Loysel’s Toy

Situated away from the hustle and bustle of the city and near the greenery and river is Loysel’s Toy. It is near the city centre but is at such an obscure location that there is almost no chance of just “happening to chance upon it while out shopping”. And that makes it an ideal place for brunch!

Big L Breakfast

Hot Chocolate

The Big L Breakfast ($15) consisted of toast, chicken sausage, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, bacon, salad and poached eggs. One word could described the Big L Breakfast – bland. The chicken sausage and mushrooms were bland, under-seasoned and simply lacking in any taste. No doubt the bacon was salty, it was lacking in any fragrance. The mushrooms were dry. The entire dish was lacking some kind of sauce to tie it all together. The accompanying bread lacked the aroma and crunch of toast. On the whole, a rather disappointing breakfast.

The Hot Chocolate was decent, though not spectacular. It was like a good cup of warm, soothing milo and perhaps the most tasty item in our brunch.

Loysel’s Toy
66 Kampong Bugis

320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe

In most ice cream shops, we get to see an array of ice cream flavours at the display counter. We can even request to taste some of the flavours. So based on sight and taste, customers get to choose which flavour they would like to purchase. But at 320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe, there isn’t such a privilege as the ice cream is made on the spot! And that happens within 10 minutes. Freshly made ice cream right in front of eyes. Magic? Nope – just the wonders of liquid nitrogen!

Well, there aren’t any physical samples for us to choose our flavours from, customers just have to choose their flavours from a large blackboard.

Regular flavours ($4.80): banana, black currant, lemon, lime, lychee, pineapple, pink grapefruit, raspberry, summer fruit, strawberry, apple cinnamon, coffee, earl grey, ginger honey, green tea, horlicks, peanut butter, salted caramel, sweet potato, toffee vanilla, milk chocolate.

Premium flavours ($5.20): black sesame, chendol, dark chocolate, thai coconut, passion fruit.

Special flavours ($5.60): christmas horlicks, new york cheese, tim tam toh.

Supreme flavours ($6.00): black forest, tiramisu, baileys coffee, baileys chocolate, kahlua coffee, lychee martini, rum and raisins.

Once the flavour has been decided, the staff would concoct a liquid mixture and into the food mixer it goes.

320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe

320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe

Here comes the secret magical ingredient – liquid nitrogen! Since liquid nitrogen boils at negative 196°C, the liquid mixture immediately freezes into ice cream upon contact with the super cold nitrogen. And of course, the liquid nitrogen vapourizes into the surrounding air, leaving behind the freshly made ice cream.

Tim Tam Toh

We tried one of the special flavours – tim tam toh, which is essentially a vanilla based ice cream with crumbled chunks of the popular tim tam snack. We couldn’t really differentiate this liquid nitrogen made ice cream from the typical ice cream. It was a decent ice cream, but nothing too fantastic.

We took a step further and decided to customize our ice cream this time. We chose 2 flavours – peanut butter and new york cheesecake, and the staff gladly concocted this mixture for us. The ice cream turned out to be more pleasing that the 1st. At 1st bite, we immediately detected the strong saltiness of the peanut butter and as the ice cream slowly melted in out mouths, the characteristic sourness of the cheesecake emerged.

Interesting concept and a great way to see ice cream made right in front of our eyes.

320° Below Nitro Cream Cafe
#01-01, 33 Mackenzie Road

Penny University

One of the more popular brunch places in the East has got to be Penny University. It was a pretty small cafe though, which probably explained for the long waiting list.

Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon

For $12, the Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon was definitely worth every penny! There was a decent serving of poached eggs and smoked salmon, atop the sourdough toasts. The homemade hollandaise sauce was smooth, rich and slightly buttery. The poached eggs were bit undercooked though, with the egg whites a tad too raw. The smoked salmon wasn’t too salty. The thin slices easily disintegrated in our mouths. The sourdough toasts were fluffy, not too starchy or heavy. Due to the thin layer of jam, it was more towards being sweet than sour.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

The Flourless Chocolate Cake ($8.50) was very dense and packed full of chocolately goodness. The crust was very crumbly and generously dusted and covered with cocoa powder. The chocolate cake was akin to a slab of chocolate fudge. Decadent, smooth and bitter sweet chocolate to satisfy the chocoholics in us.

Penny University
402 East Coast Road

Pat and Stick’s Homemade Ice Cream Co.

