Sakae Sushi has a chain of outlets everywhere and has been around for some time. I remember the days where it had its huge hype especially among students for their teatime buffet where you'd get to eat-all-you-can, with one red plate, dessert and a bowl of udon. Recently, I was back at Sakae Sushi @ Bishan J8 to have dinner. We made it our choice for the night as my boyfriend and I were both famished and what's best about Sakae is that they have food ready-to-eat on the conveyor belt. We grabbed them as soon as we got seated down. It's been a while for me and Sakae now has new pink plates priced at $3.95 as well as other new items in their menu.

I am upset to say that the standard has dropped though. It seems to me that it's like mass production now. Staffs are inefficient too, we had to request four times for our fried food items to be served and they only arrived at the end of our meal despite having them ordered at the START of our dinner. It took them approximately an hour to finally arrive and to my amazement, they were actually served cold. I don't know if the blame lies on the waiters or kitchen staffs but clearly, the management should do something about this. The sushi tasted very average, like the ones at supermarket you'd get during after-8pm clearance, they were still edible though.

I can't say more about my recent experience other than pure disappointment now that I am aware about the drastic drop in standard, Sakae Sushi is a no-no.

Located off Woodlands Road, Club July was also formally known as Club With Paws. It's actually a pet place, a dog training centre. Recently went through a facelift, they now have a KTV lounge and a pool table, also serving food, drinks and alcohol.

Two weekends back, my boyfriend and I decided to give this place a shot. Its ambience is alright, say a 3.5/10. A place for dog lovers as dog owners can bring them along and eat together. It’s an ulu café though as we had to take a walk at a park/back lane to get there.

We ordered a few items to share. Namely a mango and a strawberry smoothie, bbq sambal stingray, fish n chips and a mee goreng.

The mango and strawberry smoothies were good except I thought they were more like flavored ice blended drinks you'd get at bubble tea shops, what's more there were mini pearls added on top. Rather sweet too.

The sambal stingray was an $8 portion. We were delighted at first sight as it was served a large piece for its price and the stingray meat was bbqed to its taste. Onions and sambal chilli were generous too. However it occurred to and disappointed us when we realized later it was just the top layer that was meat, beneath it was simply all bones, and unlike most seafood bbq stalls, the bones would easily come off when you tangle it but at Club July, the thin bones stuck with the stingray meat like chewing gum on a shoe sole. After a while we simply got sick trying to separate them and pushed the dish aside. I have to add, the bones were also not soft and chewable nor swallowable because they were practically hard like fish bones.

Fish n Chips($6) was a substandard dish. Awfully fried and drained in oil as if oil was its topping. Thin-cut fries were ordinary and I can't give my feedback about the coleslaw as my boyfriend and I don't eat coleslaw in general. Anyway the best part about the Fish n Chips was actually the baked beans... which came popped from a can, frankly speaking.

The mee goreng was okay though. Generous serving for its $5 pricing, neither too oily nor spicy (though I love spicy food but my eating partner doesn't), also had its fair share of ingredients fried with. Topped with lettuce.

Apart from its ulu location, this place unfortunately doesn't employ clever staffs either. It is fine with me that the staffs do not speak English but I guess it wouldn't be fine with anyone for f&b staffs to not have a good command of any commonly spoken language in Singapore. They didn't have any clue what chilli sauce, ash tray or even plain water were.

Doubt I'll be back...

Located at 313 Somerset food court(Food Republic) itself, this Toast Box is a good place for small talks and tea break. They don’t only serve coffee, tea, toast bread or buns but also local and heavier dishes like laksa, mee siam, curry chicken and nasi lemak. However, it was a disappointment.

I was just here yesterday, bought a takeaway packet of nasi lemak. The nasi lemak at Toast Box may look plain ordinary but they are certainly not cheap. For a $4.80 packet of nasi lemak, you’d get a full load of rice, one miserable overnight chicken wing, a fried egg, a few pieces of ikan billis and peanuts with a reasonable amount of chilli. The rice tasted horrible, the texture of the rice was not crunchy but soft and stuck together like lontong rice, and it was also plain like ordinary Chinese white rice. Isn’t nasi lemak rice supposed to have its coconut fragrant? Have I also mentioned how the staff actually ‘reheated’ the chicken wings… the answer’s double fry. I was horrid to see it done in front of my eyes.

