TacoCat's TrEats #90: Traditional Desserts are Soy Good! 😋

taco.cat (67)in Foodies Unite • 4 years ago

Hey Steemit!

Now that it's been quite a while since Singapore has has been out of lockdown, or what our government has termed "circuit breaker", restaurants have been operating pretty much as usual aside from implementing safe distancing measures. We've also been eating out more and trying new places!

And one of these new places is a dessert shop called DoQoo!

I know the English name isn't on the sign (for some odd reason), but the Chinese words are the same. They actually read as dou qu which I guess is supposed to mean something like cool beans.? Or at least, that's the literal translation. I think that should've been the name instead actually. But I guess DoQoo is more unique? I read that it's supposed to be pronounced Do-Cool, which doesn't make grammatical sense but okay.

Anyway, DoQoo is a new concept by Mr Bean, which is Singapore’s largest soya bean F&B chain that sells a ton of soy products like soy beancurd, soy milk, soy ice cream, pancakes, porridge and now they even have healthy rice bowls!

Source: HappyCow

I guess they wanted to expand into the traditional dessert business and compete with other chains like Nine Fresh and Black Ball.

Source: Vulcan Post

I'm not sure if this is just an Asian thing, but these traditional desserts have been popular for some time. I believe it originated from Taiwan and social media kinda brought it to Southeast Asia as well. It's basically a concoction of grass jelly, aloe vera pearl jelly, taro balls and red/green beans. The toppings are of course up to your personal choice but that's the typical combination. They also give you a small cup of milk that you can add on top as well, kind of like how you would add milk to coffee I guess.

Source: Vulcan Post

I don't have much of a sweet tooth and I never really got into these desserts until I met Sean. But they're actually really refreshing and tasty! And not that sweet at all actually. I think they're pretty healthy too, especially compared to ice cream or bubble tea.

And now that we actually have DoQoo open up near our place, Sean makes it a point to buy a bowl DoQoo every time we head to the supermarket.

I believe most of the DoQoo outlets are actually combined with a Mr Bean outlet just like this one. But this particular branch also has a couple of seating areas!

Past the narrow entrance there are a couple of tables and chairs for people to relax and enjoy their food. You could actually have an entire meal here, with the porridge/rice bowl from Mr Bean, a soy milk drink, and dessert from DoQoo!

All their orders are made to-go and since we were having dinner at Sean's parents' place, we just bought the dessert. So to order, you can choose 2 bases (grass jelly, soy pudding or their special osmanthus jelly). Then they'll add their special abacus which I guess are the balls, that come in three different flavours (Taro, Yellow Sweet Potato and Purple Sweet Potato). And top it off with 2 toppings of your choice!

They also have a menu with their signature combinations:

But I think Sean ordered a custom mixture instead since there were some items we didn't really care for. So after ordering, they prepare your bowls on the spot with their fresh, locally made ingredients!

After that we headed home and couldn't wait to try them! We bought 2 bowls for us all to share. And they came in this cute packaging!

I think both bowls had grass jelly and soy pudding as the bases. The balls were the same; one of each flavour. The toppings we chose were taro jelly and yogurt balls for the left bowl and osmanthus jelly and lychee pop for the right bowl.

It was actually quite tasty! I didn't really fancy the osmanthus jelly because of the red date taste, but the jelly itself was quite refreshing. And the mixture of soy pudding and grass jelly was quite pleasant and cooling as well. I actually really enjoyed the bowl without the osmanthus jelly. So we made sure not to order that in the future. Sean's mum liked it though.

It's a really interesting dessert, and not something I would buy normally but I'm glad Sean introduced me to them! If you have these dessert shops in your area, definitely try them out!

Thanks so much for reading!