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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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
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?
Chanced upon this online shop that sells various tops, dresses and bottoms. But it seems to have more tops and dresses than bottoms. Although I seldom find an item that I really like and bother to go to the trouble to purchase it (including the transferring of money, waiting for the item to be sent to my house etc. Yes I find online shopping very troublesome!), I find that Loef sells rather decent items. If I were in a shop, I would probably have tried on most of them and bought more than what I already have gotten!
I have been rather skeptical about shopping online, mostly because I can't try the clothes. So I usually limit my purchases to dresses and flair clothing to avoid fitting problems. I'm also rather concerned about the quality of the product, especially since I had a couple of bad experience over the past 3 years which contributed to my skepticism towards online shopping! What made me less worried about shopping at Loef was the fact that their items would often sell out in a matter of days after posting, which led me to infer that they have regulars who constantly go to their shop and trust their products.
What I don't like about the shop: There is additional mailing cost on top of the price stated. I guess it is common, but I tend to prefer other blogshops that have the mailing cost already included in the price.
What I like: There's honestly all to like about this shop in terms of service and quality. As for preference, it is hard to say as each individual has different taste. But if you find that their clothes is to your liking, you could consider visiting this shop more! Why? 1. Consistent. They consistently update their items twice a week - sometime midweek and end of the week. So you always have something new to look forward to! 2. Good service. I remember purchasing an item from them which was not the color reflected on their website. I was rather disappointed and wrote in to them, and was really pleased with the way they handled my "problem". They offered to refund me for the item and pay for my mailing fees. Since I already washed the dress and couldn't send it back to them to re-sell, they offered me a discount on my dress which they could send to me in credit form for my next purchase, or direct cash transfer to my bank account. This problem was settled in a matter of 3 exchange of emails! I think this is good customer service and there's much to learn from them! Also, I later realized that they included a note on their website to inform other customers of the difference between the color of the dress on the picture and the actual color. Goes to show that they are concerned about putting up accurate information and immediately made changes upon receiving feedback! 3. Quality. While I have not shopped a lot online, I was particularly pleased with the quality of the material used. There's no need to worry about the dress expanding after wash or loosing its color. 4. On time. I have made 3 purchases at this shop within a period of 1 month. As I usually make my purchase on Friday or over the weekend, they can only mail it to me on Monday and I am always very glad when I receive my package on Wednesday - showing that there is no delay in mailing the items!
All in all, I have been very pleased with the quality of the items and the service and will definitely introduce friends to this site! :)
Had dinner at Ootoya, a casual Japanese restaurant chain with outlets in Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, HK, Indonesia and more recently, Singapore. I've seen the outlets in Tokyo, but it never really occurred to me to try them out, especially with no dearth of excellent food options there.
With its discreet and minimalistic frontage, Ootoya could well be mistaken for an upclass Japanese restaurant. But walk in and be greeted by a casual, almost cafe like amostphere complete with shouts of Japanese greeting and a long U shape table (a little like a teppanyaki table except that this one doesn't have a chef standing in front of you preparing food) and small "semi private" rooms for those who have a bigger group (which we were lucky to get).
Charcoal Grilled Pork with Special Sauce ($16) - To be honest, how exciting can grilled pork get? But I was quite taken aback by how well Ootoya grilled its generous pieces of hog - Relatively tender with grilled lines to show for it and a flittering taste of charcoal smokiness. Coupled with plump, mildly sticky rice grains, it made for a wonderful combination.
Banana Parfait ($8) - I am rather skeptical about Japanese desserts as they always seem to prefer form (aesthetics) over substance (might be a misconception). Ootoya's Banana Parfait sought to realign that misconception with a surprisingly good and sweet ending to my meal. The parfait didn't come across as too gelatin and sat on a bed of azuki beans which hinted of coffee. 2 small slices of banana and sponge completed the picture.
Overall I spent about $28 for a wonderful dinner inclusive of free flow green tea. Well worth the money in my humble opinion and definitely worth a revisit.
It was one of those quiet weekday evenings that we headed to town to grab a bite while running some errands. Chinese food was on the list and Tang Dian Wang (汤点王)seemed decent enough for us to pop by for dinner. This Shanghainese restaurant is owned by the folks who brought you New York New York, Xin Wang HK Cafe, Thai Express etc - restaurants that leave much to be desired in my humble opinion. But hey, life is full of second (or maybe third or fourth) chances.
