A growing number of Singaporeans are falling in love with the sweetness and coolness offered by many Korean desserts. The Straits Times, a Singapore-based daily, recently published an article titled, "Desserts are the next big Korean thing in Singapore," and reported on the growing popularity of Korea-style ice cream and desserts.


Reporter Eunice Quek said, "Fist came K-dramas and K-pop. Then came Korean cuisine.... Now, diners are heading in droves to Korean dessert cafés and shops selling delectable sweet treats." According to the article, "no fewer than 15 of such cafés have opened over the past six months."

The article selected patbingsu as one of the most popular dessert items. Patbingsu is a bowl of shaved ice topped with various ingredients, including red beans, rice cake (injeolmi), small pieces of sweet potatoes and drizzled with evaporated milk. Giving a brief history of the dessert, the article quoted a Korean manager from the Bing Go Jung café as saying that patbingsu dates back to Joseon times when ice was stored in an ice warehouse, the binggo. Joseon kings would serve ice to military officials as a sign of favor, who would then crush it and mix it with fruit.

According to the article, many restaurants in Singapore that sell Korean food are also, "hopping on the bandwagon by bumping up their dessert offerings." Some cafés are working to localize the Korean dessert menu by adding various nuts and chopped fruit.


Another popular dessert item is "J-cone" ice cream. It's known as "cane ice cream" in Korean because of its curved shape. The corn-flavored crunchy "cone" -- a bent hollow cylinder -- is filled with soft ice cream. Both its appearance and its flavor are causes of its popularity.

The newspaper said that there will be more dessert cafés and a wider variety of desserts in the future. According to many café and restaurant owners, "the dessert craze has yet to hit fever pitch," it said.

The newspaper then listed locations of the Korea-style dessert cafés and printed their menus in detail at the bottom of the article.

The original story is available here:
http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food-wine/story/desserts-are-the-next-big-korean-thing-singapore-20150315  

By Lee Seung-ah
Korea.net Staff Writer
slee27@korea.kr