I had a terrifying experience at Zouk once. They had an Xbox event a couple of years back and my colleague had tixs, so a total of 4 of us went together. The thing that I don't like about Zouk is the steps inside, it's virtually so small you have to walk on tiptoe to get up and down. What made it even more terrifying is the fact that there were so many people crowding and posing on the steps that we had to make our way down without any handrail to guide us. And the worst part? I nearly slipped down the stairs and fell if my friends haven't grabbed hold of me in time. Music and crowd wise, it's good, brains and etiquette wise for the patrons, I'm giving it a thumbs down for the slip on the stairs!!
I didn't know Popeye existed initially despite having worked at Changi Airport before. It was partly due to my staffs who were going crazy over their mashed potatoes and before long, I took the plunge and try it for myself. I mean, if it doesn't taste that good, I won't go back anymore. And seriously, I have to slap myself for saying that comment. Their chicken is superb, dare I say better than KFC. Their mashed potato isn't simply just mashed potato only, there's something more inside that makes them yummylicious, compared to KFC. And who can forget the fries? Absolutely perfect!! And soon before long, I found myself drawing from the ATM on a too-regular basis just to satisfy my cravings from Popeye's!! In my opinion, we should petition for Popeye to take over KFC in all the major and minor shopping centres in Singapore as KFC's standard has drastically dropped over the years.
I bought chicken pies from Polar a couple of times and I dare to say that their pies are excellent. Even after leaving their chicken pie overnight doesn't change the taste or quality at all and I would seriously recommend it to anyone and everyone who like pies, especially chicken pies. To be brtually honest, I don't mind having chicken pie for my meals every day..
In fact, I even signed up for a membership card to show my "loyalty". It does look a little blur, as I don't want my name to be shown. Shy lar...
I usually go to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf @ Takashimaya if I don't feel like drinking a cup of traditional kopi. But the last time I went there, the service is totally horrendou, not to mention the worst I have experienced in my life. Let me share my experience: I went to Coffee Bean (Taka) after work and decided to order a cup of Vanilla Latte to be taken out. The manager who served me greeted me without any sincerity at all, almost as if I had came up at the wrong time and prevented her from talking/gossiping to her staff. Anyway, I placed my order and the manager repeated my order before keying it in and taking the money from me. When when my vanilla latte was finally done, I took a sip and realised that it was just plain normal unflavoured latte. I enquired with the staff that I had placed an order for a vanilla latte. The staff asked for my receipt very politely and told me that I had placed an order of latte instead of vanilla latte according to what was printed on the receipt I was holding. I insisted that I placed an order for vanilla latte and that her manager had actually repeated my order before keying in my order. And guess what happen next? The manager pretended to look blur and confused like as if she didn't know what was happening while the staff kept apologising to me. In this case, isn't the manager supposed to offer an apology instead? I was so angry and disappointed with such bo-chap service that I am never going to step foot into another Coffee Bean & Tree Leaf outlet ever and up till now, I still haven't stepped into any another Coffee Bean franchise outlet at all. Lousy service is best experienced once and only once. Besides, Coffee Bean is not the only cafe in Singapore to serve espresso drinks!!
I remember going to Ya Kun at Takashimaya and seriously, I am a coffee addict by nature. So imagine my surprise when my special order of kopi di lo (coffee straight, no water added) actually taste like coffee. How should I put it? If you are a true coffee drinker, you can tell by the taste of the coffee whether any water has been added to it or not. Wang Jiao on the other hand SUCK BALLS! It's as if the older folk pretended not to understand kopi lingo when I ordered my coffee from them. Ya Kun is definitely my choice when it comes to coffee!!
Basically, it doesn't really matter which branch you go to. It's more like how early should you go to beat the crowd. Anticipate the lunch crowd by going in the morning or if time permits, go before dinner time. In this way, when you are done eating peacefully, you won't be caught in the craze to find a seat at all. I always go early in the morning, as early as I can, to beat the crowds. I mean, who wants to seat beside so many strangers hovering over you even though you had barely just bought your food?
