Pandan cone ($1 each)!
Thursday McDonald's pandan cone $1 each — twin pickup before the promo ended. Last call on the local pandan soft-serve.
Thursday McDonald’s stop with BB — pandan cones at $1 each (we picked up two). The last call on the limited-edition pandan soft-serve before the promo ended.
We ordered:
- Pandan cone — $1 each (two cones)
Total: $2 for both cones.
The McDonald’s $1 cone has been on the menu since I can remember. Standard flavour is vanilla; rotating limited-edition flavours come and go — strawberry, chocolate, peach, and the current pandan version.
By the end of January, the pandan promo had been running for about a month and was about to disappear from the menu. The twin pickup on the last few days of the promo is the standard approach for the limited-edition McDonald’s drops — get a couple of cones before they’re gone, eat one immediately and save one for the next-day craving.
The pandan flavour leans the Singapore-local nostalgia direction. Pandan (screw-pine leaf) is the iconic Southeast Asian aromatic, used in kueh, chiffon cake, kaya jam, and now soft-serve. The flavour profile is the subtle floral-grassy-vanilla note that’s distinctly local — different from the obvious pandan-flavoured Chinese desserts that lean sweet, the McDonald’s version is more restrained with the proper aroma.
The colour is the giveaway. Pale green-tinted soft-serve from the pandan flavour, with the standard McDonald’s machine swirl pattern piled high in the waffle cone. The cone is the standard sweet wafer.
Two cones means twice the eating speed required. Both started melting immediately in Singapore weather, so we worked through them quickly during the walk back home.
At $1 each this is the cheapest possible dessert in Singapore that’s still recognisable as proper soft-serve. The McDonald’s pricing on the cone has stayed at $1 for years despite inflation creeping into everything else.
Limited-edition flavour drops are part of the McDonald’s marketing rotation. Pandan is one of the few local-flavour drops that captures Singapore-specific identity. Other regional drops (Thailand’s mango, Malaysia’s chendol, Philippines’ ube) similarly play to local nostalgia.
We probably won’t see the pandan cone come back for a while. Limited-edition flavours go away for at least a year before they get rotated back to the promo cycle.
Overall: 4.4 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Final pandan cone pickup — would chase the next promo cycle.
