Chihuly Lounge- Summer Weekend Afternoon Tea

Take a feast on all the names. Passion fruit mango éclair, casis violet écclair, mango éclair, caramel écair, mac-clair, cherry écair, cookies and cream écair, gula melaka écair, chocolate écair, green tea écair, mixed berries écair, hazelnt éclair, apple écair.

An Equador Rose

Say it with me. #iloveyouimissyousecretfriendshippleaseforgivemeremembermethankyoubemysweetheart. On a rose.

Chihuly Lounge- Summer Weekend Afternoon Tea

Take a feast on all the names. Passion fruit mango éclair, casis violet écclair, mango éclair, caramel écair, mac-clair, cherry écair, cookies and cream écair, gula melaka écair, chocolate écair, green tea écair, mixed berries écair, hazelnt éclair, apple écair.

An Equador Rose

Say it with me. #iloveyouimissyousecretfriendshippleaseforgivemeremembermethankyoubemysweetheart. On a rose.

Chihuly Lounge- Summer Weekend Afternoon Tea

Take a feast on all the names. Passion fruit mango éclair, casis violet écclair, mango éclair, caramel écair, mac-clair, cherry écair, cookies and cream écair, gula melaka écair, chocolate écair, green tea écair, mixed berries écair, hazelnt éclair, apple écair.

Archive for April 2013

The local Rose-@ Chomp Chomp Milk Curd


Fine

Like treasures piled, as one was at the odd end of the counter, green, 2 rows of pink, chocolate or mocha, peanut or ginko nut, soya (original) or egg, soya beancurd. They indeed maintain (80%) what they boast to offer. 



Uphill, at such a stall. With replicates, how do they differentiate which green is green, mocha colour is mocha



Bandung Milkcurd and Honeydew Milkcurd (SGD 1.50 ea)

Bandung and honeydew come almost together, in the group of the secondary as the flavours are bundled in the menu. Not the stall stationing, house favourites, nor the unintentional adventitious tweaks. The local, equatorial rendering to curd. Bandung is a local drink; while honeydew is the stall's most popular ubiquitious fruit, in our institutions, next to watermelon, pineapple, papaya. The bandung and honeydew also not fall into the first broad classification of Chomp Chomp Milk Curd, the aloe, or gel, jelly, but the latter, milky. 



Do not let them settle for more than a few hours. The milk solids would separate from the water. Carving with a spoon, the scrambled pieces are marbled, striated, showing fresh and naturally set like beancurd. It is a smooth finish, and the stall assiduously intercepts syrup into the curd. The bandung is sweet-smelling, edible like the drink we know.

P.S. Bandung. The rose drink we ladle, be it plastic bags or packet cartons. Bandung is the local milk infused with rose syrup, pink be it. One thing bandung is not strawberry is; strawberry is red and you have to suppress it with dairy, bandung is the milk with roses, roses themselves are pink in the wild. 


Collon and dimples- the gold sash for Glico


Sunny

One has not forgotten. The pack of bliss compacted, rolled up, vanillin compressed, or curled up under your fingers, the eggy biscuit, either way you see it. The splay of tiny tumblers, Glico Collon.  


Strawberry(?) or chocolate. And cream flavoured egg roll. In glico over 40 years in Singapore, thaiglico comes in polka dot prints, and strawberry. The classic biscuit roll design had no smiley faces.   


Glico Strawberry Collon (SGD 1.00)

The brown coat, toasted, more than usual was plain, less complex. Like unflavoured Hong Kong egg roll. The strawberry cream curdled, flat. Still, a strawberry collon crisp and soft in one, not sure to have the tube in half or whole. 

P.S. Glico {Pocky, Hello Panda, Pucca} has been around for 4 decades. It emerged from the cookie competitors with its uniformity in standards and optimum surface-to-volume ratio confectionery. The 40 years veil highlighted the strawberry, how the creme blended in with the pink, how we would (go for chocolate or cream), but thankful for this mediator, it was the only colour tided through the earthly cream and chocolate and almond.

   

Viewing- @ Green Pumpkin Japanese Bakery


Sunny


The last day (season), the last petal drop. One was fortunate enough to catch it.


There was a section dedicated to sakura, this flower not only ornamental to look at, embleming life, hope it had.


The baked goods, some of the English versions made in sakura. It is an educational ride itself. The patisserie also had a cake section specifically for sakura selections.  


Sakura Trio (SGD 3.50)

A marriage of the French and Japanese? Japan's crowned pearls green tea, sakura, original(yellow- yuzu?). We might not know how to section the love. Choux pastry balls upon a sugar paste biscuit, though the cream was light and not pertaining to any camp, the profiteroles were juicy. Encasing matcha and sakura in the puff. A combination of snappy, beaten and crispy textures. 


