Kumoya x We Bare Bears: Pose With Your Favourite We Bare Bears Characters This January At Bugis

Calling out to all We Bare Bears fans!  Kumoya is back again with yet another theme from 4 January to 12 April 2020, we shall be blessed with the theme of We Bare Bears. 

Kumoya is known for its collaborations and unique themes. To date, they have successfully launched 10 editions of themed pop-ups. The cafe has become a big hit after themes like My Little Pony, Pusheen, Sesame Street and many others.

Kumoya is actually a Japanese-French inspired cafe located at Bugis, and they focus on inclusivity and fun through food. 

With the change in theme, we were greeted by a refreshed menu and newly-decorated cafe interior, all with We Bare Bear designs.

We decided to treat ourselves to the dishes to see if they are worth it and of course, to immerse ourselves in the cuteness!

We started our meal with their snacks so we chose the Special We Bare Bears Baos with Sweet Matcha (S$11.90). I wasn’t very sure why the dish was deemed “special” because I was slightly disappointed with how it was.

The buns were filled with the same filling which wasn’t really that interesting. The sweet matcha didn’t really taste like how it should at all, with the sweetness overpowering the usual earthy taste of matcha. In fact, it tasted more like kaya to me when I first sank my teeth into the bun. The bun, however, was relatively fluffy, which was the only plus point about the dish. 

My favourite side dish was definitely the Golden Sweet Potato Fries (S$11.90), which was fried to perfection with just the right amount of seasoning.

The end product is a good balance of natural sweetness from the sweet potatoes and roasted flavour from the seasoning. The fries were also quite crispy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside. This is probably the best sweet potato fries that I’ve tried so far and I could snack on them all day. 

Before I get into the mains, let me add a disclaimer for customers to lower their expectations. 

Even though the dishes are all very appealing to the eye, they are honestly not really that worth the amount you pay for it. The tip is to come with the idea that you will enjoy the atmosphere and how adorable all the dishes look (instead of the food). 

My favourite main dish was probably Ice Bear Arctic Cool Seafood Rice With Cream Sauce (S$26.90). 

This dish features Ice Bear, one of the three main characters, “cooling off” in a blue seafood cream sauce. The dish also comes with breaded ebi, calamari rings, scallop and fresh tempura salmon which were all relatively edible but not outstanding.

If you’re wondering what the white shape in your salad is, it’s actually a kamaboko (cured, pureed white fish) fish cake which had almost no flavour to it. For some, the blue colouring could be slightly off-putting but I think it was personally a passable dish, as an overall. 

The other main on the menu was this very appealing burger dish—Ice Bear Terrific Teriyaki Chicken Katsu Burger (S$23.90). This dish is probably the only other one that I’d count as worth the price point because of how tender the chicken katsu was.

The burger is drizzled with teriyaki sauce and had a lovely smoky taste to it, accompanying the katsu chicken. I also particularly liked the addition of tomatoes and lettuce in the burger that added crunch and lightness to the burger. The dish is also served with fresh garden salad and the cloud-shaped kamaboko fish cake that was relatively bland like it was in the rice dish. 

If you’re looking for something a little lighter to munch on, you can try the Bear-Bros Food Truck with Special Salmon Roll (S$23.90). This dish would be perfect for those comes with breaded salmon and a brioche bun. If I had a choice, I’d rather have my salmon raw or smoked and this didn’t really work for me.

However, I have to say that the brioche bun was quite soft and fluffy and the tobiko mayo sauce drizzled over the salmon was quite delectable. The bun also came with a crunchy and refreshing garden salad and crispy fries. 

The dish that was probably the least value for money was the Forever Bros Truffle Carbonara Pasta (S$21.90). The truffle flavour wasn’t very potent and the spaghetti was slightly dry with not much sauce to soften it. The dish also had chicken ham, cheddar cheese and cherry tomatoes. 

To accompany our meals, we decided to have a few of the cute drinks available on the menu. Here we have the Bear Trio Refreshing Iced Lychee Tea (S$12.90) that is a concoction of refreshing house-brewed lychee flavoured green tea. The drink also has a few juicy pieces of lychee floating around in it. 

The other drink that we tried was the Mango Tango Frappe with Ice Bear Marshmallow (S$13.90). The drink is made up of light and rejuvenating ice-blended mango that is topped off with a specially handcrafted Ice Bear marshmallow. It was such an adorable drink that we hesitated over gobbling up the marshmallow floating on the drink. 

From the tea section, we also tried out the We Bare Bears Butterfly Pea Apple Peach Tea (S$12.90) which turned out to be my favourite drink. This concoction of apple peach flavours and butterfly pea tea wasn’t too sweet and the freshness of the apple peach flavours lingered in my mouth. 

The drinks menu also had a chocolate and coffee section, so we decided to try the Cool Bros Iced Latte (S$11.90). The latte was brewed with mild Japanese Ueshima Coffee Company coffee beans—founded 87 years ago, Ueshima Coffee Company manufactures coffee and tea products in Kobe, Hyogo.

The drink is topped off with a home-made cookie, fresh cream and colourful pastel sprinkles. It’s quite light and easy drinking for a coffee drink which was a great pairing with the dishes we had. 

For big We Bare Bears fans, consider buying a drink when you order your mains. With each drink you purchase, you can get limited-edition coasters that you can take home—these are only available at Kumoya’s We Bare Bears pop-up. 

Moving onto the adorable line up of desserts, which are probably the highlights of the menu. We had Grizzly’s Favourite Fruity Caramel Waffles (S$23.90).

The homemade buttery waffles had a lovely crunch to it with a soft and fluffy interior. Accompanying the waffle was freshly-churned decadent Hokkaido soft serve that paired extremely well with the airy and light hot waffle. 

There was also a souffle cheesecake on top of the waffle, but I felt that it was slightly redundant because there was already so much going on the plate. There were also fresh berries, marshmallows, dango and a lovely caramel sauce that paired very well with the soft serve.

Atop the souffle cheesecake, there was an adorable macaron designed to look like Grizz which was definitely a show-stopper. However, I was quite disappointed with the macaron because the filling made the whole treat overwhelmingly sweet. 

The other dessert to satisfy my sweet tooth was the Bears-In-A-Basket Cookies & Cream Lava Cake (S$18.90) The dish consisted of Hokkaido soft serve, cookies and cream lava cake, a butter cookie, and fluffy cotton candy in a basket box.

This dessert definitely didn’t live up to my expectations of a lava cake as the lava didn’t exactly flow out smoothly as I expected. 

To end off, we had the most adorable of all desserts—Knock Knock Ice Bear Choco Ball of Fun (S$23.90). This fun and whimsical dessert allows customers to crack open the chocolate ball revealing a delicious surprise of marshmallows, fruits, colourful cereals and a house-made brownie.

The chocolate ball was actually quite hard to break into and it wasn’t an easy task cracking our “ bowl of surprise”. I absolutely enjoyed the brownie, which went well with the blue syrup that the ball was partly submerged. The lightness of the syrup paired perfectly with the indulgent moist brownie. This dessert was by far my favourite out of all! 

My overall verdict for this theme cafe has got to be that if you’re not a fan of We Bare Bears, I wouldn’t recommend you paying a visit. The dishes are slightly on the pricier end and were not all that fantastic in terms of taste.

However, if you are, I’d gladly recommend you to head down and immerse yourself in We Bare Bears heaven! 

Expected Damage: S$45 per pax