Wimbly Lu Chocolate Café

Exciting news of the day: One of the photographs from the previous post on Oreo Snickerdoodle Cookie Cake Bars made it onto foodgawker – at last! Admittedly, it was my fifteenth submission, but only the first successful one at that.

This can be due to the fact that my brother passed on to me his Canon DSLR camera a few days ago, along with two lenses: 50mm and 18-135mm. Proper food photography, here I come! (Hopefully)

So my birthday is on Wednesday. I'm a 9/11 baby, while my friend Janice is a 9/9 kid! It only made sense that two extreme foodies like us went to somewhere reputable for high tea.

We arrived about twenty minutes early to their opening time of 1PM, so we hung around the shophouses for a bit, where there were a few other bakeries and Western eating places, and also a cool-looking wooden table which gave Janice a flash of inspiration:

I know, I should totally go into portrait photography, right?

There's a lovely conservatory-style area at the back of the café, preceded by a dim but cosy seating area facing an open kitchen/bakery and chocolate display cabinet.

It was raining that day, and I actually suspect that they redecorate according to the season or occasion! My evidence: the staff were visibly buzzing around inside before they opened, and they could have been tweaking the decor! Also, I've seen pictures of the café filled with little hearts, all posted in February, as well as other similar pictures with Halloween lanterns. I'd be very impressed if they actually hung those raining clouds to reflect the weather outside! It really added a fantastic touch to Wimbly Lu's intimate and personal setting.

To make sure that we're having a legitimate lunch and not just stuffing our faces with desserts instead of having a proper meal, we ordered a double seafood and cheese toasty ($6) which was so-so.

Me made our next choice from having read other reviews and recommendations – waffle with salted caramel ice cream, plus a topping of maple syrup. ($8.50)

This waffle was pretty much perfect, it really hit that criteria of a crisp exterior and fluffy insides. From what I've heard, every single waffle served is just as perfect! Talk about quality control.

The salted caramel ice cream was delicious – flavourful but not sickeningly sweet. We definitely could have had a bigger scoop. The maple syrup was a good choice of topping as well.

Now I'm no expert on sticky date pudding, as this was my first one ever. I've got to say that it was delightful! Warm, gooey, sweet, and addictive. I only got to taste dates in my last mouthful, though. I'm not sure if sticky date puddings have to taste strongly of dates.

It would have made more sense for the dense, rich pudding to come with pouring cream or ice cream, but it didn't, so we ordered an addition scoop of honey cinnamon ice cream. ($3)

The cinnamon taste was a little stronger than expected, which was a surprise, but a good one – like apple pie in ice cream form! There wasn't much taste of honey, it was probably used mainly to sweeten. The ice cream flavour didn't go that well with the pudding. However, the texture was perfect in my terms. Not too icy, yet not too heavy and gooey – somewhere among that blissful in between. We found ourselves craving more of that honey cinnamon ice cream!

With service charge, the bill came to somewhere around $25 in total for the both of us, which is pretty reasonable for the great atmosphere and food. Wimbly Lu is definitely somewhere I'll return to for a relaxed dessert experience the next time I visit Singapore!

Wimbly Lu
15-2 Jalan Riang
Singapore 358987
Tel: 62891489
www.wimblylu.com

Café TPT

Tau huey is a favourite dessert among many young people in Singapore, and consists of silky-smooth, gelatinous beancurd in a sugar syrup. It is often served warm, but I personally prefer it chilled because of Singapore's tropical climate. It tastes sweeter too!

Anyway, Café TPT is a Chinese restaurant located on Wardour Street in Chinatown. It serves a wide array of common Chinese dishes, but their meat (pork and duck) were popular choices as noticed from the tables which my friends and I passed to get to the second story of the restaurant.

It isn't the prettiest place – plain, tiled floors, cream walls, crammed with as many tables as they can fit into the space.

However, many customers are keen on their dessert menu, which sells regular tau huey (chilled) for £3.50, and everything else at either £4 or £4.50. All the desserts are liquid-based, and are served in aluminium-lined wooden tubs – deep ones!

Although there are many choices, some dishes differ from another just by the addition of a fruit, or sago jellies. For example, the regular tau huey can come in mango 'soup', with red bean, or with fruit, among several other additions and variations. It's like how salad is basically lettuce, cucumber and dressing, but the British have created Niçoise, Wardour, Caesar, which are basically additions or renditions of what is, essentially, giraffe chow.

I ordered a tempting 'Mango & Coconut with Black Glutinous Rice & Sago'. The mango & coconut refers to a thin, creamy 'soup' with both flavours. It was served cold as well, and very delicious and refreshing! However, due to the use of coconut milk and the seemingly endless depth of the dessert tub, it's a good idea to come here with an empty stomach.

Café TPT is definitely a recommended place to visit with friends for a taste of good quality Chinese dessert!

Café TPT
Chinatown
21 Wardour Street
Soho, UK
W1D 6PN
020 7734 7980

Rice pudding part 2

I did say that I was going to hunt down all the Müller rice flavours – or maybe I didn't, but it was a resolution which kept nagging at me ever since I discovered it.

It's not the back of a fork I'm using, it's a spork

Apple Strudel sounds delectable and inviting as a rice pudding flavour, and I enjoyed it, but if I had a choice I would still go for either strawberry or vanilla custard, but I don't mind seeking this one out occasionally. The flavour is great for people who are absolutely in love with apple and cinnamon combinations, which is what the 'apple strudel sauce' here really is made up of. I kind of wish they had thrown in a few pastry flakes, (just had a flashing image of pastry confetti) to make it even more apple strudel-like. Soggy pastry is better than no pastry.

The maple syrup flavoured one made more sense than... apple strudel. It is basically maple syrup at the bottom, and it doesn't taste like cheap pancake syrup, it actually has a strong maple fragrance to it. That's why the first few mouthfuls can be a bit of a shock, with the strong maple taste, but it gets really, really good as you keep on eating it. Still doesn't beat the simple and perfect marriage of rice pudding with strawberry or vanilla custard, but this is a well-done attempt by Müller.

Gosh, how I love rice pudding.

Rice pudding

Dinner – or as the English people call it, 'supper' – at home is usually technically a 3-course meal. First is the salad bowl and bread basket, or sometimes soup, followed by the 'main course' which sometimes comes in two parts, then the dessert – or, again, as the English have named it, 'pudding' – which can vary from melon to trifle to eclairs.

Rice pudding was one of the first few 'puddings' I had when I came to London. Ever since moving to a new country I was determined to be courageous with my food. (Just last night I had mint choc chip ice cream which I usually hate, because it tastes like toothpaste. But now I don't hate it -- I just dislike it.)

I'm glad Mrs C makes rice pudding because I am absolutely in love with it. When she doesn't make rice pudding, I get this from Tesco:

What? My table, messy? No...

Müller sells yogurt and rice pudding in supermarkets here. The rice pudding comes in several flavours: original, strawberry, apple strudel and vanilla custard. You can have it hot or cold – rice pudding is supposedly a hot dessert but it's fine cold as well.

This isn't the most good-looking picture of rice pudding around, I admit. The brown stuff is Nutella – I heated up the rice pudding in the microwave before adding a blob of Nutella into it which softened and added a nice flavour to the dessert. Mind you, this is acceptable because the original flavour is simply plain rice pudding with a hint of vanilla. The other ones have their flavourings at the bottom of the pot – strawberry sauce, vanilla custard and apple strudel – which makes the whole thing taste heavenly after stirring.

If you haven't had English rice pudding, to try to find some way to get hold of it.