1, 2 buckle my shoes...NO its 1Caramel

I saw from some videos that recommend the sweet places in Singapore and this was 1 of the patisserie that they had visited and interviewed. I was impressed by the cakes and what the manager said of the cakes. Its a fusion of japanese quality and french method of making the cakes.

It is well known that japanese quality means ichiban and the french are known for their fussiness in food. Mixing these 2 together, it can never go wrong and it is indeed so.
They serve not only dessert but also other items like salad and other western food, but since they are famous for their cakes, shouldn't i order the cakes to fill my calories instead of wasting them on other food.

Food

Nid D'abeilles (S$7.90)
Layers of honey chiboust cream and strawberry jelly sandwiched with crispy almond dacquoise.

Presentation:
The cake is placed very simply on an oval plate, with some chocolate decorations. The chocolate decorations were beautifully done and it is an art to look at. The strawberry jelly is sandwiched between the honey mousse topped with a piece of almod dacquoise. A little cream is used to tilt the dacquoise up to give it a little more depth.
The chocolate decoration is made from real chocolate and can be achieved by drawing hot chocolate over a frozen plate. The temperature difference will immediate freeze the chocolate and form the decoration. However once this is done there is no way to scrape the chocolate in whole out from the plate.

Taste：
The honey mousse is smooth and is a little sweet. The strawberry jelly has texture just like mousse with a tinge of strawberry taste. The strawberry taste is not overpowering the honey mousse and both goes well together. The cream though is not the main attraction, is fresh.
The almond dacquoise is somewhat lacking in flavour. All that can be tasted are the sweet and almond flavour. Dacquoise is supposed to be a layered nut meringue layered with buttercream and dacquoise itself can already be a dessert by itself. Adding this layer of almond dacquoise on the top somehow does not really compliment the dessert, in terms of taste.
That said, the cake itself is still worth a try.

Recommended Dessert


Lychee Rose (S$7.90)
Lychee rose mousse with juicy lychee jelly and valrhona ivory chocolate glaze.




Presentation:
The cake is served in a similar fashion as the Nid D'abeilles, with the cake on top of the chocolate decoration. However the deocration is not as finely drawn on the plate as the other one. In fact if the cake is placed on the previous chocolate decoration, it would be better, since this is a very light cake, and would be liked by many ladies.

Taste:
If you do not read the description of this cake before or while you are eating it, you can easily mistaken this as a wet sponge cake filled with lychee and rose frangrance.
This is a very 'juicy' 'sponge' cake and the bottom layer taste full of lychee fragrance. The lychee taste is as if they are bouncing on your palate bringing with it a mild rose smell.
The white valrhona chocolate is like a layer of gel over the cake and povides an additional layer of moisture to the cake.
This is a marvellous cake for the ladies whose palate takes a liking for the light taste, provided that the lady likes lychee.

Recommended Dessert


1Caramel Service Attitude
The staff could provide more help in telling customers that the cakes in the menu are on display on the other side of the room. It would be even better if they invite the customers to take a look at those beautiful cakes before they order, since their cakes are placed quite attractively in a glass see-thru cabinet.
In addition, the staff can make the initiation to recommend their new cakes which were not in the menu.


1Caramel Cleanliness
As a standard restaurant/cafe, the surrounding is very nice and utensils are sprakling clean. Nothing much can be commented.


Ratings
Food Presentation: 4/5
Food Taste: 4/5
Service Attitude: 3.25/5
Cleanliness: 4.5/5
Value for Money: 3.75/5
The quality of the cakes are good and in fact before this post is out, i had been back to the cafe and tried some of their other cakes which were not on their menu, and those cakes taste even better than these 2 above. I am definitely going back again to try the other cakes.

Recommended

Attractive Patisserie from Carousel

I first saw the nice box picture in facebook. Next in the album was a very nice piece of cake, a few more pictures showed me pictures of more cakes, all done in a delicate manner. All these cakes are from Gourmet Carousel, the bakery from Royal Plaza on Scotts.

Faced with such beautiful cakes, I made a trip down to the hotel and look at the cakes and to try them, however I bought the cakes back home as they only serve the cakes in their lounge which is very dark. Their lounge is a place to drink some beer and chill so there are not much lights.

The cakes were decorated with some fine details that it has become an eye candy, to look at rather than to eat it. Each of the cakes comes in either the small size, which is just enough for 1 person, or the bigger size which can be shared by a party of 4 or 5 person.

Patisserie Naranja (S$7.00)

Presentation:
Naranja is a layered cake with blood orange and pitted orange with Manjari chocolate 64%. The bottom layer is the dacquoise, topped with the Manjari chocolate, followed by the orange mousse. Compared to the other cakes, this cake is much simpler.

Taste:
The first bite into the cake gives me a fragrant pistachio nuts and blood orange flavour. The chocolate adds a slight thickness to the cake, while not overpowering the core flavour. If the description is not known, the cake can easily be passed off as an apricot cake layered with pistachio nuts. I am not really a fan of orange cakes so I would not recommend this one.

