Last year, we bid goodbye to the 11-year-old New Majestic Hotel on Bukit Pasoh Road. Then, this year, the heritage shop house stretch welcomed a new members’ club: Straits Clan, a four-story, 22,000 square foot venue revamped by local design studio Takenouchi Webb.
It costs considerable dough to be a part of this private community — the standard joining fee is S$4,500, with an additional subscription payment of S$198 per month. But, the clubhouse isn’t completely off limits to non-members…
Nestled in its ground floor lobby lounge is Clan Cafe, a refined, elegant space that plates up healthy soups, salads, broths, and brunch items with an Asian (mostly Japanese) infusion. Homegrown tea specialists A.muse Projects are here too, with their special tea blends.
The brightly-lit eatery features floor-to-ceiling windows, splashes of color, customized teak furniture, and pockets of designer flora.
If you pop by from Mondays to Saturdays between 10am and 6pm, the menu includes grain bowls such as grilled Angus ribeye with onsen egg, carrot, and lotus root ($19), miso salmon with edamame and sugar snaps ($17), quinoa crusted chicken with corn and furikake ($17), and kakiage kale, okra, and aubergine with genmaicha broth ($15).
As for the salads, they come in rempah chicken ($17), grilled salmon ($17), and baby spinach with pear, walnut, and blue cheese ($15) varieties, while the hearty broths ($9) come in options like spiced beef, chicken and leek, and tomato with pumpkin seeds.
If you’re more of a brunch person, there’s the cafe’s rendition of standard avocado toast ($17) and eggs benny ($19), as well as a matcha granola bowl ($11) and a fruit bowl ($8). Something different, though, is their otah sandwich of brioche, mackerel, prawn, and comté ($16).
However, this being more of a day spot, the menu shrinks quite a bit after 6pm, with just the otah sandwich, an octopus curry toast ($19), and pork secreto ($19) available.
Other than coffees from Papa Palheta and iced teas on the drinks side, the herbal tea brews stand out for their intriguing blends ($8), with concoctions such as Glowing Skin, a mix of oolong, calendula, nettle, and rose petals; or Calm Anxiety, made from lemon balm, linden, chamomile, hops, and peppermint.
Should you be up for a mid-day or after-hours cocktail ($17), the line-up here includes martinis, G&Ts, Pisco sours, and daiquiris. Bottled beers ($10-$18) from brewers like Crossroads Brewing Co. and Hong Kong Beer Co. are also available.
Besides Clan Cafe, the building is also home to three other dining and drinking spots — the Dining Room, the Bar, and the Tasting Room for rare wines and whiskies — but in these places, they’ve got that “members only” rule in action. So the rest of us will just have to do with peeking furtively from the ground floor cafe instead.
Clan Cafe is at Straits Clan, 31 Bukit Pasoh Rd. Mon-Sat 10am-10pm.
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