Red Velvet

There was an incident that marred the memory of a great dinner get-together.  Shortly after we were seated, the patrons from another table asked for their birthday cake stored in the chiller.  There were 3 cakes in the chiller (yea, 3 birthday celebrations), including the small one I bought for E.  The staff was so confused she took the wrong cake (ours!) and walked right to the other table while all the time, I was trying to tell her that was our cake.  The lady who bought the cake realised the mistake, and walked to the chiller herself to pick up the cake.  As she walked past our table to her table, she declared very loudly to her friends that ‘My cake is from The Patissier’.

Woah… that stung.  Because obviously my cake box was small and the shop I bought from not as reputable as the big gun The Patissier in Singapore.  But that comment was… tasteless and uncalled for.  Well yes, The Patissier has some nice cakes, but they most certainly don’t sell Red Velvet cakes.  And I do know where to get the best Strawberry Shortcake, the best few Chocolate Cakes, the best Durian Cake etc. in Singapore.  Oh, as a baker myself, I do know my cakes… and that ignorant woman?  No.  She is just one of those fartsy pretentious office worker who mistakes brand name as an assurance of taste.

Yes.  I was very annoyed with her for insulting my choice of cake which by the way, happens to be really delectable.

The topic of Red Velvet Cakes came up during one of our previous dinner gatherings and apart from E and I, it seemed that the rest of them have not heard of it, much less taste it.  So I tasked myself to bring a Red Velvet Cake to the next gathering.  Although this old traditional cake is widely popular in the United States, the fever never really caught on in Singapore.  I researched a bit, and it seemed like only Room for Dessert sold Red Velvets.  Fortunately, I have heard only good things about this bakery.

I love Room for Dessert’s rendition of the Red Velvet Cake because the owner cum baker obviously used the most traditional way to get the red colour synonymous with the Red Velvet – beet root – instead of relying on red food colouring.  The result was a very dense but moist cake offering many layers of taste undertones.  Absolutely delicious.

Apparently Room for Dessert is famous for their Carrot Cake.  I have yet to try because honestly, I’m not a real fan of carrot cakes.  But judging by how good the Red Velvet Cake is, I might drop by one of these days and try the Carrot Cake.

108/250

Weekly Photo Challenge: Indulge

Indulge is this week’s photo challenge.  My ultimate indulgence – my favourite macarons from my favourite Paris pâtisserie.  I could also get his macarons from Tokyo, but it’s just different stepping into his pâtisserie in Paris itself.  It’s like a pilgrimmage every macaron baker and eater must make.

I was a little overwhelmed when I first stepped into the pâtisserie because unlike its Tokyo counterparts, the interior decor of the original shop is rather dark and narrow.  Before I could take a closer look at the pastries on display, I was hurried into a queue.  The counter staff looked very harrassed (possibly from working nonstop since the store opened for the day) and since I didn’t speak much French, I chose the easiest way out – by picking one pre-packed tin of macarons.

This is the tin of a dozen macarons that endured the 14-hour flight back from Paris.  Didn’t survive very well, if you scrutinise them.  If I had a choice, I would have handpicked all the flavours that I liked and not bought this pre-packed tin.  As a general rule, I prefer ganache or buttercream filling to fruit jam filling because the latter tends to be a lot more cloyingly sweet.  And I prefer shells made with hazelnut mill rather than almond mill for the same reason.  But I love PH’s Ispahan macarons; it is easily his opus magnum, I feel. His Plaisir Sucré comes in a very, very close second.

I finished all 12 macarons by myself and the hubby was very mad with me when he came home and found none of PH’s macarons left for him.  Kekeke…  that’s why it fits ‘Indulge’!

45/250

High Tea at Les Saveurs

As with many of my recent food review posts, this one is excessively belated.  Yup.  L and I visited Brassiere Les Saveurs @ The St. Regis Singapore for high tea in late June, in celebration of her impending graduation.  She has since graduated and was the valedictorian of her batch.  So proud to have a friend like her!

So… I’m not good with gifting – that requires an innate talent, and sadly, I am sorely in need of this flair.  Hence I did was I was best at – sourcing for good food.  And once I decided on the venue, I extended the invitation to L, who graciously accepted it.

