This is about the most value for money steamboat I've tried before.
There are 2 branches which are located just a few shops apart. The orange colour themed branch seems to be the more popular choice which I supposed was due to the atmosphere and the fact that its newer.
Variety was wide. but only limited to a portion of the menu if you order buffet. There are about 5 types of soup base and you can choose a max of 2. We chose the satay and scallop soup base. Satay was so so though it was said to be the more popular choice there. Though I felt its more like because Satay wasn't so common at other steamboat eateries. A bit spicy and full of peanut taste. Scallop based soup taste great enough without cooking the ingredients. Soup base not too salty so we don't feel uneasy after eating a lot which should be the case for steamboat soup base.
Foodstuffs fresh and in "happy" portions (lolx). Though I don't eat prawns but my friends commented that the prawns were very fresh and they ordered 5 plates of them. The "tou kee" was fresh and chewy without the oily smell that tou kee at many places have. They also have items like Golden mushroom, fish slices, fish paste, all kinds of meat and vegetables, cutter fish, prawns and "hum".
Drinks not free, we ordered the home made lime juice @ $6 per jug which was about just right for 5 pax. This drink is real good~ Must try~~ The taste of lime is very distinctive and not diluted.
What we don't like was the service there. Firstly we wanted to sit inside in the air con-ed area but was told that its better we sit outside as its better atmosphere to eat steamboat outside. But I guess the more obvious reason was we had only 5 pax and the only table inside was for more than 8 pax. The person who serviced us keep trying to coax us to order the Ala Cart (and we kept saying no) which was way more expensive and limited than the steamboat buffet. Our second order did not come at all. The person who changed the gas fuel for us accidentally touched our food with the gas can and her hands and don't even bother to change the food for us. Our bill didn't come when we asked twice for it. (We had to stare at the counter for some attention)
Went there to celebrate a friend's birthday and had an absolute unsatisfying meal. We ordered Set Shabu Shabu for 4 as we had 6 persons and the waitress told us that the Set can serve 6 too. Yeah, I think she meant can serve 6 but not necessary enough for 6. As can be seen on the picture, there's an absolute total or 1 mushroom for a Set for 4?? Or 2 small pieces of Toufu for 4?? In the end, we saw the table besides us ordered ala cart Shabu Shabu for 1 person and the serving was like about the same as ours.
Food quality wise, the freshness and taste was good and the soup base was just nice after we cooked the ingredients. This slightly appeased our anger over the portion of Set for 4.
Service was quite good, it was service with a smile from the servers and request for fillings of tea was met quite fast.
Would recommend this place if you don't look at the Shabu Shabu Set menu.
I think the smell of the fuel they used for the individual pot should change as the burning fuel did reduced my appetite greatly.
Soup:
Taste of soup too strong hence masking the taste of the food. Especially the Laksa soup base. Quoting my friend... "Everything tasted like Laksa..."
Food Variety:
Fresh, especially the vegetables but we don't see much meat though. Variety of cooked food and raw food is wide though I don't know why there are so many spicy cooked dishes on the menu. The Douhu Goreng is not bad if they did not overcooked it till its (very) hard. The black pepper (I think) beef is good too. I liked the spring onions and other condiments provided.
Dessert:
Poor and I must agree the chocolate of the fondue saved the dessert section as without it, there will only be mashmellow, fruits and some banana walnut cakes.
Service:
Except for some no-smile-policy people from China, the service is quite fast considering the place was packed when we went there.
Can go again. However, do not wait till too late to order the chocolate fondue as there won't be much things left to go with it. (We had only banana, strawberry and mashmellows)
Like Trumpat, we went there for the first time because a colleague wanted to eat the mango pudding. ;D Went there 2 more times after.
At $26 per person, the place require additional charge for drinks other than cold water (and the water dispenser was like hidden in one corner). 3 kinds of soup base to choose from alternating between Winter Melon, Laksa (very sweet), Herbal Chicken (a bit too bitter) and pork base (this is the best I feel). (Refillable of the same kind, $3 for additional pot of soup)
Variety of raw food for cooking and cooked food to choose from. Raw food kinds are quite fresh though there's variety, its not reall~~~y wide. Haven't really tried the cooked food cept for the Po Piah which tasted quite good but need thinner skin and more garlic.
