THE #CROISSANT WAR CONTINUES.
With more bakeries like BreadTalk, Antoinette and Da Paolo pulling up their socks to stay relevant in the Salted Egg Croissant food fad by launching their own variations and other interesting ones like Matcha, Chili Crab, Charcoal Kaya Croissants and counting, we foodies are in for a treat!
The question now is… Are you on TEAM MATCHA OR TEAM SALTED EGG?
If you asked me, I would reply:
I’M ON THE FENCE BECAUSE I LOVE BOTH
Amongst all the flavours, I’m most inclined towards Asanoya’s MATCHA SALTED EGG CROISSANT, which had raided Instagram for a few months now. I was a bit unsure at first – especially when they don’t seem to be the best flavour combination. However, I am pretty surprised by the rather favourable reviews so I have been DYING to try it. I’ve already had THE ORIGINAL Salted Egg Croissant from Urban Bakery, Hong Kong last year – so breads filled with Salted Egg are a passé for me now. I guess they are not so hipster anymore, sorry!
For those who are not familiar of Asanoya, let me give you some background. It is an 83-year-old bakery that originally catered to foreign embassies and diplomats of various countries. It then became so popular that the aristocrats would frequent the store.
Asanoya is also the first bakery in Japan to install a Spanish-made stone oven, and to cope with the rising demand for European hard breads, the chefs have successfully mastered the skills and meshed Japanese and Western breads to create novel flavours that no one would dare to dream of and Matcha Salted Egg Croissant would be an exemplification of that.
For Singapore’s clientele, Asanoya has been consistently wonderful on review websites, and all my attempts to visit have failed on the weekends because few of my friends either dislikes matcha or croissant (how can such people exist?!) and Asanoya is so out of the way.
Thankfully, I have a friend who likes Matcha (but not Salted Egg), but she is adventurous enough to tag along on a weekday afternoon, which I reckon would not be so crowded.
The exterior of Asanoya is quite plain and any passers-by would assume that it is just an office space!
Unlike the usual purchasing procedure of bakeries in Singapore, you have to order the breads and beverages from the staff over the counter at Asanoya, and they will pass them to you on a tray. Water and serviettes are self-service, where they are located on two counters at the middle of the bakery.
Not only does Asanoya offer pastries and bread, but also takeaway lunch pack, Swiss rolls and cakes – but you’d be dumb to fill yourself up on those though!
We transformed into kids when we were peering at the bread display… All of them looked so enticing! They were oven-baked till golden brown, and the smell of bread = HEAVEN.
I called up an hour before arriving to check if there were any Matcha Salted Egg Croissants left (because they had limited stocks daily), and they said they had four. We were quite surprised because it was only 2.30pm and most of them were sold out!
However, when I was there, it seemed like they have restocked them.
Yay to freshly baked bread!
I was quite tempted to get their Matcha Cube after spotting it on Instagram. I showed it to my friend before we arrived, but she didn’t seem interested.
However, when we realised that it was the last piece left in the bakery, my friend said, “let’s get it” without revealing any signs of hesitation. We also grabbed two more breads each for our family members, since they looked so good, and we weren’t sure when we would ever return!
A wide selection of drinks and sandwiches can also be found at Asanoya. I’m quite surprised with the beer section. Beer and bread do not seem like a good pair at all!
Time for the long-waited Taste Test!
First, we had the Matcha Salted Egg Croissant [$4.80].
Taste: 4/5
When the croissant was sliced open, the Matcha Salted Egg filling did not flow out really fast like what we expected it to. Not sure if the bread was not warm enough to melt the fillings – even though the lady had already heated it up for us.
Besides that, the filling had a thick and grainy consistency, which indicated how it is truly made from LEGIT Salted Egg. On first bite, all we could taste was the Salted Egg, and we were wondering where the Matcha went to! Thankfully, it became more obvious as we continued eating, and Matcha and Salted Egg Yolk strangely complement each other really well! Asanoya has definitely managed to achieve a perfect balance between the saltiness from the Salted egg, and mild bitterness from the Matcha.
I was also pleased about the generous amount of fillings that we were able to dip the ends of the croissant with. I’ve read that Antoinette is stingy with theirs.
Just one downside would the croissant.
As you can see from the picture above, the quality of the croissant is not very good. It is more towards the doughy side – neither crispy nor flaky. A tad disappointing for me, as I have had better croissants elsewhere at Lola’s Cafe and Rise & Grind Co. (upcoming).
The pastry that we had high hopes on – Matcha Cube [$4.50] was filled with rich white chocolate & green tea cream. They currently sell this in Salted Egg, which is also really popular as well.
Taste: 3/5
While it is extremely “hot” under the #sgfoodporn department, looks can be deceptive.
Pictures on Instagram made it look as if the white chocolate filling was oozing out by itself, but it did not happen in real life! We were actually struggling to let it flow out while prying the cube open. #KenaCheated
And when I asked my friend who tried it first whether she could taste the White Chocolate, she replied, “no, it tastes more like custard”.
