Going by numbers, 15 Minutes Cafe is a 5 minutes walk from my place; my friends and I spent close to 240 minutes (or 4 hours) there during dinner, and we waited an average of about 50 minutes for our food.

I got to know of this place after I happened to walk by while on the way to Sim Lim Square. Tucked at the ground floor of the LaSelle College of the Arts, this cafe is a hidden find for good food, an upbeat yuppie (or artsy student-type) setting, and a lovely chill out vibe.

Walked in at around 7pm on a Friday night (tried to call in the morning for reservations but they informed that they no longer accepted them as they were fully booked), and thankfully, 7 pm is a good time to come. In fact, to get seats without waiting, 7pm is about the latest you should come. Also, as experience has taught me, ordering your food at 7pm is also the best thing to do.

Because some of my friends were late, we ended up ordering our food - the fish and chips ($12.90), the Asian duck pizza ($9.90) and the puffed beef bowl ($13.90) at around 7.40pm. Apparently because by this time the cafe was a full house, the kitchen was mad busy and we waited until close to 8.30pm for our food. Fortunately we had ordered some tapas (4 types for $10.00) beforehand, so we were not as famished as we would otherwise have been.

Food wise, the food was pretty decent, not to mention value for money. Apparently they have a tapas trolley so you can order a selection of tapas from it. They didn't have the duck roll, so we got the parma ham with mango salsa, the mushrooms with truffle oil, the tomato bruschetta and the edamame. Except for the edamame, the rest come on a small slice of bread. The tapas is worth an order; the parma ham was especially tasty as were the mushrooms. Plus they were really liberal with the truffle oil; you could smell it even before they set the dish down.

For the mains, apparently this cafe is known for the fish and chips. It's no wonder; the fish and chips were really good. You get three pieces of breaded fish served piping hot; crispy on the outside and incredibly tender on the inside, So good. The fries were also seasoned and tasted pretty good with the coleslaw and mayo that came on the side.

My favourite has to be the Asian duck pizza though. For $9.90, I think it's a steal. It's supposed to be thin crusted, although the crust isn't really that thin. But you've got slices of tender duck in the Peking duck sauce, along with slices of oranges, cashew nuts and sesame seeds strewn across the pizza. Lovely!

The puffed beef bowl is a beef stew served in a puff pastry crust. The stew had a Guiness flavour which made it rich and tasty, and the potatoes and onions stewed within were good too. The beef was big and chunky; only problem was that it was overcooked and became tough and chewy, to the point that you couldn't cut into the meat with your knife and eating a piece resulted in 5 minutes of silence as you chewed. Loved the puff pastry though, especially with the yummy gravy.

The guys also took advantage of the 1-for-1 Happy Hour to order the Heineken on draft. Apparently that's a pretty good deal if you like your beers.

The service is a bit patchy though. For the most part, the staff are friendly and personable and do their best. However, when it gets busy, you end up getting the impression that the place is a little understaffed, to the point where the waitstaff get rather frazzled, including in their dealings with the patrons. Apart from the long wait for our first order of food, our second order of food ended up forgotten.

For the second order, we ordered another serving of fish and chips and the wasabi prawn pizza. Only the fish and chips came after about 20 minutes. So when we were informed that the kitchen was closing and whether we had any last orders, we informed the waiter again to check on our wasabi prawn pizza. It never arrived. Finally, at 10.20pm I called on the waiter to ask what had happened to our wasabi prawn pizza. The response was to give me the bill (although I did not ask for it). But the wasabi prawn pizza was not registered on the bill. And there was no explanation, no apology, no nothing.

So the food's generally good and value for money, and the setting has a nice chill out vibe. But after the last incident, am quite hesitant about returning, even with the 5 minute walk from my place. Maybe give it 15 months.