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Desserts

antoinette

September 27, 2011
Desserts, French, Orchard Road, Pricey ($30 - $70), Tanjong Pagar | CBD
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cornucopia.

finding fellow salad eaters is a difficult task here in singapore, so it’s a great relieve to find people who wouldn’t stare at you if you order a salad as your main and instantly assume you are on some insane diet or some religious mumbo-jumbo. no, i actually find salads nice and a refreshing choice if prepared well. no kidding. =)

anyways, finally got down to going to antoinette @ mandarin gallery after many misguided aborted attempts during the weekends. this place is really getting alot of buzz and probably raking it rich, considering a third outlet is being set up near ann siang (the first being at penhas road). there’s something posh, french and atas about the place that i think is irresistible to most girls and the find also matches the ambience – the menu serves all-day french breakfasts with crepes, waffles, pain perdu (french toast) as well as other french classics ranging from salads to beef bourguinon. and then of course the highlights which are the desserts. the fact that i really liked my salad dish but was still salivating at the dishes being served at other tables is testament of how well the menu has been crafted to attract crowds. =)

i think what creates the ambience is mainly the dim lighting, the posh victorian style cushioned furniture, the beautifully monogrammed napkins and menus all contribute to creating this fantastical theme of being in Versailles and living the life of Marie Antoinette or her many courtiers. mind you, this is a very good singaporean interpretation of french olden luxury. whoever did the branding for this place really did their work. ok lah, let’s get to the food.

salad lyonnaise, $14.00

I got the salad lyonnaise, which had a garden greens, tomatoes, buttered croutons, pieces of bacon strips and topped with a runny egg. felt that the combination was really pretty good, with fresh ingredients which is essential for a good salad. this salad is like a semi-guilty salad — u avoid alot of carbs (just the croutons), you get some sinful food in the form of the bacon, but it is offset with the greens and a general sense of lightness. its a good salad, perhaps a tad expensive. ahh well, paying for ambience again -_- but to be honest, i haven’t found many places that really pay attention to their salad selections and put in efforts to create delicious, creative novel salads (i mean, besides like mesclun and salad shop but they are irritating located in the CBD area and closed on weekends. like hello? it’s not only bankers and stuff that eats grass you know!?)

exotique, $8.00

the main highlight of course was tasting the desserts, since my friend and I were both very into desserts. we got the exotique and some meringue +creme + passionfruit compote confection (can’t remember the name) to share. the exotique was some mango layer topped onto a mousse and sponge cake with gula melaka fillings. the mango was somewhat slightly too tart initially, and it was only till u managed to get to the center to taste the gula melaka and balance out the tartness did the dessert kind of work. my friend commented that this dessert grew on her, lol.. guess that’s another way to interpret it. it’s interesting, but probably not good enough to warrant gushing over it or waiting for a second try.

meringue/creme chantilly/passionfruit compote confection. $8.00

 again a really interesting dessert, not some traditional cakey stuff. this dessert essentially was two meringue bits that enclosed the vanilla creme chantilly and passionfruit compote (which was spread kinda unevenly). the meringue tasted pretty light, but not light enough as compared to french patisseries (lol) but combined well with the vanille creme chantilly. i particularly like the creme chantilly (but errm i guess its pretty easy to make) but found it difficult to taste or interpret the passionfruit compote within the dessert. another ok dessert.

overall? to be honest, this restaurant works because it fills a niche that surprisingly hasn’t been fully developed in singapore excepts perhaps by canele — the posh-feeling, french-inspired patisserie + mid-range restaurant that attracts girls like bees to honey. the cakes are interesting but not as fantastic as they are hyped to be (wished we could have tried the antoinette but it was sold out by then). the salads are nice, but well, its a little overpriced and i guess i can’t comment on the level of cooking because i didn’t get any complex dishes. nevertheless i want to come back and try them. it seems weird but i cant really think of another place that serves similar food, except perhaps hediard, but even then, hediard only mainly serves croque monsieurs.