Pat and Stick’s Homemade Ice Cream Co’s first retail store has opened, right here in Singapore.

Double Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwich

Double Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwich

At $7.90 each, Pat and Stick’s ice cream sandwich is slightly on the steep side. And indeed, we did feel that it wasn’t worth $7.90. The cookies were decent – crunchy, evident chocolate flavour. The ice cream was decent too – rich and and fudgy. However, putting a slab of ice cream in between 2 cookies just wasn’t worth $7.90. Coupled with the fact that the cookies and ice cream were just average standard, this concept could easily be replicated at home. Well, it is a great and convenient way to enjoy both ice cream and cookies, but the price has got to be something more reasonable.

Pat and Stick’s Homemade Ice Cream Co.
B208-04 Food Hall
Takashimaya Singapore
391 Orchard Road

Audacious Cakery

Everton Park has slowly evolved into a mini patisserie and coffee neighbourhood, with Audacious Cakery joining its community.

Audacious Cakery

Matcha Cupcake

The Matcha Cupcake ($3.50) was possibly one of the best cupcakes we have tried. The Matcha Italian meringue buttercream wasn’t overly sweet or oily. It had a smooth and creamy texture, while exuding a rich green tea taste. This was supported by a strong, full-bodied and moist green tea cake. Every mouth was dense and rich matcha goodness. A simple cupcake at its best.

Foret Noir

The Foret Noir ($9.80) paled in comparison as it lacked a strong chocolately richness. We also didn’t quite like the gelatine-like rubbery texture of the outer coating. The cherries were probably the star of the cake – plump juicy cherries, which had been thoroughly soaked in Kirsh, exploded with flavours when we bit into them. Other than that, the Foret Noir seemed rather over-rated.

Audacious Cakery
#01-61, Blk 2 Everton Park

Drips Bakery Cafe

Drips Bakery Cafe

As the print on the window goes, Drips Bakery Cafe specializes in tarts – tarts which are freshly made every day!

Chocolate de Tart

The Chocolate de Tart was pretty decent. The inner chocolate filling was decadent, rich and very smooth. Taste wise, it maintained a mellow bitter-sweetness. This simple tart hit all the right notes but perhaps the fact that it was too predictable, this tart seemed a tad boring.

Macadamia Nuts

We just couldn’t resist the sight of these large macadamia nuts! The nuts were basically the limelight of this tart. They were extremely fresh, crunchy and fragrant – every nut lover’s Achilles’s heel! The macadamia nuts were held together by a sticky caramel glue, which wasn’t too sweet. The cake beneath was pretty bland as well. And in all, it seemed that every thing else was just a sidekick, while the star of the tart was solely the huge tantalizing macadamia nuts!

Drips Bakery Cafe
#01-05, 82 Tiong Poh Road

St. Marc Cafe

(from left to right) Green Tea Latte and Hot Chocolate

Nothing like a cup of Green Tea Latte and Hot Chocolate to end a day. And St. Marc Cafe offers a decent version of both beverages.

The Green Tea Latte displayed a well balance between the characteristic bitterness of green tea and the richness from milk. The sweetness level also hit the right note and overall, a very likeable and addictive cup of green tea latte.

The Hot Chocolate, though not overwhelming strong compared to Laurent’s and Max Brenner, still carried a decent chocolately fragrance and taste. The Hot Chocolate was very comforting, in the sense that it wasn’t too heavy on the palate, yet the chocolately goodness was enough to satisfy any chocolate lover.

St. Marc Cafe
#02-105/184/185, Marina Square
6 Raffles Boulevard

Lady M

Hailing from New York City, Lady M makes its first debut in Singapore at Marina Square! Decked in a white-washed and spacious shop space, Lady M has been drawing a steady flow of crowd with its signature Mille Crêpe cake. Straying away from the mainstream folks, we skipped the Mille Crêpe and headed for another 2 cakes which appealed more to us.

Banana Mille Feuilles

Raspberry Chocolate

Banana Mille Feuilles ($8) – puff pastry, whipped cream with layers of vanilla sponge and bananas. Though the Banana Mille Feuilles looked overwhelmingly overladen with cream, the whipped cream turned out to be pretty light, surprisingly refreshing and not oily, and came with a tinge of sweetness. The soft airy cream, together with the slightly moist vanilla sponge, was a good complement to the fragrant, flaky puff pastry. And with the bananas adding the extra bite to the cake, this Banana Mille Feuilles was pretty unique and interesting.