Service was ok, empty plates cleared quite fast and the "aunties" are very friendly too.
However, the desserts are not as good comparative to the food stuffs. Most probably because I only ate the western desserts which will taste nice if they are cold (but left out in the open, they are not cold). So we had room temperature Choc Eclaire etc. However the mango pudding is a MUST try. The taste of Mango thick but not too sweet. Texture great, elastic, not too watery. (Best!)
One word - disappointing. We really felt that the $8.80 we paid for the buffet was money thrown to the drain.
Firstly, the service crews are from China and don't really understand what we said. 2nd, she grew impatient when we wanted to order our waffles and simply gave us a piece of paper to write our orders. Not only that, she wasn't that busy at all to take our orders as she simply stood around while we wrote our orders OURSELVES. Service?? more like self-service.
Food. Not at all nice with the waffle too thick and without any taste. That was ok if there was a lot of filing in one serving. However this was not the case, though we can see the filings spilling out, in actual fact, the filings are being put at the edge of the waffles to make it look like a lot. (duhz you think we are stupid or what?) Filings are not special at all especially those with names like "Orange" or "Cherry Cherry" They are in fact, only jams on waffles.
For drinks we ordered Mango which tasted lame. Only the ice cream in the drink tasted great. One of my friends ordered main course which I think was prawns pasta with about 5 prawns in it. The size of prawns are rather big which was good. However, the prawns were cold.....
Definitely not valued for money if you are going for the waffle buffet. We regretted trying (and I got a sourish D24 durian waffle filing) there and will not go there again.
Went there for set lunch today on recommendation from my friend. Soup for the day was pumpkin, add another drink and main course and it only cost $9.90 each person without additional GST or service charge. Since we ate lunch at a rather late timing, there are hardly any other guests around. Hence we got rather prompt service.
We ordered seafood aglio, chicken aglio and Carbonara (?). The aglio dishes, though not superbly fantastic, is reasonably good tasting considering its price. Not as oily as other restaurants, I kind of liked mine with the linguine well cooked. Cabonara was great too, tasty creamy sauce and the penne not too soft.
Drinks and soup are quite normal and the coffee smelled nice. We had a full stomach for this lunch. Don't expect any frills though, its just a simple cafe which I don't mind since the price is quite low. Set lunch hours 1-3pm and set dinners hours 6-9pm.
Visited for buffet lunch at this branch. First thing, the waitresses here are not a friendly lot though the waiters are good even though they are not fluent in English.
Deco not bad. Crowd very little even though it was lunch time. Since its buffet lunch, we order hand roll, chawanmushi, salmon/ika/tuna etc sashimi, teppanyaki of vege/bean sprouts/chicken/Salmon, Pumpkin Croquette, potato salad, peach salad, plain udon, Ebi Teriyaki etc etc.
Food we would give a high below average grade since there were some dishes that we particularly liked like the Teppanyaki Beansprouts, Tori Terriyaki and Pumpkin Croquettes
Things like udon which was overcooked and brittle, sashimi where only the first plate was nice with thick cuts though not very fresh. The next 2 plates had cuts from other parts of the fish and were too hard to bite and even turned black at some parts. Most of the dishes there tend to be too salty and the potato salad tasted weird with sour taste and peach salad with spicy (??) sauce.
Just had dinner there, service was rather with the staffs passing us the menu as soon as we sat down ... however this should be the case since there were only like 3 to 4 tables to serve and with 3 serving staffs.
Food was above average. We ordered
Pineapple fried rice with seafood: This fried rice got the most commends with rice cooked just right, not too dry or wet. "Sotong" in the rice were large in size and portions not small too. Contain raisins, pineapples, cashew nuts, sotong and prawns.
Crispy Money bag: not much comment on this. Quite normal.
Chicken Wings: very crispy but not too dry. There were actually pieces on the portion but we had 6 people so the waitress told us that she will tell the chef to give us 6 pieces instead. (Good~~)
We also ordered Baby Kailan with mushroom and oyster sauce, mixed vege (I think), Tom Yam soup, Chendol and sticky rice with mango.
I did not drink the Tom Yam soup but the comment on it was so so though the amount of ingredients in the soup was quite good.
