Hoshino Coffee – Lovely New Japanese Restaurant Opens at Plaza Sing

It seems that the Atrium @ Orchard aka Plaza Singapura extension is going on a Japanese food route – with semi-buffet restaurant Hifiumi, hot pop restaurant Tsukada Nojo, dessert café Nana’s Green Tea, and the newly opened Hoshino Coffee. I am not complaining, because it gives us one more good reason to visit PS.

Hoshino Coffee is already quite popular in Japan, specialising in hand-dripped coffee and fluffy soufflé pancakes. It is also sister companies with Doutor Coffee at MBFC and spaghetti place Youmenya Goemon.

The first thing you would notice at Hoshino – the queue is snakingly long, up to 30 pax in line during the weekends. So the food must be really good?

The artificial food display set outside is already so tempting and eye-catching, with dishes such as Hoshino Spaghetti with Eggplant, Bacon, Shimeiji, Sausage ($14.00), Fuwa-Fuwa Hoshino Souffle ($15.80), Classic Omu Rice ($13.00) and Arrabiata Spaghetti being some of its signatures.

The Lobster Bisque Soup Spaghetti was suitably al dente, with a moderate taste of the lobster flavour. The ‘bisque punch’ could have been more distinct, but I am not complaining. The portion is huge, and makes it one of the better casual Japanese pastas around.

Even though the Hoshino Pot Baked Curry Rice looked nothing close to the display set and took a while to arrive, it was worth the wait. The piping hot dish was oishii scrumptious, the curry not overly sweet or spicy, and especially satisfying when the egg yolk is mixed in fully.

I do have some dissatisfaction with its service though, at times slow and inattentive. We called for the attention of the service staff for a few minutes before somebody really noticed. The order of the pancake took longer than 45 minutes to arrive, so we did spend some time just waiting after our mains were finished (that may explain the long queue as well.) I asked for a spoon, they gave me a fork. Proper conversations with the opposite side were tough because the table width was broad, and blocked by a huge lamp.

And so the Pancake Souffle Style with Matcha and Ogura Bean Paste ($13.50) will take that long as they are freshly made on the spot (and accordingly their oven can only produce 6 at a single time). It was the usual ‘Japanese desserts in Singapore’ standard – soft and not too sweet, but I don’t think it’s worth the price and wait. (Went during off peak and took 25 minutes.)

Hoshino Coffee is quite a ‘chilaxing’ place to come for afternoon tea. Do try its iced coffee made with “high thermal conductivity” coffee cup for a well balanced taste. I am pretty sure we will get to see more of Hoshino Coffee in time to come.