After a long day work, my colleague and I decided to go for a better dinner as it was paid by the company. The newly renovated Amara shopping mall has new restaurants to station, we give it a try. By the time we reached there, it was around 8+pm. This Japanese restaurant was quite full and we thought it should be ok.

We have to wait at the entrance before we could proceed to our seating, we were thinking why? As at that hour and in a weekday, properly they have insufficient staff!

Browse through the menu, it is similar to other Japanese restaurants for casual dining. 2 of us, working hard the whole day with an empty stomach, we ordered fermented soy bean with sparkling sake as appetizer. Follow by deep fried squid, stir fry mix veggie, eggplant with teriyaki sauce, steak with 2 tempura prawns and shallow fry fish. Overall taste was fin. I particularly couldn’t stand cooked fish with fishy smell and this one has it. This dish was a drawback to me.

We both liked the sparkling sake, it was refreshing and light in taste.

We were enjoying our meal and chatted happily. They kept coming to remind us their closing time at 10pm, that was around 9:30+pm. We felt annoying though. They couldn’t wait and gave us the bill at that time. By the time, most of the patrons were almost left, they started to do the cleaning, hence mopping the floor, etc. We felt bad if we insisted to sit until 10pm, we have no choice to leave immediately.

Probably this was our first and last time to patron.

This was my first time having steamboat in Singapore, I have done some reviews before I decided to try on this restaurant. Most of them were saying this was value for money, seafood was fresh, even have bamboo shoot clam and cockle, etc. Frankly, by reading the reviews it was tempting to try. We reached there before the dinner crowd around 6+pm.

It was a small restaurant with overcrowded tables, no aircon! Food was putting on the corner of the restaurant, variety wise, not as much as I was thinking, few types of vegetable, some cooked food(cold), raw meat-pork, beef and chicken, prawn. It could be time was still early, we wanted to try the bamboo shoot clam and cockle eagerly, they were not fresh at all, it seemed they were left over from lunch! After a while, when there were more dinners, then they refilled most of the items. We tried clam and cockle again, although they were a bit fresher than the first batch, they were still not up to the standard.

I didn’t try their cold cooked food as they didn’t look good to me. Whereas I tried the deep fried egg, they were lumps and tasteless, way too far to improve. Fruits have pineapple and watermelon, thinly slice. Soup base contained MSG.It was really out of our expectation and the worse steamboat I have at a restaurant. Having said that it was almost full house that evening! I have steamboat in Hongkong, variety of food and fresh, price wise around S$20+ at a aircon restaurant.

This was my first try at this eating place, their menu was simple. I wanted to have something not toast and coffee. I opt for their mee siam, I asked the service crew for the taste of it, would it be very spicy, she said she could take spicy food, it wasn’t hot for her. Minus a bit, it should be fine to my taste, I guess.

Once I placed my order, they gave me a wooden block and found my own sit, they would serve food to my table. First taste, OMG, it was really hot and sour, they were the extreme taste, I couldn’t taste tou pok, bean sprouts or noodle taste, all I have was my mouth burning and my eyes couldn’t open due to super sourness! I couldn’t finish the whole bowl. I washed it down with their smooth coffee, it saved my taste bud of the day.

Instantly I have gastric pain while walking away of the restaurant, the pain was acute!

My friend recommended this La Mian for me, she said the boss was a friendly person and their la mian was good. I have heard of Lan Zhou La Mian was really good in China. I passed by this shop on Saturday, it was around lunch time. There were few tables filled up already, I took a sit and placed my order as this was new to me, I got to browse their menu for my choice. The waitress couldn’t wait and walked away, then I got to wait for her free time to come to my table after I have decided.

Anyway, I have placed my order for a bowl of la mian, she tried to push other dishes for me as well. I rejected politely, she walked away abruptedly. My order has arrived and I took out my camera to take picture of my own bowl of noodle, I noted that the boss “stared” at me as I was doing something bad in his shop!

La Mian isn’t new food to me, I have been eating it in China and here. The la mian chef has the China man looks, he skilfully pulled out some noodle and boiled it instantly. My bowl of la mian has different thickness of noodles, thick and thin~disappointed. Taste wise, it was OK.

When I wanted to foot my bill, I waved to the boss for bill, he ignored me at all. I thought he has seen my waved, I waited for some time, nope, nobody bothered me. I have to ask the same waitress for bill, she was kind of walked away when I called her for bill. Subsequently the bill was come and I paid and left. I would like to stress that dinning alone at their shop wasn’t a good experience.

Passed by this restaurant many times, finally we gave it a try and it was the first and the last too. Reason, tons of msg serve in their food which I couldn’t accept it, I don’t mind msg to enhance the flavour but it shouldn’t be the ONLY flavour.

We were arranged to be seating in the centre roll, pretty closed to our neighbour table. Menu is offering similar food as Crystal Jade Xiao Long Bao, we would expect their standard should be somewhere near too since they look like competing each other.

Xiao long bao was very juicy, beef shin(muscle) was overcooked, lack of texture and too soft, stew fatty pork was soft, la mian was fine, the above food were loaded with msg, if you like msg, it is a good news. I got to drink nonstop of water to wash away the msg aftertaste effect.

Nope, it wasn’t a restaurant for me.