The open concept of the new Crystal Jade HK Cafe at Bugis+ (the revamped Iluma) gave it a casual feel of a high class fast food place. We had high expectations of Crystal Jade's culinary concept & refrained from ordering the Hong Kong street favorites like the beef horfun, shrimp dumplings, dimsum, butter bun (bolo yau) that made Crystal Jade popular & instead picked their 'new' western offerings like pasta & salad.

The salad failed as the iceberg lettuce was wet & their idea of dressing was mayo mixed with some thousand island-lookallike creamy sauce.

We picked the fish with black pepper sauce and the chicken with teriyaki sauce as our main courses. With a choice of rice or spaghetti (both cheaper than potatoes), we opted for the latter. Turned out to be a mistake. The spaghetti in our main courses was overcooked & soft rather than al dente, while the vegetables on the side were undercooked & tasted raw. The sunny side up egg that came with the mains was also too runny & a little too raw/rare for our liking. The fillet for both main courses were tiny (see photos) so we were paying for starch rather than protein. The dory fish was mushy and the use of bottled pepper sauce diluted with water & thickened with cornflour didn't help enhance its taste. The chicken fillet was bland too & was served with, OMG, oyster sauce, instead of teriyaki sauce.  If we knew they were using oyster sauce, we would have opted to do without any sauce. What was supposed to be the highlight of our dinner turned out to be 'blah'. Better to stick with Crystal Jade's proven dishes next time.

We had expected the HK Style Milk Tea to be concentrated Breakfast tea mixed with evaporated milk & condensed milk. Unfortuately their tea was diluted & lacked flavor, evaporated milk was used sparingly; taste was weak & saccharine rather than strong 'smooth' tea that we've come to expect of HK Cafes. Using an  ikebana vase made of glass to serve the tea was impractical, as the molten dry ice at the side (to keep the tea chilled) would spill out when tea was poured into the shot glass - a gimmick that fell flat. Better to focus on the product - strong milky tea with 'smooth taste' of evaporated milk & serve it in a regular tea cup.

Overall, it was a disappointing dinner experience, so we decided to go elsewhere for dessert.

The restaurant was almost empty when we arrived about 2:15pm. There was only 1 staff on duty & she was busy with her hp behind the counter, rising to hand us the menus only after we walked in & seated ourselves. She was the waitress cum cashier on Thursday afternoon. After taking our order, waitress disappeared & returned with our dishes after 5mins, indicating that the items were pre-cooked & ready-to-serve. Plain rice costs $1.50 a plate. Water & sambal chilli were given only on request. Portions are tiny, enough only for 1-2pax. Pondok Kartika is certainly a restaurant whose menu is rather deceptive. None of the dishes we ordered resembled the tantalizing pictures on its glossy menu. Only the beef rendang ($7.50) passed the taste test. The bite sized pieces of beef were tender, moist and went well with rice, though we would have preferred this dish to be spicier.
The jackfruit opor curry ($6.95) and sayur assam. ($4.95) were bland & watery (see photos). The latter contained only shredded cabbage and 2cm lenth long beans that were on the raw side, as if the vegetables had been hastily blanched in the watered down assam flavored water. Even the ayam penyek stalls in neighborhood coffee shops serve a by far better version of this popular & common Indonesian dish, with the vegetables absorbing the intensely piquant taste of the assam (tamarind) broth.The sambal telur had no kick while the bergedil potato cakes were obviously mass produced with no taste and character. Good quality bergedil should contain minced beef, chopped celery and onions carefully blended into the potato mixture and moulded into patties dipped in beaten egg before being fried. The version served to us was purely mashed potato held together by flour. Both the sambal telur and bergedil were outrageously priced in relation to the portion size and substandard quality. We were charged $4.95 for 4 fishball sized potato cakes and $3.50 for two sambal telur cut into 4 halves (menu showed 3 eggs cut into 6 halves).The restaurant accepts cash payment only despite the Mastercard logo featured on the table number display stands & at the cashier's counter. No where did the menu was there any fine print indicating that 10% service charge would be levied on our bill. Lunch bill for two diners, plus a takeaway portion of gado gado ($8.50 for a styrofoam box portion without any bitter belinjau crackers) totalled $43.30 inclusive of service charge. Our 1st visit to Pondok Kartika will no doubt also be our last. Better quality and better value Indonesian fare can easily be found everywhere.

The Siglap branch of Thai Express is located on the ground floor of a low rise private apartment complex with 10+ parking lots (chargeable) for visitors along the compound's driveway. The restaurant's air conditioning is comparable to cineplex temperatures - welcomed on a sizzling hot afternoon but too chilly for the cloudy day we dropped by. We ordered 1 of the 3 promotional Sanook Sets (choice of tom yum soup, curry or stirfried dish) served with rice, appetizer and dessert, the massamun curry chicken with roti prata that was featured on the table display and the black pepper crayfish/slipper lobster with glass noodles.

The Sanook Set was the best value at $8.90++. The tom yum soup had dory fish chunks, two shelled shrimps and several calamari rings. Taste was ok but nothing special. The 3 pcs of deepfried curry chicken balls were overcooked and tough. The sago and palm seed dessert was almost a reluctant inclusion, looked unappetizing and tasted bland with some sago beads hard and undercooked.

