Desserts

There is so much to love about kueh and Galicier is really an institution… My favourite is their ondeh ondeh which is so deliciously filled with lots of gula melaka. I also love the kueh kosui that’s so soft and jiggly. The brown sugar flavour is really pronounced. Can’t leave here without buying at least 6 kuehs!

The soft serve is much thicker in consistency than I expected and is very rich tasting, so it’s probably not the kind of dessert to have after a filling meal. It’s not that sweet too, particularly compared to other similar matcha soft serve places, and actually tastes a faint bit salty to me, weirdly enough. You can choose either matcha sauce or brown sugar sauce to top off the ice cream. Of the two, I preferred the brown sugar sauce more.
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For the soft serves, even though I normally like hojicha more, the matcha surprisingly tasted better to me. It was more bitter and felt more well balanced compared to the hojicha. To try both and see which you prefer, you can get the mixed soft serve option. Not sure if I’d try this again though, because the soft serve is a bit thick for my liking, but I could see why people would like this.

The warabi mochi from 108 Matcha Saro is probably the best I’ve tried in Singapore! You can get them coated with matcha powder or kinako (roasted soyabean) powder. Of the two, I preferred kinako because of the nuttier and toastier flavour. The texture of the warabi is amazing- it’s so soft and melts in your mouth as you chew it. They make the warabi by hand in batches, so it was a bit of a wait, but totally worth it bc it’s so fresh. Really recommend this!!

There seems to always be a queue here, probably because of how generous they are with the ingredients for the cheap price! The chendol is covered with their thick, gloopy gula melaka syrup (almost like a toffee syrup) that’s quite strongly flavoured. It really gives an oomph to the chendol. Their green pandan jelly is delicious and fragrant too. A yummy and refreshing dessert and it’s so worth it.

The gangster ice is named as such because in Chinese, 榴(莲)芒(果)冰 can be shorted to be 流氓冰, which really made me laugh. They totally didn’t skimp on the massive ball of durian maoshanwang pulp on top, which made the ice really creamy when mixed in, and it actually went quite well with mango. A really refreshing dessert.

Tried quite a few flavours at Monarchs & Milkweed and can conclude that the best flavour there is hazelnut. It’s rich but not overwhelming, and has the most luxurious mouthfeel. Unlike most hazelnut ice creams which tend to taste more like Nutella, it’s not as sweet because there’s no milk chocolate. Because of this, the roasted hazelnut flavour is very distinct.⠀
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Other flavours I’ve tried didn’t wow me as much, as some tend to be more muted in flavour. I feel like they could be bolder - in particular the popular brown butter sage (would love more brown butter notes), and the sea salt jawa (could be a tad bit sweeter), but that’s my personal preference. Didn’t really enjoy the strawberry either as it tasted a bit sweet. If you like strong herby flavours, I found the mint cacao with actual mint leaves inside refreshing, although it’s not exactly the mint chocolate you’d look for. My conclusion is to just get the hazelnut.

Finally tried Pantler’s cream puff. The pastry cream is rich, thick and custardy, and has chunks of almond nougatine inside, which gives it a nuttiness and texture that I really appreciate! You can also see the vanilla bean specks in the pastry cream if you swipe to the second pic. The choux was unfortunately not crispy anymore however, as we reached near their closing time.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Overall, not a bad cream puff, but I much prefer the one at Baristart for their lighter and milkier pastry cream, which is also bigger for about the same price and also freshly piped (it seems, from when I peeked into their kitchen). I see the appeal of Pantler’s cream puff though - probably for people who prefer a more substantial and thicker pastry cream!

Carne had great marketing when I opened but my friend and I thought that the burger did not meet our expectations. Funnily enough, my favourite thing I tried there was their only dessert - the orange and chocolate sacher torte.
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The orange and chocolate sacher torte had a great balance of flavours and very appealing textures! And I am a sucker for orange chocolate. It consists of single origin chocolate sachet torte, candied orange peel, toasted almonds, and artisanal orange gelato.
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The gelato tastes light, yogurty, and doesn’t have a very concentrated orange flavour, and has has the consistency of a soft creamy sorbet. It sits in some sort of orangy custard that tastes a bit stronger than the gelato. It pairs well with the crunchy, fragrant toasted almonds and candied orange peels which surprisingly weren’t that intrusive. There were also orange slices inside too, but they didn’t add that much to the flavour.
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The cubes of sacher torte were a bit more controversial. It's supposed to be a Viennese chocolate cake that is dry with a mild and light chocolate flavour, that’s served with some cream to mitigate the dryness. I don’t think I’ve tried it before, so I can’t profess whether it’s authentic or not. But this one had a cakey, floury texture, that tastes like the texture of a vegan bean brownie that’s somewhat fudgy, but overbearingly (a very specific texture, but can’t think of much else). My friend disliked the texture, but I thought it worked well with the other wet components.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Overall, it’s one of the more enjoyable desserts that I’ve had recently. But not sure if I’d come back just for this dessert and fries with their ketchup.

Was looking forward to trying Cafe Kuriko after seeing it at Funan, especially after seeing their special mont blanc machine that looks similar to the ones on Japanese cafe instagrams. But this was quite disappointing.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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A good mont blanc means that every component is thoughtfully made… and this was not it. The waguri (chestnut paste strands were earthy and not too sweet, but was a bit too dry and didn’t have enough cream inside, which resulted in the strands breaking up in quite an ugly manner once it reached our table. We had to turn it around to get its best angle, but I was a bit aghast at how it was presented. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the mont blanc and the cream to chestnut paste ratio was off as there wasn’t enough cream. The cream that was there wasn’t exactly light and fluffy either. The overall mouthfeel was just dry instead of it tasting luxurious. The chocolate cake at the base was dry too.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Sadly a flop! It’s okay if you haven’t eaten a good mont blanc before and want to try it casually, but otherwise, I probably wouldn’t go for this.

This dessert is quite pretty, but it was sadly way too sweet. They’ve stated that it’s a dessert that you drink with a straw, but I found it both overly sweet even after mixing and also too drying because of the thick yam paste. Would have preferred more milk rather than so much yam. I liked the small taro pearls below though.

Tiger Sugar has opened a new dessert place in Capitol Piazza serving traditional Chinese desserts. Although it’s pricier, I feel that the price is justifiable when considering the location (air conditioned, in town) and the large portion (probably feeds 3 people comfortably). Was a bit taken aback because I expected the dessert to come separated nicely into three quadrants like in other pictures, but oh well lol! I liked the sago and purple rice in this, although I personally don’t like red bean. The little tangyuan balls inside were also nice and chewy. The dessert wasn’t too sweet too.

Tried Denzy gelato recently using #burpplebeyond and I was pleasantly surprised! They’re located at the bottom of a HDB block near the bishan bus interchange so it’s quite convenient to get to.

Was really amazed at how rich their pistachio gelato is. It’s so fragrant and nutty and not too sweet, and really better than a lot of other pistachio gelatos at other more famous ice cream places. Also enjoyed the mango blood orange sorbet for a good citrusy contrast to cleanse the palette. Wish there were more fruity flavours here but it was a good experience! Would go back.