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Sport & Recreation
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1=SGD 0.0587
Dropped by for tea after having no lunch, and was quite happy to order the sinful looking Appetizer Platter for 2 to share (I can't remember what the actual name of the dish was, sorry!).
Its basically a pan full of batter coated fish, squid, prawns, and nachos - comes with vinegrette, mango salsa, and tartar sauce. It is surprisingly big and all the items were fresh and crunchy, even the nachos. Most were not too oily as well, except for the prawns. Skip the boring tartar and try the vinegrette and salsa which paired very well as they cut the richness of the seafood.
Service can be improved, as most of them seeing that it was a non-peak period was quite lobo and sometimes not reacting to attempts to get their attention. I think it is also time they do a proper clean up of the place as the stale smell of wood was quite evident although not to the extent of nauseating.
Rating given:
Nice cosy spot for italian in orchard~
Decided to give this a shot after reading about it and liked the fast that it's in orchard but far away from the maddening crowd. Our group of 8pax was the biggest group on a Tuesday evening with maybe 4-5 other tables occupied. We were hungry so we ordered many things to share:
Complimentary bread - served with balsamic vinegrette, the plate had both normal crusty white bread and foccacia. The bread was cold but the balsamic vinegrette was very good, which kept the bread going.
Bruschettona ($10) - Homemade toasted focaccia stuffed with tomatoes, capers, onions and topped with arugula leaves and parmesan cheese. - didnt try this but it looked very good and the presentation was quite nice, on a wooden board.
Fried Prawns and Calamari ($16) - Deep-fried hand-battered prawns and calamari, served with our special sauce. - fresh prawns and calamari although the batter was abit hard and overcooked resulting in tough seafood. They came on a bed of mini onion rings which was rather nice too. The accompanying cheese sauce was average really.
Sicilian Chicken Salad ($15) - Diced chicken breasts, mangoes, red grapes and pine nuts, tossed in Lemon-dijon dressing on crispy romaine lettuce. - I felt the dressing was too much resulting in limp vegetables, and it tasted more like chicken cesar salad.
Seafood Pizza ($18) - Tomato, mozzarella cheese and mixed seafood. - nice crust, although not as thin as I would like it to be. Serving of seafood was tad miserable though, but overall taste was not bad. The 12" was bigger than I thought it would be too.
Salmon Fettuccine ($18) - Fettuccine pasta tossed with vodka, smoked salmon and spring onions in a pink sauce - had a bite and quite liked it, the only grouse was that the sauce was too creamy.
Mushroom Risotto ($15) - Arborio Italian rice mixed with mushrooms and parmesan cheese. - very nice! The risotto was nicely infused with the flavour and the mushrooms was very good too, very earthy and woody taste / smell. Portion was huge so note to share.
Tomato Seafood Risotto ($16) - A combination of seafood in tomato sauce. -had a bite too and it was good too without the sauce being too tart.
Gnocchi with Onions and Mushrooms Alla Panna ($15) - Potato dumplings in onions, mushrooms and parmesan cream sauce. - everyone liked this although I felt the gnocchi itself was tad bland. The mushrooms saved the day. But this is best eaten hot as it gets a bit hard when cold.
Service was nicely adequate but maybe because the place is not quite filled up; we were the only table left by 9:30pm. We had a bottle of red wine and some beer as well which may be the reason why the bill is much higher than I expected. But I'll be back to try their pastas!
Oh the place also has a small bar for drinks with high stools.
Rating given:
Dropped by with 4 other friends for a light lunch on a Sunday afternoon and the place was 3/4 full with families and some ladies of leisure having their light meals.
There's actually a Chinese Tea House section when you enter the restaurant which had a very nice oriental vibe to it, and then you enter the restaurant proper.
Ordering was quick although the staff seemed new and needed to reconfirm the item numbers even after writing down the item name.
Crackers ($3) - they place this on the table after guests are seated and (sneakily) charges $3 per portion, which they don't explain until you ask. The crackers are tasty though, with a mix of the local prawn crackers and the Indonesian belingol.
Toufu 锅巴豆腐 （$16）- Decided to order a tofu dish as the place is apparently famous for it. They serve a bowl of crispy rice crackers then pour the hot tofu and the accompanying ingredients into the rice crackers so it makes a very nice cackling sound. Very light, tasty, and a good start to the lunch - the tofu tasted home-made too which is always a good sign. But eat the dish fast as it sort of turns into mui fan when the rice crackers soak for too long.
Crispy pancake 黄金大饼 ($4.50) - Thick pillowy dough filled with crispy floss and topped with seseme seeds. The plain dough was a good match with the savoury floss, and it was not oily despite being deep fried.
