pianomania: PRE-CONCERT EATS: YUGOSLAVIA BAKERY & CAFE @ CITYLINK MALL

This is a cafe with a difference. Located in Citylink Mall / Raffles Link, it's just a five-minute walk to Esplanade. My friend Montenegrin pianist Boris Kraljevic swears by it. He knows, because he was born in the former Balkan state that used to be called Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia Bakery & Cafe specialises in Balkan bread and beverages, and is a refreshing change from all those chain coffee places.

Yugoslavia Bakery is owned by a Macedonian couple Mitre and Katerina, who obviously have a nostalgic link to the old country before it split apart in the 1990s to form six (some say seven) separate states. I've never been to that part of Europe but I can feel the pride in the way their breads are named and described.

That's Marshal Tito,
former head of state of Yugoslavia (1945-1980),
one of the good Commies (if there's such a thing).

Just before the six-hour extravaganza that was Wagner's Siegfried, I stopped by to get a fill-up. So I tried one of its pizza slices and a pogacha (or pogaca), a Balkan bread snack - this one had cinnamon and raisins. I had my fill and should have had a Balkan coffee to wash it down just before the opera. Perhaps the next time.