Chendol and sticky rice were large in portion and generous with the topping. Warm sticky rice with cold Mango pieces simply tasted great and you can choose to add ice cream too.
7 persons, we spent about $180 for dinner which was $25 for each person. Not too expensive or cheap but given the quality of food, its money well spent.
Happened to be at Raffles at dinner time and we decided to go into this restaurant as it doesn't seems to be too crowded. Indeed, we are the 2nd table of customers in the restaurant.
Deco seems rather pleasing with the theme based on "new China" style.
However we were disappointed looking at the menu as the number of dishes is really very very limited. Luckily we were hungry and our main aim wasn't on trying things.
We ordered "蜜汁鸡" which seems to be a rather common dish. We also ordered "牛腩“ and “春" noodles and red dates longan drink.
The chicken, indeed though tender and well cooked, the sauce is quite normal of soya sauce oyster sauce.
The beef dish is not bad with good cuts of the beef though the noodles seems to be lacking in texture.
My spring noodles is actually 4 types of vegetables toufu. The taste is just normal though I do like it that they do not overcook the vegetables.
The price whether expensive or not depends on whether we feel the food is valued for money. For us, we feel that the price is a bit on the high side.
Went there extremely hungry and tired .. had a very very small lunch and spent a few hours practicing and performing. We went to this restaurant situated at a corner of a block of flats. Personally I don't like orange so the deco in the restaurant which was mostly orange, gave me a headache. We ordered Mixed grill, oven baked chicken (should be called over baked), Seafood pasta (I think), Chocolate Truffle, Brownie and Beef Lasagna.
Upsized the meal to include soup and drinks at a mere $3. The soup was great ... (I think was leek) with smooth and deep taste and not just diluted cambell soup. However the ice lemon tea, though big in size, was too sweet.
The overall verdict of the food there was : Overcooked
with tough chicken and beef in my oven baked chicken and the lasagna, dry, grainy and hard texture of our choc truffle and brownie
the steak and mixed grill seems not bad too, with the meat being very tender and the portion valued for money
1=SGD 0.0587
This is about the most value for money steamboat I've tried before.
There are 2 branches which are located just a few shops apart. The orange colour themed branch seems to be the more popular choice which I supposed was due to the atmosphere and the fact that its newer.
Variety was wide. but only limited to a portion of the menu if you order buffet. There are about 5 types of soup base and you can choose a max of 2. We chose the satay and scallop soup base. Satay was so so though it was said to be the more popular choice there. Though I felt its more like because Satay wasn't so common at other steamboat eateries. A bit spicy and full of peanut taste. Scallop based soup taste great enough without cooking the ingredients. Soup base not too salty so we don't feel uneasy after eating a lot which should be the case for steamboat soup base.
Foodstuffs fresh and in "happy" portions (lolx). Though I don't eat prawns but my friends commented that the prawns were very fresh and they ordered 5 plates of them. The "tou kee" was fresh and chewy without the oily smell that tou kee at many places have. They also have items like Golden mushroom, fish slices, fish paste, all kinds of meat and vegetables, cutter fish, prawns and "hum".
Drinks not free, we ordered the home made lime juice @ $6 per jug which was about just right for 5 pax. This drink is real good~ Must try~~ The taste of lime is very distinctive and not diluted.
What we don't like was the service there. Firstly we wanted to sit inside in the air con-ed area but was told that its better we sit outside as its better atmosphere to eat steamboat outside. But I guess the more obvious reason was we had only 5 pax and the only table inside was for more than 8 pax. The person who serviced us keep trying to coax us to order the Ala Cart (and we kept saying no) which was way more expensive and limited than the steamboat buffet. Our second order did not come at all. The person who changed the gas fuel for us accidentally touched our food with the gas can and her hands and don't even bother to change the food for us. Our bill didn't come when we asked twice for it. (We had to stare at the counter for some attention)
Rating given:
Went there to celebrate a friend's birthday and had an absolute unsatisfying meal. We ordered Set Shabu Shabu for 4 as we had 6 persons and the waitress told us that the Set can serve 6 too. Yeah, I think she meant can serve 6 but not necessary enough for 6. As can be seen on the picture, there's an absolute total or 1 mushroom for a Set for 4?? Or 2 small pieces of Toufu for 4?? In the end, we saw the table besides us ordered ala cart Shabu Shabu for 1 person and the serving was like about the same as ours.
