Category Archives: Dishes – French Toast

Hoshino Coffee @ Plaza Singapura

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Introduction

Hoshino Coffee opened it’s first shop at Japan in March 2011 and had been widely popular since then. Till date, they had expanded to more than a hundred shops in Japan. Their first overseas franchise store opened it’s door for business in Singapore at year 2012. Among the restaurants at Plaza Singapura, Hoshino Coffee has one of the longest queues and is always full house during meal time. Their dessert stood out among the menus and the two most popular desserts are the souffle and the french toast. I visited Hoshino a couple of times and here is my consolidated review.

Menu 1 of 2: Click to enlarge

Menu 2 of 2: Click to enlarge

Lobster Bisque Pasta (S$16.00++)

As the name suggest, the linguine is served in a creamy lobster bisque base with added cheese, topped with fat prawns and small cubes of mushroom. The tomato base sauce is not too heavy as I thought it and has a sweet and light crustacean aftertaste. They are quite generous with the portion of pasta, as well as the bisque. Some tomato base pasta is good initially but it kind of get too cloying overtime.

For Hoshino’s lobster bisque paste, the flavour is just right and despite the big portion, i find that finishing the whole portion is not a difficult task. This dish is not fantastic, but not bad. At least it’s worth my second try.

Hoshino Pot Baked Curry Rice (S$15.00++)

Among the limited choice of main courses, this baked curry rice is my favourite. Nothing beats a portion of rice, baked in Japanese curry meat sauce, and accompanied by molten egg yolk and melted cheese.

For some, this combination may be a little too much but for people like me who very much has a liking in strong flavour, i enjoyed this very much.

This curry is a little spicier than a typical sweet Japanese curry and i love the rich aromatic curry fragrance. I think the right way to enjoy this is to stir in the egg yolk and melted cheese within the hot pan and gobble it together with the curry infused rice. Shiok.

Pancake Souffle Style with Chocolate Banana (S$13.50++)

A souffle is a lightly baked cake that is made up of two main ingredients – eggs and flour. The puffed up cake is served fresh from oven and therefore a minimum waiting time of 15 minutes is required. I think that the soft fluffy texture is excellent but taste wise, it is like a less sweet version of our Singapore’s steamed sponge cake (鸡蛋糕).

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to taste like steamed sponge cake but it’s just that the price tag is a little too high for such quality. Apart from the cake, the milky soft serve is much to my delight and goes perfectly with the lightly sweetened cake. The texture of this souffle is a 9/10 but taste wise is only a 6/10 in my opinion.

French Toast with Homemade Whipped Cream and Maple Syrup ($9.80++)

This french toast doesn’t come with a cheap price tag either, but i had returned multiple times to Hoshino just for this french toast. They serve their french toast in small rectangular blocks of thicker-than-usual toast and is wrapped by a layer of sweet egg coating. Unlike our Singapore’s version which is normally pan fried, Hoshino’s version is toasted and there’s almost zero or very little presence of grease.

The homemade whipped cream is unlike those typical whipped cream that is out in the market. The texture is very compact, with very little air folded in and it melts in your mouth. It’s very lightly sweetened and is filled with milk and butter fragrance. This is my regular order when i visit Hoshino.

Conclusion

Although Hoshino doesn’t has the most exciting and most innovative menu, their main courses that I had are rather fine and I consider it as one of the better restaurants at Plaza Singapura in term of taste. However, if the pricing is taken into consideration, some people may think that it’s not exactly worth it because for a similar price, we can find something better elsewhere.

For me, it’s good enough, and the location is rather convenient for me, and thus the multiple visits. However, most of the time, I will just have a cup of caffe latte and their french toast. i will only occasionally order their main course when I’m feeling a little richer.

I also had their Carbonara before. At $14.00, they give you five slices of bacon. It’s true that the main focus should be on cheese and egg sauce (which it is indeed not bad), but five slices of bacon seriously?

After You Dessert Cafe (Siam Paragon – Bangkok)

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After You Dessert Cafe

Address: Siam Paragon Ground Floor

Operating Hours: 10.00am to 10.30pm daily

Introduction

After You Dessert Cafe apparently is the rising star of all dessert places in Bangkok. There is a legend that says ‘you have never been to Bangkok until you tried Afteryou dessert’. I visited this place once previously but I thought this saying was too exaggerating but nevertheless, After You Dessert Cafe is worth the visit for their Signature Shibuya Honey Toast, for at least once.

Twice, I visited their Siam Paragon branch situated at the basement. It was rather early at about 10am so there is no crowd. Awesome. After You Dessert Cafe mainly sells sweet items like pancakes, waffles, ice-creams and toast etc. They only have a handful of savory items on their menu and one of them is the Grilled Ham Cheese Sandwich.

They have another branch at Thonglor area, that is just opposite to Roast Coffee & Eatery and Mr Jones’ Orphanage. I didn’t pay a visit to this branch as i was already too full after having brunch at Roast and dessert at Mr Jones’ Orphanage. But one thing i am quite sure is, comparing to Siam Paragon’s basement branch, food shots at this Thonglor branch should turn out better due to the natural lighting.

Branch Address: J Avenue, Thonglor 13 Operating Hours: 10.00am to 12.00am daily

Click here for a consoliated list of my Bangkok Food Itinerary

Signature Shibuya Honey Toast

The whole idea about this Shibuya toast is actually very simple. This is not a sophisticated dish which requires long preparation time. I personally think that the reason for it’s popularity may just be it’s well toasted soft fluffy thick toast with melted butter evenly infused into every single slice of the toast.

After You Dessert Cafe then topped the toast with their fresh vanilla ice-cream and generally speaking, an additional scoop of Ice cream can almost never spoil a dessert. Complete this dish with honey syrup for those who have really sweet teeth. To be frank, this dish is definitely not out-of-this-world, but i would describe this dish as a ‘very satisfying’ dessert.

Hazelnut Pancake with Nutella Sauce

The formula to this dish is even simpler. If i am someone who love Nutella and Hazelnut, i will love this. After You Dessert Cafe provides a small tub of butter to be applied separately. I thought adding the butter is a good idea as sometimes it taste a little dry with just Nutella alone. I have no complain about the pancake. Soft, warm and fluffy.


Grilled Ham Cheese Sandwich

Using the same thick toast as the Signature Shibuya Honey Toast, this savory fluffy toast can be an option for those who are not very into sweet stuff. For certain kind of toast, i prefer the toast to be very thin with a lot of fillings, but not for this Grilled Ham Cheese Sandwich. The bread itself is rather enjoyable with two layers of melted cheese and a layer of ham.

Maple French Toast with Smoked Sausages

I think this is the other rare savory item in After You Dessert Cafe’s Menu. I thought the french toast is OK. It’s something that we can easily find in Singapore so nothing fantastic about this and can order something else on the menu.

Conclusion

Personally, i think that this place is not a die-die-must-go place but if i am at this area, specifically Siam area, i will make a point to visit After You Dessert Cafe just for their Shibuya toast. I really like the buttery taste of their toast that goes very well with vanilla ice cream.

For those who like an even stronger flavor, they also have Shibuya Chocolate Toast, Shibuya Nutella Toast and even Cheddar Cheese Shibuya Toast. You may want to give yourself a reason to pop by this cafe to see what is the big deal of these Shibuya Toast.

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