Monday, January 5, 2009

Macarons from the Icing Room

Decided to roam around the new Jurong Point and I am surprised by the amount of shops, for the Westie people, you don't have to travel all the way to town for desserts at Ji De Chi 记得吃 (Yuan was praising their durian puree non-stop), BakerZin, Starbucks and Häagen-Dazs but what caught my attention was MACARONS!!!

The Icing Room

The Icing Room, an open-concept bakery which is related to BreadTalk, is more known for allowing customers to design their cakes. This is great for kids to display their creativity but I am definitely not keen to try one of those. Marketing glimicks, I go for taste...

Glass display of the Icing Room

From what I understand, for a price of $11.80 (4") and $20.80 (6"), one get to use their icing, chocolate curls and whipped cream.

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Fen's comments

There are 5 flavours for their selection of macarons with the following flavours, Casis, Green Tea, Strawberry, Passionfruit and Chocolate, either at $1.80 each or $5 for 3 pieces. It has a similar appearance as BakerZin's macarons being rounded and pastel-coloured.

As this is a take-away outlet, we were standing at one corner of Jurong when the camera ran of battery so pardon for a poor shot.

Anyway, the macarons though brightly coloured, lack the fragrance. It was just plain sweet and the shells weren't chewy but more to the wet and crumbly sort. The macaron innard were either just cream or jam. Wouldn't recommend it, any of the macarons I have tried previously would have been better.
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Yuan's comments

Yet another contender for worst macarons which I have eaten. The crust has this egg-y taste which has a scent of artificial almond flavouring. The filling is also one of the worst which I have tasted. It tasted like hardened jam, one bite and the whole center filling will come along with it. If you have not eaten macarons before, I suggest you not try this as it may give you a negative impression of macarons.
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The Icing Room (Outside BreadTalk)
63 Jurong West Central 3,
#B1-73
Jurong Point Shopping Centre,
Singapore 648886
Tel: 6862 4464

Operating hours: 10am to 10pm (daily)

13 comments:

bossacafez said...

yea good macarons are really not easy to come by...i've had my share of bad ones too :(

Fen said...

Hai, I thought they look pretty ok... but it turned out so disappointing...

red fir said...

I never trust anything from Breadtalk except their Japanese light cheesecake which is really good. The breads, ironically are bad too.

evan: Yes it's me!! :D

Fen said...

Haha, they used to have one of my favourite bread, the otak bread wrapped in pandan leaf and was only available at their 3rd outlet (besides CentrePoint)... Apart from that, I don't fancy their bread either...

Hmm... I didn't know that their Japanese light cheesecakes are good but both Evan and I sure agree on their Matcha Chiffon...

Have you seen this?

http://sgcake.blogspot.com/2008/11/matcha-swiss-rolls-from-breadtalk.html#links

Anonymous said...

haha the icing room was the one i told you about that time during potluck. i tried their macarons too.. it was.. haha.

so u only got their macarons? the purple one is casis? what's casis eh? the staff told me the purple one is yam. haha

Fen said...

I didn't have much impression since Evan's macarons were the stars but I vaguely recalled someone mentioning that the Potluck was the first time he/she was eating macarons, I thought it was you.

Hmm... now that you mention, I think it is supposed to be Cassis... typo in their receipt...

I did a google search and apparently Crème de Cassis is a blood-red, sweet, blackcurrant-flavored liqueur...

For this purple macaron, it was jus a sweet and wet biscuit with a layer of hardened jam in it, Yuan took the first bite and the innard was gone... That explains why the picture displayed an empty core.

red fir said...

fen: Very random but I suddenly got reminded of this place when my sister bought a few dozen cheesecake sticks from here. I think it's from here coz her cake box say "icing" something, packaging looks exquisite. She bought for Xmas office party I think, so I didn't try any. Looks good though, from the box. And now I look at your display picture again, I see the cheesecake sticks.

Fen said...

Actually BreadTalk have done a very good job, the only thing is that some of the new items are pretty disappointing in its taste...

Since you mention about their Japanese light cheesecake, I presume the cheesecake sticks should be quite good...

Anonymous said...

Hallo,

If BreadTalk bread is really so bad as some of you described, the business would close by now instead of growing to 300 outlets in 14 countries...I think the comments were a bit unfair and lacked objectivity.
I understand BT has a system of closely tracking sales of their bread and cakes at all point-of-sales world-wide, so the slow-moving ones are identified and replaced quickly.

SLYuan said...

Dear Anonymous. Kindly read the review carefully before jumping into conclusions. In no where in our comments did we say their bread is bad. We only commented on their macarons NOT bread.

Fen said...

Yuan, he is refering to the comments, and I don't deny that there is only a very tiny selection that I like from Breadtalk.

Anon, in any case, there are hits and misses in all eateries so it is no surprise some fancy BT's bread while others find is so-so. If you look at the comments closely, some did highlight their favourites from Breadtalk.

Anyway, it is common for people to say bread is bad or so-so given the amount of copycats. Competition is naturally intense in terms of convenience and pricing. For instance, Breadtalk's famous floss can be found in almost most bakeries and confectionaries. Even Provence's popular wassants are making appearance in every parts of Singapore. So don't take it so personal that people start to draw their comparisons and post their likes and dislikes.

I would like to emphasize that we didn't say it was the worst breads we have tried. Just that we haven't found anything that we like to justify a special trip to BT. That is what to emphasize as there is nothing personal in this comment thread, we are just sharing our likes and dislikes. 5 people do not represent all 14 countries' preference.

Anonymous said...

Fen, I think you had been most objective in your comments when you said 5 people do not represent 14 countries' preference. Many people like to run down successful brands. BreadTalk could not set up 300 outlets in 14 countries in a short 10 years if their bread does not taste good. You can't sell gimmicks for long.
One of their strength is to introduce new flavors/buns, so not all will be well-received but they change those not selling well.

Fen said...

I guessed such criticism are inevitable, particularly to the more established and successful eateries.

When they started off as a stand-alone, consumers tend to brush it off as novelty.

When branches start appearing, people feel that the food served is not as good as before. Although it is true to some, but most tend to overlook the big picture and is hard to strike a balance between the two.

However, on my personal take, I do miss the old BreadTalk where each branch has a specific theme (when each branch is managed by a specific Jpn chef) and I don't deny at times I travel to a specific branch for certain buns.

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