Food quality wise, the freshness and taste was good and the soup base was just nice after we cooked the ingredients. This slightly appeased our anger over the portion of Set for 4.
Service was quite good, it was service with a smile from the servers and request for fillings of tea was met quite fast.
Would recommend this place if you don't look at the Shabu Shabu Set menu.
Rating given:
Went there recently in Mar 09.
I think the smell of the fuel they used for the individual pot should change as the burning fuel did reduced my appetite greatly.
Soup:
Taste of soup too strong hence masking the taste of the food. Especially the Laksa soup base. Quoting my friend... "Everything tasted like Laksa..."
Food Variety:
Fresh, especially the vegetables but we don't see much meat though. Variety of cooked food and raw food is wide though I don't know why there are so many spicy cooked dishes on the menu. The Douhu Goreng is not bad if they did not overcooked it till its (very) hard. The black pepper (I think) beef is good too. I liked the spring onions and other condiments provided.
Dessert:
Poor and I must agree the chocolate of the fondue saved the dessert section as without it, there will only be mashmellow, fruits and some banana walnut cakes.
Service:
Except for some no-smile-policy people from China, the service is quite fast considering the place was packed when we went there.
Can go again. However, do not wait till too late to order the chocolate fondue as there won't be much things left to go with it. (We had only banana, strawberry and mashmellows)
Rating given:
Like Trumpat, we went there for the first time because a colleague wanted to eat the mango pudding. ;D Went there 2 more times after.
At $26 per person, the place require additional charge for drinks other than cold water (and the water dispenser was like hidden in one corner). 3 kinds of soup base to choose from alternating between Winter Melon, Laksa (very sweet), Herbal Chicken (a bit too bitter) and pork base (this is the best I feel). (Refillable of the same kind, $3 for additional pot of soup)
Variety of raw food for cooking and cooked food to choose from. Raw food kinds are quite fresh though there's variety, its not reall~~~y wide. Haven't really tried the cooked food cept for the Po Piah which tasted quite good but need thinner skin and more garlic.
Service was ok, empty plates cleared quite fast and the "aunties" are very friendly too.
However, the desserts are not as good comparative to the food stuffs. Most probably because I only ate the western desserts which will taste nice if they are cold (but left out in the open, they are not cold). So we had room temperature Choc Eclaire etc. However the mango pudding is a MUST try. The taste of Mango thick but not too sweet. Texture great, elastic, not too watery. (Best!)
Rating given:
One word - disappointing. We really felt that the $8.80 we paid for the buffet was money thrown to the drain.
Firstly, the service crews are from China and don't really understand what we said. 2nd, she grew impatient when we wanted to order our waffles and simply gave us a piece of paper to write our orders. Not only that, she wasn't that busy at all to take our orders as she simply stood around while we wrote our orders OURSELVES. Service?? more like self-service.
Food. Not at all nice with the waffle too thick and without any taste. That was ok if there was a lot of filing in one serving. However this was not the case, though we can see the filings spilling out, in actual fact, the filings are being put at the edge of the waffles to make it look like a lot. (duhz you think we are stupid or what?) Filings are not special at all especially those with names like "Orange" or "Cherry Cherry" They are in fact, only jams on waffles.
For drinks we ordered Mango which tasted lame. Only the ice cream in the drink tasted great. One of my friends ordered main course which I think was prawns pasta with about 5 prawns in it. The size of prawns are rather big which was good. However, the prawns were cold.....
Definitely not valued for money if you are going for the waffle buffet. We regretted trying (and I got a sourish D24 durian waffle filing) there and will not go there again.
Rating given:
Went there for set lunch today on recommendation from my friend. Soup for the day was pumpkin, add another drink and main course and it only cost $9.90 each person without additional GST or service charge. Since we ate lunch at a rather late timing, there are hardly any other guests around. Hence we got rather prompt service.
We ordered seafood aglio, chicken aglio and Carbonara (?). The aglio dishes, though not superbly fantastic, is reasonably good tasting considering its price. Not as oily as other restaurants, I kind of liked mine with the linguine well cooked. Cabonara was great too, tasty creamy sauce and the penne not too soft.