another thing that is nice is that despite the seemingly posh environment, you still can order ice water/hot water for free, no one scoffs at you if u are just ordering desserts and service is generally acceptable. its not like those irritating places that charge u money for fricking water. -_- overall, expect to see more antoinettes and antoinette-copy cats around town soon. 7.5/10

antoinette | 333A Orchard Road, #02-33/34 Mandarin Gallery | desserts, french

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torte

September 25, 2011
Brunch, Bugis | Little India, Contemporary, Desserts, Mid - Range ($15 - $30)
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sunday respite.

chanced upon this review from sparkette regarding torte and decided it was close enough to my old church and looked like a decent brunch place to spend a family Sunday with darling kaykayla before church service, so we headed there. let’s talk ambience first. torte is situated at SCWO, which is right behind sculpture square (that houses artichoke). the restaurant seems wierdly placed, perhaps because my church has used the premises of SCWO for sunday school before, but essentially the cafe occupies a patio area along with some empty corridor area on the ground floor of SCWO. which honestly doesnt make for a very decent ambience. but ahh well, its quiet enough on a Sunday. the managers of the restaurant were really nice, came out to introduce the food and make small talk with us, thought that was a nice gesture. let’s get to the food.

signature torte with ice cream, $4.50

the torte was really pretty delicious, thick decadent chocolate that paired well with the vanilla ice cream. i’m not understand the use of environmentally friendly paper cartons to present the dish though. i mean, its like somewhat of a half-hearted theme that didn’t fully get carried out. i mean, is this place advocating environment consciousness? i don’t really see any posters whatsoever about it. and are these paper products really more environmentally friendly than using nice porcelain dishes that you can wash afterwards? i’m confused. as it is, the presentation gets docked a few points simply because of the use of such a presentation style.

full breakfast – potato wedges, sausages and scrambled eggs ($9)

this really didn’t work for me, which pains me to say because the managers were really pretty earnest. but perhaps some lessons can be learnt from this. first of, the plating yet again doesn’t do anything but cheapen the appearance of the dish. it looks like school cafeteria food like this! now my first impression was.. really? potato wedges, two miserly sausages and eggs for that pricepoint seemed a little pricey. i mean, wedges are little frozen food equivalent and they just tasted pretty normal. the sausages were really common as well and i really didn’t like the eggs because i think too much milk was added, giving a very bland, anemic feel to the scrambled egg. not good.

hmm.. all in all, i’m kinda disappointed. i liked the torte, but the full breakfast was kind of a fiasco of sorts. perhaps come down if you are at the area and want a quiet place for a dessert or a coffee. but otherwise unless the food improves, it’ll be hard to find me back here. 4.0/10

torte | 96 waterloo street, #01-07, singapore council of women’s organization center |  desserts, laid back

jewels artisan chocolate

September 24, 2011
Desserts, Mid - Range ($15 - $30), Orchard Road
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luscious temptation.

its interesting how using words like “artisan” can instantly bump up the price of common chocolates by two to three times, eh? so.. jewels artisan chocolate is another good place for tea, situated along bustling orchard road on the second floor in orchard central. now, orchard central, by virtue of its weird, completely vertical interior design, tends to be relatively quite even on weekends. jewels artisan chocolate doesn’t occupy much retail space and well, is pretty much just a chocolate shop with some simple tables and chairs for sit-in customers. ahh well let’s get to the food.

so for tea-time, they offer this indulgent set for $14.80, where u get to choose one piece of chocolate (read: ONE PIECE goes for roughly $3 – $3.50), one macaron, one small scoop of ice cream or sorbet, a slice of 85% chocolate cake and some tea/coffee/hot chocolate to wash it all down (i recommend the tea so you don’t get sick from all the heatiness the next day). so it boils down to really your own choice.

tea-time indulgence set, $14.80

i got myself a chamomile tea, perfect for soothing nerves after a walk down orchard road. the tea was accompanied by a chocolate truffle (chocolate ganache center coated with cocoa powder), an almond macaron with passion fruit conserve and almond creme and a white chocolate sorbet with berry compote. the verdict? pretty good. the 85% chocolate cake wasn’t too sweet and went well, not too jelak in any sense. my favorite was the white chocolate sorbet and berry compote, which was a nicely crafted dessert with flavors and truly melded together and complemented one another. the truffle was a little small but tasted good and the ganache had the requisite melt-in-your-mouth feel.

