The Cottage Waffle Place - Ordinary

You'd think that after all that damage done at Carl's Jr we'll behave ourselves for the next few days. But no, we have to accentuate our pleasurable diinner with nice sweet things. Recalling the new waffle/ice-cream shop at level 3 during our last visit, we decided to seek it out.



This is a new place serving desserts. It has got small round tables lined along the curvy walkway on level 3, not exactly family friendly. My kids took turn to threaten to over turn the tables on several occassions, we took extra efforts to keep the legs of the table firmly on the ground.

The staff recommended the fondue set to us, saying that this is more bang for bucks. At first I was like thinking "huh but we just had a suicidal artery blocking super humongous "Super Star" plus chilli beef fries, you trying to kill us one more time?" BUT Mr HB promptly decided this is what we will be going for! *faint*

So here the chocolate bowl for our dipping pleasure, we were told this is refillable. The set also includes a tea, you can choose to have it cold or hot.


Then this arrive shortly. 5 mini scoops of ice-cream, banana slices, apple slices, waffles (YEA!) and my daughter's favourite, mashmellows. Also served is a mini bowl of nuts to top our chocolate coated munchie.


They serve the relatively known bud's ice-cream so no further elaboration will be made to this item.

Without further delay, we promptly selected our choice of ingredient and dip it into the chocolate pool. The banana taste very well in it's chocolate coat with lots of nuts, crunchy on the outside then you hit a chocolate wall followed by the soft innards.

But this is a waffle place right, so how is the waffle? If you really ask me, I think the waffle is really ordinary, infact it's a bit too tough. I like waffles that are crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside with a little chew. The waffle here is cripsy all the way akin to eating a waffle biscuit.

Service crew is warm and friendly but the food is somewhat sub-standard if you ask me.

The Cottage Waffle Place
3 Temasek Boulevard
#03-xxx Suntec City Mall

Island Creamy - Ice Cream Paradise

This is one of the places where the ice cream are what they are supposed to be - rich and flavourful.

They offer a wide variety of ice cream flavours at a very reasonable price - $2.50 for single scoop and $4.00 for double which is one of the cheapest I've come across so far.
Personal favourites include ReverseO, brandied cherry, mango...etc...(actually many more). The mud pies are great too. They have some non conventional local flavours like Teh Tarik, Pulut hitam....see other posts.

Only grip is seating capacity is kinda limited esp during weekend nights. During weekend nights, they are usually full-house. There were several occassions where we had to buy take aways as there were no place to seat ourselves. The wait staff here are very friendly and helpful, not to mention generous with the ice-creams.

Give this place a try if u are an ice cream lover and you will not regret.

Must Tries: Mud Pie, ReverseO

Island Creamy
10 Jalan Serene, #01-03 Serene Centre, Singapore

Classic Cakes - Hidden Gem!!

We visited Sunset way for ice cream in Daily Scoop (see separate review) and chanced upon this little fantastic cake shop.

It appears to be a bakery by itself and has very little room left for chairs and tables.
If my memory serves me right, there were only 2 small tables so I assumed most of the business come from take-aways.

We were drawn by the newpaper clipping on the window and decided to drop by to try some of the cakes on display (the price is another draw, they are cheap!)
So we tried
1. Miles Crepe cake - $6 per slice. This cake is made up of 20 crepes piled on top of each other separated by fresh cream in between. They have other flavours like apple miles and durian miles. We had the plain one. It was delicious! The cake is somewhat sticky and a little difficult to "cut" with just fork due to the dense cream and texture of the cake. Definately worth a try!
2. Mango cheese cake - $3.80 per slice. This is one of the best cheesecake I've tried by far. And for this price I can eat cheesecake everyday! (But I think my waistline will expand all the way to New York if I were to do that). Very rich/dense and extremely smooth texture.

If I were not travelling tomorrow, I will definately be back tomorrow to try the other cheesecakes!Highly recommended!

Must Tries: All the cakes.

