This is probably one of the very few posts I've ever written (specifically) about dessert.
IF you've read my blog, you'll know that I hardly write anything about desserts, ice cream, cakes, or drinks.
It isn't because I don't like them.
It's just that I don't patronize these places very often.
If I do, it means that either the ice cream there is very, very unique, or the dessert is very, very good.
What makes it even worse is that I tend not to go back to a place very often.
Like this place near Holland V that had really delicious Lavender Earl Grey ice cream and which I went there for perhaps two, three times within a month, and then I stopped going there.
Also, the traditional dessert places on Liang Seah Street that I used to frequent for their steamed egg white pudding, their sesame paste, their tang yuan in ginger soup and their snow ice, but which I haven't been back there for very long.
I have, however, found a new place for dessert in recent weeks.
And this place- I think I might keep going back there.
Typhoon- with their locations at Plaza Singapura, Bugis+ and Kallang- serves up a variety of Taiwanese-style foods, hot teas, cakes, desserts and beverages that can only be described as fun.
They've got quite a bit of offerings on the menu.
Drinks alone, they've got soy milk, fruit teas, fresh milk selections, creative smoothies and milk teas.
If you like soy milk, you might like the brown sugar soy milk with black tapioca pearls.
If you like milk tea, there's classic milk tea, brown sugar milk tea and caramel milk tea for you to choose.
I thought the fresh milk selections rather interesting, and were it not for the fact that I already knew what I wanted, I would have gone for the chocolate fresh milk with pudding, or the coconut milk peach gum.
But I had come here to their Bugis+ outlet specifically for the dessert- and it didn't seem possible that I'd be able to do one whole plate of dessert, one whole plate of dinner, plus a jug of fresh milk.
To be honest, even dinner hadn't been part of the plan.
But I'd arrived at the place around dinner time- and the food on the tables surrounding me seemed rather good.
So, instead of sticking to the original plan of dessert, and dessert only, I ordered a Panko Canadian Pork Chop with Egg Fried Rice as well.
Guess what, fantastic decision it turned out to be.
You know how some people say that fried rice has to be oily and shiny with a sheen of vegetable oil glistening on top, or how others insist that fried rice is only good when it's dry and nothing else?
This one had a little bit of both.
It glistened beautifully- not with the oil- but with the glaze of the egg instead.
And it was dry.
The rice was light, amazingly clean on the palate, and so devoid of the taste of oil that had I not known what I ordered, I would have thought the rice not fried at all.
Not just that, the texture of the grains went very well with the tender, lightly breaded, crisp, and clean-tasting pork chop too.
Here's the thing though.
As much as I relished my dinner, it was the Caramel Pudding Mochi Waffle that made for me the greatest surprise of all.
It's one thing when you know what to expect.
It's another thing when what you actually get surpasses the expectations you have.
I'd known that the dessert would have a waffle, an ice cream, a pudding, and mochi.
What I didn't know was that the mochi would be embedded so deep within the flour of the waffle that every bite became crispy, sweet and chewy all at the same time.
It was so comforting.
And that wasn't the only surprise.
There was more to come.
Little black balls on top of the waffle that I thought were blueberries turned out to be boba pearls.
The caramel sauce and the milk tea sauce that I thought would be tooth-achingly sweet turned out to be otherwise.
Honeycomb ice cream which I thought was just a combination of vanilla, milk and honey turned out to have a teeny weeny bit of fizz to it.
And the crumbles at the bottom of the ice cream which I'd at first assumed to be chunks of bread crumbs turned out to be real honeycomb like the kind you find in the Violet Crumble confectionary.
Truth be told, I'd never eaten a dessert anything like it.
From the mochi waffle to the boba pearls to the honeycomb ice cream to the pudding and even the honeycomb crumbles and the Thai milk tea sauce, every single item on the plate was a complete delight.
I fell deeply in love.
I've gone back to try another of their desserts since.
But even though the Souffle Stackers with Honeycomb ice cream was very, very wobbly, and also very, very good, I think the Caramel Pudding Mochi Waffle is what I'll be going back for next time.