Coffee Bean is everywhere. The thing is, being a franchise, the standard differs everywhere. This outlet at Parkway Parade is a small one hidden in the basement. Nonetheless, it doesn't stop people from coming here, for whatsoever reasons.
I like Coffee Bean because it's just a great place to catch up with friends over a cuppa. It seems to spell "this is a place to catch up".
I like their cakes. Today, I just realized they have a new cake! Cheesecake with Toblerone. It looks good but I've yet to try. But I'd say their Blueberry Delight is good! But that you must eat it there, unless you put it in your fridge immediately after bringing it home. Also, I think that this place makes nicer Chocolate ice blend. It's more tasty, unlike quite a lot of places that's either too sweet or diluted =s
Basically, I kind of like the ambience (not that it's very great) that you get from the place and I like the cakes and drinks you can get from this place.
Great place to go just to sit and relax I'd say! Plus, there's Gramophone just opposite this Coffee Bean, free music! (:
Likle the waffles there and I always go there on Tuesday. Seem like evey outlet is usually very packed on Tuesday due to their Waffles Day's Promotion.
There got a few different types of waffles and my fav has to be chocolate waffle where they mixed chocolate chip into the waffle. Together with the chocolate waffle, I will add in a scoop of ice creams, a lot of flavours to choose from, my fav is macadiam nut ice cream (paradon for the spelling).
Eat their waffles with jz maple syrup is also good enough. They used to have free flow of plain water, however now got to buy the small bottle of water from them. Bad move. Hmm....
When Cafe Cartel first appear in Singapore, I used to go there quite often cos the reasonable price and good food. However, its standard in both service and food started to go downhill and I did not go so often already.
The service was quite bad as usually had to go in and look for my own seats. Had to wait for the waiter to take the order and it is very difficult to get hold of the very busy waiters, maybe there are understaffed. They usually will forgot one or two orders and had to wait for a very long for the food to arrive or the dessert will arrive earlier than the main dish itself.
Once I ordered chicken cutlet (forgot the actual name of the dish) and when it arrive, the small piece of chicken is coated with a very thick layer of flour and the inner portion was uncooked due to the thick layer.
The food are the usual stuff nothing impressive. The only impressive thing are the free bread! But then it is not enough to make me go back.
This small little japanese looking bakery and cafe is introduced by my fren. It is hidden in a small little corner in Holland Village, opp Subway.
She started buying the small little wassant (corssant -looking bread) for me. It comes in both chocolate and custard filling. Once I tasted it, I was hooked on it and longed for more. The wassant are hot items, usually out before noon and they will be sold out before 3pm.
Once I was there, a basket around 10 packets are being brought out, within mins, the basket is empty. They are pre packed, either mixed or all same flavour. Each packet will 10 wassants insides.
There is a certain way of eating it and I like to eat it layer by layer.
Other than this, there is also a wide variety of other breads like milk bun, cheese bun and sandwiches. Tasted some of then and proved to be good.
Can also called them in advance to order the wassants, but I think have to be certain quantity and above before they allow you to book!
Was at IKEA Tampines on Sunday to see see look look. Wanted to try out the meatballs recommended by my colleague, who has been talking abt it. So the first thing I did was to go and find the Swedish meatballs at the cafe. Upon reaching, I saw that the crowd was quite big, with a lot o fthe 3-tier trolleys lying around and blocking the passageway. In addition, there were people who were hoarding the seats even though they were already done with their meal.
The queue itself was quite alrite, thou it did take me sometime before I got out of it. Just bought the Swedish meatballs. It was ok, nt really that fantastic as I thought it was.
May go back and try the other foods on a weekday perhaps instead to avoid the crowd.
Out of so many places that sell soya bean products, Mr Bean is one of my fav. Usually I go for their 3 items and it will be my dinner at times as well. Y I like them so much?
Soya Bean Drink: Smooth, thick and not to sweet. Now ythey have have soya bean drink that is mixed with watermelon, honey dew, papaya, carrot or celery. Tasted the honeydew one yesterday, cool and refreshing. Quite nice.
