Walking into Bar Bon Funk, I didn’t know that I’d be entering into one of my favorite spaces. In the beverage and hospitality industry, a night out in another country is as much enjoyment as it is education. This bar is firmly planted in the center of Singapore’s New Bharu, a former school building converted into lifestyle complex. It’s literally a classroom and class was in session.
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Keong Saik Road and the surrounding area that has seen a boom in hip concepts over recent years, but perhaps the concept that has most excited us has been a split-deck cafe and bar that goes by the name of No Sleep Club. Taking the coffee and cocktails trend to a new level, both bars and their menus are open at all hours. That means that you can have excellent cocktails with breakfast or lunch, or a cappuccino in between negronis. It doesn’t really matter if it’s 10am or 10pm. And both are excellent.
It should probably be said that while the coffee menu is relatively standard as far as specialty coffee concepts go — their area in Singapore being incredibly competitive in this respect — No Sleep Club’s cocktail menu is where you see them pushing limits for experimentation. Expect to read ingredients such as “thai herb distillate” or “lacto-fermented plums” while ordering. Your interest will be piqued and eventually satisfied as things do ending up tasting just as good as they sound like they should.
Aside from their coffee and cocktail programs, No Sleep Club boasts a pretty solid kitchen very much capable of serving excellent plates that swim on the border of comfort and experimental. Onion gravy-covered bangers to linguine wrapped chilli crab to whole basque cheesecake. For us, we indulged in plate of fresh-glazed doughnuts with ice cream to match our after-dinner drinking mood.
But more than just the culinary experience, the energy of No Sleep Club is something special. Lighting is warm and cozy without being too dim, ambient music on rotation is a blend hip songs you’ve maybe not heard yet along the occasional one that you have. It makes you feel strangely like you’re on the edge of where cool is just about to go. Visual, auditory, olfatory, and taste are all wrapped up in a punk rock voice and design aesthetic. With their approach to ambiance and culture, we see No Sleep Club as a Singapore equivalent to Hong Kong’s Yardbird. Lord knows they’ve got the skills and the menu, the t-shits and the style to box in that weight class.
This month, our friends over at The Second Mile Coffee, Curve Coffee Collaborators, The Good Cup Coffee, and Ballentine’s sent us exciting packages to celebrate our love for drinks. We’re more than happy to share our haul with you.
To start, The Second Mile Coffee sent us two goodies: a Time More Electric Mini Kettle and a Time More Chestnut C2 Grinder. The kettle is new to the market. Right off the bat, we can see that it’s a standard gooseneck kettle, albeit smaller than the usual size. Its handle has a copper tip. The electric base is a 220-volt piece of tech that boasts a completely touch-based adjuster. Pretty cool.
Meanwhile, the Time More Chestnut C2 Grinder looks sleek with its gunmetal coloration. We’ll make reviews of these two products somewhere down the line, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can get your own Time More Electric Mini Kettle through The Second Mile Coffee’s running promo: for Php 4850, you get the kettle AND three bags of coffee. If you ask us, that’s quite a steal.
Next, we have Curve Coffee Collaborators’ Lake Napalit kit, featuring a coffee varietal from the aforementioned place in Bukidnon. Inside the environmentally-friendly box are three different ways to enjoy the coffee: a bottle of cold brew concentrate, a bag of whole beans, and a box of drip bags. We are frankly impressed by this package and couldn’t wait to review the coffee as soon as possible.
On a similar note, The Good Cup Coffee sent us their own coffee as well. Unlike Curve’s three different ways to enjoy one varietal, The Good Cup sent us three varietals each to be brewed in one way. These are the El Paraiso Gesha, the Ethiopia Gesha Village in drip bags, and the Ethiopia Kilenso. We’ve already reviewed the surprisingly affordable gesha (Php 90 for a cup?!?) in a previous video, which you could check out on our YouTube channel.
Finally, Ballantine’s sent us a nifty tote bag that came with an eclectic set of goods: a grey hoodie, a blue tee, a pint glass, a can of Coke, and a single lime. Also, they came with two bottles of blended scotch whiskey (which are probably what we should’ve led with). We’re still thinking about what to make of this package. Is it a puzzle? Is it preparation for a big event? The truth is probably a lot simpler: maybe they want us to make whiskey soda with a splash of lime. We’ll see.
Which one of these babies are you excited to learn more about? Share it with us in the comments section of our video!
It’s something I’ve wondered for a while now: why are liquors called spirits? I imagined that it had something to do with a drinker’s consciousness. How it seems to leave the body before succumbing to a drunken stupor. Could that be it? Or is it because a stiff drink can often lift someone’s spirits through its own essence? Basically, adding to your own spirit by adding some that’s been externally generated and bottled. Or — as I theorized during a rum tasting exercise last night with Don Papa Rum’s Aaron Goodall via Zoom — is it because of what they essentially are: the spirit of a previous drink? As it turns out, I’m pretty close to bullseye on that last one.
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