Cat In The Hat (Golden Mile Food Centre)

I also got the Mini Canelés ($8/ 6pcs) which the Aunty told me is only available occasionally. The texture was great, them being mini seems to make the crunchy dark caramelized crust that much more addictive to snack on (not forgetting the contrasting tender interior). The vanilla flavour was pronounced too.

Truly a Golden Mile Food Centre gem: Cat in the Hat serves pretty affordable and uniquely flavoured French pastries. It has been a hot minute since I visited the food centre so there were many stalls I wanted to try but I knew I had to get my daily sweets intake!

Here on an early Friday morning, I was stumped over what to order as the display was filled with varied cakes. The aunty manning the stall was so cute and made great recommendations after hearing that it was my first time there.

For a really good sweet-savoury combo, the Salted Caramel Macadamia Financier ($3) was right up my alley. Reminding me a little of sweet popcorn, the glorious salted caramel drizzle and abundance of macadamia studded on the beurre noisette financier was perfect. Crunchy, nutty, buttery and moist in the center. The caramelised flavour from the well-baked exterior was the best!

It's honestly a little dry, not fluffy as it should be. On the dense side, although the buttery flavour is quite decent

Cheery and friendly bakery selling a wide variety of classic as well as modern pastries. They were laid out so prettily in the display shelf and I almost couldn't decide which ones I wanted because all of them looked so inviting! Eventually chose the Lemon Tart and Black Sesame & Yuzu Madeleine (both $3). The tartness of the lemon custard and yuzu filling was on point - citrusy but not too tart, complementing the sweetness of the tart cookie base and madeleine sponge cake well. The black sesame was a surprise hit, didn't know it could go well with yuzu. Overall, would definitely return for a good pastry brunch or even to buy a whole box of their offerings.

Chocolate Ganache Tarts were awesomely decadent. Chocolate was so thick and intense.

The Financiers were great, crispy edges. Tasted fresh and smelled damn good. The classic Financier was so much better than the hojicha one.

It’s been a while since we made a visit to Cat in the Hat at Golden Mile Food Centre — we recalled being pretty impressed by their offerings when we had made our first visit there when they had just opened their doors. Since then, we have heard about them having queues and pre-orders with the bakes being sold out pretty early – also have heard about them serving up Mini Caneles which we had also been itching to try for some time. Was pretty excited when we had made our visit to Golden Mile Food Centre and realised that not only was there no queue at Cat in the Hat at the time that we had made our visit, but the Mini Caneles were also in-stock as well.

For those whom are unaware, Cat in the Hat retails their Mini Caneles individually in per-piece format, or in boxes of six pieces at $8. Given its sheer size and how much we like Caneles, we decided to go for a box of six as a post-meal dessert item to pair up with a cup of Kopi on the side. The Mini Caneles do seem to have been made for quite some time before it was sold to us when we made our visit to Cat in the Hat slightly before lunch hour — taking a bit into the Mini Canele, the Mini Canele has a caramalised, crusted exterior that was pretty on-point; the only qualm was how the sticky and chewy it is considering how it can get stuck in the teeth as one tries to chew them apart. The texture within the Canele is kueh-like; a honeycomb-esque texture which is sweet with a note of vanilla. Whilst not the best Canele that was have had, we must mention that that the Mini Canele served at Cat in the Hat definitely answers to cravings for the Caneles in general; one that is already very much worth commending especially since this is ultimately an item that one would never expect to find in a hawker centre setting — the price tag of $2 for one piece of the Mini Canele also makes it rather accessible to the hawker centre-going crowd. Of course, the choice of coffee that we had settled for to enjoy the Mini Caneles with is the Hot Kopi from Kopi More — some may call it a little pricey at $2.40 for a standard-sized cup, but it is one with a very unique twist being Nanyang-style Kopi that is pulled from an espresso machine; comes even with a layer of crema on the top that gives quite a caffeinated kick above what one would expect from a standard cup of Nanyang-style Kopi.