Oompa-Loompa: Intro by venitha

Our recent family visit brimmed with enough chocolate to make even Willie Wonka raise an eyebrow. Maybe, just maybe, we all got a little carried away. We started out with everyone's favorite, Grandma's special Christmas cookies (pictures do not do this mouth-watering confection justice), moved on to duty-free Toblerones for our stay in Bintan, then recklessly ignored any New Year's resolutions by indulging in amazingly thick chocolate bars from Mustafa upon our return to Singapore. And, of course, all of this was punctuated with scoop after scoop of ice cream from Ben and Jerry's. Is it any wonder we were all so happy?

One would think that such sugar-coated bliss would satisfy any sweet tooth. After two weeks of feasting at a smorgasboard of Southeast Asian cuisine, however, the two food requests for the last day of the visit were the following:

• A second helping of Din Tai Fung soup dumplings. In my opinion, completely understandable.
  
• A taste test of some Asian desserts. In my opinion, completely insane.

Over the past two weeks, Jim and I had successfully steered our loved ones clear of lemon grass jelly after Chinese dim sum, black glutinous rice with coconut cream after fancy Peranakan fare, and even mango pudding (trust me) after conveyor-belt sushi. Above all, no one had so much as caught an offending whiff of the dreaded durian.

But if Asian dessert is what you want, Asian dessert is what you shall have, and on our way to the Raffles Hotel Long Bar for some free peanuts and some very overpriced cocktails, we stopped off at a Food Junction dessert stall to satisfy curiosity if not cravings.

Our intrepid Asian dessert virgins were a bit overwhelmed by the many choices, all mostly unidentifiable and none, of course, chocolate, so I ordered three items that I know have some redeeming, and some not-so-redeeming, qualities...

venitha