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Darcis has opened at Marina Bay Sands for more than a year where it is is better known for their macarons. Not being fans of macarons, this probably failed to entice us to make a trip over to MBS to try out the confections offered by Darcis. Until recently, we decided to try out the store for its hand made gourmet chocolates – our first box of 9 pralines and 2 truffles.

There were only 2 alcoholic flavoured chocolates available at Darcis - Bailey’s Praline and Truffle Champagne. Sadly, both chocolates were lacking in alcoholic taste and aroma. The Bailey’s was a hard shell praline which contained a soft consistent caramel cream, which was not overly sweet. However, the distinctive caramel flavour, seemed to overshadow the alcoholic vapours, resulting in no detectable hints of whisky. The Truffle Champagne was an equal disappointment with champagne solely lacking. In fact, we could not appreciate the truffles in general. Besides the Truffle Champagne, we had the Truffle Chocolat. Both did not have the typical smooth, sticky and dense chocolate truffle texture and flavour but one akin to whipped cream. As such the truffles were very light and airy. The Pistacia did not meet the mark either. The fillings were mostly made up of chopped pistachio packed and held densely together by sticky transparent gum, reminding us of the Turkish pistachio snack. It was not satisfying as a chocolate confection.

The Diamant would be ideal for those with an extremely sweet tooth. Once the outer diamond like shell was broken, the soft creamy caramel oozed out to fill the mouth cavity. The Tourelle is a white chocolate praline with almond truffle. The crispy rice bits within the almond truffle added much texture to the chocolate. Our favourites were the pralines with the almond paste centre, namely the Darcis Noir, Dacis Lait, Valencia. These three almond paste pralines were testimonial of the quality Belgian chocolates that Darcis is capable of offering.

Not all the chocolates which we intended to try were available at the point of visit. We were however not pleased with the service staff at Darcis who did not seem to know what chocolates were available and gave us different chocolates from what we requested for. We felt cheated as we realized only much later during consumption that the chocolate flavours did not turn out to be those which we wanted.

The pot of French Kiss tea (~$9) was really fragrant and I might go back to get a can of tea leaves.

My friend and I ordered this ice cream dessert (~$9) which was hazelnut ice cream + vanilla ice cream + caramel sauce + crispy hazelnut bits + some chocolate garnish. It looked impressive, but tasted horrid because the nuts weren't fresh. I hate the mildly rancid flavour of nuts that have been lying around for too long. Vanilla and hazelnut ice cream were okaaay but the nuts ruined it. Sigh. At least the decor was pretty.

Service was ok. The waitress was fairly attentive but her colleague was too preoccupied with his iPhone when I was trying to get him to settle the bill.

I decided to check out Jean-Philippe Darcis, a dessert place and part of the many brand names that Marina Bay Sands is bringing in. A bourgeois early nineteenth century setting, it is tailored for the "tai tai" looking for some afternoon tea.

Unfortunately, the desserts failed to impress. I tried the chocolate cup cake which was really rich but the sour finish from the cream did not quite gel.

I also tried the coffee macaroons, which I found to be too sweet.

The one thing that I did like was the hot chocolate ($7.95). The small glass of drink was not heavy and well balanced with the chocolately thickness and sweetness.