Classic Cakes
41 Sunset Way, #01-06 Clementi Arcade, Singapore

Soon Huat Cold & Hot Dessert - Absoluately Value for $$

This is my favourite coffee shop dessert stall in Singapore. They are very very generous with the ingredients and by far one of the cheapest in Singapore. Not to mention the polite and efficient stall owner.On a hot day, I will go there specially just to eat cold dessert to cool myself down. Highly recommended if you are in the vicinity.

Must Tries: Red tea longnan, peanut ice kachang, many more....

Soon Huat Cold & Hot Dessert
Blk 105 Hougang Avenue 1,
#02-43 ,
Singapore

Haato - Generous Servings

They are very generous with the servings. BIG plus.

So far I've tried
1. Chocolate - nothing exceptional but it's not bad tasting, just normal gelato.
2. Pistachio - thick and creamy but too sweet for my liking3
. Yuzu sorbet - refreshing and light
4. Black sesame - creamy and full of sesame taste but again a little too sweet for my liking.Will definately go back again.

To try list include
1. Green tea/with red bean2
. Waffles!

GO before 1st sept, prices are set to increase by $0.50 per scoop.

Must Tries: Yuzu

Haato
9 Portchester Avenue, #01-02 Serangoon Garden Village, Singapore

Ice Cream Chefs - Not so value for $$

We were on our way to Werner's (see separate review) when we passed by this little ice cream palour. I was wondering if any one knew of it since it seems to be quite off the beaten track.

After failing to purchase anything at Werner's (it was alose to 9pm at night), we decided that we could do with a little consolation - ice cream and returned to this ice cream palour.
Upon taking a closer look, the sign board "Ice Cream Chefs" stared back into my face. I then recalled having read about it in HGW and the Straits Times some time ago.

We were greeted by 4 service staff upon entering the store and contrary to my initial thought, it is actually pretty crowded.

Stepping up to the display area to choose the flavours that we would be tasting for the night.
1 of the staff took the initiative to ask if I wanted to test any of the flavours and so I tried the blueberry - quite creamy but a little lacking in berry taste and a little too sweet for my liking.

We did not go for any mix-in as we wanted to taste the real ice cream flavour.In the end, we ended up with
1. Strawberry - milky but lacking in strawberry taste
2. Hazel nut - loads of milk, again lacking in hazel nut taste
3. Green tea - the only flavour that I will have again. It has got real green tea taste with just the right amount of milk and sweetness.

Kinda of disappointing esp since the price here is somwhat on the high side compared to other competitors and the servings are also not as generous as I would like it to be.

Must Tries: Green tea ice cream

Ice Cream Chefs
520 East Coast Road,
#01-06 Ocean Park,
Singapore

Tom's Palatte - Excellent Service Crew and Creamy Ice-cream

First good goes to the staff at Tom's palette. They are very friendly and take the trouble to talk you thru the different flavours if you cannot make up your mind which flavours to choose. They are also very keen to have you sample the ice-cream to help you make the right choice.We arrived at about 830pm at night and there aren't that many flavours left. We tried1. Oreo cheese - very creamy and rich2. Chocolate - fantastic rich chocolate. Absolute must try!3. Cherry & almond - strong almond taste but a little too sweet for my liking.
4. Sweet21 (mix of lots of sweet stuff - peanut butter, horlicks...can't rmb the rest) - also a little too sweet for me.In general, the servings are generous and the staff take great pride in their products and are attentive to your needs.

Must Tries: Chocolate

TOM's Palatte
100 Beach Road,
#01-25 Shaw Leisure Gallery,
Singapore

Blue Magnolia - Mini Cakes but not mini on price

I've been wanting to visit Blue Magnolia for the past few months especially since it is relatively near my place and it is a DESSERT place.
I never got around to doing it until my SIL (sister in law) suggested a visit on a Thursday night.

As the operation hours are until 8pm at night. We hastily made our way to location after dinner and got there just about 20 mins before closing.
1 note of caution, parking is almost non-exsistent there. You have to be a bit creative to find a parking space.

The shop front is quite small as most of the space is utilised as a kitchen behind the glass doors. The cakes are displayed on the neatly on the glass shelves.
To my dismay, there aren't any more whole cheesecakes left and I was told that it is best to order in advance for whole cakes.
However, there are still some mini cakes left.

