L'armour L'armour is none other a bigger rose macaron sandwiching rose cream and raspberry jelly, topped with fresh berries.
Despite the declining standards of Canele's macarons, it has remained on my must-try list for its distinctive flavour.
Anyway, when I saw the photo of L'armour L'armour on Ice's blog, it immediately reminds me of a similar one I had last year during Valentine time and I don't deny it was a disappointment when compared to their rose macarons. The shells were too wet and I didn't like the raspberry jelly that makes it sour and soggy.
The newly introduced L'armour L'armour ($8+) is definitely an improvement to their Valentine creation as it uses more rose cream and less raspberry jam. Since there is no air pocket and that the shells are meaty enough, this is better than Canele's rose macaron but at a pricier tag.
Despite the nice comments made, I am not sure if we have been eating too much rose chiffon these days but it appears that the L'Armour L'Armour is lacking in the rose aroma. Ever since I lay my hands on a bottle of Nielsen Massey's rose water, I made 3 rose chiffons with varying strength and I was burping like a bottle of perfume. Since then, Yuan has been so traumatized till he freaked out whenever he comes across anything that is rose-flavoured including a rose flavoured nonya kueh in one of our recent buffets.
I haven't really ate enough Opera to comment on this but my impression towards one is a overly dry chocolate cake with contaminating coffee taste. Sounds very unfair to a cake with long history. Anyway, a recent encounter to Marriott's Opera had our opinions changed but sad to say, they have stopped production for this cake and is replaced with their own version of Green Tea Opera.
Comparing Marriott's Opera with Canele's ($8+) , the latter lose out on the distinctive taste of coffee and chocolate. Moreover, in our personal opinion, we felt that the alcohol content for this opera was too much. It overwhelms the other layers present in the opera.
Apart from these two, we have tried Charlie Brown which is good, provided you share the cake. The excessive use of caramel makes this cake cloying and sweet. Depending on individual's threshold, the use of peanuts and peanut butter is an interesting twist to the regular chocolate mousse.
Now what else have we not tried... Arh, St Marc and Chloe...
Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie
Shaw Centre
1 Scotts Road
#01-01A, Shaw Centre
Singapore 228208
Tel: 6738 9020
Website
4 comments:
Hey fen, there is no alcohol in Canelé's opera. I can't taste any & I've confirmed it with them. Why do you say so? The classic opera doesn't contain alcohol too.
I vaguely recall there isn't any alcohol in their description but the taste of the opera is similar effect to an alcohol-drenched tirmaisu.
I was expecting a pleasant contrast between the chocolate and coffee buttercream but after eating the whole opera, it was only bitterish, slightly sour and crumby. As I had mine from Shaw, I am not sure if there is any discrepancy between their branch at Robertson and the other two.
Anyway, this is not the first time we had such experience from Canele's cake. I recalled eating Jupiter and at that point of time, it was clearly sour and we thought Canele might have missed out passionfruit puree in their label. Turn out to be a characteristic of Manjari chocolate.
fen: I never got to try Jupiter but it does have passionfruit puree within the chcolate core. I actually asked them before. Seems like you don't like a sour pairing with chocolate.
As for the opera, I didn't experience any of what you described. The almond sponge in mine was very moist & laced with strong espresso, coffee buttercream light & cake was not at all crumbly. I think it might have been that you got your opera or other cakes from the Shaw/Paragon outlets. I've mentioned this discrepancy before. Cakes at their main outlet are always very fresh & moist but not always so at other outlets. The strawberry shortcake is an example. When I had mine at Shaw, it was dry & so crumbly. On the other hand, when I bought it from their main outlet, the cake was so moist & delicious, almost like having 2 different shortcakes from different bakeries.
I think you'd have to try the opera again from the Robertson Quay outlet, best to go morning or early afternoon. I totally love it & it's certainly the best opera cake I've ever eaten.
Yup, I like the delicate flavour of chocolate so I always feel that the sudden burst of sour puree will interrupt my indulgence towards chocolate.
I saw your disclaimer Yuan is very reluctant to go to Robertson Quay, particularly when the world cup fever is still on. So far, I have only visited Robertson Quay once, and that was in the evening when the queue at Raffles City was so long. Should I be in Robertson Quay, I cannot resist my temptation towards Laurent.
Will definitely give the Opera one more shot at Robertson Quay but having to work and Sundays being my family day, it is hard to go there in the morning or early afternoon. :(
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