Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie: The pastry shop with a killer burger and more

Whenever I walk around the basement food area of Raffles Place mall, I always

pass by this pastry chop named Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie. I never went inside since I am not that into desserts much but I do admire their creations on display particularly their macarons. I have never tried these little colorful things and have always wanted to do so. 

One evening, me and my family were looking for a nice place to have ice cream and coffee. Beside the place that we were having dinner in, fortunately, was Canele. Given the nice ambience and also an excuse to finally try the macarons, I suggested we give it a try. 

Macarons.

I didn't have high expectations though. They looked like mini merengues to me and I am not a big fan of merengues. I thought these will be dry, tasteless and boring. Boy was I wrong. These were light, flavorful and delightful. These were the exact opposite of what I was expecting which is almost always a good thing. 

Here are the macarons I tried:

Chocolate Noir: They say its 70% chocolate. Which means that 70% of it is cocoa and the rest is a combination of some fat or liquid and sugar. The filling was rich, chocolatey, dense and not too sweet. Definitely a  nice fix for chocoholics.

Fleur de Sel Caramel: Basically is caramel with (expensive?) salt. Given that Fleur de Sel contains more minerals than plain old table salt, the saltiness factor added a nice dimension to the caramel flavor. Since caramel is mostly sugar, the salt heightens all the flavor components of the dish. Sweet and salty at its best.

Chocolate Noir 70% (brown) and Fleur de Sel Caramel (beige with cocoa sprinkled on top)

Rose: The filling was made from buttercream which was flavored with a touch of rose. You can definitely get the aftertaste and aroma of the rose but not too overpowering. Getting a strong rose smell in a dish is never good for me.

Pistachio: Buttercream combined with pralines. You get the richness from the buttercream and the nuttiness from the pralines. Very nice indeed.

Rose and Pistachio

Mushroom Soup. 

I enjoy the occasional canned mushroom soup but nothing beats the real thing. Its basic quality mushroom soup - nothing fancy, nothing extra, just pure mushroom goodness. What I like about this version is that it is on the chunky side. So getting junks of mushroom adds to the overall texture to the dish. It is served with toased bread so this can be a bit filling.

Mushroom soup

Carbonara.

It is a beautiful plate of pasta alla carbonara I can give them that. You have the pasta with the sauce at the bottom, then a generous amount of bacon, then topped of with a beautifully poached egg. And I must say, that poached egg was really done to perfection.

The problem was, thats about all the good things I can say about this dish. It looks good, but doesn't deliver on taste. If you look at the bottom of the dish, you can see the pool of sauce. The sauce should have clinged to the pasta strands instead of flowing to the bottom. This means that the sauce was too thin for it to hold, and when this happens, flavor is sacrificed. The other components were fine with me its just that when everything is combined with the "thinned out" sauce, the flavor is only about 50% of what a good carbonara should be.  

This dish could definitely be improved a lot further. It is such a waste of good presentation when it can't be backed up by the taste.

Pasta alla Carbonara

Canele Wagyu Cheeseburger.

This was the most unexpected surprise of the evening. Getting a great burger from a pastry shop. Who would've known? 

Let me note that the picture below doesn't do this dish justice which is funny because this was my exact thought when I compared the image on the menu of the burger with the burger on the table.

Canele Wagyu Cheeseburger

Size: This for me was just right. It wasn't too small that it looks like you ordered your burger form the kiddie menu. It wasn't too big that you have to force feed yourself half of the burger since its just ridiculously big.

Components: This is a relatively basic burger. You have your burger buns, patty, caramelized onions, lettuce, edam cheese, ketchup, mustard and mayo. 

Patty: For a great burgers, this is key (obviously). You can have top your burger with great ingredients, have great side dishes to complement your burger. You can even create the best sauces or condiments for your burger. But if you do not have a great patty to start with, the rest is pretty much useless. The patty that they have has a nice pleasant beefy taste, very tender, not overly seasoned and not overly thick and it has a texture of coarsely ground beef which is a must for great burgers. 

Will definitely be back for more of these!

Cross section of the burger cooked to perfection. You can see the pinkish hue in the middle of the patty. Thats a patty cooked to medium. Just the way I like it.

Cappucino. 

Just by looking at this cup of coffee you know that this will be a quality cup. It is definitely a quality cup of coffee but not great. The added design on the froth does improve the presentation a lot. If you are going to drink your coffee with a dessert item, I would highly recommend the chocoloate noir. It relaly is a great combination. You can see it in the picture behind the cup.

Coffee and chocolate noir macaron. Match made in heaven.

Hot Chocolate.

This cup of hot chocolate is mainly made from Valhrona chocolate (probably the powdered version) and other chocolate components. It was good but it could have been better. I prefer my hot chocolate drinks a bit on the thicker side and this just didn't cut it. They should probably use more Valhrona chocolate. Can't go wrong with putting more and more chocolate I always say. 

Hot Chocolate

Vanilla Ice Cream.

If you see vanilla bean particles on your ice cream, you know its gonna be a good one. This one does not disappoint. This was rich, smooth and not too dense. It wasn't too sweet and you can clearly get the vanilla flavor. Another equally good item on this dish is their tuile. Its light and crispy and just delightful with the ice cream. So for a scoop of ice cream you get the nice crunch from the tuile, the acidity from the berries to compliment their delicious ice cream. This was more than I expected to get.

Vanilla Ice Cream

As I am writing this now, Canele is my favorite food place in Singapore. I am sure that this will change as soon as I find another great food place. In my opinion, some of the items here (especially the burger) are the best I've tasted so far. It is going to be exciting to find new places to top these. And I hope I can write about it in the future. Nevertheless, I hope Canele continues to provide great new creations and keep up the quality of their food.

This is my first entry to this food blog and I think it is fitting to start it off with my favorite. This should be a fun food journey.

Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie: Raffles City Shopping Centre

252 North Bridge Road #B1-46/47 Singapore 179103
Telephone (65) 6334-7377 Facsimile (65) 6334-7977
Opening Hours
Mondays to Sundays : 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.