The $12.90++ massamun curry which looked promising in the photo turned out to be the worst of the three items we had ordered. The prata was too oily and not evenly cooked (see photo) and seemed to have been reheated half heartedly in the microwave as it was not crispy at all. The curry was topped by a repulsive layer of oil.

The black pepper crayfish glass noodles ($14.90++) looked unappetizing due to the cook's heavy handed use of black pepper sauce, was rather oily but tasted alright.

The disappointing meal reinforced our impression that Thai Express has expanded too aggressively resulting in a sustained decline in the quality of its cooking. We didn't order any drinks (opting for water) or dessert and had change for our $50 note.

The Place: Skinny was buzzing with activity when two of us dropped by about 1:30pm on a midweek. We were given the 2nd last empty table left. Square tables were spaced as close together as a fast food outlet, and we sat on the most uncomfortable chairs there ever was. If you have long arms you're likely to knock elbows with the customer seated next to you. Even if you speak in hushed tones your neighbor will hear every word you say. Obviously eat and be gone type of place.

The Prices: Pizzas were priced comparably with Italian restaurants in five star hotels. Think Pontini, Prego, Pete's Place. We ordered two pizzas for two of us. But the pizza is best eaten as an appetizer or a snack on hindsight. For a proper meal go for the pasta or sausage. Ordering a pizza per head leaves one peckish after 3 or 4 hours max.

The Service: Servers take your orders in a business like fashion and after serving your pizza and cutting it into quarters at the table, you aren't likely to hear from them again. We spied a server dusting the crumbs off the paper placemat on a nearby table after the guests had left and arranged new sets of cutlery on the table. The two drinks we ordered arrived without straws and when I requested them only one was given. Water was never topped up unless you asked, and we had to ask two servers before the glasees were eventually done. When we requested extra paper napkins and a change of our soiled plates, the server pretended not to hear. A lady seated next to us was kind enough to offer us a pack of tissues for us to clean our fingers and wipe the squid ink off our plates.

The food: A friend who had visited Skinny's Raffles City outlet had advised us not to order the bolognese pizza, so we picked their two other signature items Squid Ink Pizza and Ginger Butter Chicken Pizza. Imagine a 9" table water cracker with toppings. We liked the crispy crunchy crust. The Ginger Butter Chicken had no taste of ginger whatsoever and reminded us of Indian masala curry. The biggest letdown was the Squid Ink Pizza. It looked like a pizza that Scrooge had made. Not a pizza made with love as the rocket leaves were almost wilting and cheap ingredients like onions and diced tomatoes are sparsely used even though it was closing time. The squid rings were a little chewy ie slightly overcooked.





The Verdict: My lunchmate and I would have 2nd thoughts even if our next visit was on the house.

It's not easy to locate Snowman Desserts unless you hang out at NEX pretty often. You won't find a listing on the mall directory. It's actually on level 2 taking over half of the premises of Japanese restaurant MOF, near Watsons. The Korean owner started off at NEX with a branch of Daessiksin, the popular DIY Korean BBQ buffet that grew from a single outlet opposite Novena Church (now moved to United Square) into a chain of several restaurants. The enterprising businessman has turned the NEX shop space into a 3-in-1 restaurant, offering the Korean BBQ buffet for lunch and dinner, and the Ssiksin fried chicken and dessert (Snowman) throughout the day to maximize returns from the rent on his shop unit.

Customers who order the fried chicken and desserts are seated at long tables at the front end of the restaurant, near the walkway in full view of the unending stream of weekend shoppers strolling in the mall. If dining as a couple or small group of three or four pax, you'll be seated with and rubbing elbows with other customers, just like eating at a school tuckshop at recess time.

Prices start at $3.50++ for a cup of soft serve ice cream served with freshly fried churros. Takeaway price for these cups is $3.50nett. The highlight of Snowman's menu is Korean shaved ice or bingsu whose prices range from $10.50++ to $14.00++. We ordered the fruit-based bingsu for dining in at $14++ or $16.48 nett per bowl. Each bowl serves up to two pax. The cheapest bingsu in town is at Tom N Toms Coffee which are priced from $9.50nett with free wifi thrown in. Snowman's price point is on par only if it excludes service charge as there's no free wifi and the makeshift environment lacks the cool, relaxed vibe of a cafe where customers can chill and chat.

The quality of Snowman's bingsu is good - its fine, smooth and velvety texture makes every spoonful a pleasure. Condensed milk is served on the side for the diner to drizzle on top of the bingsu to his/her desired level of sweetness.

We would return only for the melon bingsu $14++ which looked and tasted great (See photos).  The strawberry bingsu $14++ was disappointing as it arrived with the strawberry snowman dropped on the serving tray. We had to send it back for the snowman to be fixed/perched on top of the mound of shaved ice so that the dessert was photo-worthy.  The chef was rather stingy with the strawberries too. The mango bingsu $14++ would have been good had the restaurant used sweet and ripe mangoes. Unfortunately the mango chunks served were so tart that the only way we could eat them up was to dip them into the tiny container of condensed milk. Our feedback to the server was futile; she shrugged her shoulders, looked blankly into space and proceeded to serve other customers.

We felt that Snowman's staff are obviously more used to clearing tables for DIY buffet; they do not look approachable or perhaps they just lack the training to deliver a passable level of customer service. The lady behind the cash register was also mechanical and made no eye contact with customers who were taking turns to settle their bills.