I scream, you scream, it seems we all scream for gelato these days. The Italian dessert has found a home on our shores with several gelaterias having set up shop here. With around a third of the fat of ice cream, there was no need to ration ourselves as we hit the streets to bring you our assessment of our city’s gelato. Bellissimo!

Gelatissimo

#01-01 Shaw House, 350 Orchard Rd., 6736-1618.
$4.20 for one flavor, $5.60 for two, $6.90 for three, $16.80 for 0.5L, $24.90 for 1L.

Flavors: 32 flavors. Bestsellers include mango, classic chocolate, forest berries and Veronese chocolate. Check out the new green apple and rum ’n’ raisin.

Taste: All recipes originate from the headquarters in Sydney, and gelato “kits” are assembled fresh daily. No cream is used in any flavor. The passionfruit and lychee are refreshing with bits of fruit, and the chocolate is quite creamy without being too heavy.

Seating: There are four tables, but being right in front of Shaw House, it can get quite crowded.

Overall: This outlet is halal and in a good location for a post-movie treat. The gelato is quite tasty and flavors are plentiful, but it’s a little on the expensive side.

Ricciotti

#B1-49/50 Riverwalk, 20 Upper Circular Rd., 6533-9060.
$3 per scoop, $10 for 0.5L, $15 for 0.75L, $25 for 1.25L.

Flavors:16 flavors plus two newbies every month—look out for extra virgin olive oil (you read that correctly) and tarragon for May. Signature must-tries include chocolate chip cream, vanilla, and gianduja chocolate.

Taste: Executive Pastry Chef Stefano Deiuri makes the gelato fresh every day for Ricciotti as well as for sister restaurants Garibaldi and Menotti. Each gelato has an individual recipe rather than the same base.

Seating: The café seats 35 with alfresco seating facing the Singapore River.

Overall: With new flavors inspired by fine Italian dining and never skimping on ingredients, Ricciotti is one of the better places to go for authentic Italian gelato.

Frutta La Viva

34 Wattan Rise, 6463-8986.
$2.90 for regular size, $3.90 for large, $9 for small takeaway box, $17.20 for large box.

Flavors: 16-20 flavors at any given time. Signature flavors include mango, strawberry and hazelnut.

Taste: With recipes for about 45 flavors, these are rotated often. It’s made fresh daily and no cream is used. The watermelon and banana flavors taste natural and light, and the strawberry is just tart enough with bits of fruit.

Seating: There is indoor seating for about 15 people.

Overall: Go for the fruit flavors—light and refreshing, they really hit the spot on a hot day.

Fresco

#B1-31 Century Square, 2 Tampines Central 5, 6789-2321.
$3 for small size, $4 for medium, $5 for large, $10 for small takeaway box, $18 for large box.

Flavors: 16 flavors, with different flavors rotating every week. Bestsellers include forest berries and caramel chocolate fudge. Also locally inspired flavors like dragonfruit, honey chrysanthemum and black sesame.

Taste: Owner Lisa Lim takes traditional Italian recipes and gives them a little tweak. Her rum ’n’ raisin really knocks you back, and the dragonfruit is light and refreshing. Flavors are strong and distinct in the tiramisu and Donatella rock—inspired by the Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Waffle cones and bowls are also homemade.

Seating: There is no seating available.

Overall: Health-conscious customers will be pleased to know this gelato is made with low-fat milk and less sugar. Students can look out for discounts on Tuesdays.

Venezia Gelato

Guthrie House, 1 Fifth Ave., 6468-3656.
$2.80 for one flavor, $3.90 for two flavors, $4.90 for three flavors, $8 for 500ml, $11.80 for 750ml, $14.50 for 1L, $21.50 for 1.5L.

Flavors: Each outlet has between 20-22 flavors at any time but Asian flavors such as young coconut, durian and black sesame sit alongside more European flavors such as yogurt.

Taste: Gelato here is made fresh daily using traditional recipes and high quality ingredients. To suit local palates, the flavors are less sweet than a standard ice cream, the texture smooth and the flavors subtle rather than overpowering.

Seating: Because Venezia Gelato is also a cafeteria, there’s plenty of seating available.

Overall: This institution has been around for over six years and has spawned nine outlets. Get there early as most of the gelato is sold out by the end of the day.

