A friend of mine who knew I had a particular inkling towards mochi, mochi waffles and mochi everything told me about this (new) place on the second floor of Suntec City Mall and said I should go.
At first I had been a little confused- I had thought the cafe he talked about specialized in only coffees and teas, but as I soon found out, they didn't only serve beverages hot and cold, they had handcrafted ice cream, and a host of interesting desserts too.
One of the things on the menu that caught my eye was the dorayaki cake. I didn't know what it was- I couldn't see the picture- but it sounded like a dessert of two dorayaki pancakes sandwiching fresh strawberries from Japan, and a huge dollop of fresh whipped cream in flavors of Strawberry, Matcha or Yuzu- you choose- in between.
I thought I might try it- pancakes are also my thing- but then I saw the mochi waffle on the menu... and changed my mind.
Cafe USAGI's mochi waffle has to be one of the cutest ones I've ever seen thus far.
I don't mean that it's small.
I mean that it's of a size so right that medium sized eaters (like me) won't feel overwhelmed trying to finish it all.
Here's the funny thing though: It doesn't look very large when it comes to your table complete with ice creams, Kuromitsu brown sugar syrup and all, but try cutting it into little squares with your fork and knife, and suddenly you'll find that the waffle feels so much bigger than what you thought it was.
I should know.
Because there I was, dipping my half of the waffle square by square into the brown sugar syrup non-stop, even alternating it with our ice cream, and yet, no matter how paced out I ate, there seemed to be still all these little squares on my plate.
Short of counting how many squares there were, it baffled me for a while.
Like, could it be that I was slowly savoring the crisp surface of the waffle and so unconsciously eating slower?
Or could it be that I was actually taking a longer time to chew up each square because of the mochi within the waffle?
Maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn't.
I don't know.
I'm not the type to waste brain cells on a Friday evening trying to figure it out.
And anyway it didn't matter to me whether I took a longer (or shorter) time to eat up my waffle.
Not withstanding the fact that dessert should never be rushed, what mattered was that I got to see the beautiful scatter of dusted sugar on the crust, feel the crisp of its nicely browned surface on my tongue, and chew (and chew and chew) the soft, sticky, slightly sweet mochi that melted away in my mouth with every bite.
I still remember the strong yet delicate sweetness of the Kuromitsu syrup sliding elegantly all over my little squares of waffle.
And, of course, the handcrafted ice cream, where, out of all the flavors available, we'd decided to have the Uji Matcha.
Faintly bitter, we liked it very much, especially my friend the tea lover who swirled it up with his waffle whilst I relished the cold, creamy, milky ice cream all on its own.
I might consider the Rich Chocolate or the Hokkaido Milk and Vanilla ice cream next time.
Then again, I think I would want to go for the Samurai Blue Sea Salt (a really nice hue of pastel blue) or the Lavender Hojicha (which color looked like hojicha and tasted of hojicha, but with- only- a very light hint of the lavender)