True to her words, I could barely taste any chocolate in there! The edges of the cube were not crispy as well; we expected it to possess a crust akin to a Shibuya toast.
Overall, everything about the cube was bad, except for the rather obvious hint of matcha flavour.
Since I hardly come to Asanoya, I decided to takeaway two more breads for my mother and grandma, and one of them is their Danish Coffee [$3.20] – just because my mother is a die-hard coffeeholic.
Taste: 4/5
I was happy to say that it is very flaky, crispy and the coffee taste is strong! I also daresay that the pastry is even better than their Matcha Salted Egg Croissant *gasps*.
Pardon my shaky photography, but this was eaten in the car while my mum was hungry on the expressway. I just wanted to illustrate how the interior layers had a thick notable spread of coffee fillings, which contributed to its pronounced flavour.
My mum was a bit taken aback by the icing on top though, which can be daunting for those who do not have a sweet-tooth.
One more word of caution: do order a drink to accompany this, as I got choked by the dry and flaky bits of the danish that peeled off.
Not a good feeling against the throat.
For girly girls like me, I’m sure you won’t be able to look past their Bonjour Sakura [$2.80] – simply because IT’S PINK!!! I’ve never had pink bread in my life!
Taste: 2/5
It was described as a fluffy sour cream-sakura dough filled with Hokkaido red bean paste and bits of Sakura leaves. It sounds like the chefs have generated a more atas or higher-class version of an Anpan.
When I tore it into half, there was large piece of Sakura leaf embedded within, which I’m not sure that it was meant to be eaten – but I did. It reminded me of the Pandan leaf from Ang Ku Kueh, which has a bitter aftertaste; it was bearable when ingested together with the sweet red bean paste.
While the amount of fillings were just nice, the sweetness of the smooth red bean paste further became extremely prominent once the Sakura leaf was gone; I’ve never tasted such red bean fillings before and suspect that they have added too much sugar. I felt like I would get diabetes from the paste alone – that’s how sweet it was!
I also wished that the red bean paste contained whole red Azuki beans, which would add more texture to the bread. I was extremely disappointed with this one.
Another bread that looked super delicious is their Karuizawa Green Tea Loaf. We sampled it (last piece left) and it had a heavy taste of Matcha.
My friend was amazed and even goes on to say how other bakeries would sell green-coloured bread, but taste nothing like Matcha. For me, I don’t usually buy Matcha-flavoured bread, but this was not only good, but AWESOME. I can imagine smearing some Black sesame spread, or pair it with Chrysanthemum or Yuzu tea. Yummy!
I can foresee coming to Asanoya for more Matcha-flavoured breads and Matcha Salted Egg Croissants!
BUNNY’S VERDICT:
YES I’LL COME BACK BECAUSE I AM #TEAM MATCHA & #TEAMASANOYA!
HOW ABOUT YOU? WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
#TEAMMATCHA OR #TEAMSALTED EGG?
Which bakery do you think has the best version of the Salted Egg Croissant?
BUNNY RECOMMENDS: Anything with Matcha, Coffee Danish
RATING
Overall Taste: 3.2/5 A couple of hit and misses, but we were definitely impressed by the matcha-flavoured bread and Asanoya’s attempt to fuse Japanese Matcha with the local food fad.
If you are on #TEAMMATCHA, you would definitely appreciate this place a lot! However, for French pastries like the croissant, it was too chewy and was not the best I’ve had. The bakery can make more improvements in perfecting their croissants and fillings for their Matcha Cube and Bonjour Sakura.
#TEAMSALTEDEGG, don’t worry as will not be left out with their Salted Egg Cube and Salted Egg Croissant! The latter is also the cheapest amongst the other competing bakeries; it is going for $6.50++ (dine in)/$6.50+ (takeaway) at Antoinette and $7.50 at Flavour Flings.
There is no GST or Service Charge for this cafe, which is a plus against other bakeries and cafes.
Ambience: 3.5/5 Very minimalistic and sanitised; not the best for food photography. I felt like I was in the bread factory, and everyone had to be screened before entering. Space was huge and plenty of tables for large groups of people. It is best to visit during weekdays during their non-peak hours to grab those popular breads.
Service: 3/5 I was glad that they were lenient enough to reserve the Matcha Salted Egg Croissant prior to my visit even though one of the staff said they were not allowed to. You can try your luck!
I didn’t really like the system of not being able to take the bread ourselves like a normal bakery would do as the staff was not very attentive at times; some were chatting amongst themselves even though we were ready to order. Although the level of cleanliness is quite high, some tables had cup and water traces left by previous customers that we had to wipe ourselves.
Asanoya Bakery
Address: 15 Queen Street #01-03
Singapore 188537
Phone:6703 8703
Opening Hours:
9am – 8pm Daily
www.asanoya.asia/
Directions:
- Alight at Bras Basah (Circle Line) or Bugis (DT, EW Line) station. It will be a 5-minute walk from the former (250 steps), and 10-minute for the latter.
Hopping out…
ANDREA THE #FOREVERHUNGRY BUNNY
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