Personally, I prefer the old nasi lemak rice from Toast Box, or perhaps they are still available at smaller Toast Box outlets. They are not only cheaper but also taste better. Wrapped in banana leaf and only $2.50 compared to the one I had which cost $4.80 for an overestimated packet, I do consider it to be very expensive.

You might be thinking what an awful sight it already is and to imagine swallowing such alien noodles as lunch. Yes, it was indeed awful. It was meant to be spinach hand-made noodles with dumpling and sauce though the physical product proved otherwise. Starchy green-colored noodles with starchy gravy that I suppose was meant to be mushroom flavored. With 4 miserable 'dumplings' that hardly contained any meat, I highly doubt each could even hit the mark of half-a-teaspoon minced meat in any single dumping. Also, the soup tasted like msg powder mixed with hot water. I have no idea why I choose to order this either, hence left the plate and grabbed bread from a bakery elsewhere for lunch to make up for.

I do agree that RaindrOps is one nicely decorated and urban cafe. Though small, it gives a cozy and relaxing feel especially on a Friday night after a long day. You could choose to dine at indoors in a glass house where it's semi-lilted(not the depressing white lights). Or outdoors, the al fresco area holds about less than 15 pax. I got to know about RaindrOps in the 8 days magazine when Scape was just newly launched. I read that if you happen to be seated in the al fresco and if it rains half-way through your meal, the staff will immediately shelter you with huge umbrellas and with that, your meal is on the house.

I've also read about the dishes pick of 8 days, the squid ink pasta namely. It was actually the snap shot of it in the magazine that caught my attention. I'm a visual person and it gave me intention to try out RaindrOps cafe. However, all that rave truly disappointed me at the end of my visit.

I remember that we were and went back to RaindrOps twice prior to our dinner at 6.30pm. Once at 5.30pm and another at 6.00pm. Reason being the first time we just wanted to check out the place out as well as had some queries about the food menu. For the second time, we decided to return to make a face-to-face reservation for 2 since we didn't have the cafe's phone number.

What disappointed me was that even at 6.30pm being dinner time, there was still only one waitress running around, handling both the indoor and outdoor areas. It took some time for her to finally come to us and when she did, I excitedly asked for the squid ink pasta as that was one of the main reasons I was there for, only to know they didn't have it because they ran out out of seafood. When I asked if did it just happen within the hour or so.. The waitress responded that it had been 2 days, (it was a Friday and) we could come back and try on Monday because they'd definitely have it by then. I was indeed taken aback by the fact that a cafe's kitchen could actually run out of seafood for days, despite having a couple of items on the menu that do consist seafood. What's worse was that the waitress failed to take the initiative to inform us when we were there at both 5.30pm and 6.00pm respectively.

Hence I asked if she could suggest something else on the menu and she did. She suggested the grilled chicken while demonstrating the estimated size of it with her knuckles put together. This was a kind act except at the same time, she unintentionally knocked my glass of water over by accident and it spilled across the table. It really occurred to me that I could have left and ate somewhere.

I did order the grilled chicken anyway and my boyfriend had the Hawaiian pizza. The chicken ($15) was passable at best and though the marination was present, it was a mere tiny piece with mostly chicken skin. It also came with risotto that was average and mixed vegetable, or rather I should say 1 broccoli, 1 cauliflower and 1 slice of carrot. The Hawaiian pizza on the other hand, was served at room temperature and not fresh-out-of-the-oven warmness. Though $12 only, we couldn't help but to find the pizza rather small as the quality was lacking, and clearly the portion couldn't help to compromise either.

The only remarkable point was that when evening had set and the start of the night arrived, we were accompanied with nice lilted candles which made it a good ambience. As I mentioned, this place scores for ambience. The food and service however, was totally overestimated.