Ken’s Cafe Tokyo Chocolate Cake Arrives in Singapore – Our Verdict of This Famous Chocolate Treat from Tokyo

The famous Ken’s Cafe Tokyo chocolate cake has arrived in Singapore! It is currently being sold by Watanabe Coffee at Shaw House along Orchard Road. Having tried the original version from Tokyo, and being blown away by how delicious it tasted, we were pretty excited to see how the Singapore version would fare. This article was updated on 22 January 2019 with our review of the single chocolate slice.

Ken’s Cafe Tokyo (Singapore)

Ken’s Cafe Tokyo is a small cake shop in Tokyo that sells just one item: its famous signature chocolate cake named Gâteau au Chocolat.

The shop is very well-known in Japan, and was even ranked as the top chocolate shop in Japan on Tabelog, a Japanese restaurant review site.

We were lucky enough to try this original chocolate cake during our recent trip to Tokyo and you can read our full review here.

Last month, it was reported that Watanabe Coffee at Shaw House would start selling these famous chocolate cakes in Singapore from 1st December!

The cakes will be baked locally, using the same recipe and baking methods as Ken’s Cafe Tokyo. To ensure consistency, Watanabe Coffee’s Japanese chef Toshihiro Ito even flew to Tokyo with local Singapore ingredients to train under Ken’s Cafe founder and chef and Kenji Ujiie.

Naturally, we were really excited and quickly ordered one cake from Watanabe Coffee. This is our review of Ken’s Cafe chocolate cake – the Singapore version!

Gâteau au Chocolat (“Chocolate Cake”)

We called Watanabe Coffee to reserve one Gâteau au Chocolat ($48.15) and was informed that the collection date would be one week later.

A week later, we went to the shop and got our hands on the chocolate cake! It was nice to see that it looked exactly the same as the one we bought in Tokyo (around 280g and 13cm long).

The Ken’s Cafe Tokyo paper bag and box were exactly the same too.

And like the Tokyo version, the cake uses unsalted butter and does not contain margarine,  shortening, or any other artificial food additives. It is gluten free and flourless too.

However, the other ingredients are slightly different. Instead of Italian Domori Couverture chocolate, the Singapore version uses premium Valrhona dark chocolate. And instead of Japanese free range eggs, local eggs are used.

Three Ways To Eat Ken’s Cafe Chocolate Cake:

We kept the cake in our fridge for five days before eating it. Interestingly, there are three ways to eat the cake. Therefore, we decided to cut the cake into three slices so that we could try all three methods.

1. Chilled

First, we ate the cake chilled after taking it out from the fridge. After taking my first bite, I was pretty impressed. The chilled cake had a lovely smooth and firm texture, along with a rich chocolatey flavour. And I liked that it was not overly sweet.

2. Room Temperature

Next, we tried the cake at room temperature. It tasted quite similar to the chilled version, but the texture was more soft and fluffy. Personally, I prefer eating the cake chilled.

3. Heated up

Lastly, we heated it in our oven at 180°C for ten minutes, so that it became a tantalising molten chocolate cake. You can also microwave it for about 10 to 15 seconds.

This was definitely our favourite way to eat the cake! After taking it out of the oven, we could see that the texture had become moist and slightly glistening. We could immediately smell the rich chocolate fragrance too.

The warm and luscious molten cake turned into a pleasant mush in my mouth as I chewed, from which emanated the rich and alluring fragrance of chocolate. If you buy the Ken’s Cafe cake, I highly recommend eating it this way!

How to Buy

Currently, Watanabe Coffee only bakes 20 Ken’s Cafe cakes daily, and you need to call at least two days in advance to reserve the cake. There is no limit to how many you can order. Each 280g cake costs 48.15 SGD, compared to 3,000 yen (37 SGD) at Ken’s Cafe in Tokyo.

The cafe will also be selling the cake at $8 per slice (dine-in only), but when we were informed by the cafe that this is not available yet.

Single Chocolate Slice 

Watanabe Coffee also sells single slices of the Ken’s Cafe Tokyo chocolate cake at $10 per piece.

It comes with a scoop of sweet vanilla, a touch of luscious cream, a mini fruit platter, and pretty finishing touches of cocoa powder and premium Valrhona chocolate chips.

This is perfect if you want to get a taste before buying the whole cake, or if you find eating the entire cake too overwhelming.

We really enjoyed eating this! The bittersweet chocolate flavour went perfectly with the sweet ice cream, and the refreshing fruits provided a pleasant distraction from the rich flavours. We strongly recommend this dish if you visit Watanabe Coffee.

Conclusion

We definitely enjoyed the Singapore version of Ken’s Cafe Tokyo chocolate cake sold at Watanabe Coffee. Our favourite way to eat the chocolate cake was to heat it up so that it became a really delicious molten chocolate cake!

So how does Singapore’s version of Ken’s Cafe chocolate cake compare to the original one in Tokyo? Well we found that the Singapore version was slightly sweeter, but on the whole it tasted quite similar.

At $48, the 280g cake is relatively expensive, but that’s because the cake is baked using premium ingredients. Call Watanabe Coffee at Shaw House now to get your chocolate cake fix!

Watanabe Coffee
Address: 350 Orchard Road Shaw House, #01-00 Isetan Scotts, 238868
Phone: +65 6235 0608
Opening Hours: | Sun to Thurs: 8.30am – 10pm | Fri & Sat: 8.30am – 11pm |