Carrot cake 萝卜糕 ($4.50) - average at best.
Seafood dumplings in soup 三鲜水饺 ($4.50) - disappointing as the 'soup' didnt taste like it was stock and couldnt make out any seafood in the dumplings either.
Beancurd chilli noodles 豆花辣面 （6) - It came looking horribly spicy because of the chilli oil, with a dollop of beancurd on it. The only comment I heard of it was 'spicy'.
Beancurd with wolfberry 豆花 ($3.50) - very silky home-made beancurd with plenty of wolfberries in it. There was also no overy sugary syrup to mask the freshness of the beancurd.
Chinese Tea ($5 per pax) - It was quite entertaining to watch the staff pour water for your tea martial arts style and the tea was indeed very light and refreshing. But I would expect so for $5 per pax.
Service of food was okay and well-paced, but the bill took very long to arrive. We also had 2 vouchers which could not be used together but they very kindly split the bill for us.
Even for the original bill of $84 was okay for 5pax I feel, given that the place is family friendly yet not too noisy and you get good quality food if you know what to order.
Rating given:
Chose this for a staycation with some friends as they were having a 50% off 2nd room promotion for weekends. Bookiing was quick and easy and the staff in the reservations were very patient with some questions I had as well.
The 2 connecting rooms (472 and 473) I had were honestly much better than I expected, and much better than what the hotel exterior looks like it can offer. They were very well maintained and adequately roomy for my group, and amenities were nice too. The only gripe is that the size of the connecting door was a tad too narrow and I would think that a larger guest would have needed to walk sideways to get through it.
The location was not too bad for me as it was a short 15min walk to Suntec City but it probably gets tiring when you are trying to go back to your room with shopping bags etc. But there's a bus stop right in front of the hotel which is a option too if you don't want to walk.
The pool side was very nice too, with a Balinese feel to it. The steam room was adequate but nothing fancy. The gym was surprisingly a good size too.
I ate lunch at the Chinese Restaurant Si Chua Dou Hua on level 1 and the food was great. It was also fun watching the staff pour hot water for your tea with their fancy moves and pot.
For the money I paid with the promotion (SGD380 in total for 2 rooms), it was value for money if you can disregard the slight inconvenience of the locaiton.
However, I have some gripes during the stay too, which I feel the hotel should take steps to remedify:
CHECK IN
Upon check in at 2pm, I was told that only room 472 was ready and told that 473 will be ready approximately 3:30pm. We were quite okay with it and went into 472 to rest while waiting. At 3:30pm, the room was not yet ready, and at 4pm, I recieved a call from the receptionist informing that the room is ready and she will send someone to 472 to pass me the keys to 473.
We continued chatting in the room and waited for the doorbell to ring. But what I saw instead was the key card holders containing keys to 473 being slipped / thrown under the door of 472. I just saw the thing sliding in and did not react in time to open the door and find out who that is.
That is a totally unacceptable gesture by any hotel staff. It would have made sense if he / she has rung several times and done that after sensing that no one was in. But we were all in the room waiting and very sure we would have heard the bell. I am not expecting any grand passing over ceremony - I only expected at least the staff to have the basic courtesy and responsibility to pass me the keys personally. It was very rude and irresponsible of the staff, whoever he or she is, to resort to that. I was very upset and called the concierge to voice my unhappines, and the gentleman on the phone said he will reprimand the staff, but I was not given any follow up calls / answers after that.
BREAKFAST
We had breakfast on the morning of 2 Jan at 8:30am, and realized that alot of items had run out and were not replenished for some time. There seems to be a shortage of chef / staff doing the replenishment, and when it was done, seemed to be very sporadicly managed. It almost felt like you needed to be lucky to know what time to come in or risk having little selection to choose from. We and other breakfast guests were going around opening empty baskets and lids, which felt quite silly after a while.
The restaurant probably could have anticipated the large crowd especially given it was a long weekend and plenty of tourists checking in/out and would have given me a better impression if that was managed properly eg. as simple as having more staff around. If I were a paying guest, I would be upset at having needing to pay but little to eat.
The above being said, the rest of the staff I encountered during my stay were polite and pleasant.
Worth a stay if you dont mind walking to burn off all the local treats!
Rating given:
Dropped by for some Kornenburg and had to have some beer buddies to go along with it. Decided on the fries from Fatboys although there were also a Thai and a Mexican eatery at The Foundry.
Their fries is excellent and in HUGE portion! Served freshly deep fried and thick cut and you pick the sauce you want. We had tomato, chilli, and mustard. Heaven!