Raspberry Chocolate ($7.50) – chocolate ganache layers with raspberry puree. The only chocolate cake on display for the day, the Raspberry Chocolate looked pretty nondescript and common to the rest of the cakes. But it did stand out as the only dark cake on display. The dark chocolate ganache was very rich, dense and sticky. The bitter-sweetness hit the right note, with the top raspberry glaze and raspberry puree within the cake providing sufficient acidity and sourness to cut through the richness of the chocolate. There were also bits of gianduja-laced feuilletine which added bursts of crunchiness to the cake. A decadent chocolate cake for the chocolate lover.

Lady M
#02-103, Marina Square Shopping Centre
6 Raffles Boulevard

Smoulder

Smoulder specializes in molten chocolate cakes – to be more specific, bite-sized molten chocolate cakes!

(from left to right) Intense Dark Chocolate, White Chocolate Oreo, Milk Chocolate Rum and Raisin

At price of $8.20 for 3, we had the Intense Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate Rum and Raisin as well as the seasonal White Chocolate Oreo.

The cores of the mini cakes weren’t as fluid-like and molten as we had imagined. In fact, a better description would be soft-core, not molten core. The White Chocolate Oreo didn’t really have a strong Oreo taste. The outer cake was rather soft, moist and heavy – almost reminiscent of Chinese kueh. Taste wise, there was a very rich buttery taste, nothing of white chocolate.

The Milk Chocolate Rum and Raisins were slightly more up to expectations. There was an evident, though faint, rum flavour. The juicy, rum-soaked raisins embedded within the cake provided additional burst of flavours and textures. However, the outer cake was pretty bland and lackluster.

The Intense Dark Chocolate was really intense. The strong bitterness from the 70% cocoa content hit us immediately at the 1st bite. The soft core was rich and definitely more molten-like compared to the previous two. Terms of taste and texture, the Intense Dark Chocolate hit all the right notes.

Smoulder
B1-68, Raffles City Shopping Centre
252 North Bridge Road

Coffee and Crust – Part II

During our 1st visit to the Chocolate Buffet at Coffee and Crust, Mandarin Orchard, we missed out on their signature Chocolate Bomb. This explained for this follow up visit – solely to be blown away by Chocolate Bomb!

The Chocolate Bomb was served in front of each guest by the chefs and every customer is entitled to 1 serving.

Chocolate Bomb

Chocolate Bomb

Chocolate Bomb

The Chocolate Bomb, arrived in front of us, looking like a nondescript chocolate ball. However, when the chef poured the hot chocolate sauce over the ball, all magic and mayhem broke loose! The thin outer chocolate shell melted immediately, revealing a milk chocolate mousse with hazelnut crumble! From a nice quaint chocolate ball, what is left now is an absolutely drop dead gorgeous and tantalizing chocolate mess. The chocolate sauce brings both the mousse and the hazelnut crumbles together and really increased the stickiness of the dessert. The nutty aroma and crunchiness of the hazelnut crumble cut through the richness of the chocolate, such that the entire dessert wasn’t too sweet. Every mouth was just rich chocolately goodness, with the hazelnut crumbles flirting in the background.

Every chocolate lover’s dream.

Coffee and Crust
Level 5, Mandarin Orchard
333 Orchard Road

Nine-thirty by Awfully Chocolate

The now-defunct Loola’s at Esplanade Mall has revamped and transformed into the current Nine-thirty, also by the folks from Awfully Chocolate. On top of the usual sweet offerings from Awfully Chocolate, Nine-thirty offers the usual western fare, including pastas, salads and some small bites.

Tandoori Chicken Salad

There wasn’t sufficient dressing in the Tandoori Chicken Salad ($12) to tie the entire salad together. The salad was pretty boring and uninteresting. The slices of tandoori chicken tasted purely like grilled chicken, with no tinge of tandoori flavours.

Pink Salmon

The pink sauce in the Pink Salmon ($18) was rather imbalanced as the sour, acidic tanginess of the tomatoes greatly overpowered any creamy milkiness. This resulted in the pink sauce tasting like any red tomato based sauce. There wasn’t any depth in this sauce, as all we could taste is the sour acidity from the tomatoes. The salmon was lightly seared, very lightly as there was hardly any charred crust or caramelization on the surface. When we cut apart the salmon, the centre of the salmon was only half cooked, resulting in a pink, rubbery texture – almost like salmon sashimi. Typically, for fresh salmon sashimi, upon contact with our body heat, will melt and soften in our mouth cavities. In this case, the centre of this seared salmon wasn’t that delicate, yet wasn’t tender and flaky like a fully-cooked salmon. This was just a very awkward, neither here nor there, piece of salmon fillet. In our opinion, we will never try this again.