Finally after a very long wait, I happened to have the chance to try out the chicken which everyone is raving about, saying that it is much better than KFC. Well I don’t think KFC is that good to start off with. Since we need to send people off airport, I decided to make use of this chance to try it out.
So excited when we reached there, as usual there is a long queue going on, well 4 people in front of me. There are 3 counters serving at the same time but only one queue. They worked in the way of how you queue at the bank. Not a bad thing but then some people might be put off by the very long one queue.
Seem that it is very popular among a lot of people as they all bought a lot of sets meals, and thus explains the long waiting time as well. Well three counters, so only three people serving at the same time. Since I am so keen on trying it, I wait! Wahahaha…..
I ordered a two piece meal that comes with a side dish and a drink. Their chicken got a choice of spicy and mild version as well. Well I ordered one of each, and got one big piece of big breast meat and one small little chicken wing. Ordered their Cajun fries as the side dish and got a cup of coke. Also added coleslaw as side dish as well. The set also comes with their famous biscuit as well. It comes with a small pack of strawberry jam.
May the tasting begin! I am not a big fan of breast meat but I like thie breast meat. It is crispy on the outside but soft and juicy on the inside. It is not dry at all. The flour covering the chicken is not very thick and it got a hint of herbs being used as well. Taste great! Definitely beats KFC hands down. The thing is both of us could not taste the different between mild and spicy version. Hmm…. Or we got both the same version. Their fries are good enough of their own. It is crispy on the outside but soft and moist on the inside. Seems like they seasoned it with herbs as well. Good! Their coleslaw tasted like the coleslaw that KFC used to produce in the 80s. It is good with big chucks of cabbage and enough mayo to taste. Finally the famous biscuit, it is hard on the outside but soft and fluffy inside. On its own, it tastes like a butter biscuit, but do find it a bit dry and hard to sallow. Together with the strawberry jam, it tastes better.
Overall, I think the fried chicken rocks here but hope that they do open other outlets soon! Hopefully in town! Then now I am officially a Popeyes Fried Chicken Fan!
This little stall is well hidden in a café of Yio Chu Kang Road. Frankly speaking, if I don’t work nearby the café, I would have never found out about this stall. The café is along the side with a few coffee shops but it is almost packed to brim when it comes to lunch time.
The café is a very small and humble set up. Simple tables with white chairs and with a TV showing some lunch time show. The café is air conditioned and got outdoor seats for the smokers as well. There are only 3 stalls, one selling drinks, one selling noodles and the last one selling roast meat. So this review shall focus on the stall selling roast duck: Sally Roast Meat Rice.
The stall is managed by 2 sisters and of course the name Sally belongs to the elder sister if I am not wrong. It seems that they had been around doing this for sometime. Their stall also got paste a number of newspapers cutting and even got on a TV show before. They got all the nice logos on display. During lunch, most of the people will buy from their stall so prepared to join a long queue. For good food, it is totally worth to queue. They are very friendly as well, if you ask nicely to them for a little more rice, they will give it to you with no extra charge.
Since they are selling roast meat, of course they sell all kinds of roast meat, from duck, to meat and even BBQ chicken wings. On their stall front, just before lunch, they always display all the wonderful, shiny, meat.
Let me start off with their roast duck, their ducks are consider rather big in size. Their ducks are roasted until they have very nice and crispy looking skin. They have an even dark red color throughout the duck. The meat is juicy and soft, not tough at all. The skin is crispy and not oily. Other ducks tend to have a lot of fats but their ducks seem to have very little of it. Therefore when eating the duck, you dun have to chew off the fats first. A plate of duck rice comes with a large portion of nicely chopped duck meat and it only cost $3. It is a must try.
