hburn10's Reviews
1=SGD 0.058795 Yebbers Online!
Double Yebber Dollar Category for December:
Food & Beverage
Click here for future month
WELCOME TO YEBBER
You can use your Facebook Account to register in Yebber and start reviewing your favourite or least favourite businesses
Please click the login button below and proceed to create a new Yebber ID at the next step.
Never knew this existed until we saw it while choosing a placeat the Seafood Centre to dine with family. Crystal Jade has its reputation of being trusty on its quality of food so it was a natural decision for us.
The weather was breezy when we went, so outdoor seats was good. The indoor sheltered seats was quite warm as the place has no air condition.
The menu was bright and easy to choose from - things like prawns you tell them how many grams you would like (min. 300g) and the menu lists the different way you can have it cooked. Same goes for vegetables - they list with pictures the different types of vegetables and you choose the way you want it cooked.
6 of us ordered conservatively:
Prawns sauteed with rice wine and herb ($21 @ $7 oer 100g) - 300g gave us 9-10 prawns which was much lesser than I expected. For this method of cooking, they cook the prawns at your table side and serve immediately thereafter. The whole cooking process was entertaining for the kids, but they served it by just throwing it onto the plate without even trying to sort of making it presentable.
Baby kailan in oyster sauce - although the kailan was not overcooked, it lacked the 'wok hei' that could have made the dish stand out. I felt there was way too much oyster sauce as well, but thankfully no overdose on the salt.
Deep fried tofu ($6) - a favourite with us; this is also on the other crystal jade menus. Small cubes of fluffy tofu deep fried to be crispy outside and soft inside, dusted with pepper and salt. Very good.
Fried rice - Cant remember what fried rice this was and only took a spoonful but there were egg and cabbage in it, and thankfully not oily although lacking the wok hei too.
Chilli crab ($76) - the star of the dinner. It came in a huge bowl with the crab flooded in the sauce. It was a huge crab they gave - 1.9kg thus the price. The sauce was quite good, although less spicy than some people would have preferred. The mantou was charged at $1 per piece, a bit pricey but the steamed ones tasted really home-made which was a bonus point for them.
Other little items we ordered was beer, young coconut, lime juice, organge juice, coke etc. Nuts, towels etc were also charged. The total bill was $236, which shocked me - I was expecting between $150-$200. Perhaps because we werent told the weight of the crab before hand which I felt was something they should have done.
Service was excellent though. Plates were changed very regularly and plain water was served without asking when they saw my lime juice was finished. Staff were all polite although sometimes because the place was not very busy, a few times I saw they tend to chat within themselves and didnt see some waving of hands signaling for service.
It would have been a much better experience without the shock of the bill I guess, and because the competition is so stiff, I'm really not sure if I'll be back.
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
Decided on this for a quick Sat dinner as the place was not too crowded and of course to kill my curiosity after walking past this so many times.
1/4 chicken set ($14.95) - which comes with a choice of side and free flow sof drinks. Picked the mild peri as the sauce, although the other 2 sauces Veri Peri and Super Peri are available on the table to try. Had coleslaw as the side, out of the many normal sides they offer. Wanted wedges but were informed that it cost an extra $2, which was not stated on the menu.
The portion was disappointingly small, with the 1/4 looking quite sad. Although the meat was quite tender, the marinate didnt quite penetrate the meat and lingered on the skin more. The coleslaw was thankfully not too 'soaked' and still had its crunch when we tried it.
Mini burgers & chips ($9.95) - 2 mini chicken burgers and fries on the side. Inside the burgers were just a tiny piece of chicken with a slice of cheese. The cheese was not melted enough which I found strange as it typically comes more metled if you had put the burger together when the bun was stll hot. The quantity of fries was quite sparse, and was soft and uninspiring.
Veri Peri and Super Peri sauces - to be honest, I couldnt really tell the diff between the 2. Tiny bit of mexican style spicyness but nothing really special.
I see that the service is an issue in the reviews before me, and I am sad to say I join them in saying so. I spotted an extra $2 in my reciept and asked why. They said its for an extra drink that comes along with the burgers & chips. I said I did not order it, but the guy who was at the counter very mechanically highlighted that it is because the 1/4 set comes with free flow of drinks, thus they have to add an extra drink even though we did not order it. Why? Because the free flow of drink cannot be shared - they want to make sure that no one takes advantage of the free flow. So basically, in your order, either you choose to all not have drinks, or if one orders drinks or a set that comes with drinks, everyone else gets the $2.
I understand they do not want pple to abuse the free flow, but I would have appreciated it if they had told me BEFORE my order was confirmed, because I would have picked to not have drinks at all. Instead, they chose to sneak it in and only explain when you bring it up. I told the guy that they should indicate this somewhere, to which he replied that it is in the menu that the free flow drinks cannot be shared. Well, this is totally different to saying "It is compulsory for every pax in the group to order one drink each at $2 per pax. It is either this or no one gets to drink at all".
I thought it was nice to have cushion seats, until I saw that most of them are very stained and looked really dirty.
Unreasonable policy poor service dirty seats medicore food is not the smartest way to run a business especially when Nandos are really fierce for competition. For this pricing, I'll go back to Kenny Rogers.
Management if you're reading this, please do something about it to save your business.
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
I'll talk about the rooms first -
Club Deluxe King - at 54 sqM, the room feels bigger than it is, with a nice separate working living room from the bedroom and bathroom. It was spanking clean and very well maintained, including the small minor things like bathroom tiles. Nothing to fault on cleaniness, comfort, and style. The bed was big enough for 3pax actually.
Grand Duplex Suite - the 128 sqM suite is divided into 2 floors, with the living, meeting, and kitchen areas below and the bedroom, master bathroom, and separate make up area on top. Similarly spanking clean with ultimate comfort in mind. But it comes with an extremely narrow staircase which only makes for 1 way traffic.