It was a weekday, and the hotel was quiet without the weekend hustle and bustle.  And I liked it this way; it is more befitting of a 6-star hotel.  I’m not snobbish, but when I am prepared to splurge in a grand way at such a posh location, the experience is somewhat marred when I see fellow countrymen coming dressed in shorts and flip-flops.  I believe in dressing for the occasion – this is showing respect for oneself actually – but many have used the excuse of Singapore being a tropical country to dress down, even for concerts.  Tees and jeans are actually fast becoming acceptable for say, an evening concert by a world renown philharmonic orchestra.  I cannot fathom the trend.  Perhaps I’m the one who is not moving with times.

Because I’m blogging this after dining there more than 2 months ago, I cannot remember much details including what course we chose and how much it cost.  Let’s just have the pictures do the talking, shall we?

We were first served with a 3-tier – sandwiches on the bottom-most tier, scones fresh and still warm from the oven above, and then butter and jam on the topmost.  And the scones are to die for!  But, don’t just take my words for it because I skipped breakfast and lunch that day so I was famished, and I love scones.

Next on, we chose our individual savoury dishes.  Try as I might, i cannot recall what L ordered.  Was it some lobster-related pie or something?  Mine, is as plain as you could see it – dim sum.  Not the best of the dim sum I’ve tried, and definitely too small a portion for such a dim sum monster as I but it didn’t do too bad where taste was concerned.  Just too few pieces, not to mention weird to find dim sum offered for high tea at such an elegant dining establishment.

And the last were the pastries.  One of the serving staff rolled a pastry cart towards our table and asked us to each choose 2 pastries we would like to have.  So we each chose 2 and shared.  The lemon curd that I chose was too sour for my palate.  The chocolate eclair was rather nice, but I’m not a huge fan of chocolates.

I also asked the restaurant if they could prepare a special cake to commemorate the occasion when I first arrived, early.  I didn’t think of approaching them in advance so the captain admitted it might not be possible but he would look into it.  So when the plated cake was served, I was as pleasantly surprised as L was.  Well, the lit candle was a little tacky but I could overlook that with the apparent effort put in to fulfill my request.  I’m not a fan of mango puree (I’m quite fussy after all!) but hey, the cake was really rather good.  And they didn’t charge me a single cent!  Now, that’s class.

L and I spent some quality time chatting and catching up with each other.  It has been a long while since we sat down and chatted, just the two of us.  And it was nice.  However, the high tea was another story altogether.  Truthfully, I was rather disappointed with the whole affair because I was expecting more – more food to be served, more choices, more freedom to walk down the pastry line and more diners.  I know it was a weekday, but there were only about 5 tables occupied and we didn’t even fill up half of the restaurant.  Singaporeans tend to flock to where there is good food and good deals, so numbers are very telling.  This much I will say.

I felt bad towards L because I didn’t choose that great a restaurant after all, and I really wanted her to have a good experience.

Will I return again as a paying customer?  I think the likelihood is rather low.  I know of better high tea establishments.

Brassiere Les Saveurs @ The St. Regis Singapore
29 Tanglin Road
Singapore 247911
Tel: +65-6506-6866
Opening Hours:
please refer to website

When Life Gives You Lemons

Make lemonade!  Or a lemon citrus cake!

Me:  mango or lemon?  which do u prefer?

EL:  depends. on their own or as ice cream.  pie?  drink?  different preference for different things

Me:  cream.

EL:  cream?  face cream?

Me:  ya cream.  no lah!  take it as ice cream.

EL:  hahaha.  lemon because i like sorbets and sour sorbets at that.  mango quite mundane.

Me:  ok!

The other day, I was checking with EL on which flavour she preferred.  It probably sounded ridiculous to her because I didn’t want to let on too much.  You see, I couldn’t decide on the cake flavour to order for her birthday celebration, so I decided to let her pick instead.  And she probably didn’t expect me to save the conversation thread we had haha…

I’ve known EL for over 20 years.  One of my oldest friends and the type whom I know we don’t need to meet every single day/week but we could still pick up where we left off when we meet.  I don’t have many of such friends.  By choice, I prefer not to keep too many close friends.  It’s extremely tiring to keep up.

Of my close friends, EL is probably the most similar to me, in terms of character.  Introverted, and extremely sensitive.  That’s not always a good thing, but we’ve both learnt to live with who we are.

We had dinner at a rather surprisingly good restaurant.  I shall leave that to another post.

The Citrus Drop Cake that I settled for was from Pine Garden’s Cake.  I used to live a stone’s throw away from the neighbourhood confectionery and grew up eating their breads and cakes.  Love their cakes!