Their Char Siew is also another star on its own. Their char siew is roasted until dark red brown color with a shiny finishing and a bit of chao da bits at its corner. The meat they chose are lean so dun have much fats inside. They cut into slightly thick slices when serves. I like the taste where it is not too sweet and at the same time meat is soft and juicy. Unlike those that are sold in the market where their char siew are bright red in color and taste super sweet one.
Roast meat is something that I usually try not to eat but their roast meat has a thick crispy skin, together with the fat layer and the meat makes a wonderful combination. Got me totally hooked onto their roast meat.
BBQ Chicken Wing, this one alone is worth 5 stars already. Their BBQ chicken wing is like their char siew, dark red brown color with a shiny finishing and a bit of chao da bits. I think they used the same seasoning for both. It is also not too sweet and the meat is soft and juicy, not dry at all.
My usual order would be duck rice char siew 1 chicken wing, and the cost is only $4.70 and it comes with a very big size of rice. Sometimes to give myself a treat, I will buy a duck drumstick. Yum Yum! Something to mention here, every order comes with a free soup. Their free soup is made from all the leftover bones of the roasted duck and a type of preserved spicy vegetable. So to say there is extra meat in the soup. Free of charge some more!
Recently they started to sell sliced fish soup also but sad to say they should just stick to selling of the roasted meat can alr. Their sliced fish soup, although comes with a generous serving of sliced fish, but the soup base is tasteless with a very peppery taste. Not tasty at all.
So you keen to give it a try? Give me a call then I can bring you there for lunch!
1/2 Price Tuesday! So 1/2 the menu and service too?
Felt like having waffles yesterday so I met my girlfriend for dinner at Gelare. The last time I went, the mushroom cream pasta was pretty shiok. But yesterday our experience was in fact, very bad.
This outlet at Hougang Mall is pretty small and getting a table for 4 wasn't easy. After 20mins of waiting outside, finally we got our table. They've now improved on their menu and there were many choices that looks quite good. Since we were there for the waffles and pasta, we didn't get distracted. We wrote our orders on the order sheet provided at every table and went to the cashier to place our order.
While waiting in the queue, I realised that the ice cream choice we wanted wasn't available. And thus I tried to remember whatever that's there and walked back to the table to check with my friends. By then, I've already forgotten 80% of the choices available. Had to walk all the way back to check again and then back to the table to change our orders. Statisfied with our choice of ice cream for our waffles, we got back to the queue and when its our turn, the cashier told us that they had run out of mushroom cream pasta!!! (They could have indicated somewhere or inform us when they cleared the table right?) My friend had to walk back to our table and check what we want to change our pasta to, and then we changed our order AGAIN and joined the queue AGAIN!
We ended walking back and forth for about 5 times before we placed our orders with the cashier!
Our pasta was served first and one look at it I lost my appetite. We ordered tomato seafood pasta, the pasta looked pathetic with the little amount of sauce that only managed to cover 1/3 of the pasta for mine and 1/2 of the pasta for my friends'. We were too hungry to complain and so we just went ahead with what was given.
After our pasta, we stayed to chat while waiting for the waffles which was finally served after more than 30 mins! We did indicate to serve our waffles later, aka after we're done with our pasta, but not till that late.
Very disappointed about yesterday's experience. Guess I'll just forget about the pasta and just go for their waffles the next time.
The infamous Gelare Tuesdays, the only time of the week when you get waffles at half price. Sounds good doesn't it? Except you can expect to wait for eons for your waffles to be served.
We waited for a good 40 minutes before our simple waffle with two scoops of ice-cream got served.
If they couldn't keep up with the service standard, or to train their staffs to politely inform us of a possible long wait, they might as well not try stunts like this. It only serves to stain their brand name.
And I totally agree with Polarbear above, no free water is a bad move. It's the little perks that keep customers coming back, and the little irks that keep them away.