Prominently situated amongst the ring of eateries that circle the Fountain of Wealth in the basement, Tang Dian Wang practises a open dining concept where passers by and customers alike are free to let their gaze roam. The decor is decidedly modern Chinese with a nod to tradition in the form of round laterns hanging from the ceiling. During our visit, the place was barely a quarter full, though I can't say the same for weekends.
Roasted Meat & Salted Egg Fragrant Rice in Lotus Wrappers (烧肉咸蛋荷叶饭) - I don't usually order rice in lotus leaf wraps (荷叶饭) when dining out because of the high oil content but apparently Tang Dian Wang is known for it so I made an exception. Oily as usual but moist with a nice lingering aroma. However I did find the roasted meat way too fatty for my liking and overall a little too bland for my liking. Decent but nothing fantastic.
Prawns with Golden Pumpkin Sauce (金瓜奶虾球) - Initial impressions of this dish were good as the prawns were crunchy with a crisp along the edges due to the light batter coating. But it soon became nausea inducing due to the starchy and bland pumpkin sauce that masked any sweetness the prawns might have to offer. Overall a rather insipid dish.
Deep-fried Bean Curd with Bak Kwa (炸肉干豆腐) - The bean curd with bak kwa (dried meat jerky) was a let down honestly. Deep fried till crisp on the outside but lacking the smoothness that I was expecting. Granted, I could make out tiny shards of bak kwa embedded within but they were too little, too small to have any impact on the dish. Although bean curd is one of my favourite dishes, I gave up after the second piece.
Sauteed Horfun with Seafood - The humble horfun(河粉) was the most unlikely star of the evening with its silky smoothness and hint of wok hei. Another plus point was the relatively fresh seafood that it came served with. On the flip side, I did think that the egg gravy was a little too starchy for my liking, which added to the nausea from the earlier dishes.
The 2 of us chalked up a bill of about $65 for dinner which I felt was a little pricey given the quality of food. Every seemed to be heavy on the starch/flour which made me squeamish after a while. Service was okay but that's not enough reason for me to ever step in again.
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
Rating given:
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?
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Chanced upon this online shop that sells various tops, dresses and bottoms. But it seems to have more tops and dresses than bottoms. Although I seldom find an item that I really like and bother to go to the trouble to purchase it (including the transferring of money, waiting for the item to be sent to my house etc. Yes I find online shopping very troublesome!), I find that Loef sells rather decent items. If I were in a shop, I would probably have tried on most of them and bought more than what I already have gotten!
I have been rather skeptical about shopping online, mostly because I can't try the clothes. So I usually limit my purchases to dresses and flair clothing to avoid fitting problems. I'm also rather concerned about the quality of the product, especially since I had a couple of bad experience over the past 3 years which contributed to my skepticism towards online shopping! What made me less worried about shopping at Loef was the fact that their items would often sell out in a matter of days after posting, which led me to infer that they have regulars who constantly go to their shop and trust their products.
What I don't like about the shop:
There is additional mailing cost on top of the price stated. I guess it is common, but I tend to prefer other blogshops that have the mailing cost already included in the price.
What I like:
There's honestly all to like about this shop in terms of service and quality. As for preference, it is hard to say as each individual has different taste. But if you find that their clothes is to your liking, you could consider visiting this shop more! Why?
1. Consistent. They consistently update their items twice a week - sometime midweek and end of the week. So you always have something new to look forward to!
2. Good service. I remember purchasing an item from them which was not the color reflected on their website. I was rather disappointed and wrote in to them, and was really pleased with the way they handled my "problem". They offered to refund me for the item and pay for my mailing fees. Since I already washed the dress and couldn't send it back to them to re-sell, they offered me a discount on my dress which they could send to me in credit form for my next purchase, or direct cash transfer to my bank account. This problem was settled in a matter of 3 exchange of emails! I think this is good customer service and there's much to learn from them! Also, I later realized that they included a note on their website to inform other customers of the difference between the color of the dress on the picture and the actual color. Goes to show that they are concerned about putting up accurate information and immediately made changes upon receiving feedback!
3. Quality. While I have not shopped a lot online, I was particularly pleased with the quality of the material used. There's no need to worry about the dress expanding after wash or loosing its color.
