I was pretty excited when I saw in Shanghai that Costa coffee had their version of Christmas drinks for this festive period. It was even better when I knew that they also had these in Singapore, because then it meant I could get them here and didn’t have to be contented with only having them abroad. Anyway, I didn’t try them in Shanghai because I just made do with coffee from the coffee machine in office, but I was looking forward to trying their Gingerbread latte when I returned, and finally I had the chance this weekend.
Perhaps now that it’s December when most if not all students are on holiday, it seems a little easier to find seats in the cafes in town? I’m not sure and can’t speak for all cafes (e.g. Starbucks) but when I popped into Costa at 313@Somerset on a Saturday afternoon I was surprised that I could find a seat and even was able to have a choice. Of course, as I sat, the crowd started to file in nearer to evening, probably when people were getting tired from their Christmas shopping and needed a coffee break.
Nevertheless, this is my gingerbread latte! Ok, looks like any normal drink, especially in a for-here glass mug, so there is a lesser Christmas vibe as compared to if the drink came in a red take-away paper cup.
Then because I was sort of feeling peckish as well, or rather ravenous at that time, I wanted to order something indulgent. I saw proper food like sandwiches and wraps but I decided to give in to temptation and give myself a treat so I ordered a muffin. Was deliberating between muffins and cakes and chose muffins, and then where flavours are concerned, it was a toss-up between several options, banana (and walnut, I think), blueberry, apple cinnamon… everything sounded good to me at that time and I went with banana.
I got a little surprise as I dug into the muffin, because I discovered at the core of the muffin, there was actually a small dollop of banana cream inside! It isn’t very visible from this picture but it’s about the size of an egg yolk. Well, I know that alarm bells went off in my head about cream and stuff, but since I am already indulging in the muffin I might as well have the cream as well yeah? Many would think, no, that’s the wrong way to think but oh well, it’s all said and done and inside my tummy already, fats or not.
To be honest I don’t take much cream-based stuff, for whatever reasons. A little of it is usually fine but too much of it is sometimes an overkill when the creaminess gets to me. For instance, cream-based pastas are a no-no for me because of how much they fill me up so quickly and makes me sick after a short while. Maybe it was due to some unpleasant past experience with some carbonara I had. Anyway, this banana cream had some banana taste and it isn’t too sweet, so that it sort of complemented the spongey muffin pretty well.
The muffin was a contrast with the gingerbread latte, which was a let-down somewhat. I had pretty high expectations perhaps, so when I drank it and mentally compared it with the past experiences of gingerbread latte (from Starbucks), the gingerbread taste wasn’t as noticeable. If I concentrated hard enough maybe I could identify traces of it or maybe my taste buds weren’t working that day?
Nevertheless, I think the muffin alone would give me a reason to revisit Costa in future when I have a muffin craving, just to try the different flavours available and hopefully I will have another good experience then!
Beautiful days 