1=SGD 0.0587
I had a terrifying experience at Zouk once. They had an Xbox event a couple of years back and my colleague had tixs, so a total of 4 of us went together. The thing that I don't like about Zouk is the steps inside, it's virtually so small you have to walk on tiptoe to get up and down. What made it even more terrifying is the fact that there were so many people crowding and posing on the steps that we had to make our way down without any handrail to guide us. And the worst part? I nearly slipped down the stairs and fell if my friends haven't grabbed hold of me in time. Music and crowd wise, it's good, brains and etiquette wise for the patrons, I'm giving it a thumbs down for the slip on the stairs!!
Rating given:
I didn't know Popeye existed initially despite having worked at Changi Airport before. It was partly due to my staffs who were going crazy over their mashed potatoes and before long, I took the plunge and try it for myself. I mean, if it doesn't taste that good, I won't go back anymore. And seriously, I have to slap myself for saying that comment. Their chicken is superb, dare I say better than KFC. Their mashed potato isn't simply just mashed potato only, there's something more inside that makes them yummylicious, compared to KFC. And who can forget the fries? Absolutely perfect!! And soon before long, I found myself drawing from the ATM on a too-regular basis just to satisfy my cravings from Popeye's!! In my opinion, we should petition for Popeye to take over KFC in all the major and minor shopping centres in Singapore as KFC's standard has drastically dropped over the years.
Rating given:
I bought chicken pies from Polar a couple of times and I dare to say that their pies are excellent. Even after leaving their chicken pie overnight doesn't change the taste or quality at all and I would seriously recommend it to anyone and everyone who like pies, especially chicken pies. To be brtually honest, I don't mind having chicken pie for my meals every day..
In fact, I even signed up for a membership card to show my "loyalty". It does look a little blur, as I don't want my name to be shown. Shy lar...
Rating given:
I usually go to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf @ Takashimaya if I don't feel like drinking a cup of traditional kopi. But the last time I went there, the service is totally horrendou, not to mention the worst I have experienced in my life. Let me share my experience: I went to Coffee Bean (Taka) after work and decided to order a cup of Vanilla Latte to be taken out. The manager who served me greeted me without any sincerity at all, almost as if I had came up at the wrong time and prevented her from talking/gossiping to her staff. Anyway, I placed my order and the manager repeated my order before keying it in and taking the money from me. When when my vanilla latte was finally done, I took a sip and realised that it was just plain normal unflavoured latte. I enquired with the staff that I had placed an order for a vanilla latte. The staff asked for my receipt very politely and told me that I had placed an order of latte instead of vanilla latte according to what was printed on the receipt I was holding. I insisted that I placed an order for vanilla latte and that her manager had actually repeated my order before keying in my order. And guess what happen next? The manager pretended to look blur and confused like as if she didn't know what was happening while the staff kept apologising to me. In this case, isn't the manager supposed to offer an apology instead? I was so angry and disappointed with such bo-chap service that I am never going to step foot into another Coffee Bean & Tree Leaf outlet ever and up till now, I still haven't stepped into any another Coffee Bean franchise outlet at all. Lousy service is best experienced once and only once. Besides, Coffee Bean is not the only cafe in Singapore to serve espresso drinks!!
Rating given:
I remember going to Ya Kun at Takashimaya and seriously, I am a coffee addict by nature. So imagine my surprise when my special order of kopi di lo (coffee straight, no water added) actually taste like coffee. How should I put it? If you are a true coffee drinker, you can tell by the taste of the coffee whether any water has been added to it or not. Wang Jiao on the other hand SUCK BALLS! It's as if the older folk pretended not to understand kopi lingo when I ordered my coffee from them. Ya Kun is definitely my choice when it comes to coffee!!
Rating given:
Basically, it doesn't really matter which branch you go to. It's more like how early should you go to beat the crowd. Anticipate the lunch crowd by going in the morning or if time permits, go before dinner time. In this way, when you are done eating peacefully, you won't be caught in the craze to find a seat at all. I always go early in the morning, as early as I can, to beat the crowds. I mean, who wants to seat beside so many strangers hovering over you even though you had barely just bought your food?