4. On time. I have made 3 purchases at this shop within a period of 1 month. As I usually make my purchase on Friday or over the weekend, they can only mail it to me on Monday and I am always very glad when I receive my package on Wednesday - showing that there is no delay in mailing the items!
All in all, I have been very pleased with the quality of the items and the service and will definitely introduce friends to this site! :)
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Had dinner at Ootoya, a casual Japanese restaurant chain with outlets in Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, HK, Indonesia and more recently, Singapore. I've seen the outlets in Tokyo, but it never really occurred to me to try them out, especially with no dearth of excellent food options there.
With its discreet and minimalistic frontage, Ootoya could well be mistaken for an upclass Japanese restaurant. But walk in and be greeted by a casual, almost cafe like amostphere complete with shouts of Japanese greeting and a long U shape table (a little like a teppanyaki table except that this one doesn't have a chef standing in front of you preparing food) and small "semi private" rooms for those who have a bigger group (which we were lucky to get).
Charcoal Grilled Pork with Special Sauce ($16) - To be honest, how exciting can grilled pork get? But I was quite taken aback by how well Ootoya grilled its generous pieces of hog - Relatively tender with grilled lines to show for it and a flittering taste of charcoal smokiness. Coupled with plump, mildly sticky rice grains, it made for a wonderful combination.
Banana Parfait ($8) - I am rather skeptical about Japanese desserts as they always seem to prefer form (aesthetics) over substance (might be a misconception). Ootoya's Banana Parfait sought to realign that misconception with a surprisingly good and sweet ending to my meal. The parfait didn't come across as too gelatin and sat on a bed of azuki beans which hinted of coffee. 2 small slices of banana and sponge completed the picture.
Overall I spent about $28 for a wonderful dinner inclusive of free flow green tea. Well worth the money in my humble opinion and definitely worth a revisit.
See all my pictures here.
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It was one of those quiet weekday evenings that we headed to town to grab a bite while running some errands. Chinese food was on the list and Tang Dian Wang (汤点王)seemed decent enough for us to pop by for dinner. This Shanghainese restaurant is owned by the folks who brought you New York New York, Xin Wang HK Cafe, Thai Express etc - restaurants that leave much to be desired in my humble opinion. But hey, life is full of second (or maybe third or fourth) chances.
Prominently situated amongst the ring of eateries that circle the Fountain of Wealth in the basement, Tang Dian Wang practises a open dining concept where passers by and customers alike are free to let their gaze roam. The decor is decidedly modern Chinese with a nod to tradition in the form of round laterns hanging from the ceiling. During our visit, the place was barely a quarter full, though I can't say the same for weekends.
Roasted Meat & Salted Egg Fragrant Rice in Lotus Wrappers (烧肉咸蛋荷叶饭) - I don't usually order rice in lotus leaf wraps (荷叶饭) when dining out because of the high oil content but apparently Tang Dian Wang is known for it so I made an exception. Oily as usual but moist with a nice lingering aroma. However I did find the roasted meat way too fatty for my liking and overall a little too bland for my liking. Decent but nothing fantastic.
Prawns with Golden Pumpkin Sauce (金瓜奶虾球) - Initial impressions of this dish were good as the prawns were crunchy with a crisp along the edges due to the light batter coating. But it soon became nausea inducing due to the starchy and bland pumpkin sauce that masked any sweetness the prawns might have to offer. Overall a rather insipid dish.
Deep-fried Bean Curd with Bak Kwa (炸肉干豆腐) - The bean curd with bak kwa (dried meat jerky) was a let down honestly. Deep fried till crisp on the outside but lacking the smoothness that I was expecting. Granted, I could make out tiny shards of bak kwa embedded within but they were too little, too small to have any impact on the dish. Although bean curd is one of my favourite dishes, I gave up after the second piece.
Sauteed Horfun with Seafood - The humble horfun(河粉) was the most unlikely star of the evening with its silky smoothness and hint of wok hei. Another plus point was the relatively fresh seafood that it came served with. On the flip side, I did think that the egg gravy was a little too starchy for my liking, which added to the nausea from the earlier dishes.
The 2 of us chalked up a bill of about $65 for dinner which I felt was a little pricey given the quality of food. Every seemed to be heavy on the starch/flour which made me squeamish after a while. Service was okay but that's not enough reason for me to ever step in again.
See all my pictures here.
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