Bratwurst is a good place to go if you want a light meal before or after your movie. But be warned, its not necessarily a fast meal because it takes time for your sausage buns and fries to be heated up. Eating it is also a messy affair if you prefer to eat with your hands like me. The sausages and sandwiches can be converted to meals (at additional cost of course) and these would include fries and a drink that you choose from the fridge at the entrance to the seating area. The seating area is rather small and might get crowded in the evenings so be prepare to take away if theres no seats available.

Between sandwiches and sausages, i would recommend the sausages. So far i've tried most of their sausages already and theres none i don't like. The sandwiches can get a little too filling as well.

To get to Jones the Grocer @ Dempsey, its better to drive. Unless you aren't wearing high heels and dressed up and willing to sweat it out to walk the distance from the busstop in. Parking is also not an easy affair especially on weekdays during lunch time. Alternatively you can take the shuttle bus from orchard mrt in, though the frequency of the bus depends on the number of passengers because the bus only leaves dempsey when its filled.

As for the outlet itself, remember to bring a jacket because it gets quite cold here, especially when it rains. Also do go early to avoid having to wait for your table because people here sit around and enjoy their coffee after meals so you might have to wait for some time. In the meanwhile, you can always go shopping around the dining area, Jones sells pasta, biscuits, rows of sauces and drinks and wines. There's even a cheese room at the back - its really smelly though, so try not to choose a table near it.

As for the food, i really like their apple crumble, its $7.50 if i'm not wrong and its really to die for. In fact, you might not want to share this one with your dining companion.

If you want to patronize this thai café, do try to arrive early (before 6.30) as there’s always a really long que outside. And, they do not accept reservations. On the bright side, food is served very quickly here, so the tables normally get cleared up fast as the customer turnover rate is pretty quick. My favourite dish here is the calamari rings – FANTASTIC. They are seriously to die for. So you HAVE to order them even if you’re on the diet because boy you’re missing out a lot if you don’t. For their other dishes, the fried fish was not too bad as well, though do not order the green curry, it was rather watery. The pineapple rice was rather small in size but about the same standards in terms of taste as Thai Express.

For the price you are paying, this buffet is overrated. Basically what it serves is very simple local dishes that you can easily find in hawker centers and other international dishes of the same standard as those you can easily obtain in shopping malls around Singapore. I guess you are paying for being able to sample a little bit of everything all at once.

For the Chinese cuisine section, the duck and roast pork was nice, though the vegetables were abit hard and the dimsum wasn’t well made. For the curry section, most of the curries weren’t as fragrant as what you can find outside, however, as they also cater to international diners, I guess not everybody can take the kind of spice. For the western food section, the steak was well done (so if you prefer them medium rare then you can skip this dish). The good thing about their spaghetti was they cook it on the spot for you, so its hot and you can choose what you want to go into the sauce. At the same counter, you can also get hot plate beef which is FANTASTIC. That would be the one dish I would say made the whole dinner satisfactory after all. For the vietnamnese/ thai section, the rice cakes were cold and hard, the crackers were exposed too long and the samosas weren’t crispy anymore.

The desserts comprised of local varieties such as ondeh ondeh, 9layer kueh, egg tarts etc. and the international section were mostly small cakes and a tonne cream stuff. The ice cream was a mere few flavours and they tasted like our no frills ice cream from NTUC.

What saved the entire experience (apart from the beef)was the service. I celebrated my birthday there with my family and the staff brought out a slice of cake and sang a birthday song for me and were generally very happy to do so (much unlike the unpleasant experience in Shangrila).

Overall, taste would be a 7.5/10, variety 8/10, service 9/10 and ambience 9/10.

My favourite dish at Thai Express is the longevity noodles in chicken broth, reminds me of what we have every Chinese New Year at my grandma’s. Rice dishes worth trying are the olive rice -my grandma’s absolute favourite. It is difficult to find good olive rice in Singapore, some are too oily, some are too salty, some have too little rice hence the olive taste becomes overpowering, some have too much rice and too little topping making the dish taste bland. Thai Express does this dish perfectly. The pineapple rice is good too, just the right amount of pineapples. . My mum is a great fan of their tom yam soup – quite spicy so those who aren’t able to take food that is too spicy, do abstain from this dish. The green mango salad contained a little too much chilli in my opinion, therefore the taste of the mango was kind of masked. The fish cakes were fairly normal, nothing to rave about. For dessert, I would definitely recommend the mango smoothie. Thai Express isn’t stingy on their mangoes for sure.