Apr 19, 2011
Around the country there is this famous name everywhere. Auntie Anne's. Which brings together another kind of good from a different culture and food concept. Amongst the sea of international street snack stalls embraced and patronized by the locals.
It is not a fast-food or japanese fad, but the 90s British- pretzels! A break from the swarming assortment of doughnuts or do-nots, in predictable shape, fashion and colour; this is baked bread which is good for your heart. Hand-rolled soft bread laced into the shape of a heart, or fondly an angel's halo. 1 gram of fat without butter, and zero trans fat guaranteed.
Zesty Roselle (Left) and Seaweed (Right) (Speciality) (SGD 2.70 ea)
Fashionably dressed, they come in basic, and premium(exotic) flavours too. That is rather eye-popping and not for the faint-hearted. Your bread roll painted in pink, or a mossy green. And one of the most natural delightful set of paintbrushes, that you'd never associated with colour: pink for sour plum powder, and green for seaweed chuckles.
Mm. Burnished chewy bread that is generously coated with seaweed flakes, the seaweed lingering with a savoury garlic taste. It is satisfying and filling. How are the pretzels made? Left toasty on the shelves; upon the commands the auntie will clamp and dip them vigorously into their containers of sparkling waters- the plum powder or seaweed flakes.
P.S. Everybody should have a chance and go at these pretzels, once in a lifetime. To be encapsulated in this different vibrant culture. And for the wondrously purplish-pink hued pretzel, it is dabbled in the most exquisite powder, sour plum, explaining that intriguing sight and its name zesty roselle. Roselle? Because without the help of roselle (a plant), the sour plum powder would not become rosy in colour, but staying off as white; famously known as the tasty substance found atop guavas.
