Birds Of Paradise
Michelin Plate, MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2018
This charming artisanal ice cream shop along East Coast Road offers gelato in dreamy botanical-inspired flavours. Think lemongrass and ginger, strawberry and basil, and spiced pear; our Michelin inspectors recommend the lychee raspberry and the top-selling white chrysanthemum sprinkled with cocoa nibs. The concept here is takeaway only so customers will have to purchase their ice creams to go. While you're at it, it's worth shelling out an extra dollar to have your fancy scoops in a deliciously aromatic thyme-infused waffle cone.
The Coconut Club
Bib Gourmand, MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2018
The star of the show here is the coconut, the Malaysian West African (MAWA) hybrid from Selangor, to be exact. The Coconut Club’s founders scoured the Malaysian peninsula to procure this type of coconut that is known for its high fat content and blends it with the milk of kampong coconuts from Johor for a resulting milk of 36% fat that yields an optimum flavour for the eatery’s famed nasi lemak. To truly taste the unadulterated coconut milk though, try the cendol dessert. Silky green jelly and shaved ice is finished with a good lashing of the creamy coconut milk with the option of additional Hokkaido adzuki red beans. The aromatic coconut milk is also used in their kueh salat (glutinous rice with coconut custard) and kueh kosui (steamed gula melaka cake with grated coconut).
Hjh Maimunah (Jalan Pisang)
Michelin Plate, MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2018
Hjh Maimunah is a nasi padang institution where desserts come in the form of an array of traditional Malay and Indonesian kueh — bite-sized desserts made from local and regional ingredients through age-old, often laborious techniques. The pastry team starts work at midnight, preparing these delicious bites fresh for the day ahead. Among the selection of about 30 types of kueh, there’s the ubiquitous green-and-white kueh salat, palm sugar-based Kole Kole, chewy, coconut-dusted Kaswi and steamed banana Nagasari wrapped in banana leaf.
Gaig
Michelin Plate, MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2018
This Michelin-recommended restaurant in Stanley Street serves up classic Catalan dishes like cannelloni, Alcántara-style quail and what the Michelin inspectors declare an “unmissable” Catalan crème brûlée. Ice cream and custard is heaped into an elegant martini glass with lemon syrup at the bottom and topped with a thin layer of caramelised sugar. Other dessert offerings include orange ice-cream soufflé, pear Taten with cinnamon ice cream, and coffee tart with Baileys ice cream.
Traditional Haig Road Putu Piring
Michelin Plate, MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2018
The recipe for putu piring here is four generations old and turns out melt-in-the-mouth medals of steamed rice flour cakes that are filled with sweet gula melaka. Here, traditional techniques are still practised, such as marinating the rice flour overnight, steaming and sieving it countless times, and adding salt water to the mix so it won’t be tasteless. Even the gula melaka used is imported from Java, pure with a hint of smoky, savoury flavour. Under its fourth-generation owner, the brand expanded to a chain of six stalls around the island including an outlet in East Village shopping mall hawking new flavours like durian, chocolate and coconut.
Michelin Plate, MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2018
The menu at Violet Oon’s Michelin Plated outlet at Bukit Timah reads like a dessert lover’s dream — traditional Peranakan sweets of kueh salat, sugee cake and kueh beng kah, Kesturi lemon pie with clotted cream and coconut panna cotta crowned with burbur cha cha toppings — all made based on Oon’s collection of time-honoured recipes. For sweet gifts and takeaways, check out the new flagship store at ION Orchard, which sports a cake counter featuring six types of cakes, such as the rum-spiked gula melaka tea cake, black forest cake and Oon’s famous carrot cake. The retail section carries beautiful boxes of cashew nut, peanut and sugee cookies, bright green and pink coconut candy, pineapple tarts, mini sugee financiers and bottles of kaya spread.
