Petiteserie Bakery Café, Ara Damansara

[Pork-free] Petiteserie by JS has opened a new bakery cafe in PJ!

Our quest to find the best croissant in town led us to Petiteserie Bakery & Café in Ara Damansara.

A Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef, Janice Siew is a familiar name in the local baking scene, as she supplies pastries and cakes to various cafes in the Klang Valley, as well as through online delivery via its website.

[Dec 2022: Petiteserie is one of our Top Nine Cafes of 2022. Click here to read the article]

Petiteserie Bakery & Café

Janice has been operating her Petiteserie Desserts since 2014.

Customers have spoken highly about Janice’s pastries and cakes online – and one of our followers recommended her French butter croissants recently when we asked where we could find the best croissants in the Klang Valley.

Naturally, we were elated to find out that Janice has opened a new bakery café close to our home.

Soft opening since Nov 10

Petiteserie is currently in soft launch mode since its opening on 10 November.

Besides French pastries and luscious cakes, Petiteserie also offers lunch items on their menu such as Hambagu Steak Burger (RM36), Beef Ragu Spaghetti (RM28), and Smoked Duck Pesto Pasta (RM28).

As we were on a specific hunt for croissants (and having just finished a heavy lunch) – we only had enough stomach space to try the pastries and cakes during our visit to this homely cafe.

Beautiful French butter croissant

Let’s get straight into it: Petiteserie’s croissant is in our top three for best croissants we’ve had in the Klang Valley. And we’ve been checking out MANY pâtisseries in the Klang Valley.

A self-confessed croissant nerd, Janice told us she was determined to offer the most authentic French croissant possible. To do her research, she visited Paris and tried as many croissants across the city as she could.

Her Croissant au Beurre (RM8.50) uses 100% Beurre d’isigny butter from Normandy, which gives it a beautiful buttery fragrance, with no bread improvers or additives added.

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After trying croissants at different cafes over the past two months – we could definitely tell the difference. Croissants that use margarine tend to be flat-tasting, while Australian butter tends to a much stronger “buttery” aroma.

On the other hand, French butter tends to have a milder and sweeter taste – which is something we are growing to appreciate.

Apart from the buttery fragrance, Petitserie’s croissant also hits the right notes by being sufficiently flaky (but not overly crunchy) with a moist and soft inside.

It is for these three reasons that Petiteserie’s croissant – through not the most handsome in looks compared to a few we’ve tried – is one of the best authentic French croissants we’ve eaten in the Klang Valley.

We find croissants in KL to taste their best right after it is gently heated, so do ask the folks at the café to warm them up if you’re dining in.

Smoked duck & pesto danish

The Smoked Duck & Pesto Danish (RM11) also makes for a delicious savoury pastry.

The danish was sufficiently flaky and buttery but the kicker was the lovely bits of smoked duck paired with earthy basil walnut pesto sauce inside.

Moist Valrhona chocolate cake

We knew we had to order a cake here as well, and when we read the label Valrhona Chocolate Cake (RM16) at the cafe, we were sold.

This was really good! Made with Valrhona 66% dark chocolate, the cake was very moist and we could taste the distinct acidity of the chocolate used. The chocolate ganache is also barely sweetened – which was perfect for those who don’t like “very sweet cakes” like us.

We hazard a guess that the layers of cake are steamed rather than baked for that extra moistness that we really enjoyed – but we will confirm this the next time we visit the café.

The only flaw we found was in the serving size of the cake – we wished the slice was larger (and closer to the standard cafe size) for the price we paid.

Second visit – more lovely pastries

We revisited Petiteserie a week later to take home some pastries on the eve of election day.

As it was a public holiday, most of the pastries we wanted (i.e. croissants, pain au choc) had sold out by noon!

No matter – this was a good excuse to try Janice’s other offerings. And it happened that the new Pain Suisse Au Choc just arrived fresh from the oven. Woot!

So we got that, as well as the Almond Croissant ( a bestseller!) and the Belgian Choc Chip Brownie.

Pain Suisse Au Choc

Petiteserie Bakery Café — *Pain Suisse Au Choc*

A new product on their menu, the Pain Suisse Au Choc is essentially vanilla custard and Belgian chocolate chip folded in a lovely flaky croissant pastry.

This was lovely as the exterior had a nice crisp, while the inside is soft and mellow with bits of the chocolate burst. This is a good alternative to the usual Pain Au Choco.

Almond Croissant

We are usually not a fan of Almond Croissant (RM10.50) as the ones we’ve tried in the Klang Valley are either too sweet, or the pastry is too soft.

As this is one of Janice’s signature items, we decided to try this today. And we enjoyed it!

The almond croissant is twice baked, so the croissant remained flaky and buttery but the selling point was the frangipane cream inside.

The cream had a good buttery fragrance with lovely sweetness (but not cloying) from the sugar used.

Belgian Choc Chip Brownie

The Belgian Choc Chip Brownie (RM8) was essentially a moist chocolate brownie finger with bits of melted choc chips inside. The chocolate used was dark and rich – which was to our preference.

Summary

We loved the croissants so much that we “tapaued” more to savour at home. We will return to try more pastries and their lunch menu.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Petiteserie Bakery & Café
Address: 1a, Jalan PJU 1a/20a, Ara Damansara, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Hours: Currently soft opening hours of 7.30am-5.30pm daily (Closed on Wednesdays)
Website: https://petiteseriebyjs.com/

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