Goody n Jolly looks just like any of the other food court stalls in the Parkway Parade basement food court. What sets them apart is the sheer yumminess and quantity of their dishes. Their signature dishes are:

1. Mee Rebus. They have been dishing this out over the past decade, one of my friends calls it the 'never-ending bowl of mee rebus'. The portion is huge - you can barely see the noodles when it is buried under all the condiments like sliced hard-boiled eggs and beansprouts! The yellow noodles are nice and chewy, the gravy is yummy. Two girls can probably share a bowl of mee rebus for one meal!

2. Laksa. Probably my favourite dish. The gravy is incredibly lemak and spicy, the cockles are fresh, there are lots of ingredients, the noodles are nice and chewy. The portion, of course, is amazing!

3. Chicken curry. The chicken curry is flavourful, comes in a metal container with a little fire below to keep the curry simmering...makes a lovely breakfast!

4. Beancurd and Chin Chow. Interesting, they also serve beancurd and chin chow, all freshly home made. Strongly recommend having the beancurd in the morning, when you can watch them scoop out the pure, smooth beancurd from the top of the pot - this is so much better than the artificial mass produced beancurd you find in many other food courts!

I think both the mee rebus and laksa are also featured in the latest Makansutra, which is pretty rare for a food court stall. This is a hidden gem (though probably well known to those living in the Marine Parade area!).

I've been going to Santouka since it opened, have always made a beeline for the pork cheek slices which had a to-die-for texture - not too fatty, melts in your mouth, salty and yummy! The ramen has also been good, similar to other Japanese restaurants like Marutama Ramen and Tampopo. I've also liked the fact that they just put big jugs of ice water on your table, so you don't have to waste time asking waitresses to fill up your glass (this is a highly efficient practice, not sure why more restaurants don't adopt it).

However, when I went for lunch today, the pork cheeks were of highly inferior quality. They were thick, slightly cold and worst of all - had thick pale rinds of fat!! There was none of that melt-in-your-mouth texture. Perhaps this was because the restaurant was packed during lunchtime - but I really hope it was a one-time occurrence, otherwise it will be really hard to find such good pork cheeks and ramen in Singapore!

We had both the black pepper crab and chilli crab here, it's delicious, the portions are huge and meaty. I find it better than the Jumbo restaurant at Riverside Point, perhaps the chilli crab at the latter has been toned down for touristy tastebuds and doesn't taste like the real thing.

The service is prompt and efficient - one of the most impressive things is that the staff really bustle around and respond efficiently when you ask for anything. In fact, both their local and foreign staff are equally well trained. Definitely a good place to bring your family for a hearty local meal!

This Brewerkz has a different vibe from the flagship outlet at Riverside Point. It is much more relaxed and family-friendly, with little kids hanging out with their parents at the pool table sometimes, or canoe crews having a beer at the al fresco dining area.

The food is hearty and good. I think Brewerkz has significantly improved their menu from a few years ago - now there is a greater variety of foods that cater to local tastes as well as healthier choices. Still love the buffalo wings (suicide hot!) and the yummy chunky satay. The service is also nice. Overall, a good place to chill.

This is a place for students. The decor is bright and cheerful, the dishes are large in portion and very reasonably priced, the food is ok in quality.

However, the service leaves much to be desired. We were there on a weekday night, the manager (who was a local) took down our orders hurriedly and communicated them to her staff, NONE of whom were locals and could barely speak English! Soon after the manager left, and we had a hard time explaining what we actually wanted to the staff (one extra order, one missed order). I have to say that the staff were quite friendly and apologised quicly for the mistake, so it's really not their fault, but the fault of the proprietors for not giving their staff proper language training and instilling proper service systems. They need to look into this urgently.

We've been here a few times - there is a good range of the standard Korean dishes, the appetiser dishes are quite nice and they always replenish them quickly. The food is also quite good, especially the kimchi soup on a cold rainy day.