Rating given:
Finally after a very long wait, I happened to have the chance to try out the chicken which everyone is raving about, saying that it is much better than KFC. Well I don’t think KFC is that good to start off with. Since we need to send people off airport, I decided to make use of this chance to try it out.
So excited when we reached there, as usual there is a long queue going on, well 4 people in front of me. There are 3 counters serving at the same time but only one queue. They worked in the way of how you queue at the bank. Not a bad thing but then some people might be put off by the very long one queue.
Seem that it is very popular among a lot of people as they all bought a lot of sets meals, and thus explains the long waiting time as well. Well three counters, so only three people serving at the same time. Since I am so keen on trying it, I wait! Wahahaha…..
I ordered a two piece meal that comes with a side dish and a drink. Their chicken got a choice of spicy and mild version as well. Well I ordered one of each, and got one big piece of big breast meat and one small little chicken wing. Ordered their Cajun fries as the side dish and got a cup of coke. Also added coleslaw as side dish as well. The set also comes with their famous biscuit as well. It comes with a small pack of strawberry jam.
May the tasting begin! I am not a big fan of breast meat but I like thie breast meat. It is crispy on the outside but soft and juicy on the inside. It is not dry at all. The flour covering the chicken is not very thick and it got a hint of herbs being used as well. Taste great! Definitely beats KFC hands down. The thing is both of us could not taste the different between mild and spicy version. Hmm…. Or we got both the same version. Their fries are good enough of their own. It is crispy on the outside but soft and moist on the inside. Seems like they seasoned it with herbs as well. Good! Their coleslaw tasted like the coleslaw that KFC used to produce in the 80s. It is good with big chucks of cabbage and enough mayo to taste. Finally the famous biscuit, it is hard on the outside but soft and fluffy inside. On its own, it tastes like a butter biscuit, but do find it a bit dry and hard to sallow. Together with the strawberry jam, it tastes better.
Overall, I think the fried chicken rocks here but hope that they do open other outlets soon! Hopefully in town! Then now I am officially a Popeyes Fried Chicken Fan!
Rating given:
This little stall is well hidden in a café of Yio Chu Kang Road. Frankly speaking, if I don’t work nearby the café, I would have never found out about this stall. The café is along the side with a few coffee shops but it is almost packed to brim when it comes to lunch time.
The café is a very small and humble set up. Simple tables with white chairs and with a TV showing some lunch time show. The café is air conditioned and got outdoor seats for the smokers as well. There are only 3 stalls, one selling drinks, one selling noodles and the last one selling roast meat. So this review shall focus on the stall selling roast duck: Sally Roast Meat Rice.
The stall is managed by 2 sisters and of course the name Sally belongs to the elder sister if I am not wrong. It seems that they had been around doing this for sometime. Their stall also got paste a number of newspapers cutting and even got on a TV show before. They got all the nice logos on display. During lunch, most of the people will buy from their stall so prepared to join a long queue. For good food, it is totally worth to queue. They are very friendly as well, if you ask nicely to them for a little more rice, they will give it to you with no extra charge.
Since they are selling roast meat, of course they sell all kinds of roast meat, from duck, to meat and even BBQ chicken wings. On their stall front, just before lunch, they always display all the wonderful, shiny, meat.
Let me start off with their roast duck, their ducks are consider rather big in size. Their ducks are roasted until they have very nice and crispy looking skin. They have an even dark red color throughout the duck. The meat is juicy and soft, not tough at all. The skin is crispy and not oily. Other ducks tend to have a lot of fats but their ducks seem to have very little of it. Therefore when eating the duck, you dun have to chew off the fats first. A plate of duck rice comes with a large portion of nicely chopped duck meat and it only cost $3. It is a must try.
