Perceptions

I am not a fan of ribs and meat. When my colleague told me that we are going to Tony Romas for lunch, I was not particularly enthusiatic. I remembered eating at Tony Romas many years back and I did not like their ribs. Kenny Rogers and Cafe Cartel also disappointed me in terms of their ribs and meat. Pieced together explains my lack of enthusiasm.

1st impression

I was taken by surprise when I first stepped into the restaurant. Very much like stepping into a pub with dim lightings.
We were showed to our seats and very soon I was clicking away on my camera.

Food

For starters, we had bread with butter. simply love the combination. However, it is not refillable (FOC) so the waitress only allowed us to have another half a loaf as free refill.

For 7 of us, we ordered sampler appetitizer as our apetitzer. It was a good choice indeed as the potato skins were crispy and tasty. Heard it is one of their popular dish as well. The boneless bits were delicious too. Although I did not try the spinach dip, my colleagues liked it.

Next comes the the ocean feast. I like the fish best in this dish. It was fried crispy on the outside and very soft in the inside. Unlike some western restaurants who tend to overfry their fish and chips, this was just right.

Next we ordered the rib combo which consists of half slab of pork ribs and BBQ chicken. We ordered mashed potatoes and brocoii as the sides. This is the first time I have eaten ribs where the meat peals off easily from the bones by just using fork and knife. The sauce was sweet and the meat juicy. The mashed potatos and brocoii are my favourites.

The most disappointing was the caesar salad which was salty with the dressing. I could not finish it despite my recent new craving for salad, pamesan cheese and croutons. Crutons were too salty too. As such, I will recommend to have dressing by the side next time if anyone really wants to order caesar salad.

For 7 of us, I think we have over-ordered. Nonetheless, it is still value for money. There is a 2% rebate for citibank card holders.

Brought my parents and brother to Soup restaurant on a Sunday afternoon around 1pm. It was their first time there and my second time. As I recalled, the chicken rice was quite good.

We were given seats very promptly. The ambience was cosy and not over-noisy in the restaurant. Servce was excellent as our tea was refilled without asking and when we asked for chilli , it was served to us promptly as well.

We, of course ordered their hot favourite: Samsui Ginger Chicken

The chicken was tender and boneless. best of all, it went very well with cabbage. The cabbage was so fresh and sweet that I couldn't help wondering how they prepared the cabbage. This is the restaurant's self-made tofu- Hometown Tofu. Crispy on the outside and tender inside. The sauce was appetising and went very well with rice. Too bad, it's such a small portion. Would have loved to order another one, if we hadn't ordered other dishes. Poached Baby spinach-conpoy in century and salted egg stock. There are 3 types of eggs in this dish: poached eggs, century eggs and salted egg. I am usually quite sceptical when coming to this types of dishes because usually the favour of the dish would be overwelmed by the century egg. However, I was able to accept this dish served in this restaurant. They were quite generous with the salted egg portions and the dish was not overwelmed by the century egg. The dish was also not salty. My brother took many spoonfuls of the soup.

We also ordered a lotus soup, but it is nothing fanciful.

The price we paid is considerably lower than other restaurants and the service is excellent, crediting to the restaurant's management in having enough staff to manage the restaurant comfortably. My brother commented that he definitely will come back again.

This is my first time to Peach Garden, having heard it being said frequently by friends and colleagues.
We chose the ala-carte buffet promotion where 1 dines free with every 3 paying adults.

I like the round table concept because it allows for easy conversation around the table.

The appetizers were very sumptuous. There was fried salmon skin, jellyfish, tofu, goose salad, carrot cake etc. We ordered all 6 appetizers, and ended up with lesser space for main course.

The main courses were overall quite nice. There was however less steamed food and more of the fried food.

Dessert was only average. The mango sago with pomelo was a bit too sweet with insufficient pomelo, while the rest of the desserts were nothing special. Wish there were more selections such as yam paste or glutinous rice balls, but instead it was soya bean and the longan dessert.

There is really nothing much to complain about the food or service because they were all quite ok with some dishes that were more than average. The only tip that I wish to share is that if you are in groups of 6 and above, remember to tell the restaurant to prepare portions for 4 pax, as their portions are quite huge. Also remember not to order too much at one go as the food comes onto the table at almost the same time.

Overall, it is a value for money meal.

The ambience was cosy. There is quite a wide variety of food to choose from. The portions came as the right portions so that we have room to try other dishes as well. Nonetheless, we manage to fill up our stomachs, to the brink even before we finish the food list.

One setback was that the food came rather slow and there was a shortage of staff. Hence, we were often unable to find any service crew to order food. Even ordering porridge took more than 10 mins to come. beverage as well. By the time, we wanted to order tour 3rd round of food, the service crew told us that it was our last order already.

The buffet comes with dessert at the dessert bar to our surprise. We had a good time trying the desserts. The ice-creams had unique favours, unlike other buffets. Espresso Ice-cream was my favourite. The green bean soup with the coconut was nice too, except it was too cold. Perhaps the management could try to fix a burner under it to warm it.

With the cosy ambience and quality of good food, it is worth going again.

Who would be as crazy as to arrange a dinner gathering for 15 pax on a Monday Blue night? That's me!

However, we hardly expect ourselves to be the only big table reservation in the restaurant. With only another 3 individual diners and another family of 3, the resturant was almost deserted. It must have been affected by the food poisoning of Man Fu Yuan. Macam VIPs!

Nevertheless, I am glad of the tranquility and service was very efficient as a result. The display of the food was neat and attractive, especially the seafood and dessert corners. My favourites were the drunken prawns, fried rice, mushroom soup and pork rib soup, chocolate pudding and cakes and the tirmisu ice-cream. The prawns were very fresh and sweet. Fried rice was cooked with sausages which made it very savoury. The soups were delicious and the chocolate desserts were very rich and yummy. My colleagues also commented thet the roast beef was nice but I forgot to try it. Mango pudding however, was really disappointing as it was too sweet. The kueh was also hard and cold. My colleagues commented that the oysters were too small, but I was not concerned with it as I do not take oysters.

This is one of the nicer buffets I have been, although the price is still a bit steep with a 3-dines-for-1-free credit card promotion (Citibank, ANZ etc). The feedback that I have received is that it is not really suitable for Muslims as there are quite a number of pork dishes. However, I would recommend diners with a sweet tooth and soup lovers to go there.