Bean Curd: I like their bean curd cos it is really smooth and light. It would like slide down the throat once it enters your mouth. One of the best that I have tasted!
Red bean Pancake: Even though they got other pancakes like chocolate, kaya, etc, red bean have been my first choice. Reason being, the red bean filling they used is really mushy and smooth and at the same time you can taste the orginial taste of the red bean with its skin. Jz loved it!
I like their things so much that I usually would go and have the 3 items above once or twice a week. Hee....
Been there once. Not too impressvie with the food though. A lot of fusion food going on but to me it seems all look like normal American food.
Service wise ok, nothing to wow about also. The sofa seats is a good place to sit and hang out, chit chat. However, they are a bit low to be seating to have a decent meal.
For me, it seems like another normal cafe, serving food and drinks. Nothing to wow about. There are better cafes out there.
This is the place I will go when I need a quick fix for coffee, tea and snacks!
The service at all outlets especially the one at Ngee Ann City is usually fast, good and friendly.
There is a lot of drinks, both coffee or tea, hot or cold to choose from. There is a lso a range of cakes to choose form as well. Most of them are very good.
Personally I loved to eat my breakfast there as their selection is a lot and generous in their portion as well.
Go to their website, they got special offer on Cake of the month where they got $10 discount of the whole cake when ordered online. They also got a coffeebean card where can accumulate points to be used to redeem their items or to convert into cash.
This is the first place that I will think of when I have the craving for Dim Sum. This place although small and usually packed to the brim, serves the dim sum in the old Hong Kong Style where you got waitress pushing or carrying carts with dim sum on it going around and shouting out what they have.
How hot is this place? Well Jz say that if you dun make reservations and go down hoping to get a table. Prepare to wait for some time ok! Hee... Of cos they will try to make your waiting time as short as possible.
The food there especially the dim sum is very good and fresh. Other than the normal dim sum they also got traditional teochew food which is also good!
The price is average and definitely worth to give it a try if you are a dim sum lover!
I only been to this place once and I have to say that I am not going back again!
The service is slow and hard to get the attention of the “busy” waiters.
The waiting time for the food is also quite slow even though I told the waiter to hasten as we got a show to catch soon!
The food. Well jz say I prefer Fish and Co better!
So overall, to me it is jz another copycat of Fish and Co.
***Updated on 12 Mar 08***
Decided to head to The Manhattan Fish Market @ Plaza Singapura for dinner since there are great reviews in Yebber and while waiting for my movie to start. So with slightly high expectation, we headed towards the restaurant. Well it took sometime for us to decide between this or Fish & Co, as we did not have a very nice time when we first visited it ages ago.
We are surprised to see that there was no queue, as from past experience, when it was dinner time; there was always a small queue outside. Maybe we were lucky to reach the place slightly before dinner time. When we reached the entrance, we were ushered to our seats. The decoration of the place is pretty much like Fish & Co. Not surprised to find it that way, as their bosses used to be from Fish & Co in the first place (if I am not wrong). Even the pans they served their seafood in, used to be the same as Fish & Co, until Fish & Co took action on it then they replaced it with square pans. They also have large LCD showing people scuba diving and underwater scenes. All these just make me want to go scuba diving now.
Back to the dinner, so when we were seated, we were given the menu and nothing else. While we were deciding what to eat, they did not even serve us ice water. Minus points for their service. The place also started to get crowded at the same and they seem understaffed as well, all the waiters and waitresses, including the managers are running around. Took us 5 mins before we can get attention of one waiter to place our order. The irony thing is we are seated right next to the service counter and the kitchen where all of them are running in and out. Minus point again.
So we decided to order the following:
Fried Country Mushroom @ $9.90: This is the only good thing out of the whole meal. The portion is generous. The mushrooms are light coated with a thin layer of batter. It is not over-fried and does not have an oily after taste. The mushroom is full of its natural flavor and juicy as well. The dip provided compliments the mushroom well. I am quite surprised that they served such good mushroom here. To me, this is a must try.
