A Hungry Singaporean: January 2014

I was invited by the team at Pickat SG together with fellow food bloggers: SG Food on Foot, Keropokman, The Chosen Glutton and Miss TamChiak, to make the biggest decision of 2014's Chinese New Year (CNY). That is to crown the best Pineapple Tart of 2014.

Chinese New Year is not only the time for visiting relatives, it also a time to feast and enjoy each other's company. Popular snacks such as Bak Kwa, prawn rolls and sweets are the regular ones found in everyone's house which is of the same branding. But pineapple tarts are the ones that everyone have trouble buying because there are too many brands in the market. So Pickat SG decided to find out which was the best.

Before we did the tasting, dinner was catered for with a small buffet table. Food was catered by Neo Garden Catering (supposedly the number 1 caterer in Singapore)

Buffet Table

Bee Hoon

Top: Cereal Fish

Bottom: Mixture of Vegetables (mushrooms, carrot, broccoli and maize)

Curry Chicken

Top: Spring Roll

Bottom: Breaded prawns

Overall food was great and tasty. Special mention to the chicken curry which was thick and super tasty.

Then we "Lao Yu Sheng", which is a CNY tradition. We would toss the ingredients together and say auspicious things at the same time. It symbolizes receiving the good things in the new year. The higher you toss, the better it is.

Yu Sheng set from NTUC

Yu Sheng (Before)

Yu Sheng (After)

After tossing and eating the Yu Sheng, it was down to the main task: Looking for the best among the rest. Tasting the 20 brands of pineapple tarts wasn't easy to say the least, especially after a buffet meal. Some were really sweet, some were really big and squarish. It sort of reminded me of my ramen competition which I had to down as many bowls as possible in 1 hour. Although there was no time limit for this, some pineapple tarts were really dry which made it difficult to swallow.

We gave scores for 5 criterias: Taste (Ta), texture (Te), fragrance (Fr), appearance (Ap), packaging (Pa) using 1(worst) to 5 (excellent) Anyway, introducing the 20 "contestants" and my personal verdicts:

$25

Ta: 3

Te: 2

Fr: 3

Ap: 3

Pa: 3

$16.80

Ta: 3

Te: 5

Fr: 4

Ap: 3

Pa: 4

$23.80

Ta: 3

Te: 4

Fr: 4

Ap: 1

Pa:5

Additional comments: Too big

$12.80

Ta: 5

Te: 3

Fr: 3

Ap: 2

Pa: 2

$11.80

Ta: 4

Te: 4

Fr: 2

Ap: 2

Pa: 3

$22.80

Ta: 1

Te: 2

Fr: 2

Ap: 1

Pa: 4

$15.80

Ta: 5

Te: 4

Fr: 4

Ap: 3

Pa: 4

Additional comments: Tastes like mini "po luo" bun

$15

Ta: 2

Te: 2

Fr: 3

Ap: 4

Pa: 2

$25

Ta: 2

Te: 3

Fr: 3

Ap: 1

Pa: 4

$15.20

Ta: 4

Te: 3

Fr: 3

Ap: 2

Pa: 2

$17.40

Ta: 3

Te: 2

Fr: 3

Ap: 1

Pa: 5

Additional comments: Not as great as their famous durian mooncake

$18.80

Ta: 4

Te: 3

Fr: 3

Ap: 1

Pa: 4

$20.80

Ta: 4

Te: 3

Fr: 3

Ap: 2

Pa: 2

$23

Ta: 3

Te: 4

Fr: 3

Ap: 3

Pa: 3

$23

Ta: 4

Te: 3

Fr: 4

Ap: 5

Pa: 4

Additional Comments: These were really good too.

$15.50

Ta: 3

Te: 3

Fr: 2

Ap: 2

Pa: 2

$25.80

Ta: 5

Te: 5

Fr: 3

Ap: 2

Pa: 3

$20.80

Ta: 3

Te: 2

Fr: 2

Ap: 2

Pa: 3

$18.80

Ta: 4

Te: 4

Fr: 3

Ap: 2

Pa: 5

$25

Ta: 3

Te: 3

Fr: 2

Ap: 2

Pa: 2

$23.80

Ta: 3

Te: 4

Fr: 4

Ap: 1

Pa: 5

$16.80

Ta:

Te:

Fr:

Ap:

Pa:

Additional Comments: Love how it's easy to eat and nicely flaky

$28.80

Ta: 4

Te: 1

Fr: 3

Ap: 2

Pa: 5

Additional comments: Innovative packaging

After tasting, we were given 3 coins for us to choose the top 3 we liked. And announcing the top 3 winners -

1st: Bake Inc.

2nd: Le Cafe Confectionery & Pastry

3rd: Mr Bean

All tarts can be found at Takashimaya Atrium, hurry, you only have 1 day left.

It was an enjoyable event and the first that I went as a food blogger. It was nice meeting the other bloggers who have started way earlier than me too. Thanks to Pickat SG for the invite.