Not Recommended Cake


Ispahan (A La Pierre Herme) (S$7.00)

Presentation:
Ispahan is a patisserie that comes with bisquit macaroon a la rose, crème au beurre a la rose lychee and fresh raspberries

Taste:
This cake is a very refreshing and light cake, though slightly on the sweet side because of the macaroon, which is notoriously known for being sweet. The lychee creme comes packed with the rose fragrance and it hits on you the moment it enters your mouth. The 2 flavours are gives a very comfortable feeling especially after you had taken 1 or 2 chocolaty cakes. It gives the palate a break.

Recommended Cake


Sunset (S$7.00)

Presentation:
Sunset is Gourmet Carousel's signature cake. It is a dark chocolate mousse with a orange crème Brule, a nougatine of sesame, chocolate sponge.

Taste:

This is a heavy chocolate cake. The best description would be so chocolaty till your drop. The choc mousse is very rich however once you hit the center of the cake, it contains a different type of filling, which is the sesame nougatine. Nougatine is usually in the hard solid form however this one is different in that it like just like creme. This nougatine has a relatively smooth texture. This sesame creme in the middle gives an unique twist to the chocolate taste and both goes well togehter. No wonder it is their signature cake.
Though overall the cake is very nice, it is a heavy and relatively sinful cake, though not the most sinful one that i had tried elsewhere.

Recommended Cake


Tart Praline (S$7.00)

Presentation:
This is a tartlet that consist of pecan nut and almonds, with a custard of hazelnut praline. There is a chocolate ball that is supporting the layer of nut based 'plate'.

Taste:
The crust of the tart is very nice, though it is not soft. The praline inside is the core that is holding the crust together. In fact the praline is so hard that it takes quite some strength to chip off a part of the tart. The praline uses thick caramel to hold the almonds and peacons together, and is full of the almond and peacon taste. With the thick caramel and the nuts, it is very easy for them to stick into the teeth gap and i hate this type of feeling.

Not Recommended Cake


Royal Jasmine (S$7.00)

Presentation:
Royal Jasmine, a beautifully designed cake, is one that contains infuse Jasmine chocolate cream with hazelnut rice krispie and chocolate almond sponge with manjari chocolate mousse. Flanked on the sides by the white jasmine macarons, this piece of cake gave a very balanced look.

Taste:
Royal Jasmine is more of a chocolate cake. The chocolate mousse is very rich. There is only a slight tinge of jasmine flavour, and that only happens in the jasmine macarons. The cake itself taste only of the chocolate. Deep inside the center of the cake are the hazelnut rice krispie. These krispie goes well with the chocolate. The white macarons though sweet gives out a fragrant jasmine flavour when melted.

Recommended Cake

Ratings
Presentation: 4.5/5
Taste: 4/5
Value for money: 3.5/5
The cakes are very nice and while some of them i do not like the them, its a matter of preferences. The cakes are full of flavour and since i am a dessert kind of person, i will be back to grab more of the cakes. I do wish that their lounge can be brighter so that i know what i am eating.

Recommended

A nice piece of Crystal or is it Jade?

Crystal Jade, a group of restaurants, that has established its pressence in most of the Asia countries, was established in Singapore and has grown to be one of Singapore's leading F&B company.

It has been one of my family's favourite eating outlet for the past few years and I believe that this chain of restaurants needs no further introduction. The branch that we visited this time was the one at Suntec.

Food
Smoked Sliced Goose with Lemon and Mango

Presentation:
Six slices of goose meat were placed in a star shape on top of the mango slices and had lemon poured over sauces. The sauce is slightly thick, which I believe is cooked with corn-starch flour before pouring over the dish.

Taste
The texture of the goose meat is tender and the meat goes very well with the mango and the sauce. Though it is lemon sauce, it is not too sour. In fact it brings a little sweetness to the dish too and it goes well with the mango.
This dish should be tried by stacking the goose meat on top of the mango, the taste is simply marvellous. The taste becomes rather complex, having the smoky taste while the mango provides sweetness and the sauce gives its a little sourish flavour. Some of the more traditional chinese food lovers may only like taking the goose meat slice alone.
No matter how this dish is taken, the dish will definitely receive another order from me again.

Recommended Dish


Double Boiled Traditional Chicken Roots with Ginger and Chinese Herbs

Presentation
As with many chinese soups, they come in a big bowl which is sufficient for many people around the table to share. The soup contains a lot of chinese herbs, from red dates(紅棗) to 淮山 and 枸杞子, chicken and ginger. Most of the chinese herbs were relatively common and can be found in those traditional chinese medical hall. The soup looks rather thick but is in fact not so. However one thing was that the chicken pieces was not a lot.

Taste
The essence of all the herbs and chinese are in the soup. The soup is very tasty and the soup i believe would have been boiled for at least 4 hours in order to reach this taste. Due to the many herbs and long hours in simmering the soup, the taste has been made very complex. The ginger gave the soup a little spicy taste, but this is very welcomed. Chinese believed that ginger soup is good for warming the body especially during the winter times.