Manhattan Seafood Platter @ $29.90: I always like to order platter as it would have consist of everything that you must try in the restaurant. This platter consists of their fish fillet, oyster, prawns, calamari, fries and garlic rice. Before they placed the pan on the table, the staff attempted to do a stunt, by torching the prawns (to make if flaming) before your very eyes. BY doing so, it will sort of melt the sauce on the prawn and burnt the rest of the seafood around the prawns as well. Personally, this step can be removed as it does more harm to the platter, especially the food, then to get me impressed. After that stunt, there is a burnt smell. Now I understand why there is a burnt smell in the restaurant as they kept doing the torching again and again.
Back to the platter, everything in front of me was fried. Very sinful! The prawns tasted very sweet, too sweet to be its original flavor, even my partner also agrees with me. Think either they added some artificial sweetener to make it sweet or the sauce on the prawns makes it sweet. It is too sweet for my liking, so much so that I named them the fake prawns. Next the oysters, well after being deep fried; it does not taste like oyster any more. The batter is too thick and it is too oily for my liking. Calamari and the fish tasted usual (complain same as the oyster), nothing to wow about but by then I was really sick of the platter already, reason being of all the deep fried stuff. The only think I quite like it is the rice but it was partial ruined by the flaming prawns during the torching process.
Before this, I ordered a set meal or they called it Perfect Catch @ $4.90 which comes with a drink and a soup. I forgot if the soup is cream of mushroom or clam chowder. All I remember was the soup was a straight out of a can.
Somehow the service was quite good when they automatically topped up my ice water, my tartar sauce without asked for and that did added back some points in their service. However they are back to square one when I asked for the bill and waited for them to return me the bill. It took ages and I nearly missed the show because of it. Sigh…. The bill comes up to $52.60. To me it is totally so not worth it. I don’t think I will go back to this place for seafood ever again.
To me the competition between Fish & Co and Manhattan Fish Market, in terms of the food, Fish & Co won by a comfortable mile (as Simon Cowell would have put it).
1=SGD 0.0587
Coffee Bean is everywhere. The thing is, being a franchise, the standard differs everywhere. This outlet at Parkway Parade is a small one hidden in the basement. Nonetheless, it doesn't stop people from coming here, for whatsoever reasons.
I like Coffee Bean because it's just a great place to catch up with friends over a cuppa. It seems to spell "this is a place to catch up".
I like their cakes. Today, I just realized they have a new cake! Cheesecake with Toblerone. It looks good but I've yet to try. But I'd say their Blueberry Delight is good! But that you must eat it there, unless you put it in your fridge immediately after bringing it home. Also, I think that this place makes nicer Chocolate ice blend. It's more tasty, unlike quite a lot of places that's either too sweet or diluted =s
Basically, I kind of like the ambience (not that it's very great) that you get from the place and I like the cakes and drinks you can get from this place.
Great place to go just to sit and relax I'd say! Plus, there's Gramophone just opposite this Coffee Bean, free music! (:
Rating given:
Likle the waffles there and I always go there on Tuesday. Seem like evey outlet is usually very packed on Tuesday due to their Waffles Day's Promotion.
There got a few different types of waffles and my fav has to be chocolate waffle where they mixed chocolate chip into the waffle. Together with the chocolate waffle, I will add in a scoop of ice creams, a lot of flavours to choose from, my fav is macadiam nut ice cream (paradon for the spelling).
Eat their waffles with jz maple syrup is also good enough. They used to have free flow of plain water, however now got to buy the small bottle of water from them. Bad move. Hmm....
Rating given:
When Cafe Cartel first appear in Singapore, I used to go there quite often cos the reasonable price and good food. However, its standard in both service and food started to go downhill and I did not go so often already.
The service was quite bad as usually had to go in and look for my own seats. Had to wait for the waiter to take the order and it is very difficult to get hold of the very busy waiters, maybe there are understaffed. They usually will forgot one or two orders and had to wait for a very long for the food to arrive or the dessert will arrive earlier than the main dish itself.
Once I ordered chicken cutlet (forgot the actual name of the dish) and when it arrive, the small piece of chicken is coated with a very thick layer of flour and the inner portion was uncooked due to the thick layer.
