I always like the idea of a true desserterie - not just those cafes with a few tarts and macarons on offer, or brunch spot that sells a few bakery items sort of places, but a full service restaurant with focus on desserts and desserts alone. That's why I was interested to check out 2am:dessertbar in Holland Village in Singapore when I was in town last month.
Holland V - as the region was known as by locals - is a vibrant neighborhood with shopping malls, rows of trendy shops, restaurants and bars that open til late. It's accessible by MRT but we opted for a taxi ride after dinner, which was a good 15 minutes from where we were staying.
The night was still young - 10pm - as we arrived at the restaurant, which was on
right on the edge near the outskirt of the neighborhood, but it's already quite fully packed with big groups occupying the high
tables in the middle of restaurants, and smaller groups - couples or
friends hanging out taking up the lounge chairs by the window. On one side was the bar area where pastry chefs showed off their skills and where the drinks and desserts were made.
The menu came with two categories - classics and contemporary. They even came with a degustation menu with 4 courses of desserts with matching wines.
We decided to order one from each of the sections. Our choice from the classics menu was the Chocolate Tart which composed of blood orange sorbet and a chocolate tart, with salty caramel sauce. Each component by itself has nothing wrong, but I wasn't too sure about the combinations - well, chocolate and blood orange was okay, but the salty caramel seems to be a bit weird and overcomplicated the senses.
On the waitress' recommendations, we also picked a dish called Purple, which has Purple sweet potato puree, blackberry parfait, leather, lavender marshmallows, fruits of the forest sorbet. Presentation was beautiful, and it actually tasted better than I expected. It's rare to see sweet potatoes being used as dessert ingredients in the western cuisine, but it turned out working quite nice with the rest of the components, to my surprise.
Wanting to see what more Chef Janice Wong has to offer at her dessert bar, we decided to try another one from the contemporary menu. The Cassis Plum came with cassis, choya (plum wine), yoghurt, elderflower and bamboo shoot, served on a slate plate. It's a fun dessert with a combination of bold, exotic flavors, and refreshing too, with the eldenflower granita and yoghurt served inside the cassis meringue.
The dessertbar offers a good selection of wines and cocktails, but we opted for herbal tea given this fell on a weeknight and I was technically on a business trip. Well, I think the place offers a decent alternative if you are really into desserts and being adventurous, or if you are looking for somewhere special and quiet to chill,
but to be honest, I did find some of the dishes over the top and not sure if that worth a detour, especially Holland V was quite out of the way from downtown.
When? July 1 2013
Where? 2am: dessert bar, 21A Lorong Liput, Holland Village, Singapore 277733
Menu Highlights? Purple. Sweet potato puree, blackberry parfait, leather, lavender marshmallows, fruits of the forest sorbet
Web: www.2amdessertbar.com
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