I am a sucker for cute themed food. On my very first trip to Taipei in 2009, I made it a point to visit the Hello Kitty Café and I loved it! Back then, I had a 3 course lunch at Hello Kitty Sweets and it only worked out to be $20. The food was not bad and the whole place was kitty overload.
In my opinion, themed restaurants isn’t just for kids! In fact, adults may appreciate the small details way better than kids because kids do not have awareness. After more than a month of rescheduling with my friends (for such places, it’s better to come with more people so you get to order more stuff!), I finally got to try Pompompurin Café. It was a good thing in way, because the line is a lot shorter now. I was here at 2:30pm on a Saturday and the queue was about 30 – 45 minutes. The wait for food was another 30 minutes. Basically, I only got to have my lunch (and first food of the day!) at 4pm.
For those who do not know, Pompompurin is a Sanrio Character and it’s supposed to be a golden retriever. The pale yellow body with a dark brown beret is meant to look like caramel pudding which is yellow with a dark brown layer on top, hence his name Pompompurin (purin = pudding in Japanese).
The whole design of the place was really cute, with Pompompurin everywhere. However, not every seat is cute, so if you’re lucky you’ll get cuter seats. It’s only been open for about 2 months but I already see signs of wear and tear! This is inevitable in places full of kids.
All food items on the menu has purin elements in it so I like this effort. I isn’t like Charlie Brown cafe whereby the savoury items has almost nothing to do with Peanuts.
For the items with the Pompompurin cup, you get to take the cup home but you’ll also notice that it costs a lot more. You’re essentially paying for the cup. This isn’t ideal for people who revisit and order the same dishes because you won’t want to be buying multiples of the same cup right? Then again, themed cafes seldom gets revisits.
When having themed food, just go for whichever looks cute because eyes have to feast.
Taco Rice in a Cup of Friendship – $19.99++
The 3D purin was very cute and as this is Mexican style, it won’t really go wrong. This was the best among all the mains!
Pompompurin’s Beef Stroganoff – $18.99++
The sauce was weird. I won’t recommend this at all. Perhaps the coconut milk curry would be better.
Goodnight Purin! Omelette Rice – $19.99++
This is more like rice with a thin later of omelette with a creamy salmon and mushroom stew. Nothing like typical omelette rice. Not bad, still edible, and purin looks cute when asleep.
Pompompurin’s Banana and Caramel Pancakes – $16.99++
The 3D purin looks really cute as a pancake, but for pancakes to hold such shape it’s got to be hard and stiff. The custard and cream was alright though. Probably the worst value item so far but it’s cute.
I am purin – $9.99++
His beret was made of a chocolate covered cookie.
This was nice! The texture was soft and eggy, a very decent pudding. Lives up to his reputation of being a pudding-dog.
The main reason to come here is for photos of course. Do not hold high expectations of the food. The food quality is on par with typical chain restaurants serving generic western food, so it is edible and not that bad.
Food: 6/10
Ambiance: 7.5/10
Value: 6/10
Overall: It was considered an inexpensive meal for this amount of cuteness.
Pompompurin Café
181 Orchard Road
Orchard Central #04-08
Singapore 238896
11am – 10.30pm
Hungry Bird 