3.0
out of 5
VivoCity #02-117
Singapore
Telephone: 62723306
Website: http://www.swensens.com.sg/menu_earle.html
Category:
Restaurants » American, Steakhouses
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Overall Rating:
Earle Swensons at Vivo is a good place to go for a nice view of the waterfront (if you are lucky to get a window seat). Nice setting for dinner, suitably dim so that the lights from Sentosa are clearly seen.
Staff - tend to be young and inexperienced but rather eager to serve. We had to tell off a staff who was vigorously sweeping the floor, while we ate. She scurried off, but left her broom leaning against another table. In the middle of the dining hall was a pail of water and washcloth used for general cleaning. Sigh...
Menu - some items same as the main Swensons restaurants. What makes it attractive is the salad bar, which has quite a good spread. For slightly more than the other outlets, you can order most mains which come with complimentary salad bar. My family loves it because we like our greens.
Always thought that Earles was the more expensive cousin to Swensons, but it's actually quite value for money!
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Family favourite but not mine~
Popped in for an early dinner on Saturday at about 6pm, and the place was buzzing with families and kids. I'm not a fan of Swenson's but my friend's little girl wanted to try, although this is a bit deviant from the normal Swenson menu.
They have a salad bar :D Reminds me of places like Sizzler but this is much smaller in terms of variety. An ala carte salad bar buffet will cost you $11.30 but if you order a main from the Grill, Wharf, or Farm selection, the salad bar comes along with it. A rather good deal I think.
Salad bar ($11.30) - mixed greens with thousand island dressing, mashed potatoes ham, thai tang hoon salad, fried wanton skin, coleslaw, were the items I tried. Average at most, with the tang hoon being the best. The fried wantons added a nice crunch though.
Jumbo chicken frank ($13.90)- disappointing. Although big in portion, the sausage used was not fragrant enough, and the bun was oily. Ugh. They had tomato sauce and melted cheese on top, which made it taste like pizza. The mustard sauce didn't help much. The meslcun salad on the side was basically a few tatters of leaves and lacking a dressing. The wedges was cold and tasteless.
Omelette ($5.90) - this is in the kids menu, my friend's little girl ordered one for herself and we ordered one to share. Turned out to be a bad topping to an already unsatisfactory dish. Served cold and without any hint of ham nor cheese as reflected in the menu. The harsh browns and mashed potatoes that came along with it was...sigh...
Grilled seafood combo ($28) & Sausage combo ($17.90) - my friends had these so I can't comment on taste. The seafood looked okay enough, but the sausage was pathetically small in portion.
Service was nothing to complain about, and our water was refilled constantly without us having to ask. No ambience to speak of, as although the sofas are quite nice to sit on, the place is full of weekend families, kids, and babies in prams.
If I had a choice, I'd probably not come here again as the same amount of moolah I spent can get me better food. If I had no choice, I'll just take fries or salad bar~
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The place looks very classy and high-end, different for the outlook of the normal swensens branches. I was expecting good service and friendly staff when i was there a few weeks ago with my friend.
However, i was very disappointed with the bad service. We waited for quite a while to be seated for the staff in there practically ignore us until we walked further into the place and ask them to get us a table. There wasn't a lot of people there that day. In fact, only 6 tables was occupied.
After we decided on our orders, again, we had to wait a long time before they came to take our order.
Usually at swesens, the staff would serve the ice water without us having to ask them for it. But we waited for a long time for the ice water and when none came, we asked had to ask them for it.
There were also some china staff there who grasp of English wasnt good as well.
All in all, their service was really bad and i wouldn't want to return there again.
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Endoh would be referring to me. yes. We visited Earle's together with Feizhu and Claudia on that fateful Sunday.
Ambience - pretty nice. A bright place overlooking the sea. Of course you'll see many of PSA's cranes at the side but it doesn't really spoil the view. They have jazz playing in the background. It's more of a family place. Looks better than the normal deary-looking Swensen's though.
Food - Cajun Salmon Fillet and Chocolate Fondue
(For the other items, please read the other reviews)
The Cajun Salmon Fillet was a had a slice of FRIED salmon in a sweet chilli sauce. The salmon was dry and the frying made the salmon lose its taste. So the inside was virtually tasteless. The sweet sauce wasn't fantastic either. It was strangely sweet with no chilli taste. The mashed potato it came with was too watery and mashy.
The Chocolate Fondue which we ordered (no thanks to me) was pretty normal really. We didn't get to choose the flavours of the ice cream though, which was a downer. It came with the standard five flavours - chocolate, strawberry, Choc mint, Mocha and cookies and cream. There was enough for 3 people to share.
The service was a little too slow for my liking. There weren't many people. The servers would walk a huge round to get to our table instead of walking here directly. I have no idea why but I caught them doing it twice.
Not worth the buck, in my opinion.
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For a start, I looked forward to this lunch meetup with Claudia and Bobo very much. Feizhu's arrival was a pleasant surprise, but one more friend is never too much.
