Mr Bean SingaFour Eggwich & Pancake Review: It’s Really The Taste of Singapore

By
Victor Fong
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I‘m pretty sure you’ve been following us and know about the SingaFour flavours from Mr Bean…

But if you don’t, now you know. That’s 4 different flavours inspired by Singapore hawker classics:

  • Pandan Cheesecake Pancake @ $2.40
  • Gula Melaka Sago Pancake @ $2.40
  • Butter Chicken Eggwich @ $3.60
  • Chilli Crab Eggwich @ $3.60

And as a promo, 2 Eggwich goes for $5.40, and buying any SingaFour eggwich would allow you to enjoy $0.50 off your drink.

So we got all of them:

Wew, 4 reviews in one.

The question is, will these flavours make me feel like National Day is coming? Are these really the 星洲四宝 (Star Region Four Treasures. Singapore was known as Star Region.) as Mr Bean claims they are?

Disclaimer: I didn’t know exactly what flavours are there until after I ate them. Not like this affects the review anyway.

Pandan Cheesecake

I’m a “start with the worst first and end with the best” kind of guy, so I started with Pandan, not knowing that this would later be my favourite of the four.

The greens of the Pandan turned me off a little since it looked kind of artificial. Upon tasting, it then became clear to me that this is a cream cheese filling.

It is sweet, creamy, slightly sour and thick, and worked well with the soya pancake for a delicious snack.

Of course, checking this later reveals this to be Pandan Cheesecake.

But as a Pandan Cheesecake, the Pandan flavour isn’t pronounced, and Mr Bean missed an opportunity here to have a soya pandan pancake. Think like our Pandan Chiffon cakes.

Filling: pancake ratio is also rather poor, as I have to ration the filling for equal distribution.

But all in all, it doesn’t taste bad.

Rating for Pandan Cheesecake – 3/5.

Gula Melaka Sago

When I bit into this I was really confused, since I thought this was a normal Gula Melaka Pancake… Until I bit into it and checked the receipt. Gula Melaka Sago with Pancake??

Not that the Gula Melaka isn’t good.

It had the strong notes of caramel and was sweet enough to feel like I’m eating a nice comforting fluffy pancake topped with maple syrup, but Singapore version.

The solid shreds of coconut added an interesting crunchy texture, reminding me that all in the world is good.

And then there’s the sago.

Goddammit, this is Boba horror stories continued isn’t it.

The original Sago Gula Melaka works as a dessert because sago is rather plain, but has an interesting texture.

Adding Gula Melaka and coconut cream sweetens the sago for a sweet, chewy dessert. Adding sago to pancakes doesn’t make sense because they share the same properties.

Look, George agrees.

As with the Pandan, this suffers from a disproportionate filling: pancake ratio.

Rating for Gula Melaka Sago – 2/5

Butter Chicken Eggwich

Surprisingly, pretty decent. There are sufficient fillings for an adequate filling: pancake ratio, the butter chicken is spicy enough (in the sense of herbs and spices) with a rich creamy sauce.

All in all, nothing much to talk about, though I think most people will argue butter chicken tastes better with rice.

At S$3.60 a piece this is quite a hard buy.

Rating for Butter Chicken Eggwich – 2.5/5

Chili Crab

I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t look good. Not knowing that the insides would be crab sticks, I thought chilli crab held the most promise.

The sauce is decent, though isn’t silky and lacks a briny, salty flavour that chilli crab sauce has. It is rather mild in comparison.

I can’t say I’m a fan of crab sticks, and they definitely taste nothing like crabs. But eh, this isn’t a S$20 pancake, but a S$3.60 one.

Does a S$3.60 sandwich deserve more? Even if it doesn’t use real crab meat, I think it deserves something a little more.

In the end, it feels like an insincere tribute to chilli crab and if any foreigners queue up because “Oh chilli crab I saw it on YouTube!”, I’ll be very afraid of the perceptions they get from eating this.

Rating for Chili Crab Eggwich – 2/5

The biggest point for why the score is low is basically the price: quality ratio.

That said, if these manage to sell like hot pancakes then perhaps it is an indication to hawkers that consumers are willing to pay more for good hawker food, and perhaps it is time we value our hawker food more.

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Victor Fong
Email: [email protected]