Estivo Gelateria

26 Greenwood Ave., 6469-6763.
$3.20 for small size, $4.30 for large, $11 for 650ml.

Flavors: 19 flavors at any given time. Bestsellers include dark chocolate and mango. Coffee, mint chocolate chip and hazelnut are also very popular.

Taste: Using only fresh milk and a little cream in the recipes, the gelato is quite creamy without being too heavy. The fruit flavors are a little uneven, as some use fresh fruit and juice while others use candied and pureed fruit.

Seating: Can seat 24 comfortably and there is also an outdoor seating area for 12-14 people.

Overall: A good place to sit and relax if you’re in the neighborhood, especially if you’re hankering for harder-to-find flavors like butterscotch, Horlicks, kiwi and grapefruit.

Bravissimo

#B1-K5 The Paragon, 290 Orchard Rd., 6747-9200.
$3.20 for one flavor, $4.30 for two flavors, $5.40 for three flavors, $9.40 for 650ml, $17.60 for 1.3L.

Flavors: From over 30 flavors, 28 are available at any given time. There are plenty of Italian favorites like tiramisu, caramel, pistachio and hazelnut. There are also three sugar-free flavors for diabetics.

Taste: Using less sugar than the traditional Italian recipes, the flavors of the gelato are nevertheless very fullsome and authentic. Only fresh fruit is used for the fruit flavors, so some are seasonal such as strawberry, durian and raspberry.

Seating: All five outlets are takeaway counters only. Seating is in the pipeline.

Overall: With outlets in convenient town locations, this is a good place to go for a yummy treat in between all the shopping.

Miss Singapore Universe 2003 Bernice Wong has a passion for style, fashion and looking good, so much so that she recently launched Bernice Wong Beauty International, a grooming course for beauty queen wannabes as well as girls (and guys!) seeking to up their image.

What made you decide to compete in Miss Singapore Universe 2003?
I was looking for a change at that point in my life. I saw the ad on TV and said “Why not?” I believed in myself, thought I had a good chance to do well, but mostly it was just for the fun of it.

Did you take a grooming course or work with anyone on your image before the competition?
I had modeled on and off since I was 16 or 17, which gave me some experience working on stage and catwalking. I could be in front of the judges and not get nervous.

Why teach a grooming course?
I wanted to harness my pageant and modeling skills, make use of my experience in local and international competitions and raise the standard of girls taking part in pageants here. I want to give Singapore an edge. And I just have a passion for what I do, so having my hobby as a job is great.

What do you say to those who are too intimidated to take instruction on grooming/beauty/image from a former beauty queen?
I think that’s one thing that might be going against me. I’m keeping the classes small—a maximum of eight per class—so that they’re intimate. I want to bring myself down and get to know people, and I want them to see me as a person. The title is there, but it’s not everything.

Isn’t what’s on the inside more important than how one looks?
Of course, I think it’s psychological—if you feel good inside, that feeling will radiate outwards. You need to work on both. You have to fuse the inside and the outside.

What is one beauty product you can’t live without?
Mascara. It’s all in the eyes, baby! But I’m such a makeup junkie that telling me I can have only one item is like telling me to go out in just my shoes.

As a former beauty queen, are you expected to always look good?
Yeah, I think so. You’ve got a certain image to upkeep, especially after winning the title. And running the course, you’re sort of a product, and you have to sell yourself.

Do you have ugly days, when everything just works against you? What’s your solution for them?
Of course! Everyone has them. Especially after a late night clubbing or whatever, a pair of shades and a hat always work. Have a nice shower in the morning … and I guess keeping to yourself!

What are some tips on looking good everyone can use, regardless of how big his/her pageant dreams are?
Learn to play up your assets and hide your flaws. And a nice funky pair of shades can bring out your style and character.

Great food—preparing it and eating it—is Bourdain’s passion, and he has put that passion to good use in several of his projects. He has bowled over readers with his unapologetic, sharply funny memoir, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, about his experiences in the restaurant business. Now he is helming the new Discovery Travel & Living television series Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, which chronicles his travels and food finds as he explores the cultures of such far-flung places as Iceland, Vietnam and Uzbekistan.

What is your favorite meal?
Roasted bone marrow with sea salt and toasted baguette at St. John restaurant in London. Or maybe a bowl of pho—or a single piece of very high quality o-toro tuna.

Is there anything that you’ve refused to try?
I won’t eat live monkey brain. I’m happy I haven’t been offered dog or cat. And I will NOT eat a rat.