I was pretty surprised that Earle Swensen’s was pretty empty when Bobo and I stepped in. Hey, it's a Sunday... we see plenty of people... it's lunchtime! Why shouldn't it be packed? As we made our way to the table, it's pretty evident of the spacious floor area, and the scenery overlooking the Sentosa was great. Like I was telling the rest, it would be absolutely stunning to have outdoor seats after the sun sets. I wouldn't mind bringing my own candles.
Let me leave the other food reviews to the individual rapists. (The criminals know what they did...)
Let me touch on my first order, the cappuccino... lousy! It tasted just like any coffee I can rip off in food courts, to the point I feel stupid trying to have my coffee fix there. Why on earth did I even spend more than what I paid for in CoffeeBean, and yet get a cup half the size of CoffeeBean's serving? Secondly, the cappuccino was almost cold. There is air-con but I doubt the air-con is that powerful? You can never bluff your way through with a coffee addict!
My main dish was Sirloin Steak with mashed potato. I have other options to go along with like french fries, but I always thought mashed potato is more appropriate to go along with steaks. For steaks, I often swear by Swensen@Orchard. Therefore, my obvious choice was to try their Sirloin Steak. One word - HORRIBLE!
To put it simply, it was small. I had wanted my steak done medium-rare, and any steak enthusiast should know how bloodied it should be. The very second my knife sunk into the steak, I know I'm in for a big disappointment. The feel of slicing into medium-rare steak just wasn't there. In fact, it took me quite some strength to slice it open for everyone to see. No kidding! Everyone could see that the steak was cooked right down to the center. Not a trace of blood and I'm sorry, that is not medium-rare! For a while, I thought I ordered Lamb Chop.
If you know it's a thin slice of steak, control the cooking time. This is really dependent on the chef and his experience.
However, the sauce was tasting good but too bad the steak spoilt the entire dish totally. Salvaging the dish was the mash potato, or so I thought. Tasted good, but it wasn't mashed properly. I could still bite little chunks of potato. My last hope for some form of compensation just got cruxified.
I'm convinced of my preference of Swensen steak outlet. Earle Swensen @ Vivocity definitely does not make the mark for my tastebuds.
My verdict? I'm sorry, but this place is not worth the money they charged. And I think it's slightly higher than other Swensen's branches? Avoid at all cost if you can, there are plenty more eateries along the whole stretch to satisfy your hunger. 2 stars for the generally friendly staffs, comfortable seats, clean environment and great scenery, that's about it.
Like the rest of them, if not for the great company I would have walked out of that place frowning. You just can't bluff your way through with sub-standard (if not horrendous) food, can you?
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A nice eating place, overlooking Sentosa and PSA. While waiting for our food to be served, we got a good view to enjoy and the waiting time didnt seem that long afterall. Its service is definitely better than usual Swensens outlets, and the seatings are well spaced out, so diners would not feel cramped or 'invaded'. The salad bar was placed in the middle of the restaurant, hence it is convenient for all diners (unless you are seated near to the entrance).
Soup of the day: Ours was the garlic soup. The squarish white bowl was on this long white plate with 3 slices of bread neatly laid against one another. The visual effect was pretty good. Soup was served warm and you could see little sprinkles of garlic on top. The aroma of the garlic made you wanna finish the soup at one go, but we managed to refrain ourselves and slowly savour its flavour.
Fried chicken (main course): The serving was kinda small for its price ($18.90). But the chicken was fried to perfection, not oily and the meat is tender and juicy. It served with fries, and suprisingly, (though cold) the fries were still crispy after abt 1/2hr later. Thumbs up!
Salad bar: Attractive palette of greens and orange and yellow and many others. It may look simple but you can be filled up by juz going for its salad bar buffet. They have staple food like the egg noodles and thai glass noodles (on the day we went). Of coz, with healthy greens which you can dress them up with over 5 different salad dressings. The salad bar is $10.80 per person, but comes free if you order main course. (1-for-1).
We would not hesitate to visit Earle Swensen again.
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I was quite surprised with the overall interior decoration of this outlet. It absolutely goes well with the overall theme of VIVO city.
The HUGE high glass panels made it feel like afresco dining yet you can still enjoy the nice cool air-conditioning. A very elegant and chic place to have your favourite sundae in.
I could recall my dad used to reward the family with an outing to the swensens restaurant at the Changi Airport for ICE-Cream.. We loved the EARTHQUAKE and the Fries with sauces.
The old menu was great, but the additional items in the new menu at the VIVO outlet is even better. I can have more choices of meal course and desserts. How wonderful.
My personal favourite dessert is Colt Tower... It has chocolate ice cream, fudge and chunky peanuts on top, it is beautiful to look and yummy to have.
The other very nice dessert is the Apple Crumble in a pan..
Sizzling hot Apple crumble with a scoop of rich Vanilla Ice cream on top served in a pipping hot PAN.... Oooh.........
Drizzle some milk and DIG IN.......
Its sweet and buttery.... Soft crumbs soaked in a little caramel and milk simply melts in your mouth.... Hot hot pastry with cold cold ice cream. This is what i call HEAVENLY....
4 thumbs up...............
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