PS Cafe at Palais

C says:

When A’s friend K suggested dinner here tonight, I was a bit apprehensive. On the one hand I wanted to give it a try, since we’ve tried both previous PS Cafes, but on the other hand I hadn’t heard very good things about the food. I guess that helped, because without any expectations we ended up being very pleasantly surprised with the food.


Unfortunately they have a “no photos of the food” policy, so the picture of the salad is the only one I managed to take. Called The Big Nihon, it’s a Japanese-inspired salad with soy-cured salmon sashimi, strips of cucumber, edamame beans, pea shoots and sesame dressing. This was very refreshing, and something I almost wouldn't mind having as a main course if I was feeling virtuous.

I had the steak sandwich, which was more like a burger, with slices of teriyaki-marinated steak, mixed greens and caramelized onions on a sesame seed bun. The meat was pretty tender, thanks to the fact that it was prepared medium rare as requested. I liked the fat chunky fries and the dip, though it wasn’t quite A’s thing because of the distinctive flavour of kaffir lime leaves.

A ordered the Moroccan Lamb which was served with couscous. I’m not one for Moroccan food generally, but the lamb was surprisingly good. Very very tender, and the harissa yogurt and the flavours of the couscous all blended very well together.

Save some room for the desserts here, because they’re massive and some are pretty good. The Chocolate Crunch Doorstop cake is like a giant Mars/Snickers bar, and frankly I can't handle this alone or even as a couple. It’s intense, really sweet and chockfull of nuts, but if you’re in a big group it's worth a try.

The Chocolate Blackout Cake, a multi-layer chocolate fudge cake, is much better, but this is nothing new to PS Cafe regulars because it's available at their other outlets too.

The steamed ginger pudding is light, fluffy and went perfectly with the earl grey creme anglaise, but unfortunately no one else liked ginger so I ended up eating most of it myself.

Unless you want a laugh, give the very phallic-looking Giant Coffee Eclair a miss. Because of the sheer size (about 10 inches long and 2 inches wide), the choux pastry turned out quite dry, thick and hard.

I like the high ceilings here, and be warned that it’s quite chilly inside. It was a tad worrying that the restaurant was almost empty on a Sunday night, but perhaps they do better business on Fridays, Saturdays and at lunchtime. The food here is certainly the best out of the 3 PS Cafes, but given the standard of the other two, that’s not that hard to achieve.

A says:

Our friend P ordered the Moroccan Lamb and found it a bit too lamb-ey but I really liked it. It’s like a really good and meaty giant piece of mutton satay.

That and the Chocolate Blackout were the only things that stood out to me.

Having said that, the food and service were a lot better than I expected. I wouldn’t mind coming back, but it’s not at the top of my list.

PS Café at Palais
390 Orchard Road
#02-09A Palais Renaissance
Tel: 9834-8232
Lunch: Weekdays 11.30 am to 4 pm
Dinner:
Mon-Thu & Sun: 3.00pm - MidnightFri & Sat: 3.00pm - 2am
(Last food orders: 10.30 pm)