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)

Having Tea to rest and soothe the soul

Next to Raffles Hotel, situated along Seah Street, is a cafe that serves Tea. Tea drinking in Singapore is quite common and there are quite some places serving tea. I just happen to catch this on TV and do a search on the internet for the address. Though I wanted to go and drink so tea, i was also having fear of not knowing how to appreciate the tea and the art of tea drinking, still i made up my mind to go and try it out.

As i saw from the TV, the owner acquires the her tea leaves from Taiwan and only picks the best for her customers and even the food was prepared with intricate attention to the details. This sure sounds good, especially when it is broadcasted on national tv.

The cafe is located on the second level of the shop houses. Once you enter the main door, the is a flight of stairs leading up to the 2nd level. The decoration along this part of the cafe is simple yet bring a sense of class to the whole area. It's just like entering a museum. Once you enter entrance door closes, you can feel a sense of serenity. A total change of ambience and surroundings. Since there are no waitress waiting to serve you at the bottom of the stairs, the only way is to go up. If it is the 1st visit, the customer may walk very carefully so as not to disturb the peaceful surroundings. It is quite an experience!

As you travel up the stairs, you can hear the faint jazzy music playing. Upon coming up the flight of stairs, you will see their 'kitchen' where the waitress prepare the tea and the food. Though being a chinese tea cafe, the waitresses converse to you in English, so dont be startled if they reply in english when you talk to them in chinese.

The place was overall a rather small cosy area, if you compared to those TCC, starbucks outlet. The ambience and surroundings extends that of the entrance to the main cafe area. You can really feel very comfortable, and it is just like going back to a very cosy and comfortable home. This is where things seems to be separated from the real world of hustle and bustle. I would say it is an ideal place to sit and wait for the world to go by, while reading a book and enjoying tea. One thing though is that the number of tables are limited.

The tea varieties are not really a lot, but they do serve tea from the main stream asia countries like Taiwan, China, Japan. They also server some english teas. There are some finger food and japanese pastries, but choices are limited.


Food
4 Seasons tea, 四季茶 (Complimentary Sample)

This tea was served as a sample and comes complimentary from the cafe.

Presentation:
The tea was served in a beautiful glassware. The workmanship of the glassware can be considered to be very good. With this type of glassware, you would not expect it to be chinese tea, but they served their sample of the 4 seasons tea.

Taste: The tea is rather fragrant. It is a light tea, that can be said to belong to the class as jasmine.


Japanese Tea - Gyokuro, 玉露 (S$15.00)

Presentation:
The tea comes in a nice oblong porcelain tray, with the different utensils placed appropriately. The tea consist of the tea, a few hard candies, and a piece of sweet tangerine japanese jelly.
The set comes with the necessary cups and utensils to pour and filter the tea leaves from the tea. It may seem overwhelming at first, but a it all falls into place after looking at each cup. The tea leaves are placed in the brown porcelin cup. Pour the hot water into this container to let the taste of the tea leaves spread into the water. Once the tea is ready, place the wooden filter over the white cup and pour the tea there to cool it off a little. Then once ready to drink pour it into the cup and drink it.

Taste:
The tea taste bitter or rather 甘 at the very 1st moment it touches the palate. Eating the sweet tangerine jelly will offset the bitter taste. However the bitter taste is also the essence of the tea. After a few sip of the tea, when the palate, got used to the bitterness, the tea proves to be a fantastic liquid. The tea plus the soft easy listening music soothes the body and relaxes the soul.

Recommended Dish


Chinese Herbal Tea Egg, 茶叶蛋 (S$3.50)

Presentation:
The tea egg comes in a small teadrop bowl that is just sufficient to hold the egg with some tea sauce. Using pure white utensils, the egg is presented in a simple yet elegant layout.

Taste:
This is not the typical tea egg which taste full of herbal medicine. The egg yoke is half cooked and is similar to those Hokaido type of eggs, where the yoke has texture that is buttery.
The sauce is sweet and salty at the same time, and has a slightly tea fragrance. However the sauce is meant to be taken together with the egg, else the sauce is simply too salty on its own.

Recommended Dish

Tea Wings (S$5.00)

Presentation:
Similarly to the tea eggs, the presentation is very plain, with just the wings and a little decoration. The wings were sprinkled with a pinch of salt and pepper. This also acts as part of the decoration, in addition to bringing out the flavour.

Taste:
The wings taste similar to soy sauce chicken wings, but without the soy sauce. I could not find any fragrant taste of tea. This could possibly due to a short time in marination of the wings. The wings still contains some frozen taste, which is very much evident near the bone.

Not Recommended Dish

Tea Cafe's Service
Though the service that the waitress gave was quite good, but i believe that the service can be improved. One such example, would be that they can make recommendations to guests on what type of tea would be good, since the menu only provides the name of the tea. It would be difficult for a customer to choose what type of tea to go for.
The waitresses could also be more attentive, as in my case where some of the tea overflows to the table, and while some waitresses walked pass to serve other customers, they did not notice that the existing customers require services other than refilling the water in the glass kettle.

Tea Cafe Cleanliness
Overall, good cleanliness for all their utensils.

Ratings
Presentation: 4.5/5
Taste: 4.5/5
Service: 4/5
Cleanliness: 4.5/5
Value for Money: 3.5/5
This is a good place to bring along a book to rest for the weekend. Just staying there for 3 hours would be sufficient to soothe and relax yourself. It is an experience to tasting the other tea while enjoying your favourite book with some light music playing the background. I will be back to rest my tired soul.

Recommended