Their Char Siew is also another star on its own. Their char siew is roasted until dark red brown color with a shiny finishing and a bit of chao da bits at its corner. The meat they chose are lean so dun have much fats inside. They cut into slightly thick slices when serves. I like the taste where it is not too sweet and at the same time meat is soft and juicy. Unlike those that are sold in the market where their char siew are bright red in color and taste super sweet one.
Roast meat is something that I usually try not to eat but their roast meat has a thick crispy skin, together with the fat layer and the meat makes a wonderful combination. Got me totally hooked onto their roast meat.
BBQ Chicken Wing, this one alone is worth 5 stars already. Their BBQ chicken wing is like their char siew, dark red brown color with a shiny finishing and a bit of chao da bits. I think they used the same seasoning for both. It is also not too sweet and the meat is soft and juicy, not dry at all.
My usual order would be duck rice char siew 1 chicken wing, and the cost is only $4.70 and it comes with a very big size of rice. Sometimes to give myself a treat, I will buy a duck drumstick. Yum Yum! Something to mention here, every order comes with a free soup. Their free soup is made from all the leftover bones of the roasted duck and a type of preserved spicy vegetable. So to say there is extra meat in the soup. Free of charge some more!
Recently they started to sell sliced fish soup also but sad to say they should just stick to selling of the roasted meat can alr. Their sliced fish soup, although comes with a generous serving of sliced fish, but the soup base is tasteless with a very peppery taste. Not tasty at all.
So you keen to give it a try? Give me a call then I can bring you there for lunch!
Rating given:
1/2 Price Tuesday! So 1/2 the menu and service too?
Felt like having waffles yesterday so I met my girlfriend for dinner at Gelare. The last time I went, the mushroom cream pasta was pretty shiok. But yesterday our experience was in fact, very bad.
This outlet at Hougang Mall is pretty small and getting a table for 4 wasn't easy. After 20mins of waiting outside, finally we got our table. They've now improved on their menu and there were many choices that looks quite good. Since we were there for the waffles and pasta, we didn't get distracted. We wrote our orders on the order sheet provided at every table and went to the cashier to place our order.
While waiting in the queue, I realised that the ice cream choice we wanted wasn't available. And thus I tried to remember whatever that's there and walked back to the table to check with my friends. By then, I've already forgotten 80% of the choices available. Had to walk all the way back to check again and then back to the table to change our orders. Statisfied with our choice of ice cream for our waffles, we got back to the queue and when its our turn, the cashier told us that they had run out of mushroom cream pasta!!! (They could have indicated somewhere or inform us when they cleared the table right?) My friend had to walk back to our table and check what we want to change our pasta to, and then we changed our order AGAIN and joined the queue AGAIN!
We ended walking back and forth for about 5 times before we placed our orders with the cashier!
Our pasta was served first and one look at it I lost my appetite. We ordered tomato seafood pasta, the pasta looked pathetic with the little amount of sauce that only managed to cover 1/3 of the pasta for mine and 1/2 of the pasta for my friends'. We were too hungry to complain and so we just went ahead with what was given.
After our pasta, we stayed to chat while waiting for the waffles which was finally served after more than 30 mins! We did indicate to serve our waffles later, aka after we're done with our pasta, but not till that late.
Very disappointed about yesterday's experience. Guess I'll just forget about the pasta and just go for their waffles the next time.
Rating given:
The infamous Gelare Tuesdays, the only time of the week when you get waffles at half price. Sounds good doesn't it? Except you can expect to wait for eons for your waffles to be served.
We waited for a good 40 minutes before our simple waffle with two scoops of ice-cream got served.
If they couldn't keep up with the service standard, or to train their staffs to politely inform us of a possible long wait, they might as well not try stunts like this. It only serves to stain their brand name.
And I totally agree with Polarbear above, no free water is a bad move. It's the little perks that keep customers coming back, and the little irks that keep them away.
Rating given: