hub of activity on a sunday morning. A mix of residences nearby, young families, partners for brunch. If u need only the caffeine fix, JM Too is across the pathway and have the new Slayers.
On to the food. Simple menu, doesn’t offer everything under the Suns. The small things make a difference. Like mesclun salad over iceberg lettuce, ripe avacados, fresh ciabatta. Price point are on the higher side, but I’m finding that across the island these days. Portions are ample and generous. Quality and freshness on the ingredients. You don’t get a ‘that’s it!?’ reaction when the plate is served.
And lastly the coffee never misses. Very much recommended.

Imagine a hipster café with above average prices and decidedly average food.
Congratulations, you’ve successfully imagined Jimmy Monkey Café & Bar.
In all seriousness, I found the food to be decent but not worth raving about or coming back for. It seemed as though JMC&B was trying to get that Saturday morning breakfast café feel, like the ones that you’d find by the beach in California or Hawaii, but they fell a bit short. If they’re going to charge the prices they do, I feel there should be something special that sets them at least a little bit apart, but I didn’t think there was anything that special here.
Last mark against them is the lack of space. JMC&B feels very cramped, as we were slotted into what felt like a tiny corner of a wooden shack.

They neither serve Jimmy nor Monkeys… But for a quant place to grab a smoothie or cup of coffee and a light bite this might be a good stop. Tried the pulled pork sandwich on a buttered bun served with potatoes lyonnaise and also tried the tartine called «the hulk» — open face rustic bread sandwich covered in avocado and feta served on a bed of arugula. The banana-​strawberry smoothie was «nice» (says the SPG) and the mocha was delightful!

Coffee was good, food was decent. Portions were slightly too small. Service was spotty although staff were sincere.
Prices could have been slightly lower, especially given the location.

4-​stars only for the coffee.
I normally order a flat white or cappuccino here. They have a Slayer™ coffee machine and do their shots right.
Come here only for the coffee. For dessert, you’re better off wandering over to Rochester or Star Vista.

excellent bruschetta. Have had the breaky sandwich a few times before but this was a first. The cold press coffee is also nice.

I absolutely love the coffee and the laid back vibe at Jimmy Monkey. But their food is really nothing to shout about and rather over priced if I must say. Have tried a couple of their brunch options and the only thing I will re order is the bowl of muesli. Although after having said that, Jimmy Monkey is a place I will keep visiting because their coffee is just quite so amazing. And I also really love their cute blue cups (which you can actually buy!).

Coffee is great!
Food is bad and overprice. I ordered toast with mashroom and poached egg. One side of the egg tasted sour.
Service is bad.

This is one of my favorite tucked-​away places to go. The coffee is flavorful & beautifully prepared with a delicious little biscotti that I can’t get enough of. The food is delicious and uncomplicated. The staff is friendly and unpretentious. The atmosphere is relaxed and welcoming. Free wifi if you need it. Quirky & clever little bits all around to show you that the proprietor & his staff enjoy what they do.

I love this place for its quaint-​ness.
Out of the place (a short walk from One North MRT) but convenient if you have a car.
Good place to chill out on a weekend afternoon but it might be a bit crowded to get some reading done.
Absolutely love the washrooms as it was decorated so beautifully with bookshelves (my absolute dream intention to my own bathroom) with books and cards!

The eggs benedict (only on the weekends) and a cappuccino (which seem bigger than the latte) is probably the best breakfast I have had in Singapore. Their coffee is impressively good.

Fantastic food, great friendly staff.
Coffee, sourdough, bacon, Hemmingway, even the apricot marmalade is perfect. What a great delight for sunday brunch save for it being a little expensive.
One customer left 10 bucks behind accidentally and the staff ran out to return it, when he could have pretended its tips and pocketed it.
Excellent place!

I’ll just get this out of the way first. I’m probably one of five people in the world that doesn’t drink coffee. I know how to grind beans and make coffee in a french press for my mum, I love the smell of coffee brewing and when it pops up in savory food and sweets… but I just hate the taste of coffee as a drink. No matter how much milk, sugar, nothing, best beans, kona beans, any beans, my man has tried to get me to drink it and the most I’ve tolerated is 2 sips. The one time I drank a caramel latte in Japan because I totally misread the menu, it was really sweet and suddenly I was talking non-​stop for an hour.
Since this IS a coffee joint, my dude has his two cents in this review. He had a decaf black and in his words «it’s wonderful. very smooth». So there.
Now on to the food. We’re really brunch people so we were looking for food more than coffee. When I say I’m a brunch person it’s not because I like to dress up to eat a meal I can cook at home. I’m actually a hungry person, I like brunch foods and someone always wakes up too late to fire up the pan. Anyway, we had the french toast and a breakfast sandwich (can’t remember the exact name) and both were pretty good. My french toast was made of 3 thick slices of brioche sliced up, drizzled with a caramel sauce with bananas and nuts drizzled over. It was beautiful to see and a hearty portion for my rumbling tummy. Here’s the problem: the egg wash wasn’t soaked through the bread. Whhhhhhhhy? It would’ve been perfect otherwise. If there’s a monkey jimmy listening — please soak the toast, turn the heat low and cook that baby.
The breakfast sandwich was a standout. A generous, fluffy omelet sandwiched between avocado slices, ciabatta and a sweet-​ish tomato chutney. It was brilliant, huge and I would eat it again. And again. So that’s a winner right there.
What didn’t I like? The guys on shift probably partied until 4am and decided to bring their music to work. Bad trance music in a coffee shop is just wrong. Especially at 2pm on a Saturday. That gave me a headache and I shouldn’t be getting one at a place where there’s a toilet bowl watching me eat.