Grand Club Lounge - Only accessible via a stairway from the 20 floor and was a much bigger area than I expected. It was quite empty most of the time, and the bites served during the evening was not too bad, although I think the Club Lounge at Conrad Singapore serves better food. Service was okay, although I felt the staff tended to attend to non-Chinese more.
Service -
I was abit let down by the service throughout the stay as I thought well, its Hyatt. When I arrived, my taxi was packed with luggages and wedding stuff but no one came forward to help me with the things; only 1 doorman approached, took the stuff only to place them on the floor beside the departing taxi. ???!!!. I ended up lugging all the things from thedriveway to the hotel lobby myself. The same thing happened when we returned to the hotel the 2nd night, at almost 2am. We had numerous packs of things with us, including one huge wedding gift but no one came forward. I had to gesture them to bring a trolley, then 1 staff slowly strolled out with no trolley in hand.
During the 2nd day, we were running out for the wedding proper at 3pm and because we knew we would be back very late, we called for an extra bed to be put in while we're gone so the extra guest can rest immediately after we return without having to wait. At 2am, we opened the door, and no extra bed. We called again to ask for it, then after 15mins, 2 staff rang my door, and I thought oh good, the bed's here. Nope. I opened the door only to have them ask me what was it I needed. I couldnt believe it. I told them about the bed, and just had to call to scream at the concierge because I was in absolutely no mood to be nice at 2am.
Something else very irritating to me happened on the 3rd morning too. We were moving loads of the wedding stuff from the deluxe to the suite coz it was all on the same floor, just on different ends of the floor. My siser's mother in law is Causasian and was walking in front of me, both of us struggling with as much stuff on our hands. One senior staff saw us, and smiled politely to her and asked if he can help her with the things, which she declined. Then, he took a look at me then turned away without even mustering a smile, I caught more of a disdain than anything. It was very iritating to have hotel staff practice blantant discrimination like this but I was in a hurry to finish moving our staff.
Didnt have time to try the room service, pool, gym but I'm sure they are quite nice. But I do really think they should brush up on their service.
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
Nice of them to not have a minmum spending for their private rooms for a weekday dinner when most other hotels have. I didnt like the idea of having to hit a minimum amount even before I see what I like on the menu, so plus points for them!
It was a family dinner for 12pax and the round table was just about nice enough for us, although the table usually accommodates 10pax. Service was quick and efficient as well, so no complaints.
We decided on the $68 per pax set menu to make things easier for everyone:
Steamed crabmeat and minced shrimp dumpling in egg white souffle & Golden-fried duck with portugese sauce wrapped in crispy filo pastry - Presented very nicely on a 3-compartment long plate with a cute flower in between. The dumpling was excellent wiht the seafood fresh and crunchy, and paired very well with the egg white souflle which was really chinese chawamushi, only lighter. The duck was good with no gamey taste and not tough at all; the pastry was freshly and not a hint of staleness at all. My European side of the family liked this immensely.
Corn and chicken soup - We replaced the black chicken soup with this as was afraid that the european guests will not take to it. Very good chicken soup and lots of corn to keep the soup crunchy. Some found the consistency too gooey but I thought it was nto too bad.
Baked chicken roll with onion marinated with lemongrass sauce - Nice lightly marinated chicken roll (which was actually fresh chicken meat) on a bed of crunchy onions and a silver of veg. The onions could have been sauteed more as not many people like onions the crunchy. Again, the meat tasted like fresh chicken instead of frozen meat.
Sauteed cubes of sea perch with pine nuts and vegetables served in a golden nest - This tasted alot like cod for some reason. The veg are corn and cubes of bell peppers which provided some colour, but a pity that the pine nuts were over-roased which made them quite bitter. The nest of vermicilli was good too, though I felt it can be more crispy.
Steamed mian xian noodle with river king prawn in chinese wine broth - super duper light 'main course' for a chinese dinner which managed to be flavourful and satisfying at the same time. The broth did taste of the wine and the prawn was huge.
Red date paste in crispy filo pastry served with pineapple sauce - The pastry was okay, but I left the paste alone as am not a big fan of dates and the smell and taste was quite overwhelmimg for me.
Was a good experience as I didnt have very high hopes when I went. But it scored quite well on every aspect! Maybe I'll try the dim sum the next time :D
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
5 girls and 1 guy on a 5pm weekday means the place was not too packed for our big group. We were greedy and ordered 5 tarts ($6.50 per tart) to share with drinks of course:
Strawberry mont blanc - The mont blanc could have been more, although the taste blended very well with the berries. The taste of the nut did not come through as being very obvious admist all the cream.
Blueberry - Topped off with real blueberries and blueberry jelly cubes. The jelly were a nice touch and something different to the otherwise boring tart.
Chocolate banana - Anything chocolate must be more popular than the rest of the flavours. The banana slices were thankfully not too mushy and the chocolate actually provided a but more flavour than the rest of our choices. A good match I think!
Mango - A little too stingy with the mango cubes and slices.
Mixed fruit - mixed fruit is well, mixed fruit. Some mango, kiwi, banana, strawberry, blueberry.
It did feel like it was not too sinful a dessert break, maybe becasue of the very light Japanese cream. But after a while, they all started to taste the same except for the chocolate banana. I liked the tart base too, very fresh and light.
My earl grey was okay, but they dont serve honey, only sugar syrup. And I think having wrong orders is really not forgivable when we were the 2nd occupied table. But for girls, this is an outlet to feel like having your cake and eating it too. Literally.
With drinks, the total bill for 5 tarts and drinks came up to $78 which I didnt expect. But I guess it could have been alot more expenseive than say canele.
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!