Azabu Sabo

The Japanese take their grub very seriously. Well actually, the Japanese take EVERYTHING very seriously and I would be out of my mind to tell them to 'chill out'. You see, their dedication works to our advantage. Be it phones, cars, or food: When I want something of quality, I know I can get it from the Japanese. I don't have to worry about eggs dyed with carcinogenic Sudan red dye or fortified-with-toxic-diethylene-glycol toothpaste.

Here's the best part, Mireille Guiliano so proclaims "French women don't get fat!" but a little bird called Naomi Moriyama whispered to me "Japanese women don't get old of fat!" That to me speaks volumes because who the hell wants to be eighty and look eighty?

Moshi mooshi, gimme sushi.

So, how do we know that the Japanese take their ice cream very seriously?

Well, they have a Japanese Ice Cream Association and a theme park 'Ice Cream City' in Namjatown.

-Nods- Point taken.

I’ve been meaning to try out Azabu Sabo at Marina Square without much success because not many of my friends are big on Japanese desserts, especially guys who cannot stomach the idea of red bean and green tea.

However, opportunity came knocking when I had to cover them for my school magazine. Onward Matcha!

Azabu Sabo's desserts are predominantly Made in Japan. The dairy for the ice cream is from Hokkaido, red beans and kanten jelly are produced in Japan and they get their matcha from a supplier in -surprise!- Japan. So I guess they basically just assemble the stuff here in Singapore.


Shira Kuni Anmistu

Our first dessert is an Anmitsu: soft ice cream, tucked with red bean paste and fruits on a bed of kanten jelly. Soft ice cream is the lighter version of a traditional vanilla ice cream and in Japan, July 3 is Softcream Day (o-kay this fanaticism is starting to creep me out…) As an ex-Azuki-addict, I enjoyed the fibrous feel of partially crushed red bean and was partial towards the kanten jelly. According to Metropolis Tokyo, kanten has zero calories. No frigging way- only diet drinks with tons of aspartame have the power to be that! Zero calories or not, this jelly has more bite than the other jellies but unless you are into jellies, I think the other desserts were more outstanding.



Above: Soft ice cream with green tea sauce, red bean perched on top of baked sweet potato cake. Our second dessert is essentially the same thing with green tea sauce and sweet potato cake, sans fruit and jelly. Hmm, maybe it ain't so similar after all. Here, the red bean here barely registered but I love sweet potato cake- mildly sweet yet full of flavour. I love anything made from sweet potato- baked sweet potato, sweet potato wedges, sweet potato fritter, sweet potato mash, sweet potato bread, sweet potato soup, sweet potato porridge… anyone know where I can get sweet potato ice cream? Ha.

Atop of the pan fried sweet potato cake, the soft ice cream melted fast and it wasn’t long before we had a sweet potato cake in a chilly puddle- not pretty but not too bad either.



Green tea ice cream caramelized sweet potato and deep fried rice cakes is another dessert for sweet potato lovers. I do wish ice cream makers could be more daring with the matcha flavour. Haagen daaz makes a WHOA-bitter green tea ice cream that fits the “real deal” bill. The milkier version here would sit well with most people though it’s the crisp but chewy rice cakes that would be snapped up first.



Recently added to the menu is the Hokkaido sweet potato ball deep-fried, with vanilla ice cream, red bean and hot butter sauce. You won't find this in Japan because apparently the Japanese do not deep fry those sweet potato balls. Why not? I don’t know because it’s absolutely scrumptious. Besides,. the hot and cold contrast, drizzled with lip-smacking butter sauce would Nipponphiles out of anyone. OOO, Ipods! I See Pods. Vanilla pods on the ice cream!

The desserts were surprisingly heavy; perhaps due to the presence of rice cakes and sweet potato, I felt they were almost a meal of their own. What we had today was just the tip of the soft ice cream, so I would advise you skip the mains and head straight for the dessert.

Photographer: Tang Kejie . School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University
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