Pusheen x Kumoya Pop-up Café: Venture into Pusheen Paradise
Nestled along Jalan Klapa, this Pusheen paradise is splashed with pastel and cut-outs of the adorable tabby cat and accompanying decorations, exclusively designed by Claire Belton, the creator of the squishable cat, herself.
You won’t need much purr-suasion to enter the café with its warm and welcoming light, shelves of merchandise and opening to interact with the Pusheen plushies placed as centrepieces on the café’s tables.Mew-ls at Pusheen x Kumoya
In bringing Pusheen to life, Kumoya partnered with Shirley Wong also known as @LittleMissBento to create a Pusheen-inspired menu exclusively for the pop-up café.“Cafés are no longer just about the food,” smiled Joseph Koh, owner of Kumoya. “It’s about presentation and brand experience.”
As one would expect, the menu sees Pusheen incorporated into every dish. However, while they are definitely Instaworthy, do they taste as good as they look?
For starters, we tried the adorable Pusheen Purrfect Special Green Tea Buns ($10.90), with all three buns featuring meticulously printed Pusheen. Not only are the buns soft and fluffy, the matcha filling is smooth and dense, similar to that of lotus paste. While we liked how the paste is not overly matcha-y, fans of green tea may find it underwhelming.
As for the mains, we almost couldn’t bear to start on the Pusheen Cat Nap Creamy Japanese Rice ($22.90). Made of short-grain charcoal rice, Pusheen is snugly tucked under an egg-crepe blanket and surrounded by cheese cut-out stars of the night sky. The dish is accompanied by karaage chicken, leafy greens and completed with beetroot sauce.
We were pleasantly surprised by the karaage chicken, which remained crispy despite our phototaking session. Not only is the portion generous, the meat is sweet and tender. Pair it with the slightly sourish and savoury beetroot sauce and makes for a surprisingly good combination. The short-grained rice features a hint of charcoal flavour and makes for an interesting combination with the chicken. The rice’s texture however, may be slightly harder than what we are used to.
The Pusheen in-a-bun Ebi Burger ($19.90) came as a pleasant surprise. Unlike traditional burgers, the buns are charcoal flavoured that are fluffy and chewy. While we enjoyed the flakiness of the ebi batter, we thought it slightly overpowered the taste of the prawns. Adorable as it is, be prepared to get messy as you chow down on the burger.
No meal is complete without dessert. Sticking to our unintended theme of burgers, we opted for the Pusheen Double Delight Fruitcake Burger ($17.90). The “burger” was surrounded by a mixture of treats including a miniature Pusheen macaron, cotton candy, biscuit fries, cream, blueberries and strawberries. The fruit-cake burger was stacked with alternate layers of pound cake and brownie with chocolate acting as cheese and sliced strawberries and kiwis to balance the sweetness of the dessert. The savoury biscuit-cut fries tasted similar to chicken biscuits and are paired with the strawberry “ketchup”. Overall, the dessert was, thankfully, not as sweet as we’d expected. What really surprised us was how the dessert had encompassed all sweet, savoury and sour flavours.
Food aside, the Pusheen x Kumoya café is a visit to Pusheen Paradise. Although it may not be a pet-friendly establishment, feel free to bring a Pusheen plush toy back for your furry friend. Plus, Pusheen merchandise is likely to be first made available in the café before you’ll find it islandwide – so if you’re a true fan of Pusheen, the café is definitely a must-visit.
The Pusheen x Kumoya café will be available until the end of March 2019. There’s no time like meow to experience the world of Pusheen! As the café tends to get crowded, we’d recommend making a reservation to avoid disappointment!