(clockwise from top left) White Chocolate Butterscotch Block, Hei Ice Cream and Hazelnut Crumble

At the end of the day, the best offerings that Nine-thirty can offer remains to be the signature desserts from Awfully Chocolate. Our favourite dessert of the night was the Hazelnut Crumble ($7), with its thick rich hazelnut chocolate layer and the crunchy bittersweet dark chocolate cookie base. The crumble combined the sticky and dense hazelnut fudge together with the crumbly and crunchy cookie base, great combination. We didn’t enjoy the White Chocolate Butterscotch Block ($7.50 per 100g) as the white chocolate coating the entire cake was a bit too creamy and had gotten slightly too cloyingly sweet. We did enjoy the salted butterscotch drizzle. It was thick, gooey and sticky, with a balance between saltiness and sweetness. And finally, Awfully Chocolate’s signature Hei ice cream – the rich, dark chocolate ice cream was very strong in flavours, dense in texture and simply finger licking good.

Nine-thirty by Awfully Chocolate
#02-14, Esplanade Mall
8 Raffles Avenue

Coffee and Crust – Mandarin Orchard

Speaking about chocolate buffet and the restaurants that come immediately to mind include The Courtyard Fullerton Hotel as well as The Chocolate Bar at Marina Bay Sands. These 2 places are synonymous with “Chocolate Buffet”, with The Courtyard @ Fullerton Hotel being the longstanding, all-famous Chocolate Buffet destination.

Thus, imagine our delight and surprise when we spotted this poster at the lift lobby of Mandarin Orchard Gallery:

Chocolate Buffet @ Coffee and Crust, Mandarin Orchard

Available daily from 4.30 to 6.30pm at $20++ per pax, Coffee and Crust’s Chocolate Buffet promises an array of chocolate cakes, tarts, macarons, pralines, not forgetting the iconic chocolate fondue. The chocolate buffet is also available to diners of the Triple Three’s dinner buffet from 6.30 to 10.00pm.

Chocolate Buffet @ Coffee and Crust, Mandarin Orchard

Chocolate Buffet @ Coffee and Crust, Mandarin Orchard

The Chocolate Buffet at Coffee and Crust probably wasn’t as grand and extensive as the one at Fullerton Hotel. In fact, the buffet spread was only set up 10 minutes before the starting time of 4.30pm, on 5 square tables in the centre of the cafe. The chefs took quite a while to arrange the display of chocolate desserts and by the time the buffet spread was ready, it was already slightly past 5pm. Late service – not a great reflection of the resident cafe of a five-star hotel at Orchard Road.

A cup of coffee or tea was provided along with the buffet. However, do note that the tea/coffee isn’t refillable. 1 glass is all that you are going to get. And by the time the buffet spread was ready for consumption, our teas were already half drunk. No more tea to help to wash down the chocolate. Another minus point.

Chocolate Buffet @ Coffee and Crust, Mandarin Orchard

The buffet spread included 5 different kinds of chocolate pralines – white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, sea salt chocolate as well as chocolate mint. The pralines were of decent premium quality, and according to the serving staff, the pralines are of French origin. Decent quality, rich and decadent, perfect mouth poppers.

There were also various chocolate cakes like the triple chocolate mousse cake and a brownie-like chocolate cake. The only tart available was a chocolate caramel tart. Breaking apart the chocolate tart revealed a caramel layer within the tart. There were also other chocolate based desserts like macarons, tuile, wafer sticks and our favourite was a nut-crusted chocolate cone containing a caramel custard centre. The 4 main mini glass desserts were: tiramisu (which was sorely lacking in liqueur and tasted predominantly of cream), a passionfruit chocolate mousse (the refreshing sourness of the passionfruit cut through the rich chocolate, allowing our palates to deter away from the heaviness of the chocolate), a white chocolate mousse (with an evident taste of coconut) and a milk chocolate mousse.

On the whole, if you have the appetite and the stomach for chocolate, Coffee and Crust’s Chocolate Buffet is a value for money option.