The basket of fries is seriously value for money, at $6nett a basket. I dont know where else you can find such a pick anywhere near town.
The place itself is alfresco but they have plenty of fans to keep you cool, although I dont think they will suffice in the afternoon. Their happy hour also ends at 7pm which seems a tad early. Service at Fatboys is smiley and fast, thumbs up!
Rating given:
Dropped by for an impromptu 'dinner' on a Saturday night and the alfresco area beside the river was about half filled, with some big groups and smaller groups of tourists.
Tiger Beer - I cant remember how much each glass was but it was served very chilled. Nice!
Deep fried spring roll ($16) - I cant remember exactly what was stuffed inside the rolls but they were defintiely home-made from scratch and had greens, chicken etc in it, served with a side of what was similar to Thai chilli sauce. The 5 rolls were served cut in half each, which was quite thoughtful. And not oily at all.
Pomelo and prawn salad ($18) - Good! Many chunks of the fruit instead of the usual fibre by firbre serving made the whole dish more enticing, and many good-sized prawns too. Served with a refreshing but not too tart dressing, I like!
Surprisingly good food I must say but the prices I feel are abit high. Will reconsider even though the quality of food was good. Service was
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My detailed review suddenly disappeared before I could save it so I'm keeping it short and sweet this time.
Girlfriends and I went for the much read about summer high tea and my conclusion was its not worth it, even when we paid $18 per pax using OCBC card instead of the usual $22.
Savouries: cheese and green olive sandwich, tuna and shrimp sandwich, chicken salad, vietnamese summer roll with peanut sauce - the spring roll was the only saving grace of them all,; the sandwiches were uninspiring and on dry and cold bread.
Sweets: parsnip cupcakes, german chocolate cupcakes, pecan strawberry linzer, carrot cake, marble cake, lemon cheesecake - I didnt try them all but ALL that I did try were incredibly sweet. I took one bite and couldnt continue. They also have waffles and ice cream towards the end it was a refreshing change to the sugar overdose before it.
Coffee / Tea - I tried their white rose tea and it was only average.
There seem to be a problem with the refilling of the items even though the place seemed to be have quite a number of staff pottering around and was only half filled. I wonder if the ala carte menu will be better?
Rating given:
Had the opportunity to try out their set lunch at $8.80 on a weekday:
- 1 burger (from choice of 4)
- 1 side (chunky fries or cesar salad)
- 1 drink (lemon tea or hot green tea)
We had 2 set lunches to share and got them to cut each burger in half:
Chicken cesar burger - single baked chicken wrapped with bacon, mozarella, sauteed basil pesto mushroom, handmade cesar dressing on a bed of romaine lettuce, tomato on a toasted sundried tomato and olive bun. - actually for the very detailed descriptive, u cant really taste them when put them together in a burger. Teh chicken was crispy but didnt taste any marinate. The cesar dressing was thankfully appropriate and the lettuce very fresh. The mushrooms were not very distinctive though. The bun was okay, and I know its made in-house so nothing to complain about.
Battered dory burger - single battered pacific dory fish, topped with spicy tartare sauce, renkon crisps on a bed of coral lettuce, tomato on a toasted honey wholewheat multigrain bun. - the dory was already soft when I tried it, and I found the tartare sauce slightly jer lat. The renkon crisp was not crisp because it was buried in the tartare sauce. Overall taste was still okay.
(the other 2 choices were Pulled Pork Burger or Handburger Orignal: beef patty)
Chunky fries - the fries were slightly soft when served; I suspect they must have fried a whole batch prior in anticipation of the lunch crowd. Nothing wow, and the small bowl was surprisingly jer lat after a while.
Cesar salad - surprisingly good as the salads that comes with a set meal are usually quite sad looking. The greens, croutons, and bacons bits were very fresh.
Hot green tea - Average, but we did notice the ala carte tea were the better brand / leaves while this one was rishshaw brand.
Pumpkin and crab soup ($5.50) - we ordered this separately. Warm and not hot; a disappointment. The sweetness of the pumpkin completely drowned any hint of crab in it. Not worth your bucks.
Service was smily and efficient, with their own system of orders and service etc. Nothing to complain about. The place was also less packed than I thought but perhaps weekdays dinners and weekends are better business for them.
Go for a virgin visit if you must to see what's the hype about but I will re-think about a re-visit, although I have to agree the set lunches are quite good for the quantity of food you get.
(Sorry for the bad shot of the burgers; couldnt get a good shot for the life of me for some reason)
Rating given:
Dear Guinea Pig Lovers... If you wonder, if Guinea pigs go to heaven? I think i just walked right into GP heaven on earth...
