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How The Extraction Lab Turned Me Into a Coffee Addict

Sophie Steiner ShanghaiWOWeng 2018-11-30



The Extraction Lab, a specialty coffee café ventured by three Singaporeans, just opened on Maoming Nan Lu about two weeks ago. The coffee is the real star of the show, being sourced from Common Man Coffee Roasters in Singapore and Five Senses Coffee from Melbourne, and flown in every week to ensure the highest quality of freshly roasted coffee is served to customers every day. Believing that good coffee goes hand-in-hand with brunch, they are serving an all-day brunch menu in an entirely new, renovated space.  


 

The interior décor is downright beautiful, designed in a Nordic minimalist style, with a lot of white, open space, winding staircases, and wood. The brightly lit interior is welcoming and relaxing, the perfect spot for a light meal, a catch-up with friends, or a place for perusing the internet. 



We especially love the private meeting rooms located on the second and third floors. In addition to the open hangout space, these offshoot rooms can fit about eight people and would work great for a meeting with clients or team members as a way to get out of the office. Currently, the rooms are available to rent out, free of charge, with just a minimum food and/or beverage charge per person based on how much time the room is needed. For my next weekday meeting, I could easily see myself booking the room (through their official WeChat account) and enjoying fantastic roasted coffee and imported teas to fuel my productivity. 



Speaking of caffeine fuel, the beverage list includes your standard lattes, flat whites, and cappuccinos (RMB 38 for hot, RMB 40 for cold), as well as mochas (RMB 43 for hot, RMB 45 for cold), and piccolos (RMB 32), but what really caught my eye are the specialty drinks. 



Currently, The Extraction Lab offers three specialty coffee beverages, a Dirty Matcha (RMB 45), a Caramel Crème Brulee Latte (RMB 45), and an Espresso Cappuccino (RMB 45). These specialty drinks will rotate seasonally, so in the summer, expect to see some iced and/or fruity libations. All of the coffee-based drinks use a Melbourne style of roasting that is slightly lighter roasted as compared to local roasting here in China. 


We sampled the Dirty Matcha, which uses high-grade matcha imported from Uji, Japan, the most famous place in the world for matcha lovers. The drink is served in a beaker that looks straight out of my eighth-grade chemistry class, with the various liquids still separated. The rich, bitter matcha sinks to the bottom, casting a green hue along the base. As your eye moves up the glass, this turns to ombre tan, and eventually a milky coffee color from the roasted Singaporean coffee that floats near the top.



For consumption, you can really choose your own adventure: don’t pre-mix and the first sips will taste exactly like an espresso-heavy coffee that turns into a distinct matcha drink by the end, almost like two separate beverages in one glass. On the other hand, if you do mix them together, you will get hints of matcha, creamy milk, slight sweetener, and a strong coffee aroma all at the same time. 


The Crème Brulee Latte is the perfect dessert drink without being insanely sweet. The latte itself is the same as their standard latte, but for the crème brulee kick, they torch a layer of granulated sugar across the top of the glass so you get a foamy, crunchy, sweet, caramelized scrumptious bite that alludes to the best part of any crème brulee, the top. 


 

It’s a combination method of making a coffee and a dessert. What I appreciate most about this drink is that although there is torched sugar on top, I don’t feel like I just inhaled a candy bar after drinking it. The bitter coffee base really balances out the saccharine flavor. That being said, could I have more than one of these? Not unless my goal was a bouncing-off-the-walls sugar high. 


For the food side of the cafe, the all-day brunch menu is quite small, with only five mains and three sides available to choose from. However, we do respect their decision to keep the menu tight in the beginning so that the team of chefs can work to improve and perfect the dishes on offer before expanding. In the future, the menu will continue to grow to include roughly ten dish options. 


 

The standout brunch item is the Fried Chicken Waffle (RMB 78). How can you go wrong with an expertly seasoned, crispy, juicy piece of chicken topped on a crispy outside, fluffy inside homemade waffle? The dish is simple, served with two dipping sauce choices, maple syrup and a warm garlic and mushroom gravy to appease people on both sides of the sweet-savory spectrum. Whichever side of the coin you fall on, you’ll be satisfied with the generous portion, the attention to detail, and the high level of execution that all come together to make this dish work. 



The Lab Benedict Brekky (RMB 88) is a great option for a hungover Sunday when you just need to recharge through a massive plate of meats, bread, eggs, and veggies. The gooey sous vide eggs split open delightfully, spreading a layer of thick egg yolk across the plate. Pick any other dish component to sop it up with and make a beeline to your mouth. The bacon wasn’t my favorite, being the limp, fatty Chinese-style bacon you can buy at Lianhua. However, the sausage was a big redeemer, with a good snap, a welcoming sweetness, and a spicy finish. 



When choosing between the Avocado, Smoked Salmon & Sous Vide Egg (RMB 78) or the Berry n Nuts Avocado Toast (RMB 78), go savory all the way. There’s a reason why the standard avo toast has done so well for itself over the past few years, and it’s because you don’t mess with a classic. 



Adding sweetness, mayonnaise, mixed fruit and nuts could work if executed appropriately, but we felt that the presentation far exceeded the flavor profile of the berry and nuts version of avocado toast. Thus, keep it simple, stupid. Go with the regular avocado toast, smothered in runny egg yolk and topped with tender slightly smoked salmon. 



For a fun side, we definitely recommend an order of the Truffle Fries (RMB 50), thinly sliced, twice fried, and crispy, these bad boys are tossed with truffle, freshly shaved parmesan, and parsley. Munch on them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, you name it, and whatever that “it” is will be better with truffle fries involved. 

 

Although the venue is open until 7pm daily, they are currently only offering coffee and tea-based beverages rather than alcohol. Potentially in the future, they may dabble in coffee-based cocktails in the evenings, but that’s a decision to make further down the road, and we are eagerly waiting (and hoping) that boozy coffee cocktails will be on offer. 


The Extraction Lab

Address: 80 Maoming Nan Lu

Hours: Monday to Sunday, 9am-7pm

 



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