Actually, this is "tai-parfait", yet another Japanese idea imported into Singapore, from, well, Tai-Parfait @ Plaza Singapura. "Tai" literally means snapper fish, and refers to the common Japanese pancake snack whereby traditional Japanese fillings like red bean or green tea paste are griddled into pancakes shaped like fish. These pancakes are normally called "taiyaki". What this chain did is to add ice cream to the mouth of the fish to turn it into a ice cream-with-pancake parfait.
At first, I thought it was a pretty duh idea and wasn't keen to try it since I saw its first stall at Bugis Junction some time back. But the manga artist of one of my favourite series tweeted about it, so I thought I'd give it a try. I ordered the kinako brown sugar with matcha ice cream flavour, which had three toppings over the taiyaki - matcha ice cream, kinako powder-infused whipped cream, and a drizzle of kuromitsu, or traditional Japanese brown sugar syrup. And I had absolutely no regrets!
It turned out to be quite different from what I had imagined on a number of points. Firstly, the shape of the fish was different from the normal taiyaki. They made the mouth wider, obviously, so it could contain the creamy goodies.
Secondly, for some reason I had the misconception that it was just batter with ice cream... but there turned out to be filling inside the taiyaki, available in four flavours - green tea, custard, red bean and I think the last flavour was chocolate. So I could customise one more component of my parfait, as the instruction guide below explains. I chose red bean... going for the completely traditional Japanese combination.
Thirdly, they used a different batter from the normal taiyaki. Instead of being like a normal pancake, this batter was more like a mochi in texture, which was a total winner. Perhaps the most important difference was that the mochi-like batter was much crispier than the normal pancake batter. It also retained its crispy crunch despite coming into contact with the moist ice cream, unlike usual Western-style waffles which get soggy. This one allowed me to crunch at the taiyaki long after the ice cream had melted.
Furthermore, once you got past the crunch, it was delightfully chewy, unlike the normal pancake or waffle batter. You can see in the image below that it's whiter and slightly translucent like mochi.
The batter was also slightly savoury, which was an awesome pairing with the sweet azuki red bean paste and the slightly savoury kinako.
Fourthly, they used high quality ice cream - Haagen Daaz no less. Which was a big deal to me because the entire dessert cost just $5. A normal scoop of Haagen Daaz bought on its own would normally be at least $4. But here, this dessert came with so many other yummy goodies on top of that heavenly scoop of Haagen Daaz.
Taiyaki aside, the kinako cream had a nice toasted soy flavour, although it was rather mild... but herein lies my only complaint about the entire experience - the cream was waxy, and they probably used hydrogenated oil.
Overall, all the flavours blended very nicely together, as was expected since they were a typical Japanese dessert combination. As you know, there are matcha lattes with kuromitsu, and mochi with kinako, kuromitsu and azuki paste, so no matter which combination of ingredients ended up in my mouth, it was always a wonderful medley of flavours.
After I was done with it, I concluded that it was actually a rather substantial dessert and a mini-meal in itself. Certainly, it felt more substantial than the normal ice cream cone with toppings. It really reminded me of those elaborate Japanese parfait desserts... but this one was more so because there was quite a large serving of carbohydrates in the form of the mochi-like taiyaki. Needless to say, I was completely satisfied and am actually craving a second experience. Maybe I could try another flavour the next time around and avoid the hydrogenated fats in the kinako cream.
I also have a point of improvement that I can think to suggest. The matcha ice cream melted into the space for the taiyaki filling, and oozed out, spilling over when I tried to bite into the taiyaki proper to eat it, so it made for a very messy experience. Perhaps instead of serving the parfait in a sleeve, they could serve it in a paper tray, so the tray would catch anything that dripped out, and the customer would have a much more convenient experience.
Naturally, using a tray would not allow them to achieve the same impressive effect of holding the parfait like ice cream on a cone, but perhaps they could reconfigure the presentation - have the fish standing on top of the scoop of ice cream at an angle, like it is trying to eat it, rather than be below the ice cream. Then the other toppings like the kinako cream and kuromitsu can be arranged around the centrepiece of the fish on the ice cream.
The benefit of this presentation is that it would spread the ingredients out and make it look like a slightly more substantial dessert... which it really is. With a more spread-out presentation, they could plausibly even charge more for it, although I'd hope to still get it for $5.
Secondly, for some reason I had the misconception that it was just batter with ice cream... but there turned out to be filling inside the taiyaki, available in four flavours - green tea, custard, red bean and I think the last flavour was chocolate. So I could customise one more component of my parfait, as the instruction guide below explains. I chose red bean... going for the completely traditional Japanese combination.
Furthermore, once you got past the crunch, it was delightfully chewy, unlike the normal pancake or waffle batter. You can see in the image below that it's whiter and slightly translucent like mochi.
The batter was also slightly savoury, which was an awesome pairing with the sweet azuki red bean paste and the slightly savoury kinako.
Taiyaki aside, the kinako cream had a nice toasted soy flavour, although it was rather mild... but herein lies my only complaint about the entire experience - the cream was waxy, and they probably used hydrogenated oil.
Overall, all the flavours blended very nicely together, as was expected since they were a typical Japanese dessert combination. As you know, there are matcha lattes with kuromitsu, and mochi with kinako, kuromitsu and azuki paste, so no matter which combination of ingredients ended up in my mouth, it was always a wonderful medley of flavours.
After I was done with it, I concluded that it was actually a rather substantial dessert and a mini-meal in itself. Certainly, it felt more substantial than the normal ice cream cone with toppings. It really reminded me of those elaborate Japanese parfait desserts... but this one was more so because there was quite a large serving of carbohydrates in the form of the mochi-like taiyaki. Needless to say, I was completely satisfied and am actually craving a second experience. Maybe I could try another flavour the next time around and avoid the hydrogenated fats in the kinako cream.
I also have a point of improvement that I can think to suggest. The matcha ice cream melted into the space for the taiyaki filling, and oozed out, spilling over when I tried to bite into the taiyaki proper to eat it, so it made for a very messy experience. Perhaps instead of serving the parfait in a sleeve, they could serve it in a paper tray, so the tray would catch anything that dripped out, and the customer would have a much more convenient experience.
Naturally, using a tray would not allow them to achieve the same impressive effect of holding the parfait like ice cream on a cone, but perhaps they could reconfigure the presentation - have the fish standing on top of the scoop of ice cream at an angle, like it is trying to eat it, rather than be below the ice cream. Then the other toppings like the kinako cream and kuromitsu can be arranged around the centrepiece of the fish on the ice cream.
The benefit of this presentation is that it would spread the ingredients out and make it look like a slightly more substantial dessert... which it really is. With a more spread-out presentation, they could plausibly even charge more for it, although I'd hope to still get it for $5.
Found this ice cream interesting? Check out more unusual ice creams here!
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