The JFDI café at Blk 71, Ayer Rajar Crescent, has longer been servin’ up their wonderful coffees made with Jimmy Monkey’s beans! Initially, I thought «Jimmy Monkey» was a supplier of coffee beans. To my surprise they are a café which roast their own beans (and hence name it after themselves)! A very hipster one in fact! My friend brought me there after lunch to grab a Soya latte which I was skeptical about at first. My prejudice against Soya lattes stems from the fact that their drinkers are commonly stereotyped as dieters. Refusing to be labelled as one of them, I have abstained from ordering a Soya latte… until today. My friend was raving about their Soya latte so much — how light & nutty it was… etc — that I knew I had to give it a try (at least just this once). Anyways, it was a quick-in-&-out dash not long enough for any snooty purist coffee drinker to give me the stink eye for ordering a Soya latte. So I did it.
To my surprise… the Soya latte was really GOOD… even better than normal latte! I am a convert. It had a nice nutty flavor (just as my friend promised) and doesn’t taste like the sweet stuff you get from Mr. Bean or at soybean packet drinks from NTUC. The Soya milk didn’t overpower the coffee flavor. In fact, it tasted a lot like milk … only less creamy (which I prefer) … & thus help enhance the coffee (I think). I was pleasantly surprised. The brand of Soya milk they used is called — Silk — which I am told is one of the best. Can’t wait to grab a pack at the nearest cold storage on my way home.
My next coffee will definitely be a Soya Latte!

Espresso — this was a potent, robust and strong shot with a lingering aftertaste, but also a good balance of taste and flavours. This is not surprising — Jimmy Monkey’s Ironbark blend is a combination of beans from Brazil (Cerrado), Papua New Guinea (Sigri), Columbia (Kachru), Guatamala (La Laguna) and Peru (Amazonas). There is also a Columbian single origin blend available, which works well in pourover coffee. Each bean variety contributes something unique to the shot — hints of citrus, and even some chocolate notes. Ironbark is a blend that is still evolving, and is now on it’s third iteration. The experimentation has paid off, leaving a full bodied shot with a lingering aftertaste.
The cappuccino that I ordered was notable for the initial strong hit of coffee flavour, complemented by smooth, light foam and finished with well executed latte art. The microbubbles in the foam add the smooth, silky mouthfeel that I look for, and is seen in quality cafes. This is where Ironbark is used to good effect — the lingering aftertaste is a strong base for a milk based drink, ensuring that the fundamental coffee character is retained.
I had a Piccolo also, which is characterised by a more robust coffee taste, with the aftertaste lasting through the milk and foam. The milk complements the robust coffee flavour, smoothing it but not smothering it, creating a hybrid which retains the best characteristics of each — its just right and well executed. Their original place in the piccolo latte hall of fame post is deserved, and retained. There are also pourover, syphon and chemex coffees available.
This is a good choice for anyone in the West of the island, and worth a quick trip on the MRT for coffee lovers elsewhere.

I googled for free-​wifi AND power plugs and found this place.
What’s lovely about it is you can manage to comfortably get lounge seats on a weekend evening. And there’s no queue, not much of a crowd throughout the night. Yes, it’s QUIET. A rare gem I would say.
I also really admire the fact I could drink coffee, look up and there you are, a TOILET BOWL complete with toilet paper right above my head. It’s so randomly ridiculous yet genius that I LURVE IT. I even took a picture of it, go see.
I ordered the banana bread pudding, — $ 14, and coffee. The presentation of the bread pudding was very cute, it came in a pot, on a wooden slab. Coffee was better than most cafes I’ve been to, and service was… Let’s just say that they let you do your own thing, and they do theirs, and if both lines should intersect, colourful unicorns will bloom. Pricing is on the high side.
One thing that made me feel like getting up to leave, was the glaring red neon lighting fixture, that engulfed me and my companion. It reminded me of an episode in Seinfeld (who else still watches this?!) where Kramer’s entire room emitted a red glow because Kenny Rogers moved opposite his room and their crazy signboard faced his window.
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This hidden gem makes it worthwhile to come hunting in the unknown territories of the new One North neighbourhood just for the coffee alone.
I drove here with a friend. Had no idea where to park since the place is situated inside a private condo. Had to just find a space nearby. There is an open air carpark not far if you’re not lazy to walk.
I love the industrial look of its interior — high ceilings with random book shelves. It’s very open and spacious too. It was very quiet when we came. The staff are mostly made up of a bunch of young boys.
We were only there for coffee and dessert because we’ve had our lunch but looking at the tempting food menu, I’m definitely coming again to try some of their food. I ordered a latte and a cheesecake. The coffee is a good hit of bold flavours. The cheesecake (and most of the desserts) were really pricey (most cost more than $ 6). For the price, I didn’t think it was worth it, I’d rather spend more and get a good meal. But otherwise, we enjoyed just hanging out and reading some magazines, it had a somewhat homely vibe.
Final verdict: Whoever Jimmy Monkey is, he’ll have me swinging by again for the coffee and tempting food menu!