8 Days - December 07, 2017

102

8 DAYS

eat

cookie chain

sets up shop here

Yoku Moku

The Tokyo-born brand’s irresistible

cigare butter cookie rolls are now

available at Ion Orchard.

For us, a trip to Tokyo invariably means lugging

home boxes of cigare (which means ‘cigar’ in

French) snacks — the beautifully packaged, intensely

buttery, crunchy and delicious cylindrical cookies sold

by Japanese confectioner Yoku Moku. Think a butter

cookie and egg roll, um, rolled into one neat stick. The

brand has been around since 1969 and boasts over

150 stores in Japan. Now we don’t have to wait for our

next trip to Japan to get our paws on those elegant

Swedish-inspired, baked-in-Tokyo treats, ’cos Yoku Moku

is opening its first permanent Singapore retail outlet at

Ion Orchard next January.

But here’s even better news:

it will have two pop-up stores

this December at Ion Orchard,

and Takashimaya’s Christmas

Fair. Just in time for some tasty

festive shopping. Its signature

preservative-free cigare rolls

are available in three flavours:

the original, and to us, best-

tasting plain butter Cigare

(from $16 for 10 pieces),

the Darjeeling and Earl Grey

tea-infused Cigare Au Thé

(from $17 for eight pieces)

as well as the milk chocolate

Cigare Au Chocolat (from $19

for eight pieces). Or, you can get all three flavours in the

Trois Cigare box ($73) with 33 cigares.

The brand is also popular for its delicate cookies

available only during the winter season (which is now).

Like the Billet Au Chocolat Au Lait ($16 for 12 pieces),

slim slivers of butter vanilla cookies coated with milk

chocolate, and the almond-topped version called Billet

Aux Amandes Chocolat ($31 for 24 pieces).

Other offerings include

the Pleine Lune ($31 for 16

pieces), a shortbread cookie

with almonds and a milk

chocolate base.

Besides retail

stores, Yoku Moku

also boasts a dine-in eatery called Blue Brick

Bistro by Yoku Moku in Hongkong, serving

Japanese-Western fare. We’re told a similar

“cafe with a full lunch and dinner menu” is in

the works in Singapore and is slated to open in

2019. The Singapore franchise is brought here
      by a former co-founder of local F&B company The
      Big Idea Group, which runs restaurants such as The
      Marmalade Pantry.

Yoku Moku pop-up stores are at L1 Ion Orchard (Dec 1-31,

10am-10pm) and B2 Takashimaya (Dec 4-25, 10am-9.30pm).

Yoku Moku’s permanent Singapore store will be at L3 Ion

Orchard, opening Jan 2018. http://www.yokumoku.com.sg.

CIGARE

TROIS CIGARE

PLEINE LUNE

STORY (^) YIP JIEYING
Beloved Japanese