Singapore’s beloved cutesy themed cafe, Kumoya, is back with a new collaboration! Pusheen, the adorable Internet kitty sensation, decorates their interiors and menu with soft, sweet pastels, and her pleasing, simple visage.

…or so they’d like you to think.

We hadn’t been to Kumoya since their eventually award-winning Miffy run – that one was pleasant and we enjoyed ourselves in a low-key way. Since then, we’ve been mildly interested in the mascots and fandoms they’ve collaborated with, but the menus weren’t exciting enough for us in terms of both design and flavours to make the trek down from Bugis worthwhile. They’ve mostly been uninspired cookie-cutter dish designs with an over-reliance on paper cut-outs – disappointing considering Little Miss Bento‘s previous works.

However, Pusheen’s menu looked promisingly cute, well-themed and had integrated design – we were somewhat keen. We had a bit of time to kill in the region, so we made our way down in the afternoon, after lunch hours.

Pusheen x Kumoya Cafe Decor

The decor is ye ole Kumoya standard of printed surfaces and cardboard cutouts inside, but it is expansive – all over the tables and benches – and the Pusheen graphics and style are bold and pastel, so they look cute and work well during the day when the cafe is still brightly lit.

Thanks to Gund’s aggressively expanded Pusheen range, the merchandise is quite varied and at times a little bizarre (I did quite like the tropically useless Pusheen earmuffs myself). They have an exclusive plushie to purchase with your receipt, and it was temptingly adorable.

Being very cynical and notoriously tight-fisted, we decided to just opt for one drink and one dessert.

We ordered the Pusheenicorn Pretty-in-Pink Peach Soda (with lychee jelly, a cotton candy cloud, and a souvenir coaster) and the Pusheen-in-a-Box Cookies and Cream Lava Cake dessert platter with lychee Hokkaido soft serve. Perhaps they both happened to be bad choices, but they were also our top picks from the menu, so it was unlikely we’d avoid them.

The short version is us thinking: “What happened?! Miffy wasn’t so bad!” The long version is below.

Pusheenicorn Pretty-in-Pink Peach Soda

My companion is a peach fan and I like jelly, the coaster is cute, we both like carbonated drinks and have generally low expectations. Somehow the drink managed to outdo our low expectations. We jammed some aggressively melting cotton candy into the drink, gauged whether we wanted any more sweetness, and finished eating the rest of it with our hands instead.

Probably my biggest complaint is that this $13.90 peach soda is not actually a ‘soda.’ It’s not carbonated at all, it’s just the regular syrup-in-water deal and I think they titled it ‘soda’ to sound less accurately boring.

Taste-wise, the drink is a curious combination of too sweet and tasting like nothing at all. The aforementioned jelly are veryslightly lychee-flavoured konnyaku strips.
Max rates 2.5/5 – ignoring the fraudulent ‘soda’ claim, it tastes (only) OK.

Pusheen-in-a-Box Cookies and Cream Lava Cake

The Pusheen-in-a-Box Cookies and Cream Lava Cake dessert plate ($16.90) looked noticeably reduced from their menu photos, which wasn’t an issue we had in the Miffy run.

Individually-speaking, the charcoal biscuit has a decent texture and is slightly buttery. The lychee soft serve is a disappointment with a distinct artificial, medicinal taste at the end, and as melty-icy as the Kumoya soft serve generally is. The lava cake is caramel with ground Oreo cookie crumbs, with crunchy exterior and spongy interior.

Overall the texture of the components were fine and went together – smooth, crunchy, soft and so on – but the actual taste itself was the same strange combination of being much too sweet and tasting like nothing. My companion recalls it was even sweeter than the syrup drink.
Max rates 2/5.

As a final confusing note, there is a strange and somewhat cheapskate lack of napkins all around unless you’re eating their main savoury dishes – wherein you get one square paper napkin with your cutlery, far as I could tell from the neighbouring table. It’s troublesome considering how incredibly sticky the drinks and the desserts can get, so be sure to bring your own tissues, dry and wet, if you decide to go (to try something else). Please be aware that the shakes’ Pusheen ‘cup’ design is just a cardboard sleeve as opposed to an actual printed cup – thanks neighbouring table!

I’ve not had a strong opinion about Kumoya post-Miffy, but after this Pusheen food fiasco, I’m very unlikely to give it another chance again (unless they collaborate with a mascot or series I love dearly or something, I’m only human).