Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Tsujiri - 150 years of green tea history

 I first ate at Tsujiri when I went for my grad trip to Japan - visited 2 of their 4 branches - their original branch is in Kyoto and the brand is ancient - it's been around since 1860! I'm extremely happy that some Japanese business man/woman has brought Tsujiri to Singapore! I've been waiting for Tsujiri to open for months and I was so extremely happy when Jane whatsapped me a photo of the Tsujiri store. Despite the lousy weather today, I dragged Fish down for some green tea desserts before dinner. It was raining and I parked really far away from the 100am mall cos I didn't know where it was and we spent a good 20minutes trudging around in the rain looking for it - and I got splashed when a car drove over a puddle :/

Tsujiri specializes in green tea desserts - especially the parfaits. They don't have the whole menu here - but a very simplified one. So no towering mega parfaits here! Just the smaller ones. Also, the parfaits come in disposable cup (how practical - high labor costs in Singapore+++). It's self service - so choose your dessert, pay up at the counter and they'll call you to collect (Starbucks style). 

I had the Shiratama Parfait ($7.50) which has mochi balls, katen jelly (cubes of agar-agar like jelly, supposed to have very little calories and supposed to be very healthy), red bean and soft serve green tea ice cream on top. The brownish powder is kinako powder (roasted soya bean). I really liked the soft chewy mochi - reminds me of the tang yuan my grandma makes :)
I think that the Anmitsu Parfait ($7.80) will be the best choice for someone who hasn't been to Tsujiri before - it has the most ingredients including one mochi ball, some chestnuts, extra jelly and this other pinkish mochi. Their Shaved ice desserts are also really popular, but I think I'll save those for another time - my pancreas is already overworked. 
 The O-maccha roll cake ($4.50) -soft fluffy green tea cake with a rish fresh cream centre. I liked the cake but I'm not crazy over the cream (it's fresh and doesn't taste as if it came out of a can but I just don't particularly like whipped cream).
The green tea chiffon cake ($4.20) - no takeaways allowed because this cake is served warm. The texture is similar to the pandan chiffon cakes that we have locally. The green tea taste is very strong but I prefer the heavier texture of the O-maccha roll cake. 

I also tried their Green Tea cappuccinno ($6.50) -thick green tea with frothed milk - really beats the Starbucks green tea hands down. It comes with sugar on the side so you can adjust the sweetness to your liking. I've never been able to successfully froth my green tea like that at home - perhaps I should buy that wooden ladle thing...

Sadly, they didn't bring in my favourite green tea pound cake (intensely rich green tea taste with a soft, buttery cake) because it would cost too much to import T-T It really tops the two cakes above in terms of texture and taste. And they don't have the green tea butter biscuits either. Hope they expand their menu soon and start bringing all these yummy goodies in.

I hope that they will continue to expand and hopefully open a branch in Novena ;) I find their desserts on the sweet side (yes I know desserts are supposed to be sweet but it's just sweeter than most other desserts) perhaps because it's not tweaked for the local palate.  After Tsujiri, I'm so tempted to go to Japan for holiday but I'm worried for my thyroid...

Tsujiri
100 Tras Street, 100am Mall (Groung level, near cedele)
Tel 65436110
Opening hours 10am to 10pm 

2 comments:

red fir said...

I miss the tang yuan your grandma makes. :)))

yixiao said...

Love green tea!