With Weddings Cancelled Due To Covid-19, Wedding Planners Sell Cinnamon Rolls

While many in her business have had to grapple with refunds and delays, Anna, 50, says she’s been extremely lucky. “When Covid-19 hit, we gave our clients two options: wait till next year to fulfil their weddings, or they can cancel and we will refund them for anything they might have paid for in terms of wedding design. For wedding planning, if we’d already done any work, then we would have to deduct a little from their deposit. But not one of our clients has cancelled or asked for a refund,” she adds.

But in order to stay in biz, Anna and her employees Keith Bansh (pictured, left), 28, and Cherly Kong, 22, put their heads together and came up with Ground Kopi, an online store selling freshly ground coffee sourced from a local producer in her neighbourhood. “I love local coffee, but you can’t always buy it freshly ground, so this business was really a way to find a solution to a personal problem. Also, it was a quick business to set up so that we could start making money.”

That done, Anna (pictured, right), 50, turned her attention to other opportunities, mainly in F&B since she loves baking and had experience working in the industry more than 20 years ago when she was one of the pioneer cooks of the popular (but now defunct) NYDC. She later went on to work in sales and marketing for a catering company.

“I was curious about how many [failing] cafes needed to be taken over during this period, so I Googled and found the café we are in now. It’s a great size for us, only about 300 square feet, so it's small enough to sustain,” she explains. The 12-seater (six with safe distancing) is housed in Harbour Ville Hotel.

What about Spellbound Wedding’s office on Syed Alwi Road? “Now it’s a storage space for all our food packaging. [Government mandates dictate] that only the owners of our type of business can go back to the office, so we can’t use the space for anything else.”

Because there are numerous cafes around the Hamilton Road area, Anna and her team knew they had to offer something unique to stand out. "There many gyms around here but we noticed that there isn’t a café that caters to those who want to eat healthily. Both Keith and I are avid gym-goers, so we thought about serving smoothies and healthy eats because those are things that we would like for ourselves.”

And thus Lean Bar was born. Why Lean? “Because you don’t have to be skinny to be healthy,” chirps Anna. “And ‘bar’ because we focus on smoothies, shakes, and vegan and gluten-free food.”

Among their healthy offerings are a chicken breast smoothie and a cricket smoothie which we were almost too scared to try. There are also soup meals, wraps and protein ice creams for those watching their carb count.

“I love to bake and I happened to make cinnamon rolls at the café one day. Our door is usually open so people walking by smelled them and asked if they could buy them. So we thought ‘why not?’”, says Anna. And a new business, Marvellous Rolls, was born. Turns out the cinnamon rolls are a hit and lots of people have been buying them as gifts.

“The wedding and food business is very similar,” she enthuses. “It’s about making people happy and we love it. Especially with Marvellous Rolls, we pack them in a nice box and write notes for the giftees. It makes everyone happy.”

While the world waits till we can gather to celebrate life’s important occasions in larger groups, Anna and her team will continue running her various F&B endeavours. Already, the business has grown beyond the capabilities of the trio and she is on the search for staff. “It’s only been one and a half months since we started Lean Bar and we already have regulars who come in for lunch or a break,” she says. “Maybe next time, we can franchise Marvellous Rolls so that they can be in food courts and malls where we can reach more people.”

This trio of gluten-free burgers comprise a roasted capsicum burger, a roasted vegetarian duck with mango burger, and a vegetarian chicken one. Not that you’d know the meats are plant-based if you weren’t told. Our favourite of the three is the vegetarian chicken one which tastes a lot like real chicken smothered in mayo. It gets a nice crunch and sweetness from ribbons of raw carrot. Similarly, the vegetarian smoked duck is more tender than real duck and has a nice smoky depth, which is contrasted by the sweet, juicy slices of fresh mango. The roasted capsicum version is tasty, sweet and succulent too. The only thing that lets these burgers down is their buns which are dense and beany, quite unlike the fluffy, marshmallow-y keto options available in the market.

We were pretty freaked out by the idea of chicken in our drink. But we tried it for the sake of this article. Essentially, a piece of cooked chicken breast is blitzed along with blueberries, strawberries, yoghurt, bananas, cinnamon and nut milk to a smooth drink. Happily, you don’t taste the chicken at all — which is one reason why we always choose dark meat over breast meat when eating our chicken, but we digress. It really tastes like a regular fruit smoothie with a hint of cinnamon. “Keith is really into gym-ming,” explains Anna when we ask why, of all things, they would put chicken breast in a drink. “When he was bulking up, his trainer told him to eat unadulterated chicken breast, which can be really tough. So we thought it would be good to put chicken breast into a smoothie. We tested it and it was great because you really don’t taste it.”

And just when you thought chicken breast in a drink was mind-bending, this one comes with crickets, which are reared in Malaysia, dried and pulverised into a fine powder (not by Anna and her team, if you were wondering. They buy the powdered product). Along with the insects go cauliflower, zucchini, chia seeds, flaxseed meal, dates, bananas, coconut nectar, nut milk and Fat Bombs made of ingredients like butter, cream cheese, cocoa powder, peanut butter and coconut oil. Like chicken breast, crickets are an excellent source of protein, says Anna. And like its chicken breast brethren, this cricket smoothie is lightly sweet, toasty and chocolatey, with an end-note of, well, crickets. Think the bitter-licorice flavour of your grandmother’s favourite traditional Chinese medicinal brew. Yup, a whisper of that.

What gives this smoothie its cosmic hue is blue spirulina powder, known for its strengthening and detoxifying properties. Also in this drink are blueberries, chia seeds, flax seed meal, cauliflower and zucchini. Essentially, it tastes like bananas and blueberries. Pleasant and satisfying.

Anna has been working on this recipe since she began baking almost 20 years ago. These buns are milky, with a tight crumb and not as tall and puffy as most American-style cinnamon buns. Before she bakes them, Anna pours cream over the dough “so that they become extra gooey”. They are certainly rich, a little dense and with plenty of cinnamon that gives them a lovely, rich fragrance. No wonder people stopped to ask if they were for sale. The rolls here are only available via takeaway and delivery and must be ordered at least two days in advance.

Using the same dough as the cinnamon rolls, these savoury versions are swirled with bacon and a mix of edam, maasdam, gouda, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses. They are unapologetically rich and rather oily since the cheeses and bacon render fat as they bake. Add to that the cream that goes over the dough before baking and you get pretty heavy, hearty buns.

Because they don’t contain eggs, milk or butter, the vegan rolls are flatter than the regular non-vegan rolls and look like delicate Danish pastries. The denser dough has an oilier mouthfeel since Anna uses Nuttilex (a plant-based butter alternative) and is redolent of rum-soaked raisins, nut milk and coconut milk. A satisfying enough alternative for vegans. If you figure you’re already on a cheat day and want frosting over your cinnamon buns, there are several cream cheese frostings coloured with natural superfoods such as acai, maca, turmeric, or in this case, beetroot for an additional dollar each.

The shakes here are the winners. Even if you’re not into chicken breast or crickets, there are plenty of other refreshing options like chilli beetroot and acai berry. The prices are pretty friendly too. More than anything, we’re impressed that these folks turned their obstacles into opportunities and built a thriving business within a few short months. FYI: all the cinnamon rolls are only available via takeaway and delivery. Order at least two days in advance.

Lean Bar is at 40 Hamilton Rd, Ground Floor. S209210. Tel: 9658-0816/9182-2811. Open daily except Wed. 11am-7pm. Last orders at 6pm. Island-wide delivery available. https://www.lean.com.sg/​​​​​​​

Photos: Kelvin Chia