Adorned in soft pastel tones, comfy high-backed seats, crisp white tablecloths, and with a warm light descending from ornate chandeliers, this intimate restaurant is more akin to a king’s palatial tearoom. Source: Time Out

I couldn’t have described it better myself. Service is extremely attentive, among the best I’ve experienced in Singapore. They also happen to have delicious Thai food, the kind that will be featured in recurring dreams afterward (I should know).

Pandan chicken is well-seasoned and very tender. Fantastic with the sweet Thai sauce.

The menu called this “Shrimp with coconut strips” but it did not prepare us for what came out. It was more like shrimp cake, with coconut strands in the batter, but after frying, there was no fragrance from the coconut at all, which was a little disappointing. The shrimp cake was executed well but the batter itself was just average.

Traditional duck in red curry is the dish that I dreamed about after my first visit, and was the object of my return visit. The first time we had it, the duck was tender and succulent. There were also many ingredients in the curry that surprised and delighted us, like pineapples and grapes for a sweet taste. The second time we ordered this dish, the duck was tough to chew and the vegetables in the curry were under-cooked. The curry paste itself was good, but overall the dish was a bit disappointing.

Pad thai came with truly enormous prawns, that were less appetizing in real life than in photos. The pad thai itself was very well executed though, with a harmonious blend of sweet and sour.

Custard with roasted pumpkin and ice cream was a unique dessert that initially surprised my taste buds, but after I got used to the custard-pumpkin combination, I really liked it. The ice cream, on the other hand, was supposedly vanilla but had a very bizarre after taste that made me think there had been an herb of some sort mixed into the vanilla.

Thai iced tea here is the best I’ve ever had. It is vaguely like bubble tea in that it’s black tea with milk and sugar syrup, but it is so much better than that.

This is a rather pricey joint if you have frequent Thai cravings like me, but I would definitely want to come back to try more of their menu. In future, I might only come for dinners as I have reason to suspect their chef skills are better for dinner than for lunch.

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The waffles are made to order (which also makes me wonder about the half-waffle thing. I mean, what do they do with the other half?), topped with a scoop of their famous yogurt ice cream and covered with fruits. The waffle itself had a rather ordinary taste (regular waffle batter, not particularly fluffy) and rather on the hard side, but the yogurt ice cream was to die for. It was smooth and creamy, and tasted even better than some real ice cream I’ve had! The fruits were a little bit too sour (out of season?), but I was impressed with the presentation.


There were only two people working behind the counter, and I suspect on slower nights only one. They were both Korean, although they didn’t seem to have any trouble understanding English. Most of the clientele spoke Korean, but there was a table of Cantonese-speakers next to us. They make their own cakes and desserts in the room to the left of the counter. This place had the vibe of an elegant cafe. Their cakes were simple and unpretentious, yet the taste was delicious. Next time I go, I will definitely be trying their signature yogurt ice cream bingsu that I saw many of the people at the other tables order.

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Yogoberri
6070 Yonge Street, Toronto
Tel: 416-512-0488
Open: 10:30am – 11:00pm

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The great thing about ice cream is that it doesn’t really need anything else. Great ice cream tastes amazing by itself. That’s why I never really understood the likes of Marble Slab. Sure, their ice cream is good, but what’s with all the stuff on the side? Is that really necessary?
Maybe, maybe not.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first one to admit that cookie dough in ice cream is so delicious it should be a sin just to think about, but sometimes adding too much “extra stuff” takes away from the ice cream itself. Because, let’s not forget who the hero in this whole scenario is. It’s the ice cream. The cookie dough or the brownie bits or the M&Ms are just accessories.

But a few days ago, the very rock upon which I stood was shaken by Symposium Cafe‘s “East Meets West” ice cream crepe extravaganza. Yes, it was an extravaganza, nothing less. It was a giant plate of vanilla ice cream on the one side and chocolate ice cream on the other, wrapped in a paper-thin crepe and drizzled with chocolate fudge and strawberry sauce. But it was more than that. There were strawberries. There were bananas. There was also whipped cream. It was so good I was afraid I might have an orgasm right there in that plastic lawn chair¹.

