Eighteen Chefs

Benny Se Teo, the only Singaporean to have trained in Jamie Oliver's kitchen "Fifteen", opened this 54-seater restaurant in June 2007. He aimed to help ex-offenders find an alternate path while also delivering good food to the public. With such an interesting story behind this little place, we just had to drop by for a visit.

We found our own seats. It was early afternoon on a weekday and the place was had just two other tables occupied so it was easy for us to find a seat by the window.

This place adopts the self-serve system which means you decide what you want, indicate on the little paper they provide at the tables, bring it to the cashier and pay. You also get your own plain water at a station next to the cashier. That's fine by me since there is no service charge.

Enticed by the option to create your own baked rice, all 3 of us picked Baked Rice for that day. Cheese Baked Rice with Tangy Tomato sauce and Chicken slices ($8.90) The food came pretty quickly but the serving was pretty small (that said, I didn't finish it.). It tasted much like any other Baked Rice... if anything, I'd say the rice was not soft enough.

My companions' baked rice looked more delicious with the cream based sauces.

Eighteen Funky Strawberry - Dessert ($5.80) Four scoops of ice cream served with strawberries and hazel nuts and oreo biscuits... Sounds good isn't it? But it wasn't as good as I had hoped. The ice cream wasn't rich enough and the strawberries were sourish. Well what could I expect for $5.80. It was ok though, I just wouldn't order it again.

After the entire meal, and after drinking 1/2 a glass of water, I noticed that my glass was filthy. Very filthy.

The total came up to about $33.50 for the three of us, which was a little too much for the quantity and quality of food given. I might still go back as the rest of the items on the menu did look interesting though. :) Well if you're a student you can check out the $5.90 set meals which I think are a good deal :)