Recommended Dish


Crystal Jade's Service Attitude
The service is strictly Welcome, order, deliver, billing and goodbye. It can be said that there is nothing special in the service they deliver. However the captains that takes the order do give some recommendation and also tells us if there are any promotion to any items. As we had been to this restaurant a few times, some of the captains do recognise us and do chat to us when our meal is over, but this is not apparent to the other customers.
Service to top up water, clear table and replace cutleries are very quick, even the dishes comes out very quickly.

Crystal Jade's Cleanliness
Good cleanliness. Nothing less, as expected of a restaurant.

Rating
Food Presentation: 3/5
Food Taste: 4/5
Service attitude: 3.5/5
Cleanliness: 4/5
Value for Money: 3.5/5
This is a restaurant chain that we had went back a number of times because of the food. If you are hungry, just go in and order the food. Once the 1st dish comes to you, the rest will follow suit very quickly. Fast service too but it is definitely not the place where you can sit and talk after the meal. Strictly for meals only.

Recommended

P.S. I am in a nice Cafe

PS Cafe, a chain that has multiple branches across Singapore, is a place that serves comtemparary food with a nice ambience. The branch that i went to was in Palais Shopping Centre. Though it is located inside a shopping centre, it provides both indoor and outdoor dining.

The cafe is setup to be as those during the british colony period, with the furniture as such. It can be easily forgotten that this place is actually inside a shopping centre along orchard road.

The cafe offers a wide spectrum of items, ranging from salad to burgers to stew to curry. The desserts offered are also very impressive. The moment you step into the cafe, you can see all the cakes being lined up on round plates that are placed above the counter. The size of the cake is also quite huge as compared to those coffee places.

As i reached the cafe during their tea break, the range of items that were provide was not as much as during their lunch and dinner. I had just ordered 3 items: Caesars salad, Earl Grey Tea and Chocolate Crunch Doorstop Cake.


Food
Caesars Salad (S$18.00)

Presentation
The caesars salad comes in a huge bowl, which surprises me. It was totally out of my expectation that the salad would be that huge. The bowl of salad comes with poached egg, smoked crispy bacon, baby coz, croutons and shaved parmesan cheese, mixed together with the caesar salad dressing.

Taste
The leaves of the salad are quite huge, making it difficult to put into the mouth. The leaves had to be cut into bite size using the knife provided. The salad is just like any caesar salad and there is nothing too special about it. For the price of S$18.00, it is not really worth the price.

Not Recommended Dish


Chocolate Crunch Doorstop Cake (S$15.90)

Presentation
As if this 3 inch tall, gigantic choc cake is not sinful enough, it comes together with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The cake consist of 3 layers, the bottom being chocolate cake base and the middle layer is walnut and peacan mixed in caramel. The top most layer is chocolate mousse with chocolate malt balls on the top.

Taste
If you take the 3 layers all at 1 go, it will warrant a butter of chocolate swimming in your mouth. The walnut gives a unique twist to the caramel , reducing the caramel taste. This dessert is a very filling dessert, with richness in chocolate taste.
Chocolate lovers will simply adore this dessert. It all choc, choc and more choc. The vanilla ice cream helps little to give additional flavour to the cake. In fact the vanilla ice cream melted after i had only finished 3/4 of the cake.
This cake is so filling that i am not able to finish the cake and i only had just a tea and a salad before attempting this cake.

Recommended Dish (for Choc Lovers only)


PS Cafe Service
I would be giving mixed reviews to the way that customers are treated. Firstly, when i arrived at the cafe, which is at about tea time, there wasn't any waitress standing to check guests in. The counter staff did see me but they are busy with they preparation work and only smiled back at me. It would have been better had they called out to the other available staff to attend to me. I had been standing there for about 5 minutes before a waitress came, only with a phone in hand, taking the reservation, i presume. I had to wait for about another 3 minutes before i was attended.
Finally gotten my seat and my order for warm water was missed out, and i had to request for it again before the waitress says that she had forgotten about it.
While these 2 incidents reflected rather negatively, the same waitress knowing what i had ordered and upon me finishing my salad, replaced my utensils for me so that when my dessert comes, i can start eating it. At least this brings back some positive light to their service.

PS Cafe Cleanliness
I would not consider the cafe to be very cleanliness conscious even though their utensils, cutleries and were sparkling clean. The staff were actually sweeping the floor while guests were still eating. One thing that the staff didnt notice is that the place where they were sweeping actually had air current that is leading into the cafe. Even though the place is air conditioned, little dust particles that are everywhere were stirred and could possibly land onto customers food.
It is good to keep the floor clean but not when customers are still eating and with the air current bringing dust to customers food.

Rating
Presentation: 3.5/5
Taste: 3.5/5
Service: 3/5
Cleanliness: 3/5
Value for money: 2.5/5
If i were to be back to the cafe, i would be going back because of the cakes. They look really tempting. The ambience is also a good place for friends to chat and hang out with each other.

++Recommended++ (only for the cakes)