Teo Soon

There seems to be quite a fair bit going on at Mercure ICON Singapore City Centre ever since the hotel has been opened to public — whilst the hotel boasts a number of F&B establishments on the ground level, it does seem that the building does have an underground link that connects the hotel to Telok Ayer MRT Station and Far East Square; the said linkway also consists of a stretch of shops that is now home to a number of F&B establishments. Some notable F&B establishments that had opened in the underground link includes that of an outlet of Luckin Coffee, an outlet of Tomoro Coffee, an outlet of Feng 丰 and the relocated Super Ngon (previously at Crawford Street). One of the new F&B establishments that had moved into the underground link will be Teo Soon. For those whom find the namesake of the shop pretty familiar; this is because Teo Soon is a brand that hails from Johor, Malaysia — Teo Soon actually operates at multiple locations in Johor which includes outlets at Mutiara Mas, Kulai Indahpura, Taman Pelangi, Taman Gaya and Gelang Petah. Its location in the underground link of Mercure ICON Singapore City Centre is their very first overseas outpost. The shop adopts a colour scheme that sees the use of green amidst monotone elements with gold accents that can be said as quite close to how their outlets in Johor looks like — one can find posters illustrating the food that they are serving up, while there is another board that delves into the story behind the brand. Teo Soon’s offerings at its Singapore outlet is more limited than that of its Malaysian locations — the menu being segmented into categories such as Bread, Sandwich, Pastry and Main Course. Beverages available at Teo Soon includes traditional Kopi & Teh, as well as other options such as Milo, Tie Guan Yin, Honey Lemon etc.

We initially wanted to give the Curry Chicken Hor Fun a go; that being said, we were told that they had run out of Hor Fun and that is how we found ourselves ending up with the Dry Chilli Pan Mee from the Main Course section of the menu during the visit to Teo Soon. Teo Soon’s menu does not describe the elements within each item that they serve up; that being said, one can observe from our order of the Dry Chili Pan Mee that the item comes with elements such as egg, spring onions, fish cake, and pork slices. Truth to be told, the Dry Chilli Pan Mee from Teo Soon isn’t particularly impressive; whilst tossed in sufficient chili for a savoury kick of spiciness that should be manageable for those with moderate tolerance to spiciness, the lack of crispy chili that one would typically get when having KL-style Chili Pan Mee meant that the level of spiciness isn’t quite as intense, and that the Dry Chilli Pan Mee would lack that crispiness laced around the noodles for the added texture. The noodles do come with the right level of chew, though the noodles can be slightly better executed since there was a particular area when the noodles were all clumped up together. The egg also felt a tad overdone, with the yolk having been cooked to a point where it isn’t molten and can’t be tossed together with the entire bowl of noodles as well.

One thing which we found to be rather unique at Teo Soon would be the Signature Butter & Homemade Kaya Toast — we are pretty used to seeing Hainanese-style Kaya and Butter Toast being served with white bread or brown bread (i.e. at Kopitiam, Ya Kun Kaya Toast etc.); Teo Soon serves up their Signature Butter & Homemade Kaya Toast with a toast featuring a green hue at their outlet in Singapore. Possibly coloured so with the use of Pandan, we weren’t quite able to detect any notes of Pandan in terms of flavour, though the Signature Butter & Homemade Kaya Toast does come with Hainanese Kaya which comes with an earthy note of molasses amidst the sweetness possibly so from the use of Gula Melaka. The butter used in the Signature Butter & Homemade Kaya Toast does seem to be more towards the likes of margarine though. The Egg Tart is our favourite item during our visit made to Teo Soon; freshly-baked in-store daily, the egg tart comes with light, buttery and flaky tart base and a warm, soft and jiggly egg curd. The egg curd is suitably sweet, while tart base also holds up the egg curd very well — one of the better egg tarts that we have tried around. Meanwhile, the Hainanese Tea is a little bit similar to that of a “Cham” or “Yuan Yang” that is a combination of Nescafe and Teh; this differs from the standard “Cham” or “Yuan Yang”that features brewed traditional Kopi instead — the Hainanese Tea does feel heavier of milk tea here. Considering how Teo Soon is yet another brand that had made its jump to the local F&B scene after seeing the success of Nanyang Kopitiam-themed establishments in Singapore, we do feel that Teo Soon does feel a little lacking in the execution of its food as compared to other Nanyang Kopitiam-themed establishments in Singapore. That being said, we do look forward to returning to give their Coffee and their Nasi Lemak a go; perhaps those items may fare much better than what we had went for.