PS Café was introduced to me by a close friend whom I’ve not caught up with for quite a while.
The café is not so much a café but a pretty decent dinner option that’s hidden in the forested areas of Harding Road. Housed in a colonial bungalow sort of a building, the establishment might come off as a bit fancy and expensive at first glance.
After a bit of digging up on the history of this place, it’s a little surprising to find out that PS actually stands for “project shop”. Yes, my friends, this is in reality the second Project Shop café after its first down at Paragon.
The restaurant retains a cosy feel to it despite its somewhat classy location near the famous Dempsey Road. Dressed with dim lights and wooden flooring, it’s a nice place to sit back with a loved one or just have a quiet evening with friends. However, one obstacle remains – the crowd. Everyone seems to know each other there and it’s akin to a family gathering with the often calling out to each other when a new patron enters the café. It’s slightly disrupting at first but strangely, it felt nice after a while to be dining in a friendly and very casual environment. I hardly took notice of the chattering in the background after a while.
Food was also above what you’d expect from a café. Veal pasta, beef with mushroom stew, moussaka-eggplant casserole and flambéed prawn pasta sets the menu apart from the usual Club Sandwich or Aglio Olio most of us have come to identify with many cafes.
The downside to this place was that the food is not great. In fact, with starters going for about $10 and mains at an average of $25 each, this is hardly cheap. The salads were nothing beyond the ordinary with greens and tomatoes tossed with your usual dressing and olive oil.
I had the Flambeed Prawn Pasta and although the pasta was done quite nicely, the sauce tasted almost like it came out of the can with a hint of additional seasoning by the kitchen staff. The prawns were, unfortunately, not that fresh as well with that mushy texture when you bite into them.
The saving grace, however, was that the desserts were wonderful. We ordered the “Blackout” chocolate cake whose exterior was well, black… With a scoop of ice cream as its companion, it was divine with flavour. You can’t go wrong with heavy, generous chocolate and a nice chilled serving of ice cream. The Sticky Dates Pudding With Ice Cream and Caramel Sauce was awesome. The fruity flavour of the dates along with the ice cream was amazing. I found myself uncontrollably mashing up the pudding into the chocolate for that maximum blend of the 2 flavours. To top it off, the caramel sauce was a sinful drizzle to complete that wonderful dessert.
This is definitely a little bit heavy on the wallet but my personal take on this place, similar to many others who have reviewed PS café, is to just come for drinks and desserts. If you’d recall the beautiful location and the warm ambience, PS café is an ideal chill out joint for those in the area.
