Brownice - Upper Thomson

Ice cream - One of the most guilty sins for those battling weight and health issues in their lives.  So often we have associated this food with ill health and obesity.  Brownice may now have something to say about that, offering delicious ice cream desserts that are not toxic to the health.  As the name of this eatery craftily implies, the ice cream is actually made out of brown rice, as well as fruits and nuts - This eatery is totally 100% vegan, no dairy products or eggs are used in any of these delicious desserts.

 
Brownice
Location: 8 Sin Ming Road, Sin Ming Centre, #01-03
Contact: 64566431
Opening Hours: Mon-Thur 1pm-11pm, Fri-Sun 1pm-12am.

A vast ocean of unique and unusual ice cream flavours welcome visitors to Brownice.  What is superb about this establishment, is the willingness to allow the customers to sample all the different types of ice cream, before committing to buy any of them.  On this particular evening, some of the ice cream flavours on offer included - Banana oats, pumpkin coconut, hazelnut chocolate, dark chocolate, strawberry, apple cinnamon, orange chocolate, peppermint chocolate, green tea.

Seasonal flavours can also be found - Most notably, mao shan wang (durian) flavour - Which was sadly not available during my visit.  Brownice existed in a different form in the past, as part of Real Food Organic Cafe - As the ice cream stall located inside the restaurant.  There is also a delivery service available, for more information on that, the well designed Brownice website can assist you.

After a myriad of taste testing, and stern deliberation, the two scoops that I ultimately decided upon was the Strawberry and Apple Cinnamon.  Starting with the strawberry - It consists of organic brown rice milk, strawberry, evapourated cane juice and glucose.  What I loved about it was the fresh and zesty taste of the strawberry.  So often, with strawberry ice cream, you receive that horrible artificial sugary 'strawberry' flavour on the palate, which I simply detest.  Cinnamon is such a comforting flavour for me, so I adored the apple cinnamon also.  The texture of both scoops was remarkably like real ice cream.

Price:  $3.80 (per scoop).     7/10

In addition to ice cream, there are also a number of other dishes on offer.  Arguably the most popular of those is the Mudpie.  Some may feel their wallet begin to weep upon looking at the price.  However, for the size of the piece of pie (and considering the ingredients too) I believe that it is well worth it.  The pie consists of two layers of French chocolate ice cream, hazelnut chocolate ice cream, dark chocolate ganache and topped off with caramelized salted almonds.  The only gripe I had with his dessert was the base.  It was made from brown rice also, but was too light and hollow for my liking - Something denser would have suited me better.  Other than that, it is a beautiful conglomeration of rich chocolate flavours and interesting textures, which tasted wonderful.

Price: $9.80.     8/10

Conclusion - Long time followers of my blog will know that I am certainly more of a savory food lover.  My passion and knowledge for the world of sweet desserts is quite limited.  With that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Brownice, and I found the price and quality of everything I sampled to be excellent.  It is so seldom that vegans can find credible alternatives to the dairy obsessed world of conventional desserts.  So, I for one, am hoping Brownice continues its success for a long time to come.

Overall Rating
Food - 8/10
Ambiance- 8/10
Service - 9/10
Value - 8/10