Iced treats in Singapore: 23 of the best and worst flavours

Good quirky

BEST SURPRISE TREAT: Bungeoppang Fish Ice Cream ($1.80). This fish is a perfect wafer filled with clean, refreshing vanilla ice cream and a thin layer of red bean. Looks good in your hand, and tastes good too. Like the other Korean treats on this graph, we found it at our local Lotte Mart (67 Tanjong Pagar Road).

Magnolia Orange Sherbet ($2.80). Refreshing, softly textured and tasty, though when it melts the flavour can veer towards cough syrup.

Paddle Pop Hip Hop Jelly ($1.20). Iced jelly on a stick is almost a concept too far – but once you get used to the fact that your popsicle is squidgy-soft, this is pretty good. A minor revelation.

Solero ($1). A classic treat. Though the lime looks and tastes almost radioactive, it’s tangy and refreshingly good.

Paddle Pop ($0.60). This classic kiddies’ treat is a dizzying psychedelic colour but tastes like milky good fun – and what a bargain!

Cravio Heavenly Bites ($1.20). Not quite Heavenly, these are okay-ish bites with creamy ice cream and a banana-ish aftertaste.

Bad quirky

Papico Chocolate Ice Cream ($1.50). This comes in a clear plastic case that looks like Mr Hanky the Christmas Poo from South Park – and is near-impossible to open and eat. But once you break into it and the ice cream melts a bit, it’s like a chocolate milkshake with Milo, and a good one at that.

King’s Pulut Hitam Potong ($0.90). Coconut-y, a little chalky and with real black rice bits – but close to its Nonya dessert namesake and not that bad. Also cool to say: ‘Hey there, I’m just eating a Pulut Hitam Potong.’

Yum-Yum Durian Potong ($0.60). One durian-lover in our office liked this. The rest spat it into the bin, where it lay reeking for the whole afternoon. In its defence, it really does taste like durian.

King’s Red Bean Potong ($0.90). There’s so much red bean in this that it’s basically iced red bean on a stick. The Pulut Hitam version, though weirder, edges it.

Bad conventional

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Milo Ice Cream ($1.20). What can we say, Milo, other than, ‘oh dear’. You let yourself and your brand down with your dry, chalky texture, and you were beaten at your own game by a Korean chocolate ice cream (Papico, BAD-Quirky) that’s shaped like a poo.

Wall’s Topten ($1.20). Very nutty, this one tastes a bit like a peanut butter shake. Unfortunately, its brittle shell was by far the flimsiest of the lot.

Lime popsicle ($0.60). Like hawker-stall lime juice that’s been left in the sun for four days, frozen into a test tube, then un-frozen into your mouth. We wanted to like this, but alas, it just tastes bad.

Berrymix ($1.80). This Korean Magnum wannabe has a good firm nutty shell, but also and overly dry texture and a dearth of berries.

Cornetto Enigma ($3.40). With French and German text on the wrapping, this also has an unnecessarily tall topping, with sugar crystals, flavourless raspberry and bland, airy ice cream. Stick to regular, un-enigmatic Cornettos.

Fruttare Lychee ($1). It tastes like lychee for sure, and is gooey and moderately refreshing like the fruit – but it goes wrong with a funny aftertaste.

Good conventional

Ben and Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake ($5.20). Good biscuit-y part in the ice cream, but let down by a chemical sweetness to the strawberry flavour (and ours had no spoon under the lid).

Häagen-Dazs Chocolate Fondant ($5.90). A real disappointment, this one – with a texture somewhere between ice cream and mousse, it’s dry and unspectacular.

Magnum Double Caramel ($3.90). No false advertising here – this is bursting with thick caramel. Good, but we were almost nauseous with all the sugary richness.

Wall’s Fruti ($1.20). No frills, no fuss – just a solid, refreshing orange popsicle that hits all the right notes.

Melona Strawberry ($1.60). Strong strawberry in this no-nonsense milky stick that’s a bit like those classic Milka bars.