the almond macaron tasted really good, though methinks i didn’t really get the idea of pairing this with the passionfruit compote since the compote was slightly insignificant and well, didn’t seem to go too well with the almond flavor.

hmm.. all in all, yet another nice tea time locale along orchard road. the chocolates are really tad expensive (justified by slapping the word artisan on ‘em) but i guess having the tea-time indulgence might be worth a girl’s catch up session at any rate. 6.5/10

jewels artisan chocolate | 181 Orchard Road, #02-31/32 Orchard Central | orchard road, tea time, desserts

jones the grocer

September 24, 2011
Contemporary, Desserts, Mid - Range ($15 - $30), Orchard Road
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tea time special

gosh i have a huge backlog of restaurants to review. so moving along…

we headed to Jones the grocer@mandarin gallery for tea time on a Sunday afternoon because antoinette and arteastique were both packed and well, the line at jones wasn’t too bad. but wow.. i didn’t know so many Singaporeans enjoyed their tea time. anyways, Jones the grocer @ mandarin gallery kinda exudes an upmarket, gourmet-style cafeteria replete with healthy sounding snacks like walnut and apricot bar or something along the lines, as well as artfully designed chocolate and nuts packages. its those kind of shops you chance upon, browse around at all the fantastical looking ingredients, wished for once (or twice) you could whip up a feast like Jamie oliver and then head out wistful cause you know buying such expensive ingredients on your own paltryculinary pursuits would be a waste of money. lol.

with the bustling Sunday crowd and with every table packed, Jones reminded me of an upmarket cafeteria, where stylish ladies stopped by with their vogue magazines, shades and little chihuahua in tow. of course, those ladies would order a healthy banana and walnut muffin perhaps, with a skinny latte of that sort. hmm, for us mortals, we went for some nice pastries and coffee.

lemon meringue tart, $4

well whipped meringue that wasn’t overly sweet and paired well with the lemon zest within. i mean, i have tasted more refreshing, more delicious renditions of this, but for a simple afternoon tea, this sufficed. it must be said though that the crust was slightly thick and difficult to cut through.

apple crumble, $4.50

my sis got an apple crumble which was initially given to her not too well heated so we sent it back. hmm, that’s not too good eh, Jones? but the service staff were absolutely professional and handled the issue well. and i didn’t get to taste the second crumble because i was in a hurry.

piccolo coffee

my dad got himself a piccolo coffee, which is some sort of latte ‘shot’, which he likes immensely. me being a non-coffee drinker, i just admired the nice patterns made from the froth. lol.

to be honest, i don’t particular think the pastries here are anything mind blowing, but the ambience and finding a chill space on a bustling weekend was all i needed and Jones gave me all that. i can see myself getting a nice little pastry and plopping myself down on their chairs to just while the afternoon away. and well, food-wise, i don’t think Jones is all that well known for their pastries, but rather for their charcuterie boards and other mains. i had a wagyu beef open faced sandwich here that was really pretty decent.

all-in-all, a decent place to chill. and with pleasant food to go along. 6.5/10

jones the grocer | 333A Orchard Road, #04-21/23 Mandarin Gallery | tea time, contemporary, western 

k ki

September 8, 2011
Desserts, Mid - Range ($15 - $30), Tanjong Pagar | CBD
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afternoon respite at ann siang

headed down to k ki and the little drom store with my sis today for some afternoon cakes and tea and some time for catch up. i noticed that my tendency to want to “hoard” things up led my to be ridiculously scrimpy with my leave so far and it was the realization that the people around you might not be with you forever that prompted me to take some time off and.. well, reconnect.

anyways, i love the district at ann siang, with the interesting curio shops selling stuff beautiful picture books to cool vintage wear, along with really chic and expensive-looking eateries, bars and cafes. k ki is cited slightly off from the intersection of ann siang hill/club st/ann siang rd and is super inviting, with bright glass windows showcasing a clean, minimalistic , Scandinavian aesthetic within.

k ki’s ambience is one of quiet, whimsical respite. people troop into the store for casual glances at the cute stuff sold at the little drom store, whilst others stay longer for some afternoon coffee and cakes. its the sort of place to go to to be reacquainted with yourself, spend some time just gazing through the window and musing about life, or get a close friend to escape and while the lazy afternoon away. it’s really undisturbed bliss, albeit for a short duration. let’s get to the cakes.

