It was a rude start on arrival. The attendant at the counter produced a pissed mien, probably because their check-in interrupted her flipping of some pages. She showed them to their table anyway, seated by the window. Would have been a reasonable view, had it not been blocked by the conical roof of the lobby.
The Chinese waitresses had higher standard of service. One of them saw that they were eating crabs, and brought them some crab scissors, claw crackers and a bowl of water with lemon slices. Nice touch. They would also ask if plates could be cleared before picking them up.
As the crowd started to come in, manpower seemed to be reallocated. The new batch of attendants cleared plates from the table without asking, prompt service, but not very polite huh.
Let's get to the food...
Seafood counter first, as always.
First blood. Didn't like that the restaurant removed the claws away from the "arms". But the quality of the crab meat was much better than the one he had at Straits Cafe, Hotel Rendezvous (early February 2012). Prawns were ice cold and tasty. They noticed that the restaurant did not serve oysters on a weekend dinner this day.
They had Belgian mussels though, and these tasted sweet and more tender than the ones at Straits Cafe. Sashimi though laid out for self-service, was also well-cut and neatly arranged.
Various salads. The buns were too oily to his liking, but she would go on and have a few more later.
Chilli crabs didn't appeal to him initially, as he felt that mud-crab meat would not be as enjoyable. The restaurant shone again, not too sure how they did it, but the meat was sweet, totally unlike the mushy ones he had in recent. Prawns however, were mushy, so he preferred the cold prawns.
Lamb with mint sauce. Lots of fat to be cut out, but the meat was tender and with no hint of gaminess.
Fried kuay tiao (flat noodles), chicken and more fried buns...
From the roasted meat section, quite a mess. The chef was quite polite though, guess he had too much on his hands, time-slicing between cooking pasting, chopping up meat and probably some other stuff.
He liked the peach pudding best. But because it was very sweet, you'd probably be overwhelmed after having 2 of it.
Check out that strawberry throwing its weight on the thin slice of toffee cake.
Creme brulee, looks quite the mashed up affair, but he just couldn't stop eating.
Almost forgot, the restaurant had good ice cream. Especially liked the creamy durian, and tangy mango flavours.
Reflections in the window when night came.
Asked for the bill, and the Chinese waitress patiently spoke about the various promotions with different payment modes. Well-equipped. Service standards of such levels have been a scarcity.
It had to end on a sour note though. On their way out, they met the same attendant who showed them their table, and she was still producing sulk on her face.
No comments:
Post a Comment