Kele Pineapple Tarts - 26X Smith St

Visited the shop at Smith Street as a friend needed to get this award winning pineapple tarts as CNY gift. A cosy shop with excellent service and good crew. We got the open faced tart as well as the golf ball ones. They are packed in a very nice opaque cylindrical tin, appropriately coloured in a nice shade of gold and perfect as gifts. BUT once u open it up, its kinda disastrous. The open faced ones had their jam smeared on the sides of the tin and the golf ball ones had bits of the pastry dropped off and smeared onto the sides of the tin. Very likely happened in the course of transportation BUT not very good for the recipient of the gift. Seriously, at such pricing, more effort should have been given to packing these rather pricey pieces of tarts so that they are in a perfect state when the recipient opens up the tin. TBH I find nil wow factor in both the pastry and the jam filling for both types of tarts. But if I am forced to judge, I would prefer the golf ball ones. Perhaps I have different expectations as I am peranakan and I have helped out with the old bibiks in my household for a long time when they were making homemade pineapple tarts with traditional shortcrust pastry and homemade spicy pineapple jam. But even so, the pastry is not buttery at all and only the golf ball ones had a bit of crispiness. The open faced ones have moist pastry devoid of butter taste. The pineapple jam has not much of a texture and confirm no trace of any herbs like cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg at all. Thankfully, it is not overly sweetened. Overall, its rather disappointing and in my personal opinion, not value for $$ at all and unless they make improvement to the packing and storage of the tarts in the tin, not a presentable gift to a valued recipient.

the tarts are good, the only bad thing they had is the container. So flimsy, cannot close tightly, and isnt air tight. After opening the container, for few days, couple of ants managed to crawl inside. terrible. for years they still using the same kind of container. nobody bother to tell them whats wrong...sight..

Good indulgence, it doesn’t stick to your palate. Bad thing is the container is not air tight.

Got the golden cheese pineapple balls, golden pineapple balls and macadamia nut cookies. The pastry and pineapple is nicely balanced, pastry just melts in the mouth. The experience thus far is more than what I have expected. Getting more soon!

Shop did not allow tasting. Bought 1 open tart for $31++. Too Pricey for a mediocre tasting pineapple tart. But must say they did put in effort on their packaging.

Small shop with all the varieties of Kele Pineapple tarts. I prefer their tarts that are spheres filled with pineapple. I tried the Jade tarts, which looked a bit special with a nice green colored cake with a golden baked crust on the top. The pandan flavor adds a nice coconut flavor to the pineapple filling. I was excited to get the Jade canister, but I took the time to query the staff, and all of them preferred the Original to the Jade. I paused, thought it over, couldn't decide, and picked up one each. The original were also nice, but I am partial to Taiwan pineapple tarts in the original flavor, but definitely recommend the Jade.