The demand for cheese tarts is well and truly over — Japanese import Bake Cheese Tart has quietly left the Singapore market after a brief, but memorable, three-year stint which spawned insane three-hour queues at its Ion Orchard store.

But its parent company, Bake Inc, has something new to offer Singaporeans: its popular Tokyo brand Croquant Chou Zakuzaku, which is known for its craggy eclair-like choux pastries piped with custard cream or Hokkaido milk soft serve. Unlike fellow Japanese patisserie Beard Papa’s plump, airy cream puffs, Zakuzaku (the Japanese slang word for ‘crispy’) specialises in croquant puffs, which sport a distinctive, brittle-like textured crust made with coarsely-chopped almonds and caramelised sugar.

Zakuzaku’s new Ion Orchard takeaway kiosk, which opened last weekend on November 30, takes over Bake Cheese Tart’s space that’s located right opposite Monga fried chicken’s new outlet. The cheese tart brand’s cheery yellow decor has been replaced with a cool blue theme, with wall panels that resemble icy shards (“To give the impression of crispiness,” Zakuzaku’s PR rep tells us). You can also catch a glimpse of staff loading the industrial oven with trays of skinny choux puffs. A batch of 98 puffs is baked every half an hour.

We have always seen long queues at Zakuzaku whenever we visit its Tokyo outlets, but it seems like Singaporeans prefer cheese tarts over choux puffs here. Shortly after lunchtime on a Monday afternoon, we observe a scrum of curious mall-goers at Ion Orchard scrambling to buy Zakuzaku’s cream puffs, though the crowd is nowhere near the meme-worthy lines that Bake Cheese Tart drew when it first opened in the same mall.

There are just four items on the menu here: the brand’s namesake Croquant Chou Zakuzaku ($2.80) piped with custard cream, a version stuffed with milky soft serve called the Hiyazaku ($3.80), and a limited-edition Christmas Jingle Berry Zakuzaku ($3.50). There’s also the Hokkaido milk Zakuzaku Soft Serve ($6) served your choice of a cone or cup.

A slim, flattish choux pastry stick loaded with housemade custard cream. We had also tried this at Zakuzaku’s pop-up stall at Takashimaya in October this year, and gave it another go at its permanent Ion Orchard shop. Despite it being Zakuzaku’s signature snack, the cream puff is actually not that memorable. Sure, its custard filling is decently smooth and its almond-studded shell passably crunchy, but it doesn’t offer us the same satisfaction we get from biting into a pillowy, creamy puff.

The soft serve-filled cousin of the Zakuzaku choux puff fares better. There’s a fun contrast between the warm, crispy shell and cold, milky ice cream. Get this if you can’t decide whether to go for ice cream or a choux puff, but gobble it up fast - the soft melts quickly and makes a sticky mess.

This limited-edition festive Christmas choux puff is available from now till December 29, and only 100 pieces are made daily. The shell is piped with fragrant strawberry-flavoured custard cream and decorated with drizzles of white chocolate and freeze-dried berry bits. Fun and yummy, though not exactly Christmassy.

The best thing about Croquant Chou Zakuzaku is ironically not its signature cream puffs, but the generous, gigantic dollop of Hokkaido milk soft serve ice cream. Get the wonderfully crispy waffle cone for this — it costs the same as the cup version but adds a shiok crunch to the super milky soft serve (which itself has a decadently silky, airy texture that’s almost like eating cold whipped cream). Just as good as its Tokyo counterpart.

Choux puffs don’t quite have the same mass appeal as baked cheese tarts, and while we don’t expect Zakuzaku’s choux sticks to reach a viral level of popularity, the brand does offer a very good milk soft serve that’s affordable and accessible in the heart of Orchard.

#B4-33 Ion Orchard, S238801. Tel: 6509-9233. Open daily 10am-10pm. www.facebook.com/zakuzaku.sg.

PHOTOS: MARK LEE