PetXchange is the Guinea Pig HEAVEN on earth.... You turn right... there are peeking at you from their cages.. Turn left another couple eyeing you curiously and you could hear continuos happy chattering as the piggies commune in their play spaces.
I've never seen so many different breeds, adorable and active guinea pigs for sale at one shop. This is a super must go shop for those who wants to choose and buy a piggy for themself.
I was just searching online for some super affordable guinea pig wares and necessities when i 'bumped' into PetXchange. As i entered the shop i was so super shocked... and what shocked me best was the super friendly owner. While i was 'ooowing' at one of the cute looking creature in the cage, he just walked by and carried him out and put him near my feet while he explained to me his character, breed and age. I was so surprised. Matter of fact, this was the only person that did that for me when i even didn't show interest for being. Eric was so kind to let me play with his piggies and took each out for me to touch and get to know them better and at the end of it... I can't wait to get back to the shop again.
I remembered when i bought my first 2 piggies at the other shops, even after i paid for my piggies, i don't get to hold them. All i get is the box and the poor frightened little pet shivering frantically inside. But this will not happen at PetXchange. They will make sure you get connected to the guinea pig first before deciding to purchase.
After you purchase your piggy, maintainance is an utmost important thing. Food, Hay, Toys and Cat;s Litter is super important for everyday life. Ever since my first visit to PetXchange, I never step into another pet shop to buy anything else. Because, for the same price to pay for one packet of lets say food outside... You could buy at least one and half of the same brand of food here. For the brand i buy its 2 packets of food. Everything sold in this shop is so affordable and i will never buy anything else other then for this shop. Even toys like huts, balls or water bottle is SUPER AFFORDABLE. I mean why pay for the membership to get the meagre 10% or at most 20% discount when here. You get everything at minimum 40% discount without having to beg or scrimp. Cages are the super expensive things though they are one time expenses, but don't forget your pets grow and they breed.. hopefully.... and they will need a bigger playboy mansion :). i have never came across a more economical priced shop selling cage then this.
Expect no frill..... but expect good prices....
Seriously.. If you are a cavy owner or owned some small animals.... This is the SHOP TO GO.... But its mine little secret... Don't start telling everybody.......... just tell your good friends.....
Don't have too many good friends...
We guinea pig owners... buy in style..... *perspire*
G*Force RULEs............
Rating given:
Overpriced~
Finally trooped down to Porn's with 3 close friends to see if it is worth the hype. The white signage with the famous elephant behind is quite easy to spot from the street, and at 6:30pm we snagged the last indoor 4-seater available, which was a relief compared to having to sit outdoors. A queue started forming not long after.
The menu is presently simply on pages of white laminated paper with pictures of selected dishes, all in its distinctive categories of soups & curry, thai snacks, thai salads etc.
Papaya Salad ($6.90) - Refreshingly crunchy and not too tart, until you accidentally eat the chilli padi bits in it. Be careful.
Rice crackers with seafood sauce ($6.50) - I've heard this is rarely seen in most Thai places and I wonder why. It is indeed tasty and the crackers served warm, but I did not notice any seafood bit in the sauce, no doubt it was quite nice. And for 6 small crackers, it was overpriced I felt.
Stuffed chicken wing ($8.50) - for 3 pieces. It was crispy and thankfully not too oily but I didnt quite like the fatty bits I found inside.
Pineapple fried rice ($10.90) - Standard far; serving was probably enough for 1 main, not 2 as the staff said.
Pad Thai ($9.90) - Served wrapped in an egg with a tired prawn on top, it was just okay and no hint of wok hei.
Tom Yum Seafood ($12.90) - Nice clear tom yum but I felt there could be more seafood. There's an option of a smaller portion as well.
Thai iced tea ($3.90) - Too sweet for my liking.
Thai iced coffee ($3.90) - Didnt quite like it, perhaps its an acquired taste.
For all its hype, I didn't feel the food lived up to it, given that Pornsak is a Thai. It was okay Thai food and nothing wow. I had read before coming that the most expensive item on the menu is $12.90 and thought that was reasonable pricing. But the small portions made it somehow overpriced; it wasn't value for money for me and I probably will not return.
The seating is not big so the place fills up quite quickly. Very young crowd mixed with a handful of working class diners, and very young staff too. Service is not too bad though, with the food being served rather promptly despite the full house.
Of course the novelty is you get served by Pornsak but not everyone goes there for that. And the 4 of us had to go for round 2 after dinner, which was probably not what I thought was needed after spending close to $90 in total.
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