The Food Fighters

Based on my thousands of hours of research in the Yakuns, Killeney's, kopitiams, and miscellaneous hawker centres around the island, here are my top 5 metrics for determining the ubiquitous chinese wafer.

Metric 1: Crunch.
When it goes into your mouth, it's got to break up easily within the first couple of bites. Not too dry though.

Metric 2: Thickness of butter block.
This is the magic ingredient. The butter has to be at least 2mm thick, and occupies at least 60% of bread area. My regular kopitiam - five foot way at tanglin halt- swears by goldbell butter bcos according to the proprietor, it retains its rich creamy taste without being too oily. Beware of wannabes use butter kept in the fridge too long. And don't even get me started on shops which use - ugh - margarine.

Metric 3: Level of burn
It's gotta have the dark brown hatch marks on the bread. Otherwise it's just not toast.

Metric 4: Thickness of bread
There will be some heretics who argue for thick bread, but these are the same people who like their minjiang kueh thick. For the purists, it's thin or nothing.

Metric 5: Synergy.
The best toast in the world won't cut it if the coffee tastes like its rented. Local coffee is the best. Anyone who eats kaya toast with Illy deserves to be bitch slapped.