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2013-05-31
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For full review: http://makeyourcaloriescount.blogspot.sg/2012/09/sg-torte.htmlHidden in a corner of SCWO (Singapore Council of Women's Organisations) at Waterloo Street, we were surprised to find this secret hideout almost full. We managed to occupy the last table available at about 8ish on a Friday night. Most were there for their rather affordable mains and of course, the torte for which their cafe is named after. Torte is usually a multi-layered cake made with buttercream, mousse, jam or fru
Hidden in a corner of SCWO (Singapore Council of Women's Organisations) at Waterloo Street, we were surprised to find this secret hideout almost full. We managed to occupy the last table available at about 8ish on a Friday night. Most were there for their rather affordable mains and of course, the torte for which their cafe is named after.
Torte is usually a multi-layered cake made with buttercream, mousse, jam or fruits. Its unique taste lies in how it is made with little or no flour, giving it a dense and smooth texture. Famous for its chocolate torte, I thought it must be worth a visit even though I'm not a fan of chocolates.
Afraid that we would get too jelat with just the chocolate torte and after finishing a rather fiery dinner, we decided to complement it with this chilled creme caramel, hoping to douse our tongues that were on fire. I was rather alarmed to see it being served in such small portion and it looked rather ready-made. As you can see, it's just the pudding at the bottom drizzled with gula melaka at the top. A rather fuss-free serving method I suppose. There wasn't a tinge of caramel taste in it, unlike the traditional kind which would have a layer of caramel poured into the base before adding the custard. The caramel sauce on top was also substituted with gula melaka. The custard was a tad hard (imagine the agar kind of hardness) and the gula melaka lacked its coconut fragrance. The thick sauce became overly sweet for our liking and it would have been better if it wasn't so dense. It felt like thick sugar syrup drizzled over hardened custard pudding.
The presentation of desserts has always been important to me as desserts are usually my form of indulgence. I was shocked that the chef told us as a matter-of-fact that the ice cream had slipped and simply placed it on our table after that, serving the next table the exact same dessert with the ice cream intact. The ice cream was also very melted, and as we peered over the next table, it looked almost the same.I shall not be biased, so beyond the presentation, I was actually quite interested to find out what a torte tastes like. Digging into the rich chocolate portion, it was extremely smooth and tasted just like a slightly harder version of pudding. It wasn't served warm as what we'd expected but I supposed the chilled version goes better with the smooth velvet texture of the torte. It was rich, yet not overpowering nor overly sweet, and didn't have the bitter taste of dark chocolates. It won me, the non chocolate lover, over and I thought this was one of the rare chocolate desserts that I actually enjoyed. It really depends though, as my friends thought it was a little too rich for their liking. I thought it went really well with the ice cream, though it would have been better if the ice cream wasn't on the verge of becoming milk shake right upon serving. It was very soft throughout, probably been placed outside for quite a while before it reached our table, or the fridge wasn't working very well.
I'd probably return if I have chocolate cravings since this is a rare place where I like the way it was prepared. Service wise, I thought they weren't quite up to it as we were quite lost with their cues. After asking us to take a seat when we wanted to have a look at the menu inside and order immediately, they took quite a while to reach us and even the payment took quite a while. I'm still quite anal about the attitude towards the messed up presentation of the torte too, but taste wise, I would still recommend that you give their torte a shot.
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