What makes it stand out is the nice service - the lady owner (who is Korean) is really sweet and polite, sometimes they provide additional complimentary touches like chocolates or fruits. The staff who seem to be mostly PRCs, are also well-trained - gracious, understand English, and take the initiative to interact with the customer.

A nice reliable little restaurant with decent Korean food and nice service.

My colleagues and I went to Long Beach at Dempsey on 11 Dec 08 for a dinner. As we had booked about 3 tables, they agreed to give us a special menu for $30 nett, which was a pretty good deal. The ambience of the private rooms and the quality of the chilli crab were pretty good.

However, the troubles started when after the last dish (dessert) had been served, we realised that they had missed out one of the dishes - fried cuttlefish. Rather than wait for them to cook the dish, we thought it would be a relatively simple thing for them to provide a small discount or even a voucher, which would entail them more repeat business.

What was most appalling was the attitude of the managers and the apparent lack of autonomy that they have to make even the simplest decisions.

First, the PR manager asked if we were sure there was indeed cuttlefish in the menu. Hmmm, I don't know how many customers they have encountered who would make up such a story just to get some extra food - even if we were, perhaps we should have gone for something more expensive! So we showed her the email printout which clearly stated the menu and price.

Then, she offered to waive the extra dish of mantou (fried buns) that we had in exchange for the cuttlefish. This left us fairly flabbergasted at how the restaurant was simply attempting to cover up its mistake without any hint of a fair compensation.

After we objected to this, the PR manager called another manager over, who told us that she would have to do something about the nett cost and GST, and would try to give us a 10% discount. So we waited for a while, thinking that the problem had been solved. After 10 min or so, she came back and said that using this method, the total bill was higher than the original bill by a few dollars!

I thought, "Which part of 'you didn't serve me one dish and therefore I should be paying less not more' did you not understand?!"

Needless to say, we objected to actually paying more when we had not been served our full menu! Her only excuse was that she had to close the accounts by that evening (clearly putting herself ahead of the customer's interests), she could not contact her colleague who had negotiated the special menu (although we had the entire email printout) and she had no authority to do anything. She said that she would call us tomorrow when she had spoken to her senior officer.

Finally, we gave up as we had been fruitlessly negotiating this for more than half an hour and the taste of the dinner had turned pretty sour. The lack of service recovery, consideration for the customer and sheer lack of autonomy of the managers make this a really badly run place. I guess if nothing goes wrong, it's a decent place for dinner, but woe betide the customer if anything goes wrong during the night.

This little bistro is a real gem hidden in the middle of Frankel estate. We had the foie gras salad and crispy duck confit which were absolutely divine. The taste of the duck leg confit was a yummy blend of savoury and salty flavours.

The service was excellent, attentive yet unobstrusive. When we ordered a creme bulee and they realised after 10 minutes that they had run out of it, they didn't charge us for the house wine we had, to make up for the service lapse. Now that's what I call good service recovery!

The ambience is more that of a bistro than a French restaurant. A great place to chill with some friends over good French food and wine, especially if you live in the East. At about thirty dollars per person (appetiser and main, no dessert) this is pretty worth it compared to what some other French restaurants in Singapore are charging.

We were there on opening night and had a really bad experience. First, they took about forty-five minutes to serve our appetisers. The couple dining at the table next to us had placed their orders later than us, but after they complained about the long wait for their food, they received their food first! And after we complained, our food came along shortly.

We thought that would be the end of it...but it actually took another hour for the mains to arrive. It was such a ridiculously long wait that at one point in time, the waitress started clearing our empty plates and cutlery because she thought we had already finished eating when we hadn't even been served!

I'm not sure that the service will improve tremendously. When we asked to see the owner who looked rather harried and voiced our displeasure over the slow service, she didn't say much beyond a cursory "sorry, it's our opening night".

Although the food was not bad, we would definitely never go back there again. The only silver lining was that we actually struck up a conversation with the nice couple sitting at the table next to us, in commiseration at our shared bad experience. If La Forketta is trying to charge 30-40 dollars for a main course, they have a long way to go to improve their service.