Story and photos by Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling Gourmet TM

All rights reserved copyright

All photos are of real food with no photoshop

The inquisitive and indomitable Travelling Gourmet gives you the expose aka low down on a popular Breakfast snack at where…

MANY people go for breakfast, tea and snacks. I actually got to hear of this CON from my good friend, Adelgunde Sommer who posted a photo of her Kaya Toast Bread with very little Kaya jam…only small dabs here and there. I decided to go incognito and unannounced to Toast Box to buy a Kaya Toast and see for myself.

On Saturday, 25 July, 2015, I went to the Toast Box @ Lido opposite Food Repblic at 18:23:54. I bought a Kaya Toast for S$1.60 and a Kopi O (Black coffee) for S$ 1.70. Check No: 383182.

I then sat down at a table in the far corner and took photos of the Kaya Toast. It was lightly browned toast and seemed to be white bread. However, on their noticeboard, they say it is multi grain bread. despite being toasted, the bread is soft and wimpy and somewhat mushy as is typical of white bread. Frankly, I prefer wholemeal and brown bread and Rye Bread for more texture and bite and nutrition. The most terrible part of this scam, because I believe in calling a spade a spade, is the way the staff have been trained to put a small rectangular piece of margarine at the edge of the Kaya Taost sandwich in such a cunning way…that it seems that the whole sandwich has a lot of butter or margarine in it. THIS IS NOT SO! It is an optical illusion and a crafty trick!The amount of margarine is actually very little. If you open up the two pieces of toast you will see what I mean. The rectangle of margarine is approximately 2cm by 4cm. Moreover, the amount of Kaya or egg jam is MINISCULE..a dab here a dab there. On the other piece of the toast there is NO  margarine and NO Kaya Jam at all! What a scam and rip off!!! i asked the staff, a somewhat elderly lady from China (PRC) and she assured me that they use butter not margarine. From what I tasted, I think it is margarine…it was definitely not AOC Butter from Isigny Ste-Mere!  Insider knowledge from a reliable source reveals that they use margarine NOT butter. Margarine is not healthy being full of Transfats.

As my good friend in Hong Kong, Dr. Ken Hui always says: Seeing is believing!

I posted my photos on my FaceBook page, and my friend, Adelgunde posted her photo showing the same thing when she bought the Kaya Sandwich at Toast Box @ Espalanade. So this is standard operating practice for Toast Box. Adelgunde had this to say:

“Mine was @ Esplanade. Even less kaya than yours…”

Courtesy of Adelgunde Sommer at Toast Box@Esplanade

My advice to you as The Travelling Gourmet TM is simply this:

If you want a really good Kaya Toast sandwich…get some wholemeal bread, toast it and then apply lashings of REAL Butter and real Kaya…as much as you want, Ha! Ha! If you want something done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself! ENJOY! Give Toast Box a miss!

We are on to your SCAM Toast Box! 🙂

Here I am INCOGNITO in Toast Box@Lido! 🙂