For the past three years, Marcella Tanuwijaya, the owner behind homegrown dessert shop Ollella, has been building her business from selling choux puffs, Indonesian-style kuehs and kueh lapis.

The combination of French and Indonesian sweets may seem random, but it’s actually based on the 33-year-old’s culinary expertise and that of her sister Olivia, 28, a trained pastry chef who studied at the French Pastry School in Chicago and interned at Pierre Hermé in Paris (Ollella is a portmanteau of the sisters’ names). Olivia makes the choux puffs, while Marcella, a proficient self-taught cook, handles the kueh component of their business using recipes from their Indonesian mother and grandmother.

The duo started Ollella in 2016 with a cosy cafe at Petain Road in Geylang, where they make their treats for online and dine-in orders. But their biz has since undergone some changes; Ollella grew so popular that the sisters opened a second takeaway outlet at Takashimaya (which offers both their ang moh bakes and kuehs), and collaborated with castella cake brand Ah Mah Homemade Cake to sell their kuehs at two more outlets at VivoCity and Tiong Bahru Plaza (the latter recently shuttered after its lease ended).

They also moved their operations from their Petain Road space to a bigger Peranakan shophouse unit at Race Course Road in Little India, where it was renamed Makan House by Ollella ’cos Marcella decided to start serving savoury Indonesian dishes that she had been making at home with her family’s recipes. “It’s like coming to Ollella’s kitchen here, where you can feel our essence, whereas our other shops are only for takeaways,” she says.

The cosy self-order cafe fits about 16 seats in its narrow space, and is more ideal for small groups. Compared to the sparse, Insta-worthy minimalist look that’s all the rage with cafes these days, Makan House’s vibe is decidedly more traditional (it’s surrounded by temples), as Marcella had kept the space’s original Peranakan details.

There are just two savoury mains, Lontong and Soto Ayam cooked by Marcella and her staff on the menu for now. “It’s what I can handle on my own currently. My sister got married and moved to Chicago, so she’s no longer involved [in Ollella]. But she’s still doing an online business there selling choux puffs,” Marcella (pictured) tells us. She adds that she had also stopped offering choux puffs at Ollella; instead, she’s now baking eclairs (pictured) with the help of her staff. “I got bored of making choux puffs after a while. Eclairs are similar to choux puffs, just a different shape,” she laughs.

Also on the menu: Marcella’s kuehs like the awesome Lemper Ayam (steamed pandan leaf-wrapped glutinous rice with shredded lemongrass chicken or spicy dried shrimp), Kueh Lopis (pandan juice-infused glutinous rice dreched with gula melaka syrup and coated with grated coconut) and steamed Yam Cake. These kuehs are also sold at Ollella’s Takashimaya outlet and regularly sell out fast.

Marcella has also modernised the traditional Chinese yam cake by adding salted egg yolk to it — the result is surprisingly yummy. But more on that later. 8days.sg drops by Makan House to try the nosh and tell you about it below.

This lontong, which Marcella makes with her mum’s recipe, is vegetarian-friendly. “My mum usually adds hae bee (dried shrimps), but there are a lot of temples [and vegetarian devotees] around my shop, so I made the lontong vegetarian. Even the serundeng (spicy grated coconut usually sautéed with a meat floss) I use is vegetarian,” she tells us.

Our bowl is loaded with a mildly spicy, soul-lifting vivid orange broth redolent of fragrant rempah spices and coconut milk, topped with optional (non-vegetarian) sambal belacan, slightly crunchy julienned green papaya and chayote (a type of squash). Cubes of firm ketupat, half a hardboiled egg and pillowy tau pok make up the rest of this delish dish that’s meatless, but still satisfying.

Soto Ayam (Indonesia’s version of chicken noodle soup) is popular in the country, with each province offering its own take on the dish. Marcella cooks a Javanese-style soto ayam Semarang (the capital city of Central Java), which features a rich, creamy stock boiled for three hours with chicken feet, chicken wings and spices like lemongrass, galangal and garlic. It comes with crunchy bean sprouts and a wedge of lime for you to squeeze over the noodle soup for an extra citrusy burst.

Like chicken noodle soup, this bowl is comfort food at its best; we eagerly slurp up the soupy tang hoon noodles, hoover up the pile of succulent shredded fried chicken and chomp down on the firm, fresh tomatoes and hard boiled egg. If you’re under the weather, this soto ayam will revive you.

We also try a Chicken Curry ($7) with a whole chicken thigh, eggplant, okra and potatoes. Compared to the lontong and soto ayam, the overly spiced curry doesn’t pique our palate. Marcella has since taken it off the menu as she explains she “wants to work on the recipe more”.

Salted egg yolk and steamed yam cake sounds like an odd combination (why mess with a good thing?). We’re averse to the salted egg yolk craze, but somehow… this works. Marcella’s decadent, firm yam kueh is crammed with soft yam chunks, crunchy preserved radish, mushrooms, dried shrimps, fried shallots and garlic. You can order it plain ($2 a piece), or get a new salted egg yolk version which is topped with crusty, crumbly salted yolk. The yolk adds umami flavour to the already yummy yam cake, which makes it better than the non-salted egg version. Wolf down your piece with the excellent house-made sambal chilli.

Also new to the kueh menu is this glutinous rice dessert coated with grated coconut and drizzled with gula melaka syrup to serve. It’s usually one of our favourite kuehs, but we find this one a tad too chewy for our liking. The caramelly gula melaka syrup is fab, though (making a good syrup is harder than it looks). And good news: you can get it with coffee here.

Forget about brown sugar pearl milk for a moment; order this robust cup of gula melaka-spiked kopi with Meiji full cream milk which is not on the menu. “You can only order this if you know about this,” shares Marcella laughingly.

We could taste the earthy palm sugar in our cuppa, which is brewed in-house in an espresso maker with coffee beans roasted by local cafe Brawn & Brains. But it’s also sweeter than your average cup of coffee, so folks who love guzzling on brown sugar bubble tea will like this better.

Other than the usual flavours like strawberry, hazelnut and chocolate, Marcella also offers a mod Ondeh Ondeh eclair with a gula melaka-infused cream filling and a smattering of grated coconut held together with pandan cream. The buttery eclair shell and its melange of toppings and filling is tasty enough, but we prefer munching on the traditional glutinous rice balls that burst with gula melaka syrup in our mouth. You can also get this at Ollella’s Takashimaya kiosk.