Le Petit Soufflé French-Japanese Dating Restaurant in Makati Century City Mall

Le Petit Soufflé Review : French-Japanese Restaurant Review

It was Sunday around 6pm when I found myself once again inside Century City mall. It is honestly one of my favorites go to places since it never gets too crowded there even on the weekend. I decided to get dinner despite of the fact that  I was alone to try out this French-Japanese Restaurant called Le Petit Soufflé.

Ambiance:  

I have to admit it is quite an impressive place. It certainly lived up to its café ambiance (comfortable and intimate) and the interior design is quite elegant though nothing too intimidating. You are gonna want to take some selfies here, or probably a photo of you and your date (or whole group). So yes, it is definitely a dating place in my opinion. If you are going for a business meeting here, then that’s probably because you want to actually date that person and not just do business…. Well, that’s totally legit.

I loved the music they were playing. I heard French songs from a golden era probably between the 20’s to the 50’s. At one point I found myself humming along to the tune of La vie en Rose.

 

Price Range:

The meal here will cost you roughly around 500 to 700 pesos easily for one person (well that does include the dessert or the coffee depending on what you order). The price is reasonable, considering the fact that you can definitely impress your date if you take her here. 

Service:

The staffs are very friendly. I didn’t have one server exclusively, but whoever finds me raising my hand slightly will immediately go to my table and attend to my request. From where I was sitting, I could see around 7 servers who are always moving around to see if anyone needs them. They did answer my inquiries quite well with regards to their menu and everything else. They do have Wi-Fi but for some reason the connection was terrible.

Food:

First off I would like to mention that they do have wines. I wish I could have tried them but perhaps maybe some other time.

Main course:

Japanese Beef Curry Soufflé: Savory Cheese Soufflé filled with fine strips of US beef short plate and Japanese short grain rice with Japanese curry sauce.

The moment they served this hot plate on my table I just couldn’t resist taking a photo of it immediately. It was a sight to behold. I never knew that Soufflés can be very pleasurable to look at. The color was just amazing especially when you can see the well-toasted areas as if they were the highlights to an artwork. It was bouncy and soft that I was worried that if I didn’t take a photo right away it would flatten up (naturally it didn’t).

After taking a photo, I finally got the chance to pick my spoon up and cut through the soft soufflé to get a serving of the curry rice meal. The first bite felt like “going home” after a tiring journey. I do love curry, and this one is a newly discovered comfort food for me. I sincerely had my doubts when it comes to trying some sort of a fusion restaurant, but this French-Japanese dish really proved itself as something I will be coming back for. The spices of Japanese curry really worked well with the soufflé. The egg is still a bit flowy inside, but I didn't want to mix everything up and just let it remained on top while I enjoyed it. The beef, carrots, and potatoes were all tender just the way I like it. They were indeed using Japanese rice which was cooked until it became really soft and mushy. I’m used to Italian cooking, and usually, I like eating risso on the al dente side. However, since this is Japanese fusion, a really soft Japanese rice is appropriate and will certainly be appreciated by a lot of people.

I was curious about the matcha salt on the table so I poured a little on my plate, but I figured that the curry beef rice was well seasoned enough that you don’t have to put anything on it anymore. The truth is, Japanese curry is on the spicy side of things, so if you don’t like eating spicy food, I suggest that you order something else instead. For me, though, this is as my friend Yasmin would say, “the bomb”.

Dessert:

Salted Egg Caramel Parfait – Vanilla custard base softee with salted egg custard, caramel sauce, peanut brittle, and almond dacquoise, chocolate pretzel sticks.

If you read the description, then yes I decided to be a bit more adventurous when it comes to my dessert. I wanted something new. And this is in fact really something new and amazing to my taste.

The parfait itself was a soft served ice cream that obviously came from those swirl machines that we all know about. If you are expecting gelato texture, then this might not be the right ice cream for you.

The nuts went very well with the dessert of course, and together with the chocolate ball crispies, they added some crunchiness to contrast the texture of the soft ice cream on its top layer.

Of course for me, the main thing that made this dessert unique is the salted egg. No, you won’t find bits of the hard-boiled egg here, rather it is in liquid form. It has been turned into a custard that glazed the whole thing quite nicely. It’s definitely a lot better than your regular salted caramel dessert. 

At the bottom, once you dig deep enough, you will find a layer of peanut brittle. If you mix this up with the whole dessert, you will experience a burst of textures and flavors inside your mouth. But, if you already ran out of ice cream, and you’re left with the peanut brittle alone, you will find it too sweet to eat.  This is definitely quite a sinful dessert but it is something that you will crave for quite often once you've had it.

Pros:

• Wonderful ambiance ideal for dates – definitely digging the classy music.
• Price is okay for a dating place
• Service crews are friendly and attentive
• The Japanese-French fusion works quite well
• Based on the food that I have tried, I can definitely recommend it
• It’s inside century mall Makati - which means parking spaces inside a mall that isn't too crowded even on the weekends.

Cons:

• Wi-Fi didn’t work as it suffered from bad connection at that time– doesn’t lessen my opinion of them as a restaurant, but I just wish that they had a working Wi-Fi. Maybe it was just a slow connection kind of day.
• It’s inside Century mall – why is this a con? Because they are limited by the mall hours…. And sometimes when you do date, you don’t actually want to go inside a mall.

Giving them a "Great" 8.5 out of 10