As the title of this review says, yes do not bother getting a takeaway. Having the simple old fashioned snacks at Toast Box itself is fine as they're served nicely on porcelain plates and bowls and served warm. However, took away a Wu Tao Gou(yam cake) today and as soon as it got home, it became a piece of junk despite a microwave heat up. Basically the yam cake just became coarse, starchy and dry. Also, the sweet sauce wasn't fragrant nor traditional. Instead it tasted commercially factory-made and well to break it down, it simply just didn't blend with the taro cubes/rice flour. $1.50 for a miserable piece of junk.

I can't quite comprehend how Yoshinoya is healthy. I'm aware of the little oil used in their cooking but isn't the ratio of ingredients to carbohydrates simply 1: 8? A mountain load of rice with a thin spread of stir-fried beef on top, barely concealing the white grains beneath it. A small serving of steamed mixed vegetables are placed in one corner of the bowl. The additional snacks they do offer such as deep-fried waffle cut fries usually taste like they were fried and left on the tray for hours in the kitchen. Not a good choice for healthy or 'healthy' eating.

It's famous and has only 2 choices, chicken and of course, frogleg claypot. I personally love frogleg as the hype over frogleg porridge is still in me but it says otherwise for my boyfriend. Totally not a fan of exotic food, he also hates reptiles and he hates the fact that one could actually swallow reptile meat. But hey, frogleg meat basically tastes just like chicken meat, except triple the tenderness.

It was a breezy evening where my boyfriend and I made a trip down to Old Airport Road hawker centre. We did what we'd always do at hawker centres that have dozens of famous stalls with newspaper cuttings, we'd order and share small items from many various stalls to have varieties on our table, satisfying our curiosity and taste buds.

We intended to share a claypot, but as mentioned, my eating partner hates reptiles so I had no choice but to give in to chicken despite the stall's specialty for frogleg. I then tried to comfort myself perhaps the chicken claypot would be able to surprise me.

The suspense came and went. To my disappointment, it was horrid. I would only eat lean meat and the chicken claypot basically contained only a specific spare part of the chicken. Well I am not good with chicken part labels so I'm not quite certain myself what it really was but my guess is the spare end part of the thigh? There were approx 7 of those, skins and bones and very minimal flesh. Disliking the sight, I didn't start and simply gave the whole meal to my guy.

I did try the claypot sauce with a little rice though, it was fragrant and salty, maybe those spare parts were needed for this but still, it wouldn't make up to how I negatively feel about it. Not good.

My mom and I had lunch at Gurney Drive after a visit to the amk polyclinic. As the name tells, Gurney Drive serves Penang delights. Its setting is of wooden tables and stools with wallpaper of the roads of Penang, both in the past and present. My mom ordered the Penang prawn noodles while I had the Penang laksa. Very very average standard, nothing impeccable. The prawn noodles was similar to any ordinary ones at coffee shops or common hawker centers. The laksa, a layer of chilli oil was simply clouding the watery soup and the ingredients were pathetic. I've tasted much better laksa. Perhaps I am just biased over Katong style laksa, I do prefer creamy gravy plus short rice noodles but their Penang laksa was honestly just barely there. Also had a Malaysian chendol for dessert and it was so-so, the coconut milk was boldly present but where did the palm sugar taste and essence go to?

A place with edible and somewhat passable standard of food. To put an end note, first and last time.

It was an eve of public holiday and most of the restaurants and cafes at Ion were packed except for BALIthai being one of the semi-vacant ones. My boyfriend and I were famished and just wanted to settle down quickly. This leaded to us having to make it simple and walked into BALIthai for a proper dinner, since I've never tried the food there anyway and I like trying new places but clearly for a start, I felt it was already a bad choice. Upon arrival, we sat ourselves down with menus. As soon as we had decided our orders, we tried to get a waiter's attention but to no avail as most of them were hanging around the kitchen with their backs faced to the crowd. It took some time for one of them to finally come by our table and took our orders, except that she wasn't very knowledgeable about the menu herself.

"We're ordering from the Create Your Own Noodles."

"Uhhh, -gives uncertain face-"

"Yes, I'd like the grilled chicken chop, with pad thai noodles, and pad thai sauce."

"Um. -continues to give uncertain face- Okayyy."

"I'd also like to request to have it with less oil or is it possible, no oil? more vegetables?"

"(whispers) Errrr, I'm not sure, I've to check... -gives finger gesture-.."

"It's okay. Less oil is good enough."

"(whispers) Errrrr, I still don't know, I've to check but I'll write it down."

"Ok, do y'all serve crackers anyway?"

"-with the still uncertain face- Um. I'm Nottt. Too. Sure......... I don't think we have."

The receipt clipboard was soon placed on our table by another staff who was also timid and soft in his statements. But never mind that as I was glad my receipt printed "Pad Thai Noodles w/ Chicken Chop -no oil -more vegetables."........ except I shouldn't have been glad at all.

The pad thai that came after 20 minutes of waiting turned out not to be no oil or less oil or understandably, like regular stir-fried noodles. But ironically, it was terribly soaked in oil. So much so I could visually see mini puddles of oil flowing along the perimeter of my pile of noodles. Oil stains were also around the white plate. This of course made me responded by telling another waiter how I felt and again, a reply of "Errrrrr, -uncertain face- let me check with my manager." The manager then presented herself and asked us what the issue was. I told her I was upset how my pad thai didn't turn out as requested, showing her the printed receipt as we spoke. She casually responded by "Oh, pad thai is always oily. It should be like that." This made me stirred and I then told her I made a request and it was stated to be possible. With that, she rudely responded, "So you want to cancel your order?" and I came to answer, "Yes".

We took our leave and had dinner at a fast food restaurant elsewhere. I apologize if I come across as a customer with problematic requests but shouldn't restaurants honour their words if made promised? Either that or BALIthai needs better communication between both themselves and customers.