The food are the usual stuff nothing impressive. The only impressive thing are the free bread! But then it is not enough to make me go back.
Rating given:
This small little japanese looking bakery and cafe is introduced by my fren. It is hidden in a small little corner in Holland Village, opp Subway.
She started buying the small little wassant (corssant -looking bread) for me. It comes in both chocolate and custard filling. Once I tasted it, I was hooked on it and longed for more. The wassant are hot items, usually out before noon and they will be sold out before 3pm.
Once I was there, a basket around 10 packets are being brought out, within mins, the basket is empty. They are pre packed, either mixed or all same flavour. Each packet will 10 wassants insides.
There is a certain way of eating it and I like to eat it layer by layer.
Other than this, there is also a wide variety of other breads like milk bun, cheese bun and sandwiches. Tasted some of then and proved to be good.
Can also called them in advance to order the wassants, but I think have to be certain quantity and above before they allow you to book!
Rating given:
Was at IKEA Tampines on Sunday to see see look look. Wanted to try out the meatballs recommended by my colleague, who has been talking abt it. So the first thing I did was to go and find the Swedish meatballs at the cafe. Upon reaching, I saw that the crowd was quite big, with a lot o fthe 3-tier trolleys lying around and blocking the passageway. In addition, there were people who were hoarding the seats even though they were already done with their meal.
The queue itself was quite alrite, thou it did take me sometime before I got out of it. Just bought the Swedish meatballs. It was ok, nt really that fantastic as I thought it was.
May go back and try the other foods on a weekday perhaps instead to avoid the crowd.
Rating given:
Out of so many places that sell soya bean products, Mr Bean is one of my fav. Usually I go for their 3 items and it will be my dinner at times as well. Y I like them so much?
Soya Bean Drink: Smooth, thick and not to sweet. Now ythey have have soya bean drink that is mixed with watermelon, honey dew, papaya, carrot or celery. Tasted the honeydew one yesterday, cool and refreshing. Quite nice.
Bean Curd: I like their bean curd cos it is really smooth and light. It would like slide down the throat once it enters your mouth. One of the best that I have tasted!
Red bean Pancake: Even though they got other pancakes like chocolate, kaya, etc, red bean have been my first choice. Reason being, the red bean filling they used is really mushy and smooth and at the same time you can taste the orginial taste of the red bean with its skin. Jz loved it!
I like their things so much that I usually would go and have the 3 items above once or twice a week. Hee....
Rating given:
Been there once. Not too impressvie with the food though. A lot of fusion food going on but to me it seems all look like normal American food.
Service wise ok, nothing to wow about also. The sofa seats is a good place to sit and hang out, chit chat. However, they are a bit low to be seating to have a decent meal.
For me, it seems like another normal cafe, serving food and drinks. Nothing to wow about. There are better cafes out there.
Rating given:
This is the place I will go when I need a quick fix for coffee, tea and snacks!
The service at all outlets especially the one at Ngee Ann City is usually fast, good and friendly.
There is a lot of drinks, both coffee or tea, hot or cold to choose from. There is a lso a range of cakes to choose form as well. Most of them are very good.
Personally I loved to eat my breakfast there as their selection is a lot and generous in their portion as well.
Go to their website, they got special offer on Cake of the month where they got $10 discount of the whole cake when ordered online. They also got a coffeebean card where can accumulate points to be used to redeem their items or to convert into cash.
Rating given:
This is the first place that I will think of when I have the craving for Dim Sum. This place although small and usually packed to the brim, serves the dim sum in the old Hong Kong Style where you got waitress pushing or carrying carts with dim sum on it going around and shouting out what they have.
How hot is this place? Well Jz say that if you dun make reservations and go down hoping to get a table. Prepare to wait for some time ok! Hee... Of cos they will try to make your waiting time as short as possible.
The food there especially the dim sum is very good and fresh. Other than the normal dim sum they also got traditional teochew food which is also good!
The price is average and definitely worth to give it a try if you are a dim sum lover!