my sis got the noisette ($8), layers of hazelnut fillings with an occasional crunchier layer. its very light, not too sweet or rich, perfect for people who desire non-jelak desserts that can actually be finished by one person in a sitting. the nuances within the layers individually came through but also melded perfectly together for a delicious dessert.

i got the antoinette ($8), a white chocolate cake with a mango creme center and topped with some ginger bits. honestly, one of the best cakes i have tasted in a long time. its equally light, as with most japanese interpretation of western pastries. the white chocolate cake is like a semi-hard mousse sort of cake that melts in your mouth upon tasting and gives you the light, sweet white chocolate flavor. the mango creme, situated in the center of the cake, forms the PERFECT counterpart to the white chocolate, bringing a secondary, differently-nuanced sweetness to the palette. it reminded me of a typicaly hk-dim sum custard bun, but much lighter, more nuanced and more well balanced. i fully recommend this for sweet-toothers.

mango creme filling in the middle

overall, the perfect cafe for a lazy afternoon catch up session with a close friend. dun miss this. 8.0/10

 k ki  | 7 ann siang hill, #01-00 | desserts, cafe, japanese, chillout

holland villagers

June 19, 2011
Desserts, Photography
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brave new world. [shot of ghim moh estate]

sunday morning. yawns. i’m getting frustrated over choosing a restaurant to bring my parents + my sis, husband and her niece + my grandmother and her friend. there’s too much considerations in this optimization problem, be it inconveniences with the old and young, their taste considerations and the likes. and i forgot today’s also a day that most restaurants would be crowded. zzz.

anyways, i’m just gonna do a quick review on 2 am dessert bar before i head off, maybe for a swim.

the interior, courtesy of MsGlitzy’s blog (i couldn’t really snap much because it was ultra dark when i was there)

i get the concept of ultra-stylish decor and expensive tasting desserts that are supposedly works of art with the exotic combination of ingredients, flavors along with beautiful plating. but honestly, my trip to 2am dessert bar was a serious downer. methinks this place tries to be too many things at once – an upscale bar/ glitzy restaurant concept mixed with a homely, friendly, kinda contemporary (sophomore-ish) atmosphere ultimately clashed with each other’s sensibilities and eventually negated one another.

i took offense with the fact that they shoved four of us into one of those two seater-couches, making for a incredibly uncomfortable experience because there wasn’t really any possible configuration that could make you feel comfortable – people either had to sit without a back support at the front of the couch whilst their friends took the back portion, else you squeezed four people side by side on the couch. utterly uncomfortable. to their credit, one server came up to us and lamented that we looked very uncomfortable, but then nothing else was done for the entire 40+ mins duration.

next, food wise. i think i was honestly too annoyed to bother taking any shots of the food, but i do agree the plating was nice. however, the lighting was so awfully dark that there really wasn’t a point – i couldn’t really appreciate what was being plated and to be honest, i couldn’t even distinguish the ingredients on my plate. the four of us had opted to share a basil white chocolate (shiso, seagrape, passionfruit puffs, $15), arguani h20 (valrhona chocholate, 72%, evian, caramel mousse, praline, yuzu sorbet, $14) and some pistachio black sesame ice cream thingy.

my issues with the food? i think desserts are meant to be satisfying, to induce a eventual feeling of languid contentment, merriment and mirth to compensate for all that fat you just took in. to me, the desserts mentioned above failed on this front completely. yes, the ingredients were innovative, so maybe i was being plebeian and couldn’t really appreciate them for what they were, but the weirdness of the flavors didn’t exactly combine well and everything was so miserably small that you really did feel like you were biting into portions of air to try to sate your hunger. take the arguani h20 for example, purportedly their bestseller here – the varlhona chocolate block was a hard slab of chocolate that was difficult to crack into and was paired with little drips and dollops of the other “ingredients” that honestly didn’t really go well with the chocolate base. i would give them credit that the valrhona chocolate tasted good, once you actually manage to break the slab itself, but then.. is that credit to them? or to valrhona? i don’t know.

