One of the advantages of working at Robinson Road is it’s proximity to fabled food paradize Amoy street. I eat at Amoy Food Center almost everyday. My favourite stall? Zhen Jie’s Desserts located at the second storey.
Before you continue reading this review, do note that I sampled these calorie-laden desserts over the course of 1 month. At most, I’d eat only 1 dessert a day. As tempting as it may seem, I’d advise against eating all the desserts listed here in one sitting.
Zhen Jie’s Peanut Paste is undoubtedly, my favourite dessert among all of the store’s offerings. I enjoy it so much that I eat it on an almost daily basis.
The Peanut Paste is always served warm. It’s thick and smooth and unmistakeable chock full of peanuty goodness! Like all of Zhen Jie’s desserts, the Peanut Paste is served in generous servings. Restaurant-style Peanut Paste at hawker prices. $2 per bowl. 4/5
Zhen Jie is suppose to be famous for its tang yuan, also commonly refered to as Ah Baling. The store offers a wide range of flavours that span the traditional and the unconventional.
Customers can choose between common flavours like peanut and redbean, to uncommon flavours like yam and coffee.
They can also choose from a variety of ‘soups’. The peanut soup is the soup reviewed here.
I sampled all the different fillings of tang yuan but must profess my preference for the red bean and peanut fillings. The red bean filling is comprised primarily of paste. This is a stark contrast to other stalls that use a watered-down mixture of red bean.
The red bean paste has a natural and smokey taste to it. It lacks any hint of unnatural sweetness and should please most ‘red bean purists’.
The peanut filling was sweet and satisfying. The peanut bits add a slightly crisp texture to the soft tang yuan and its sweet taste contrasted nicely with the tang yuan dough.
The yam and coffee flavours were interesting but were not to my liking. They weren’t bad or inedible, they simply lacked the distinguished tastes of their counterparts. When I bit into both the yam and coffee flavours, I struggled to identify them instantly. However, the novelty and uncmmon nature of these flavours warrant a sample.
$2 for 4 pieces of tang yuan $2.50 for 6 pieces of tang yuan. 3.8/5
Even though she’s famous for her warm desserts, Zhen Jie also offers a small range of cold desserts. One of her most popular desserts is the iced mango and pomelo concoction pictured here.
Real, fresh mangos and pomelos are blended with ice. Gluttinous balls are added for texture and no sugary syrup seems to have been added to the dessert.
This dessert is light and refreshing. Unlike other mango-themed iced desserts, it is not overbearing sweet. The pomelo and mango complement each other well and the noticeable, but never overpowering, sweetness adds a hint of flavour to this light dessert.
If you’re in the mood for a cold, fresh dessert, I highly recommend you try this.
$2.50 for 1 bowl. 4/5
I’ve never been a fan of Black Sessame Paste and unfortunately, Zhen Jie was unable to change my mind. Even though the Black Sesame Paste was of high quality, it just didn’t appeal to my tastebuds.
But fans of Black Sesame Paste may want to check it out. Like it’s peanut cousin, the paste is not as watered down as other dessert stalls. It also has an extremely nautral taste and texture to it; finely ground black sesames can be found in the paste. $2 a bowl. 3/5