What do you do to relax?
I try and spend a month a year on an island in the Caribbean. Writing, drinking beer, laying on the beach, reading and basically avoiding shoes.

What is the most exotic thing you’ve eaten?
Traveling as much as I do, the word “exotic” doesn’t hold much meaning anymore. What’s exotic to someone from Texas is everyday fare to a Thai. And I’m sure there are plenty of people in this world who would be dazzled—or horrified—by a Big Mac. That said, the strangest—or weirdest—thing lately has been raw seal brain.

What food/meal could you eat every day for the rest of your life?
I could eat good quality sushi every day for the rest of my life—if accompanied by beer or sake.

What is your favorite ingredient?
Butter, or maybe sea salt.

What made you decide to try your hand at writing?
I write because I can. I kind of fell into it after writing a short magazine piece which got a lot of attention. It’s turned out to be a nice living.

What is more difficult—working in a Manhattan restaurant, or writing?
Writing is easy. Cooking in a restaurant is hard, exhausting, physical work that uses up every part of you. No contest.

Who are your favorite authors?
Graham Green, Hunter S. Thompson, Nabokov, Orwell, George V Higgins, Joan Didion, Patricia Highsmith, Nick Tosches, Don De Lillo.

In all your travels, what was your favorite destination? Why?
Vietnam. Don’t know why. Because it’s beautiful, because it smells good. Because the food is great, the people—particularly the cooks—proud, the beaches terrific. Because of all the history between my country and Vietnam—the films and books I’ve read about it. Because I have great friends there. How can you describe why you fell in love? And I love Peru and Brazil. Great food, beautiful countries, and gorgeous women.

What is one place you are dying to visit?
Madagascar.

What are some things you’ve learned about yourself on your travels?
I’ll paraphrase my pal AA Gill: “The more I travel, the older I get, the less I know.”

What are some things you’ve learned about cooking/chefs/food on your travels?
That we’re all the same, and that in the heart of every great cook—from ANY country—lives a Chinese cook.

Is there something you look out for at every destination?
The best local “dive” bar in town—where cooks, restaurant employees, journalists, gangsters and rock and rollers are likely to behave badly.

If you weren’t a chef (or a writer), what would you want to be?
The bass player for James Brown.

What made you decide you wanted to frame memories for a living?
I thought it would be a retirement job, but it turns out that I’m busier now than at my previous jobs. I feel good because I have customers who will have keepsakes of objects that would otherwise be put into drawers.

How long does it usually take to finish a project?
We’re constantly busy, but a project will take at least 2-3 weeks to complete. My problem is that I don’t know how to say no to people coming in at the last minute.

How did you come up with the idea of framing 3D objects?
I noticed that 3D framing was not very accessible. It was mostly at places like Planet Hollywood—regular people couldn’t just go out to the neighborhood framer to get their 3D objects framed.

Why would you bother to frame a 3D object when you can just display it on a shelf?
There are many things you can’t put on a shelf, sometimes for security reasons, or because you don’t want things getting dusty. Some things, like old badges, you want on aesthetic display while being able to preserve them.

What kinds of 3D objects frame the best?
Anything. Someone once said of me: “She can make road kill look good.” I definitely take that as a compliment, because I believe anything can look good with the proper presentation.

What are some of the weirdest things you’ve had to frame?
Once I had a mother who had collected all her son’s memorabilia—I was so impressed with her collection. It included all the son’s milk teeth, which I incorporated in the frame, and the mother presented it to her son for his 21st birthday. Another time we got a pair of men’s underwear.

Do you ever get nervous handling other people’s memories or delicate items?
No, not really. Once we got an innocent looking lighter, and it turned out to be a $20,000 auction item belonging to JFK.

Can you frame heavy items like vases or sculptures?
Yes. However heavy it is, we have a way to make it work.

What about flowers or wedding bouquets?
We’ve done a lot of dried flowers, but we normally don’t encourage customers to frame flowers. From a Chinese point of view, decaying flowers bring bad qi.

Have you ever had to refuse to frame something?
In terms of ideas, I try to be respectful. I’m not the stubborn, arty farty type, but sometimes I have refused if something is totally unacceptable to me in terms of colors and arrangement, especially if my reputation is at stake. Most customers will take my suggestions or understand my thinking. So far there has been only one customer who wouldn’t budge, so I let him go.