[CLOSED] Ong Lai Gelato

Hadn’t really ventured in to the neighbourhood at St George’s Road before this, but quite glad that we made the trek down to this pretty quaint neighbourhood within the Boon Keng area for Ong Lai Gelato — a new gelato parlour that had recently sprouted up at the void deck of Blk 3 St George’s Road. Taking half of the standard shop space typical retail space at the void deck of the HDB block, Ong Lai Gelato is decked in a bright yellow and pink colour theme — whilst only three dining tables of two pax each are available for dine-in patrons within the shop, they also do offer bar counter seating good for five pax as well. Just like other gelato parlours as well, Ong Lai Gelato provides patrons with options of having their gelato in cups, as well as to pair them up with a waffle cone or Belgian Waffle. Interestingly, Ong Lai Gelato also serves up a Praffle — a fusion between a Prata and Waffle hence the namesake which is an alternative to the usual waffle that we see being served in other gelato/ice-cream parlours. Only specialty coffee is being served here when it comes to beverages — patrons can choose between Black, White, Mocha and Affogato; pretty much covering the basic options where specialty coffee is of concern.

Since the Praffle is pretty much a unique offering here, we decided to go for just that during our visit to Ong Lai Gelato — whilst they do offer more conventional flavours such as the Strawberry Milk, Sicilian Pistachio and Valrhona Guanaja Dark Chocolate for the flavours of the gelato available, we found ourselves settling for the Pineapple Tart and the Kaya Toast Gelato to pair up with the Praffle here — both flavours being locally-inspired gelato flavours that are also their signature offerings. We were also presented with options of having either butterscotch caramel or chocolate sauce to go with the Praffle, though we decided to forgo the sauces since we were really keen on trying the gelatos that we have picked and the Praffle as-is. As it turns out, the Praffle is essentially a Prata that has been heated up and pressed in a waffle machine — pretty much the same as what would expect out a Croffle, only with the croissant being replaced by Prata; the Prata comes with the same indentations typical of a waffle, but here it is toasted to a crisp so one may argue that it can be a more spruced-up rendition of an Ice-Cream Prata that some mamak stores offer. There is a distinct hint of dough-y fragrance that the Prata carries — albeit similar to that of commercial ready-made Prata available in supermarkets, though it does seem to work pretty well here with the ice-cream; could imagine that it should work pretty fine with the drizzling of chocolate or butterscotch caramel as suggested by the folks behind the counter here. Between the two scoops of gelato that we have went for, we felt that the Pineapple Tart gelato has a slight edge over the Kaya Toast gelato — both were equally well made being all smooth and creamy, but the Pineapple Tart was slightly more punchy overall. On first taste, the Pineapple Tart gelato felt a little bit on the sweet side but in all goes well when one gets a nib of the pineapple jam that is being swirled within — that zing cuts through that sweetness just nicely while the slight chewiness and fibrous texture of the jam replicates that of pineapple tart pretty accurately. To further bring the flavour closer to the actual confectionary, the Pineapple Tart gelato comes with crumbles to bring a slight crunch to the gelato. In retrospect, the Kaya Toast flavour is slightly more controlled in terms of sweetness — hints of Pandan and coconut just like in the case of Nyonya Kaya and comes with the same crumbles that accompanies the Pineapple Tart gelato. If there was one thing that we found especially commendable, it would be how the crumbles and the jam elements carried the texture that they had intended to be — nothing overly frozen and icy that could have marred the entire experience overall.

Despite its size and set-up, Ong Lai Gelato is a spot that seemed to have went beyond the expectations for a typical neighbourhood gelato parlour — the locally-inspired flavours being something relatable and close to the heart of locals, while the offering of the Praffle on the menu does create a unique character as opposed to the run-of-the-mill gelato/ice-cream parlours that typically serve up gelato/ice-cream from generic pre-mixes with waffles and cones which are pretty common of the late. Attention has also be paid to the details where textures of the various elements included in the gelato are maintained as intended — something that other establishments sometimes miss out on. Whilst being a rather simple and small set-up, Ong Lai Gelato does deliver by providing the community in the neighbourhood a spot for quality gelato — it does require a bit of a detour to get to, but this is somewhere that residents around will be grateful to have in their neighbourhood!