Drinks and soup are quite normal and the coffee smelled nice. We had a full stomach for this lunch. Don't expect any frills though, its just a simple cafe which I don't mind since the price is quite low. Set lunch hours 1-3pm and set dinners hours 6-9pm.
Rating given:
Visited for buffet lunch at this branch. First thing, the waitresses here are not a friendly lot though the waiters are good even though they are not fluent in English.
Deco not bad. Crowd very little even though it was lunch time. Since its buffet lunch, we order hand roll, chawanmushi, salmon/ika/tuna etc sashimi, teppanyaki of vege/bean sprouts/chicken/Salmon, Pumpkin Croquette, potato salad, peach salad, plain udon, Ebi Teriyaki etc etc.
Food we would give a high below average grade since there were some dishes that we particularly liked like the Teppanyaki Beansprouts, Tori Terriyaki and Pumpkin Croquettes
Things like udon which was overcooked and brittle, sashimi where only the first plate was nice with thick cuts though not very fresh. The next 2 plates had cuts from other parts of the fish and were too hard to bite and even turned black at some parts. Most of the dishes there tend to be too salty and the potato salad tasted weird with sour taste and peach salad with spicy (??) sauce.
Will not visit again.
Rating given:
Just had dinner there, service was rather with the staffs passing us the menu as soon as we sat down ... however this should be the case since there were only like 3 to 4 tables to serve and with 3 serving staffs.
Food was above average. We ordered
Pineapple fried rice with seafood: This fried rice got the most commends with rice cooked just right, not too dry or wet. "Sotong" in the rice were large in size and portions not small too. Contain raisins, pineapples, cashew nuts, sotong and prawns.
Crispy Money bag: not much comment on this. Quite normal.
Chicken Wings: very crispy but not too dry. There were actually pieces on the portion but we had 6 people so the waitress told us that she will tell the chef to give us 6 pieces instead. (Good~~)
We also ordered Baby Kailan with mushroom and oyster sauce, mixed vege (I think), Tom Yam soup, Chendol and sticky rice with mango.
I did not drink the Tom Yam soup but the comment on it was so so though the amount of ingredients in the soup was quite good.
Chendol and sticky rice were large in portion and generous with the topping. Warm sticky rice with cold Mango pieces simply tasted great and you can choose to add ice cream too.
7 persons, we spent about $180 for dinner which was $25 for each person. Not too expensive or cheap but given the quality of food, its money well spent.
Rating given:
Happened to be at Raffles at dinner time and we decided to go into this restaurant as it doesn't seems to be too crowded. Indeed, we are the 2nd table of customers in the restaurant.
Deco seems rather pleasing with the theme based on "new China" style.
However we were disappointed looking at the menu as the number of dishes is really very very limited. Luckily we were hungry and our main aim wasn't on trying things.
We ordered "蜜汁鸡" which seems to be a rather common dish. We also ordered "牛腩“ and “春" noodles and red dates longan drink.
The chicken, indeed though tender and well cooked, the sauce is quite normal of soya sauce oyster sauce.
The beef dish is not bad with good cuts of the beef though the noodles seems to be lacking in texture.
My spring noodles is actually 4 types of vegetables toufu.
The taste is just normal though I do like it that they do not overcook the vegetables.
The price whether expensive or not depends on whether we feel the food is valued for money. For us, we feel that the price is a bit on the high side.
Rating given:
Went there extremely hungry and tired .. had a very very small lunch and spent a few hours practicing and performing. We went to this restaurant situated at a corner of a block of flats. Personally I don't like orange so the deco in the restaurant which was mostly orange, gave me a headache. We ordered Mixed grill, oven baked chicken (should be called over baked), Seafood pasta (I think), Chocolate Truffle, Brownie and Beef Lasagna.
Upsized the meal to include soup and drinks at a mere $3.
The soup was great ... (I think was leek) with smooth and deep taste and not just diluted cambell soup. However the ice lemon tea, though big in size, was too sweet.
The overall verdict of the food there was : Overcooked
with tough chicken and beef in my oven baked chicken and the lasagna, dry, grainy and hard texture of our choc truffle and brownie
the steak and mixed grill seems not bad too, with the meat being very tender and the portion valued for money
Just try the steak when you visit.
Rating given: