Chanced upon the new Oriental Desserts at Temple Street — this new shop serving up Hong Kong-style Chinese desserts is strangely located along the same line of shophouses that houses the popular Mei Heong Yuen Dessert. Turns out, Oriental Desserts isn’t an entirely new player in the F&B scene — they do operate another outlet at Blk 271 Bukit Batok East Avenue 4, though not much information can be found about the outlet online (guess the only way is to head down then?). The interior decor features a mix of contemporary and vintage elements — an attempt to throw in a nostalgic, oriental look amidst a cafe setting; there is also a feature wall that depicts the various coloured mosaic walls of MTR Stations in Hong Kong, similar to that of Egglette & Dessert at Burlington Square.
With a rather wide variety of Chinese desserts on the menu, we were quite spoilt for choice having to decide if we wanted to go for the Steam Egg series, the Double Boil desserts, Grass Jelly or Sago-based desserts — just to name a few. We ultimately decided to go for the Beancurd with Black Sesame; a decision made because we couldn’t decide between having a paste and beancurd since it featured their Black Sesame Paste atop the Soy Beancurd.
The item is the best of both worlds — the Black Sesame Paste was actually smooth and creamy in terms of texture; rich with its roasty fragrance but not overly gritty and doesn’t cause an itch in the throat considering the inherent “heatiness” of black sesame. The Soya Beancurd was nothing short of the smoothness that was highly promoted by the “uncle” who gave us multiple recommendations whilst we skimmed through the menu; so delicate as it slides effortlessly when one pushes a spoon in to the bowl. The Soya Beancurd also comes sweetened with sugar syrup — just about the right amount if this were to be purely the version that featured the Soya Beancurd itself, but the sweetness here seem to run into the black sesame paste especially towards the end, thus overwhelming the black sesame paste with a rather flat note of sweetness.
Given how its neighbours are seemingly always crowded despite being the larger establishment, Oriental Desserts does make for a good alternative for Hong Kong-style Chinese Desserts albeit with a more limited menu (no shaved ice here) — especially considering the quality of its items, and how the spot is still relatively unknown, thus emptier at the point of writing this post. That being said, I am pretty keen to have the Soy Beancurd on its own again — they do serve up a rendition that seems comparable to some of the more reputable hawkers around; one that I would be glad to have again.
