Just like Paris

Just like the movies set in Paris, a couple of people sipping tea under the mild sun with the Eiffel Tower painting a beautiful backdrop. A waiter in dark slack and white top hugged by a black vest serves you tea, and then some pastries while you sit to a table under a gigantic umbrella. This humble cafe set up by a french lady in Bukit Timah never loose that touch. Instead of sitting with tables under giant umbrellas, you dine indoor where the air conditioner cools your food as you enthusiastically fire snapshots of the neatly decorated dishes.

I made my way through the closely arranged tables and chairs to hunt for a seat in this crowded cafe, and I am lucky. I always get the last table available, and then someone walks in and realize he needs to wait. He shall linger around the walkway to pressure a table to settle the bill as soon as they down that last piece of delightful pastry. Choupinette is a cozy cafe packed with wooden furniture dishing out delicacies with not a very friendly price.

I saw no locals in the whole cafe, mostly caucasian. I browse through the simple four page menu that looks like its done using Microsoft Word's word art overnight. I settled for a brunch set that consist of Eggs Royal accompanied by a cup of tea and a fruit juice.



The apple juice that have nothing to cheer about, it must be a Cold Storage packet drink in a fancy glass.



Took a few sips, and I am right. Its nothing special, just to sweeten your morning bland tongue.



Tea arrived sooner.



I have to admit ever since I been to TWG, I am paying more attention to teas. I held the hot pot while letting the string of lemon and ginger flavored tea to fill up the cup.



I tried to have a sniff first, but sadly there was non. Reality strikes back, "Andy, this is not TWG Tea." The lemony essence was lacking, no wonder I never felt the tickle at the sides of my tongue. The disturbing ginger which I dislike since young was not strongly present too. This tea is not a failure, but for the flavor it disappoints. A cup of decent tea it is, the lesson learned was to not compare this to TWG.

Egg Benedict is a dish I look up on the internet. That is if you are a curious cat like me to wiki it to know about the ways to cook an egg, there are too many.



At last, the main attraction was placed in front of me. Reviews floating around the internet are having sky high praises on this, and that made me very excited.



This plate has generous drips of hollandaise sauce over layers of great texture. Slices of smoked salmon cushioned comfortably in between a mixture of a soaked thick toast and a fragile poached egg. Accordingly, this are not market eggs but expensive eggs. But is the difference necessary enough to be mentioned?



Give those fragile eggs a poke and let the runny egg yolks roll out and interfere the hollandaise sauce. This achieved a nice combination, the silky egg yolk with the sourish lemon and butter sauce. Then dip it with the toast and smoked salmon, you shall let your taste bud savor the variety of tastes as it differentiates in your mouth. Luckily, the smoked salmon was not overpowering. While allowing enjoying the different type of texture and taste at one go, you will appreciate that you never substituted the salmon with the usual ham. If you did, that will be a different ball game. Now the disappointment of not getting the gentle tickle from the lemon and ginger tea is all right, because this was more satisfying. The ticklish hollandaise and fragrant smoked salmon is great. And this rich playground of flavors repeated it self for the consecutive bites.



Mrs Egg Royal, I am a fan.

Then I went up to the dessert counter for a dessert to clear my richly pampered palette.



Spot the obvious mickey.



I have to admit the rich dose of eggs benedict was awesome. The hollandaise had its generous amount drizzled across my plate and I finished it all, but I am still up for something lemon. Therefore I settled for this lemon meringue tart. I have no idea about the fillings but the title was the main puller.



I fiddled around the tart with my fork and learned that a lemon meringue tart has a base of pastry filled with a soft lemon curd filling and topped with whipped egg whites and sugar(meringue) hence the name of the dish. I assume the meringue are skillfully flamed lightly at the surface to give a delicate crisp brown burn.



At first bite, let the strong lemon stubbornly pinch you, while the fluffy meringue smooth out the difference between the crispy tart pastry and soft textured curd. But the lemon in this dessert was too much for me to take, half way through I wish I had someone to share this with. But I endured as the over powering lemon curd does its duty. Half a serving of the pleasure was enjoyable enough. But the goal of getting lemon to disturb my taste bud was accomplished.



If you were wondering what makes the mickey mouse's ear, it is the mini macarons. These are shaped to the size of a fifty sense coin. I told the waitress to give me the best two, hazelnut and peach that is. I tried very hard to not let the bad reviews I encounter online to interfere with my attempt of being a complete stranger to this macarons.

I took the hazelnut first, the round pillow like pastry had a pinch of hazelnut fragrance in it which was not sufficient to dominate the flavor it stands for. Sandwiched in between was chocolate ganache, a more chim term for Hershey chocolate syrup available from the supermarket shelf. But it is no doubt that chocolate and hazelnut makes a good combination, which saved this macaron from getting a big "F" label.

Next up is the peach. It was all right. This also had chocolate ganache in between, but I have to agree that peach and chocolate don't get along well in this experiment. Chocolates are still the best companion to any type of nuts, but only a few type of fruits can befriend it. If you are looking for great macarons, you can try TWG tea infused macarons or line up at Bakerzin for the 1$ per macaron offer.

One must know their way around this menu in order not to get disappointed by the attractive fancy french names crowned on this dishes. But I had an enjoyable lunch, especially the egg benedict that is prepared skillfully. The delightful dessert that concluded my meal was not bad too. But I am still uncertain about the excitements generated so far are enough to bring me back to Choupinette that soon.



A picture to prove my point that this cafe is full of caucasian.

By the way, *adorable ang mo kid alert*