Cornet Sakura (SGD 1.80)

|New| and beaming from the bakery, is cornet roll from Japanese origins. French coronet? Second to croissant.[?] The bread was sweet, like pan of Green Pumpkin with something made in Japan inside. Cornet with chocolate or custard filling, this one is sakura flavoured custard. An appropriate pink and blushing. Ringing cherry taste and a nice dash of the custard both flower and custard fans will like. 




Mont Blanc Sakura (SGD 3.50)

Green pumpkin had pumpkin (mont blanc). Or chestnut or green tea or purple potato. This one is the height of the season sakura and chestnut cream piped. Not as thin and fine the strands, the monc blanc was sweet and wholesome, the chestnuts providing a sturdy flavour. Visionary and good as it looks a mont blanc in pink. Combined with fresh strawberry in the center.  

P.S. Cherry. Closest taste to the sakura, the fleshy, exquisite fruit almost like a berry. The flower of the cherry. How the ethereality of cherry blossoms in food came about. 

Cuddling strawberry- Yummy Rainbow Milkcurd


Night

Getting the beancurd at the canteen? Testing the acuteness of the mind. Soya beancurd, or milkcurd. Faery colours they are, there's something bound. Made of milk, not soybeans. That makes more sense. 


The riot of colours we splash in milk, Yummy Rainbow Milkcurd stayed on in the business because it messes with milk (in the recipe), it may be more shivery if it was beancurd in 13 flavours.  


(Strawberry SGD 1.50)

So what is milkcurd? Curd clotted from milk. The strawberry belonged to the curd, and not to the milk curd of the Milk Curd. It has a more jelly-like consistency than custard as perceived. The strawberry fragrance is towards the tangy, and it permeates through the jelly with such crispness, albeit sweet it is like strawberry puree.    


P.S. Novelty because it is milkcurd. Not beancurd. Was it licensed, or learnt, was there such a term anyway? Anything, as long as it is milk obtained from with colours, taste. 


Makaron- inspire Japan @ Ichiban Sushi


Fine


For Sakura Matsuri this year, to pay tribute to the cherry blossoms, the afternoon and nights are topped with desserts made from sakura, you rounding up with the flowers. Coming back to a same point, no matter what you had.  


Unlike 2 years ago, the cherry blossoms viewing promotion, the sakura desserts no longer remain in the hard, preformed image of the sweets- mochi, dorayaki, wagashi. It breaks out of the is and into a numerous expanding possibilities with French desserts, not just sponge cake, pound cake, layer cake. 


Macaron (SGD 4.20)

Exciting. Held in a cup like a boiled egg, is the poached macaron with sakura buttercream. Dissecting how to make a sakura, it is the filling furnished with sakura extract, while the meringue still almond flour and powdered sugar, and a few drops of colouring liquid splashed hither thither. The macaron remains as almond. The desserts (sakura) are brought about by Japanese patissier Hirai Hironobu, who also runs the Mother's Day cakes.   


Decent, though as macaron sold in a japanese restaurant, the egg shell did not separate from the macaron, and there's a intricate stretch of soft interior before the crisp egg shell to buttercream. Achingly sweet, but characteristic of a macaron.


The threshing blades and red bubbles templates, giving away the group of restaurants. Also the conditioned response that it is delectable. Sakura desserts will be made once again the flower is in bloom. 

P.S. The month of April where cherry blossoms are in full bloom. You know it too well, now you don't. One was apologetic learning that there are 2 colours of cherry blossoms only early this year. Pink and the white. No matter how white it is, there's still a tinge of pink.

French pancake- dacquoise darling by Hirai Hironobu


Sunny

Though this is not the season of the Valentine's, {the cherry blossom's}, but I am still overwhelmed with choices. {How can this be?} Coveted by roses, the pink. Oh so rosy. The [sakura] macaron, [sakura] madeleine, [sakura] loaf cake or [sakura] daquise? Sweet sakura selections from Ichiban Sushi and Ichiban Boshi this April. 



Macaron is the mooring submarine as we know, to be settled if we can track any. Madeleines are French sponge cakes, rich butter and vanilla batter, archetypally scalloped-shape and shell depression-forked. Loaf cakes are typically the Eastern European pound cakes, a sweet tea bread not necessarily indulgent or restricted in ranges. Dacquoise? It is a cake of meringue layers, sandwiched with buttercream.


Sakura Daquise (SGD 2.80)

Yes. Hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack which never fails to highlight a trunch, the messy, organic fix; slathered over which makes you feel honoured a king. The sakura was sakura (cherry blossoms) seeping into the buttercream. Sakura seems to complement with the nutty qualities of almond and hazelnut, having been paired by pastry chefs in French desserts.

