Closed
Orchard Road, especially around Takashimaya, is a great place to go (window) shopping. It is great if there are a lot of good choices of restaurants and cafes to hang out at after all the walking. The number of restaurants and cafes are countless, but only few offer good quality food to the niche market. While Takashimaya has Kuroson, Tampopo, Angus, Shaw has Shabu Shabu Gen, and Cuppage contains a whole trove of treasures, there are hardly any good cafes or bakeries around Orchard area. So due to the lack of worthy competition, Patties & Wiches provides a fairly decent choice to tuck into some pretty good cakes and enjoy good coffee.
I have no idea why the owner named this place "Patties & Wiches" because I decided to give it a miss the first time I passed by it due to the name sounds generic and that does not say a lot about what the cafe is all about. But after going to Paul's to find the place full and the cake selection looking unattractive, I turned back to Patties & Wiches since the place of black and white theme does look attractive and is reminiscent of one of those Japanese inspired Western cafes.
The cakes are creations of Chef Yamashita, who is the one behind those sublime cakes of Flor. So yes, cakes are, of course, good. I tried the chocolate cake with chestnut cream. The chestnut cream and the vanilla cream are no doubt very light, mildly yet bursting with creamy goodness, as expected of Flor's cakes. The chestnut cream is still one of the best I ever have, due to the good balance of sweetness and earthy aroma of the chestnuts—too much chestnuts will render the cream bitter while too little makes it taste like normal cream. Though the chocolate sponge in the cake is kind of meh. It is flat in taste, a bit too bitter and pretty dry in texture. I had heard about how the chocolate cakes in Flor are the lacklustre ones in the line-up. Guess it is true, based this first time experience.
The Chou-Pop is good. While the shell is nothing to shout about—at least it is not rubbery like those usual ones—the cream is thick and made with quality ingredients, such as real vanilla.
I did not try the coffee, but my companion gave the thumbs-up to the coffee.
Service is decent but not exemplary. Still, this place is a better choice to go to as compared to few others around the area. Though take note that the prices of the cakes here are exemplary. Nine dollars for a cake ... the cakes at Flor are not that expensive, saved for the sublime Bara that is decorated with real gold flakes. Considering that the cakes at Lady M are around nine dollars price range, this cafe is still the better choice.
My Thoughts: Nice!
This cafe is no longer in operation.