all in all, a confused and utterly not-worth-it place to satisfy your dessert cravings. maybe go there for a drink or two during an off-peak hour if you are feeling rich, but don’t expect to enjoy yourself on a friday night out if u want some nice desserts. 3 /10

2am dessert bar | 21a lorong liput, holland village, s277733 | wines, desserts, chill-out

food listings page here.

icekimo

May 24, 2011
Desserts, Upper Thomson | Novena, Value (less than $15)
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there’s something called too much pink.

so after previously reviewing on salted caramel, my friend asked me whether it was better than icekimo to which i commented i hadn’t tried it. and he then commented that i hadn’t tried much stuff around my area, which was kinda true. so here’s some make-up for it. icekimo is tucked away behind the main upper thomson road at sin ming centre, a really nondescript, semi-functioning mall that i have never been to despite living in close proximity to it. when driving by, i often see schoolgirls chillin’ out at this ice cream parlor, which creates the impression similar to that of island creamery @ serene center.

the decor is simple and slightly cartooney, with pink as their unifying color. yet another ploy to market to teenage school girls. it’s kinda small, but they have comfy looking cushions right by the glass walls to allow for people-watching (well.. if anyone walked past sin ming centre). a sidenote is the fact that as with any establishment that sells durian-related foods, this store welcomes you with a faint whiff of durian when you first enter. whether you like it or not is up to the person.. hmm… let’s get to the ice cream.

waffle with double scoop ice cream, $6.20 (promotional price for tuesday’s offer, usual $6.80). the two flavors i chose were banana coffee and blueberry cheesecake

wasn’t a fan of the blueberry cheesecake (well, i bought it mainly for my mom since she likes blueberries). there ain’t any fruits in the ice cream, so the blueberry can taste a little plasticky but the overall taste was pretty unique and passable. i did really like the banana coffee (imo, a better combination than everyone’s favorite chunky monkey) because the banana + coffee flavor really went well, though eventually you mainly taste the banana. i did like the flavor of the banana because it didn’t feel artificial and the ice cream paired with the waffle also makes for a delicious dessert reminiscent of some banana split waffle creation. nice.

i notice they have a ice cream spaghetti, but i didn’t exactly try it. hmm.. maybe next time. and there are also quite alot of interesting flavors i might be tempted to try out, including white forest trifle, dark mac and the likes. i’m intrigued.

icekimo |  8 Sin Ming Road #01-03 Sin Ming Centre | desserts, ice cream

salted caramel

May 21, 2011
Desserts, Upper Thomson | Novena, Value (less than $15)
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little islet of sweetness.

i recently noticed the opening of this simplistic, cleanly designed artisan ice cream parlor along upper thomson road, tucked between local joints selling ba chor mee and roti prata. in a sense, it felt like the odd silbing the the family of shophouses, but maybe that’s the point — the hole-in-the-wall/gentrification concept of inserting an incongruous, expensive looking establishment right next to some $3 ba chor mee shop.

but hey, the prices aren’t too bad, seriously – a single ice cream scoop goes at $2.50, and a double at $4.00. the places operates under an absolute minimalistic design, austere white upon white decor with some incongruously placed ikea kiddie sets to entertain the tots i suppose. whilst i was impressed by the logo design (note that the 3-scoops of ice cream form the initials S,C) and general color aesthetic of salted caramel’s posters (especially the caramel-white trim used to line their placards), i did feel that the decor in this case was a bit too minimalist- to the point where it lost its unique identity and just looked shabbily placed together (and my friend concurs =)). hmm.. so there’s something as too much minimalism.

anyways, the shop serves pretty cool ice cream flavors ranging from lychee, earl grey to the classic salted caramel. i only tried the salted caramel ice cream, which was a decent choice for $2.50. i liked the pairing of the saltiness along with the sweet caramel (the saltiness was more pronounced here than in other salted caramel cheesecakes like that from cedele) but my friend found it to be an acquired taste. lol.

salted caramel also serves affogatto, ice cream milk shake, waffles and several assortment of cakes, so it might be worth another shot after a good sumptuous meal at the ba chor mee store next to it. =)

salted caramel | 246f upper thomson road S(574370) | desserts, ice cream