I had to admit that perhaps, on this particular stage, the ice cream wasn’t the main star. Nor the crepe, the strawberries, the bananas, or the whipped cream. In fact, there wasn’t a main star at all. It was only when all the ingredients were taken as one that the explosion of tastes was created, and my ears were ringing with the tune of Symphony No. 5.

My friend was also conducting her own symphony with the mixed fruit medley cheesecake, which I had a taste of and also found to be quite good (though not nearly as explosive as mine).

1. Don’t worry, of course I didn’t. Not only would that be highly inappropriate, but it would needlessly divert my focus away from my mouth

As usual, the ambience was dark and moody¹, as was our waitress. For a party our size, she really should have been more amicable if she was thinking about her tip. Not only was she cold and unhelpful, she was rather snotty².

The food took a while to come, but that may have been due to the size of our party (but 1 hour for dessert – really?). To start, I had the smoked duck carpaccio, which was quite lovely. The ground pistachios gave the arugala a nutty taste and some texture, making the otherwise bland greens much more interesting. They were quite liberal in dousing the duck meat in orange-ginger sauce, considering that the meat was already very well marinated, but in between mouthfuls of the greens and the duck meat, it didn’t seem to get in the way of the subtle smokey taste. The peppercorns were a bit strong, although they do give the dish a nice dash of colour.

I chose my entree for its interesting description. “Malibu chicken” was a dish of coconut-crusted chicken breast, with a rum mango pina colada sauce, served with basmati rice, sautéed asparagus, red pepper, red onion and baby corn topped with crispy plantain chips. In the end, the dish did not live up to its description. There’s something wrong when the crispy plantain chips, a finishing garnish, has the best taste of the entire entree. The dish failed for several reasons. The chicken breast was not marinated under the batter, the batter was fried for too long, and it was not sticking to the chicken breast at all. The last is an easy problem to solve for anyone who’s ever made fried chicken or pork. All you have to do to get the batter to stick to the meat is dip the meat in eggs before applying the batter! Surely, the chef at Crave should have been capable of such a simple addition to the recipe. The fact that the batter kept coming off meant that most of the time I was eating the (un-marinated) chicken breast and the (over-fried) batter separately. Not all that enjoyable, as you can imagine.

The sauce was also rather strange. The taste of pina colada was too strong, and quite frankly, a weird combination with the fried chicken breast. Maybe if they put more rum into the sauce, I could’ve overlooked the strange taste, but alas, the combination was simply not right. The sauteed vegetables and asparagus were rather bland, although the basmati rice was surprisingly fragrant. A last, saving characteristic for a wholly unimpressive dish.

To compliment the meal, I had a glass of Wolf Blass Riesling, which was on the dry end for a riesling (probably a 1 on the sugar scale) to my disappointment. It ended up working out nicely though, since the sauce on both the appetizer and the main were sweeter than expected.

For dessert, I had the Crav’in chocolate brownie. Dessert is always my favourite course, and this one certainly satisfied my sugar craving! The chocolate-peanut gelato was just superb, and I loved the whole peanuts hidden throughout (I always love a good crunch). The brownie was very rich and dense, so much so that I couldn’t finish it. But overall, a great way to end the night.

Would I come back? $55 (including tax and tip) for a three-course meal doesn’t exactly scream enticing to me, especially when the main was so disappointing, but maybe for a date if I’m craving (haha) over-priced food.

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1. What’s with this trend of poorly lit restaurants? Is it like the more expensive a place is, the darker it should be?
2. When I asked my coworker what was on the side of his appetizer – something that looked like bacon – she interjected with “It’s panchetta.” “Oh, ok… Wait, I know what that is! That’s bacon!” I swear her nose was pointing to the ceiling when she stalked away.