Maison Kayser, Scotts Square

Maison Kayser is yet another Japanese inspired French bakery located at the basement of Scotts Square. Scotts Square is this atas mall located next to Tangs. It houses a Fairprice Xtra which is probably the only shop without a poverty detector.

There are seats in the basement for dine in customers, but be warned, you will be charged additional service and GST charges for lounging around with bread and coffee. So if you are on a budget and don't crave for coffee, go for takeaway. (Or head to the nearest Ya Kun for your coffee fix).

Perhaps there weren't many people when I visited, but the guy behind the counter was super nice to me. He offered to let me sample almost all the bread available and even explained the flavours and ingredients of each bread with great detail . At one point of time he even sliced up a new piece of bread, just so I could sample it. I felt somewhat obligated to buy something from him from that point.

BTW all the breads have french names and being the country bumpkin that I am, I couldn't really make out the names. I managed to try a couple of breads like Thé Orangé (with the french accents please. It's earl grey flavoured bread with orange rinds), Pain Aux Yuzu (moist bread with yuzu flavour). I'm actually very impressed by the nice citrus flavours of these breads and how incredibly moist and soft their insides are. I could imagine how well they would go with butter or truffle oil. (drools). I was also wowed by their Delice Blanc, a delightful soft bread infused with white chocolate flavour.

In the end, I decided to get Campagne Gorogonzola ($5.40) which combines walnut bits in an incredibly soft, fluffy bread with subtle blue cheese flavour. The blue cheese flavour isn't too overwhelming, I like that the taste of cheese comes through as you chew on the bread. When I ate the bread the next day, it didn't turn too hard and still retained a certain moist and softness.

I also bought a couple of eclairs, which are perhaps this bakery's most popular, hot selling items. I got the Eclair Chocolat ($3.45) and Eclair Vanille ($3.45). I was expected perhaps delifrance sized eclairs, but these eclairs are longer at about 15cm a piece. The chocolate eclair is also a little skinner than the vanilla one. The chocolate eclairs come in two different versions- one dark chocolate and the other milk chocolate with praline(?). I had the dark chocolate one and I was impressed by the intense dark chocolate topping on top and the very fresh, sweeter chocolate cream inside. But the pastry was a little dense and it would be great if it had been fluffier. The vanilla eclair was also quite nice; the topping and generous fresh cream filling had a strong vanilla taste to it, especially with the little black vanilla pods floating on the vanilla topping.

I would love to come here for fresh bread and pastries but it would really burn a huge hole in my pocket.