So we went for the 16 mini pcs option
1. 4 cheesecakes2
. 2 blue berry cakes
3. 4 chocolate cup cakes4
. 1 fruit tartlet
5. 2 azuki green tea cakes
3 other mini cakes/pastries which I cannot recall now...This set me back by $26.70, which I find rather expensive as the cakes are really small.

Honestly, with the mini cakes, I can't really tell if they tasted good as it is simply too small for my tastebuds to distinguish the taste.
But the much raved about green tea cake was kinda tasteless and the cheesecake is not as cheesy as I'd like it to be.

To be fair, I think I'll try the cakes by slice or order a whole cake on my next visit to be able to savour the true flavour of the cakes.

Blue Magnolia
439 MacPherson Road, Singapore

Restaurante De Parma - Tiramisu!

Never realised that there is this eatery in serangoon garden when I eat breakfast here almost every other day.
I was looking for a place to take my customer for lunch with decent food and not too far away from his workplace.

After browsing thru a few reviews, I decided on this restaurant.
Serangoon Garden is one of the places I avoid because of parking. The lots there generally require you to parallel park.
But I found out that there is this Serangoon Village that have ample parking spaces within short walking distance to the eateries.

It was a small eatery with nice ambience. It was relatively quiet when we arrived, infact I think we were the only customers then.
However, we were joined by a couple of caucasians shortly after.

Iced water was served immediately upon seating, followed shortly by foccacia bread decked with herbs. It has a strong taste of herbs only that it is really a small piece.

I was then informed that there is a citibank promotion that entitles me to 1 free main course when I order 3.
I was a little sad to here that as there is only 3 of us. But being the quick-witted me, I promptly suggested that we have the fourth main course - 4-season pizza to share instead of ordering apetitzers to make sure we maximize our benefits. Heh heh.

The 4 seasons pizza is delicious and flavourful with thin and crispy crust.
We then have our individual main course with me having cod fish, my customer having chicken and lamb shank.
The cod fish is very fresh, served with caviar.
The lamb shank looked delicious while the chicken served on penne looked kinda ordinary.

Everyone had no complains about their main course.

We finished off our lunch with a Tiramisu which was really lovely - wet with liquer topped with lots of choco power and coffee.

Must Tries: Tiramisu

Restaurante De Parma
14B Kensington Park Road,
Serangoon Garden Estate,
Singapore

Waffle World - Sugar Rush

I believe it is quite easy to draw a connection between waffles and a restaurant name like "Waffle World"

We visited this place twice during our 3D2N visit to Sunway.
"Is the waffle exceptionally good?" you may ask.
Well, for a price like RM6 for a 8" waffle complete with 1 large scoop of ice-cream, it's definately worth visiting over and over again.

We've tried the chocolate waffle with vanilla ice-cream and the triple nutz waffle also complete with vanilla ice-cream plus additional strawberries and whipped cream.

Me and Mr HB both had a waffle each after our unsatisfying mean at Kenny Rogers to make up for the experience and fill up on out tummies.

The waffles were fresh from the oven which means warm and fresh, together with the cold ice-cream....umm...yummy.
On another occassion we also ordered a mango smoothie which is quite expected of a mango smoothie even though Mr HB commented that the mango ice-cream used is not the premium type.

I'll definately come back when I visit Sunway again for the warm waffles.

Updates on Visit on 31 May 08

We had our little getaway faster than we thought we would.

As promised, we visited this place again for sweet nice things, this time round, we also had their pancakes with ice-cream on top of our usual waffles.

The pan cakes are served warm with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream and lots of blue-berry. Pancake is soft and has a tinge of pandan. The size is much smaller compared to the waffle.

I think I still prefer the waffle with ice-cream.

Must Tries: Waffles!

Waffle World (Sunway Pyramid)
3 Jalan PJS 11/15,
LL2.37 Sunway Pyramid, Bandar Sunway,
Petaling Jaya, Petaling,
Kuala Lumpur