Suddenly there are a multitude of Dessert Story stores across Victoria. I don’t know what sparked this craze but this Taiwanese Dessert franchise is everywhere. My first thoughts were DESSERTS YES! MORE PLEASE! However, I was hesitant to try it gawking at the prices of their desserts. Alas, it seems like it’s the trend here where desserts are almost as expensive as a main meal. So I might as well give up that fight. We tried the outlet in Glen Waverley were it sadly took over Claypot King, one of my favourite Malaysian eateries on Kingsway.
For some reason we tried two variations of red bean desserts. The red bean soup with palm seeds and coconut is quite interesting. I definitely enjoyed the palm seeds, well I like it in any dessert really. The red bean soup here really is a soup, as it’s quite runny. It still retains the red bean skin which gives it an added texture from the smooth and silky toppings of the coconut and palm seed. The flavour of the red bean soup was good, it wasn’t too sweet which is good in my books .
One thing I would prefer was if our hot dessert was actually hot! It came out luke warm, and to top it off, it was an extremely cold day where a steaming hot dessert was sorely needed. All in all, it was decent, the warm nature of the dessert certainly left a cold taste in my mouth though.
We also tried the Red Bean and Black Sesame dessert, which basically is just one side with red bean soup and the other side with black sesame soup. The soups here are thicker and more akin to those you’d find in Malaysia. The red bean soup was nice, still having the beans in there for taste, but again it was just warm, borderline reaching room temperature. I’m not sure what goes on in the kitchen but warming the dish up to a higher temperature certainly wasn’t on their minds. The red bean soup was pleasant, it had a very comforting flavour, bringing me back to the the tastes of Malaysian desserts.
Strangely enough though, the black sesame soup (almost paste like) was super hot. It was a very odd to taste both the red bean and black sesame together and get this mix of hot and cold. A bit off putting to be honest, luckily the black sesame soup was hot enough to make the red bean warm enough. What I loved about the black sesame soup, yes love, was that it was bitter like it should be. Not overloaded with sugar to butt heads with the bitterness, but enough sugar to complement the black sesame. A real joy to eat.
Impressions
The range of desserts at Dessert Story is quite extensive. They have a wide variety of combinations of fruit and ice cold desserts. With a smaller, yet varied selection of hot desserts. Their execution on this desserts is what was lacking and that, unfortunately, played a huge part in the overall impressions. Had it been hot enough, I’d be in praise mode but with both dishes coming up almost cold, there is really no excuse for that.
Unfortunate mistakes? Yes, definitely. I just hope that it won’t happen again. Give it a go, I dare you. Haha, seriously though, it should be good for a nice treat all things considered.
Dessert Story
72 Kingsway
Glen Waverley VIC 3150
ohdenny 