Afternoon Tea at Teng Tea Dessert Cafe @ Rangoon Road

89 Rangoon Road #01-04 Urban Lofts, Singapore 218375

Tel: 6720 2770

Website: http://tenghouse.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TengHouseSingapore

Another new kid on the block has just been borne along Rangoon area, where cafes and dessert shops are aplenty. Teng Tea Dessert Cafe has barely begun operations for more than a month, and here we were, checking the potential delicacies out.

A quaint little cafe done in a slate of white, giving it a sleek and spacious feel, looking cool even in the hot Sunday weather last weekend. Teng Tea Dessert Cafe has a rather limited menu, with its focus on a wider array of teas. Unfortunately, service was painstakingly slow, manned by one lady who, although was nice, made no business sense.

Firstly, half the items we wanted were as good as unavailable, since they brewed the tea (I quote), "one by one", so you got to, say, wait for the red tea for around 20 minutes. Then they will brew another tea, which meant total waiting time would be the original 20 minutes taken to brew the red tea + another 15 minutes for whatever tea of choice we'd ordered.  *Celine and I were practically the only two customers in the cafe the entire afternoon - two ladies did come in and sat for a long time but they could not see the lady manning the counter so they left eventually - and yet we waited an hour for all 3 orders to be fully served.

Yes, this is a small cafe, a new cafe - but this was not the first time I checked a very small and very new cafe out, and so far I have never encountered a predicament as such. If Teng Tea Desserts Cafe does not work on improving this efficiency, their main concern would not be the quality of their tea, but rather, pure survival! Our original thoughts of wanting to order a dessert each were thwarted when we were informed that there was only one person preparing everything hence waiting time would be prolonged (so this also means lost sales).

Anyway, ranting aside, let's move on to examining the rest of the cafe and what it serves. This Candy Floss maker serves a purpose - they actually serve candy floss here with 2 scoops of ice-cream, we were told. It was tempting to order, since I harbour a secret love for this cloyingly, fluffy childhood sweets, but we did not order.

Instead, we went for the Shibuya Toast (SGD$12.00), served with chocolate egg rolls (aka "love letters") and on the side, two scoops of vanilla ice-cream topped with almond flakes. It was a huge dessert - a large golden cube of bread hollowed out, with pieces of bread filling the centre. It was photo-worthy and dusted lightly with sugar, sweetening the crispily-toasted bread squares. It was my first time having Shibuya Toast, so I thought it was pretty innovative - turning something simple into another level altogether. *Celine feedbacked that it would be better if more buttery.

For beverages, *Celine chose to have the Ovaltine Cereal Milkshake, topped with a scoop of chocolate ice-cream. The ice-cream was rich in chocolate flavour and creamy in texture, but it melted far too fast. As seen from the photo here, the moment it was served, the poor ice-cream already looked like it was weeping. The milkshake was thick in texture but light in Ovaltine's cocoa aroma and flavour. The milkiness and cereal taste obliterated the traces of Ovaltine, but to be fair I did enjoy the distinctive maltish flavour, which *Celine did not, unfortunately.

I had the Meiji Tea Latte (SGD$4.80) which was a little diluted in texture but the tea had a good fragrance to it, blending smoothly with the milky base it was concocted with. I had originally wanted to try the Earl Grey Tea Latte or Melon Tea Latte.

That's it for our visit to Teng Tea Dessert Cafe @ Rangoon Road.  The desserts and beverages were decent, whilst the settings were gorgeous. I really, really wish they would improve on efficiency so that the experience for patrons would also improve significantly.