Ya Kun Kaya Toast: What Set A Is and How to Eat It

EatBeach Road19 March 20266 min read

Visited in March 2026. Verified by an STB-licensed tourist guide.

Breakfast on Beach Road

TL;DR

Worth it? Yes. A local breakfast for first-time visitors

Location: 345 Beach Road

Getting there: Nicoll Highway (CC5)

Spend: S$2.60 to $6.30 when we visited

Must try: Set A, the Kaya Toast with Butter Set

Good to know: Gets crowded in the morning

Ya Kun Set A on a red tray, with kaya toast on a red plate, two soft-boiled eggs in a red bowl and a hot drink in a white cup — Set A as it arrives: kaya toast, two soft-boiled eggs and a hot drink.

Breakfast at a Coffeestall

Ya Kun Kaya Toast serves a traditional Singapore breakfast: kaya toast, soft-boiled eggs and a hot coffee or tea. We had ours at the outlet on Beach Road, where the signboard reads “Coffeestall since 1944”.

Red and white Ya Kun Kaya Toast signs on a cream building pillar and a hanging bracket, with trees along the road behind — The signs to look for. Both carry the line “Coffeestall since 1944”.

Ordering is easy. What needs explaining is on the table. The eggs are runny, there is no spoon for the toast, and one of the condiments is a brown sauce. That is dark soy sauce. It goes on the eggs.

This meal is often called a Nanyang breakfast: kaya on charcoal-grilled toast, with soft boiled eggs and Hainanese-style kopi or tea. You find it in coffeeshops, or kopitiams. Kopi is Malay for coffee and tiam is Hokkien for shop.

From Telok Ayer Basin to Far East Square

The date on the signboard goes back to one man. In 1926, 15-year-old Loi Ah Koon boarded a Chinese junk in Hainan and sailed to Singapore. He found work as an assistant at a Hainanese coffee stall, then partnered two other Chinese immigrants to start a stall of their own at Telok Ayer Basin.

His partners left and he carried on alone, serving coffee, tea, eggs and toast to coolies, merchants, moneylenders, police inspectors and boat operators. He slept on the wooden countertop of the stall so that he could serve his first customers at 5am.

His wife joined him in Singapore in 1936 and made the kaya. Loi roasted his own coffee beans with margarine and sugar over firewood. The thin toast began with her too: she sliced the bread thinly to cut costs. Loi formally registered the shop in 1944, which is the year on the signboard.

The stall later moved across the street to Telok Ayer Market, today’s Lau Pa Sat, and took the name Ya Kun Coffeestall. Ya Kun is the hanyu pinyin form of Ah Koon. In 1984 it moved to the Telok Ayer Transit Food Market, and in 1998 it settled at Far East Square, which became the flagship outlet. By 2000 two of his sons were selling franchises. The company still holds to the belief that a good toast can bind kinship, friendship and partnership.

What to Order: Set A

There is steamed bread, French toast and toasted sandwiches on the menu, plus a list of hot and cold drinks. On a first visit, order Set A, the Kaya Toast with Butter Set. Three things come on the tray.

Kaya toast with butter. Thin brown bread, toasted until crisp, spread with kaya and filled with two thick slabs of cold, lightly salted butter.
Two soft-boiled eggs. Runny and warm, served in a bowl for you to season.
A hot coffee or tea. Kopi is the local word for coffee and teh is the word for tea. Ours came with milk.

If you want a different drink, there is also Coffee O, Coffee C, Tea O, Tea C and Yuan Yang.

Kaya

Kaya is a jam made with eggs, coconut milk and sugar. If you have not tried it, think of a thick coconut custard that you can spread. It comes in two styles. Hainanese-style kaya has caramelised sugar, which gives it a brown tint. Peranakan-style kaya is infused with pandan leaves and is green. Ours was brown.

Ya Kun’s kaya follows a family recipe passed down through three generations. It is made in Singapore with no added preservatives, artificial flavouring or artificial colouring, and it contains eggs.

How It Tastes

The set works because of contrast. The toast is hot and crunchy, with cold, salty butter inside. The kaya is sweet, and the eggs are savoury enough to cut through it. Sweet, savoury, hot and cold, all in one mouthful.

Ya Kun kaya toast opened up on a red plate to show two slabs of yellow butter on brown kaya and thin toasted brown bread — Open one up before you eat. Two slabs of butter sit on the kaya.

How to Eat Like a Local

This is where first-time visitors get stuck. You have a tray, two runny eggs and a teaspoon. There are five steps, and the condiments you need are already on the table.

Season the Eggs

Our eggs came already cracked into a bowl. You need the dark soy sauce and the white pepper. Drizzle a reasonable amount of the soy sauce, which is thick and dark, over the eggs. Then shake white pepper over the top for some heat.

Two soft-boiled eggs in a red bowl with a streak of dark soy sauce and a dusting of white pepper, and a metal teaspoon resting in the bowl — Dark soy sauce first, then white pepper.

Mix the Eggs

Use the teaspoon to stir everything together. Break the yolks and work the soy sauce and pepper through the whites. You should end up with a brown, peppery mixture.

A teaspoon lifting mixed soft-boiled eggs with dark soy sauce and white pepper from a red bowl — After mixing. The colour comes from the soy sauce.

Dunk the Toast

Take a piece of kaya toast and dip it straight into the egg. Let it soak for a second, then eat it. The sweet kaya, the salty butter and the savoury egg all arrive together. This is the step that matters.

A piece of kaya toast with butter being dipped into a red bowl of mixed soft-boiled eggs — Dip the toast straight into the egg mixture.

Sip Between Bites

Take sips of your hot kopi or teh between bites. Ours was strong, and it cut through the butter and the eggs.

The cup carries the same line as the signboard: “Coffeestall since 1944”.

Finish the Bowl

When the toast is gone, lift the bowl and drink what is left of the egg. You can also finish it with the spoon.

The Beach Road Outlet

Ya Kun has outlets across Singapore, and overseas too. We chose the one at 345 Beach Road. Look for the name painted in red across the gable of the building, above a row of red shutters.

The cream gable wall of the Ya Kun Kaya Toast building on Beach Road, with the name painted in red, four red shuttered windows and a red awning — The Beach Road outlet from the street.

We find the Chinatown branch crowded at peak hours. Beach Road is a little less so.

The outlet is open daily from 7.30am to 8pm, with last orders half an hour before closing. If you would like to see where the history ends up, go to the Far East Square outlet at 18 China Street. It opens from 7.30am to 7pm on weekdays, and to 5pm on weekends and public holidays.

Before you go

Go early, at around 8am. In our experience it gets crowded in the morning.
Order Set A at the counter on a first visit.
If you want to take kaya home, the outlet sells it in jars, subject to availability.

Do These as a Pair

Kaya toast for breakfast, murtabak or briyani for lunch. We have reviewed Zam Zam too, with what we ordered and where to sit. Read our Zam Zam guide.

The Verdict: Is Ya Kun Kaya Toast Worth It?

Yes. Ya Kun Kaya Toast is worth getting up early for.

Set A is the local breakfast in one order: crisp toast, cold butter, and eggs that turn into a dip once you season them. We enjoyed all of it.

It suits first-time visitors who want a local breakfast and would like to know what to do with the eggs, and anyone who wants Singaporean coffee and toast. All we ordered was Set A, at Beach Road. We cannot vouch for the rest of the menu, or for the food at other outlets. For the rest of the day, see our things to do in Singapore.

Go at around 8am, order Set A and dunk the toast.