Coffee and Crust
Level 5, Mandarin Orchard
333 Orchard Road

Artisan Boulangerie Compagnie

With that many artisan bakeries and patisseries flooding the shores of Singapore, every new outlet definitely has to have an outstanding selling point. And for Artisan Boulangerie Compagnie, which just opened for a week, its main selling point is its consultant pastry chef Eran Mayer – a two-time recipient of the prestigious Grand Prix de la Baguette (Best Baguette of Paris) competition in France!

Artisan Boulangerie Compagnie

Artisan Boulangerie Compagnie

The layout setting of Artisan Boulangerie Compagnie resembled that of Tiong Bahru Bakery, with the long glass display of tarts, sandwiches, pastries and various kinds of artisan breads in the back shelves. Not really knowing the specialty offering of Artisan Boulangerie Compagnie, we went for the 2 items that appealed to us most.

(from right to left) Caramel Pecan Tart and Chocolate Lava Cake

The Chocolate Lava Cake ($6.80) wasn’t heated prior to serving, hence we immediately knew that there was a high chance that the centre wasn’t a molten and viscous core. True enough, the core of the cake wasn’t molten and fluidy, though it was still a tad softer and more moist than the surrounding cake. Putting aside all expectations of a lava cake, this Chocolate Lava Cake was actually pretty impressive. The outer surrounding cake was very dense, moist and rich. It was every bit like a fudge cake, albeit a slightly softer kind. It wasn’t too sweet and the chocolate taste was very strong and decadent.

The Caramel Pecan Tart ($6) was equally impressive. The caramel wasn’t too cloyingly sweet hence we didn’t get too sick from eating it. The caramel was gooey and sticky, simply fork licking good. The tart crust was very fresh and crunchy. It had a slight buttery fragrance, which lingered in the background, without overpowering the fillings of the tart. The best part of the tart has to be the nuts. Besides the whole nuts which were visible atop the tart, there were crushed nuts within the caramel filling. The nuts were very fragrant, very crunchy – evident of their freshness. The nuts weren’t salted nor sweetened, they were just simply exuding their intrinsic nutty aroma and flavours. And they were so crunchy and fresh that it was almost like the nuts were just harvested prior to baking the tart. This has got to be one of the best nut-based tarts we have ever tried.

Artisan Boulangerie Compagnie
#01-01, 118 Killiney Road

Dolce Toyko by Ministry of Food

Macha Sundae

This Macha Sundae ($9) from Dolce Tokyo is the typical “it looks nicer than it tastes” kind of desserts. It is a colourful and ingredient-plentiful dessert, consisting of green tea gelato and vanilla soft serve with macha sauce, strawberries, canned peaches, marshmallows, cornflakes, chocolate brownie chunks, kanten jelly, panna cotta and an oreo cookie.

Indeed, it was a celebration of many ingredients, colour and texture. Sadly, the taste fell short in many ways. The gelato and soft serve were mediocre, nothing too great. The marshmallows are too hard and stale. The chocolate brownie chunks were just bland and dry chocolate sponge. The kanten jelly was tasteless and awful. The panna cotta was an overwhelmingly milky pudding.

Macha Sundae – it looks better than it tastes.

Dolce Tokyo
#03-23, 313 Somerset
313 Orchard Road

The Fullerton Cake Boutique

(from right to left) Hazelnut Choux and Chocolate Caramel Tart

The Fullerton Cake Boutique’s cakes were finger-licking down, right down to the last bite. The Hazelnut Choux ($9) pastry was light and fluffy. Within the pastry encompassed a generous filling of soft hazelnut custard. And outside of the choux was a dollop of hazelnut custard which was slightly harder. The hazelnut custard was very rich in hazelnut – you could actually tell that the pastry chef didn’t stinge on any ingredients, where the hazelnut custard was just pure hazelnut goodness.

And for chocolate lovers, satisfy your chocolate fix in the Chocolate Caramel Tart ($9). Every bite was premium chocolately flavours. The twirl of chocolate atop the tart wasn’t cream, it was dense chocolate fudge. Cutting apart the tart revealed a layer of caramel within the chocolate fudge filling. The caramel wasn’t too sweet nor overpowering, just the right amount to cut through the bitter-sweetness of the chocolate.

The Fullerton Cake Boutique
Lobby, The Fullerton Hotel
1 Fullerton Square