P.S. A year ago no it was months ago; the torch which you are carrying fanning into that blossoming colour, eclipsing silhouette too. Feeding the emotion. However it will be the uncommon rose, sakura, of all an exalted breath from the earthy tips of the birch tree. Conferring the pink to you.

Corn dog, hot dog


Sunny

Savoury. Had we seen one in sweet before?


It seems that when in sweet, it has to be this colour. 


Or is it how the word came about? Sweet because of the colour strawberry.


An almost odd looking, pale pink rod of grit. Corn and strawberry, 2 of our most favourite crops. You could smell the strawberry, but when you take a puff into the puff it is salty similar to healthy brown rice or corn sticks Taiwanese snack on. Not really telling how pink it got, but may be some of the seaweed or soy sauce powder got replaced with sugar crystals. It is a snack dessert or alternate snack, the fruit flavour cleverly breathed onto the stick of corn. 

P.S. If it is not strawberry corn sweet, it might not be sakura

Star (hot)-crossed buns


Sunny

Cloud of flowers by the April, (no matter how many times I have been eagerly encircling around here) I have been reminded that (gratefully) Green Pumpkin Japanese Bakery has not deviated from its initial story. Green pumpkin- the bibelot of a bun, shaped like a pumpkin, with green skin resembling those of the intense squash, the asian variety or Japanese pumpkin. Not too far, with the cracked assignment of tourmalines littered, pink (garnet) and white breads laid for the spread.

 

In Japan, April is the month of the cherry blossoms and Ichiban Sushi, Ichiban Boshi and its birthed patisserie Green Pumpkin Japanese Bakery sound the horn of spring synchronically with sweet sakura selections. Kawaii, another of its weapon, the animal-shaped buns series, a Part 1, painstakingly provides labels for you knowing the bread-thirsty in you. For a cuppa, go with the irregular, asian rendition of Yuzu Latte or Matcha Latte, and trail in a little bit with pumpkin puree in the green pumpkin mont blanc, or nutty mix of pumpkin seeds on top of a pumpkin-flavoured green pumpkin muffin. 



How many times of the year can you catch such a (botanical) sight? Once in a pink moon. Pink and white, on majority of the trays. At one of the shelves occupied, an electrifying pink slays through the (?)cheeses and cheese-crusted bun. Lightning.



Sakura Mochi Bun (SGD 1.80)

Facilitating the ebb and flow of the pink across the bakery, this red ruby(dessert) of the shop is the height of the cherry ruddiness. The snow cone, also evident in a cross-hatched melonpan or pineapple bun is sakura flower head-shaped, and previously used as inscriptions in its sakura mochi and sakura buns, or leaf vectors for green tea (leaves) in the matcha mochi bun.  



Sakura Cubey Cheese (SGD 2.10)

Sakura, and cubes (the abstraction, the illusion), there is some form of incapacity in grasping how the sakura is to be suggested on a (savoury) bun entirely. While the pink may have been jarring, it is a juicy, pink currant of brined sakura (blossom) on a cheese bun. The translucent gelatinous pink squares? I am no longer obliged to find the Laughing Cow's party cubes- discard the ham or tomato or french onion, cheese is pink here! The sugared cheese (sweet taste)- deposited at the crater of the cookie crust wrapped around a soft ball of bread dough bun, distributed among the other cheese cubes. Igneous stones between.    



Where there was cheese, there's ham. Matcha dainagon, (or tsubushian, koshian, kurogama) they are too run of a mill for Japanese pans- we'd need some yuzu, satsumaimo, or kubocha(?), this is sakura anpan. Though matcha bread, it is filled with shiro-an or sakura-an (encouraging), the latter easy on the mouth white bean paste and minced sakura leaves and perhaps, pink colouring, churning up that impression of meat. Hence it does not hurt being bitten a second time, one of the top pick me up in Green Pumpkin.

P.S. Ichiban Sushi/Boshi or Green Pumpkin Japanese Bakery are planted in the trio of colours, white, pink, green because their mill runs deep into the traditions of wagashi making. This answers for the venturesome make-up of the bakery's interiors/fillings- the tsubushi-an (coarse red bean) koshi-an (fine red bean) satsumaimo (sweet potato) kurogama (black sesame) shiro-an (white bean) kubocha (Japanese green pumpkin), and why it'd be sakurapink. The ans which are the pastes or jellied counterparts for the seasonal cakes, sakura (cherry blossom) the vital pillar in wagashi- the art, the confectionery, the senses