Hello again (-: So I'm sure many of you Singaporean vegans have heard of Brownice! They have an outlet in Thomson that started out selling ice creams and other desserts, but later on expanded their menu to include pizza pasta and more.
Thomson is pretty far from where I live so I never actually tried the Brownice outlet there. However, they recently opened a store under a slightly different name, Brownice Italian Bistro, at Joo Chiat. It's in the East so it's really convenient for me, especially because I'm always in that area for tuition classes and what not.
The cafe was bigger than I expected :)
I love how they have educational posters on their walls too!
The staff at Brownice were super nice to us. They asked if I was vegan and our waitress told me how good it was that I was vegan :-) She was so excited to let us taste test the ice cream haha. This other guy, which I think was the chef, was also really friendly and my dad told him my blog which was quite embarrassing haha..?
You can view the menu on the Brownice Italian Bistro Facebook page here. The menu is mainly pizzas and pastas. We were spoilt for choice as they have quite a range, and it's all vegan which is awesome. The also have risottos, sides and drinks and desserts.
Pumpkin and artichoke risotto. I've never eaten artichokes before (not that I remember of at least) because they're frankly quite troublesome to cook, and not many restaurants serve artichoke. Out of all the dishes this has to be my favourite. Very creamy from the pumpkin, and the artichoke added texture to it! The flavours balance out very nicely!
Verdure pizza. Our waitress recommended this pizza. The pizza at Brownice is all thin crust so it's not too heavy! Not greasy at the bottom either and it's topped with yummy vegan cheese! This pizza comes with mock ham slices but not much, in fact I hardly noticed them. That's good for me because I'm not a huge fan of mock meats
Normally wouldn't order aglio olio but my parents wanted to try it! I generally don't like aglio olio because of it's oily nature. My parents liked it. It's certainly presented very nicely with the chopped nuts around the plate. Their aglio olio is rather unique because olives and chickpeas were added!
The portion of pasta was small so my parents ordered the carbonara to try.
Good presentation again and it really is quite yummy (: The cream sauce is pretty legit. The sundried tomatoes on top is a nice touch too.
They have fewer ice cream flavors here because Brownice Italian Bistro focuses more on savoury main dishes I think! A lot of chocolate based flavours.
The ice cream also comes in cake form and take away tub form!
We ordered the triple scoop and chose gulamelaka sea salt caramel, peanut butter chocolate and coconut. My favourite was the gula melaka (coconut palm sugar) sea salt caramel. The salty sweet combination really is the bomb. As the for PB chocolate, I couldn't taste any peanut butter and it was more like dark chocolate, which was a nice contrast because the other ice creams were pretty sweet. The coconut ice cream was quite refreshing. There were tiny coconut bits in it (I don't know if this was intentional) and the flavour was less intense than the other two!
It's actually quite a lot of ice cream! The ice cream is vegan as it is made with brown rice milk, hence the name Brownice. Their ice creams are apparently also low fat which is awesome! You can't tell that the ice cream is vegan though. It's so delicious ^^ Many non vegans think so too judging by the great reviews Brownice has.
When I was in Italy on holiday last year, the chefs had no clue as to how to make vegan food. I was repeatedly presented with pasta in tomato sauce, risotto in tomato sauce, bruschetta (bread and tomatoes), minestrone (tomato vegetable soup), and cheeseless pizza with tomato sauce. As you'd expect, I started pooping tomato coloured things. HAHA.
Brownice Italian Bistro has truly exceeded my expectations. The food there tastes great and I recommend taking non vegans there if you want to impress them. My parents loved the food as well. I have to go back there and try their waffles!
Service: 5/5 really enthusiastic servers haha
Location: 4/5 (its next to a bus stop)
Taste: 4/5 really good stuff!
Health: 3.5/5 really depends on your order
Vegan friendly: 5/5 all vegan!
Overall Rating: 4.5/5 LOVED IT
Brownice Italian Bistro
53 East Coast Road
Singapore