Rating given:
I only been to this place once and I have to say that I am not going back again!
The service is slow and hard to get the attention of the “busy” waiters.
The waiting time for the food is also quite slow even though I told the waiter to hasten as we got a show to catch soon!
The food. Well jz say I prefer Fish and Co better!
So overall, to me it is jz another copycat of Fish and Co.
***Updated on 12 Mar 08***
Decided to head to The Manhattan Fish Market @ Plaza Singapura for dinner since there are great reviews in Yebber and while waiting for my movie to start. So with slightly high expectation, we headed towards the restaurant. Well it took sometime for us to decide between this or Fish & Co, as we did not have a very nice time when we first visited it ages ago.
We are surprised to see that there was no queue, as from past experience, when it was dinner time; there was always a small queue outside. Maybe we were lucky to reach the place slightly before dinner time. When we reached the entrance, we were ushered to our seats. The decoration of the place is pretty much like Fish & Co. Not surprised to find it that way, as their bosses used to be from Fish & Co in the first place (if I am not wrong). Even the pans they served their seafood in, used to be the same as Fish & Co, until Fish & Co took action on it then they replaced it with square pans. They also have large LCD showing people scuba diving and underwater scenes. All these just make me want to go scuba diving now.
Back to the dinner, so when we were seated, we were given the menu and nothing else. While we were deciding what to eat, they did not even serve us ice water. Minus points for their service. The place also started to get crowded at the same and they seem understaffed as well, all the waiters and waitresses, including the managers are running around. Took us 5 mins before we can get attention of one waiter to place our order. The irony thing is we are seated right next to the service counter and the kitchen where all of them are running in and out. Minus point again.
So we decided to order the following:
Fried Country Mushroom @ $9.90: This is the only good thing out of the whole meal. The portion is generous. The mushrooms are light coated with a thin layer of batter. It is not over-fried and does not have an oily after taste. The mushroom is full of its natural flavor and juicy as well. The dip provided compliments the mushroom well. I am quite surprised that they served such good mushroom here. To me, this is a must try.
Manhattan Seafood Platter @ $29.90: I always like to order platter as it would have consist of everything that you must try in the restaurant. This platter consists of their fish fillet, oyster, prawns, calamari, fries and garlic rice. Before they placed the pan on the table, the staff attempted to do a stunt, by torching the prawns (to make if flaming) before your very eyes. BY doing so, it will sort of melt the sauce on the prawn and burnt the rest of the seafood around the prawns as well. Personally, this step can be removed as it does more harm to the platter, especially the food, then to get me impressed. After that stunt, there is a burnt smell. Now I understand why there is a burnt smell in the restaurant as they kept doing the torching again and again.
Back to the platter, everything in front of me was fried. Very sinful! The prawns tasted very sweet, too sweet to be its original flavor, even my partner also agrees with me. Think either they added some artificial sweetener to make it sweet or the sauce on the prawns makes it sweet. It is too sweet for my liking, so much so that I named them the fake prawns. Next the oysters, well after being deep fried; it does not taste like oyster any more. The batter is too thick and it is too oily for my liking. Calamari and the fish tasted usual (complain same as the oyster), nothing to wow about but by then I was really sick of the platter already, reason being of all the deep fried stuff. The only think I quite like it is the rice but it was partial ruined by the flaming prawns during the torching process.
Before this, I ordered a set meal or they called it Perfect Catch @ $4.90 which comes with a drink and a soup. I forgot if the soup is cream of mushroom or clam chowder. All I remember was the soup was a straight out of a can.
Somehow the service was quite good when they automatically topped up my ice water, my tartar sauce without asked for and that did added back some points in their service. However they are back to square one when I asked for the bill and waited for them to return me the bill. It took ages and I nearly missed the show because of it. Sigh…. The bill comes up to $52.60. To me it is totally so not worth it. I don’t think I will go back to this place for seafood ever again.
To me the competition between Fish & Co and Manhattan Fish Market, in terms of the food, Fish & Co won by a comfortable mile (as Simon Cowell would have put it).
Rating given: