There was a time when dessert after a Chinese meal meant red bean soup, tofu pudding, tong yuen or perhaps a bowl of sweet soup placed in the middle of the table for everyone to share.
These days, dessert cravings are more likely to lead us towards croissants, shio pan, ondeh-ondeh cakes, Korean bingsu or Taiwanese boba tea. Nothing wrong with any of these, we eat them too.
But Bing Bing Polite (饼饼有礼), a little Chinese dessert shop in Taman Sentosa, Johor Bahru, deserves a Humble Mention simply because it is doing something we don’t see enough of in JB: offering a surprisingly wide selection of Chinese desserts – and doing them rather well.
The shop is only about a year old, but its menu reaches considerably further back. There is red bean soup, Orh Nee (Teochew yam paste), tofu pudding (豆花), glutinous rice balls (汤圆) and plenty more.
What we particularly like about Bing Bing is the way it gives these traditional desserts little twists in presentation that make them relatable to both younger and older diners. It doesn’t try too hard to be clever. There are no outrageous flavour combinations invented purely to grab attention, nor has someone decided that red bean soup desperately needs to be deconstructed and served with foam. Instead, the old-school flavours are still recognisable. Bing Bing simply gives them a younger, more playful presentation.
The cleverest example is the 6-in-1 dessert platter.
Because Chinese desserts have one small problem: sometimes you want red bean soup, but perhaps not an entire bowl of it. Then you spot the mango sago. And the snow fungus soup. And suddenly dessert requires table negotiations – Bing Bing offers a democratic solution.
Six little dishes arrive on one platter: Tangerine Red Bean Soup, Osmanthus Jelly, Taro Purple Rice Cheese Bowl, Lotus Snow Fungus Soup, Watermelon Sago Ice and Mango Sago Ice.
It’s fun. It’s pretty. It feels contemporary without losing sight of what these desserts are supposed to taste like.
More importantly, the sweetness is restrained enough that working your way through all six doesn’t feel like an assault by sugar.
The red beans, for example, are cooked until soft while still retaining their shape rather than surrendering into a pot of mush. Dried tangerine peel gives the soup a gentle citrus fragrance – distinct enough to notice, but never assertive.
Our group wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about cheese that evening, so the kitchen kindly replaced the Taro Purple Rice Cheese Bowl with Taro and Red Beans. Frankly, we were quite happy with the substitution. Soft, earthy taro and gently sweetened red beans make rather natural companions.
Our favourite, though, was the Osmanthus Jelly.
These arrive as glossy spheres about the size of large marbles, with tiny osmanthus flowers suspended inside. They are almost too pretty to eat. The floral fragrance is crisp and delicate, while the jelly has none of that excessively chewy, rubber-ball texture that too much gelatine can produce. One or two gentle bites and it almost melts away.
And perhaps that little osmanthus sphere sums up Bing Bing rather nicely.
Make it prettier. Make it fun. Give the younger generation a reason to be curious about it. But don’t forget what made the original good in the first place.
We’re deliberately not going to review every dessert on the platter or the menu. That’s rather the point of this Humble Mention. Go and discover them yourself.
For visitors to Johor Bahru, by all means have your seafood, Bak Kut Teh and latest Instagrammable café. Do leave a little room for something different. A bowl of red bean soup may not photograph quite as dramatically as a towering croissant.
But sometimes, the humble things deserve a little attention too.