I have been walking past CenterPS on my regular walks in Tiong Bahru for the longest time, almost a year in fact. It is situated next to Le Bon Marche, which is favourite of a certain Straits Times food reporter (who really needs to find new places to write about, her reviews revolve around merchandise from Le Bon Marche, Yamakawa and Meidi-ya), and has a downright sedate farcade. You'd just about miss it if you're driving past at speeds greater than 20 kmh.

Recently, my wife and i summoned the courage to enter the shop at about 8pm and was pleasantly relieved to see several cakes left in the display chiller. The staff announced that they're having a 1-yr anniversary promotion - 4 cakes for $21. What a bargain! I never did like Canele and seriously wanted this place to turn out better and cheaper, just to tell my friends what a shameful job Canele is doing for French pastry in Singapore.

After a long deliberation (apologies to the staff, i know you're almost closing), we picked the Grand Cru Royale, Mont Blanc, TX5 and Chocolate Tarte. Of course, we are not gluttons, so we had to devour the cakes over the next 3 days. The staff was patient enough to reassure us that the cakes would last that long and pack it nicely so it would balance well for our walk home.

This is our verdict for the 4 cakes:
Mont Blanc was the first to go, given its quintessential status in french confectionary. The chestnut paste was surreal. Light on the palette and fluffy. Subtle but evident chestnut flavour. Chantilly cream filling was magnificent, like an immaculate marshmallow puff. The base pastry had gone soft, however, because of the time it spent in our fridge.

The Chocolate Tarte was next. It was a simple ganache filled pie pastry but fulfilled its chocolatey mission. The ganache was smooth and balanced, just sweet and bitter enough to satisfy both camps. No tooth-sticking ganache here, it melts right away on the tongue. What a 'melt in your mouth, but not in your hands' moment. Pastry, again, was soft due to its storage in our fridge.

On the final day, we could resist not more! Both the Grand Cru and TX5 shared the same death anniversary. The Grand Cru was excellent. Smooth and light chocolate mousse sitting on a delicate, crunchy and moreish hazelnut praline base. To die for. The TX5 was a slight disappointment, maybe it suffered more gravely from the 2-day exposure to the cold storage. The chocolate flavour was pronounced on all levels, but the texture was gone. At best, it was an excellent chocolate cake, but truly and sadly, not a good showcase of good valrhona chocolate.

The cakes were good enough that for the past 3 days, they were the highlights of our day.

I am now tempted to exercise more just to gobble their cakes on a daily basis.

A new food outlet should bring joy, with its injection of new flavours into our jaded gourmet landscape. It should also bring promise, of another place to choose when confronted with long queues at every turn. Most of all, it gives hope that an oasis of reprieve and comfort exists at the end of a long and frustrating day.

New food outlets should also invite reviews, especially since it has been more a week since its opening (7 Nov). The only 2 reasons I can think of to explain why reviews are absent are; a) it's so good that no one is keen to share it; b) it's so bad that they don't even find it worth their time to gripe about the experience.

It is with grave sadness and disappointment that the latter explanation figured prominently in my mind after the dismal dinner just yesterday. But, the difference is, I WILL spare the time to talk about it.

But where do I start. Maybe with its history-killing iffy name. Waraku is a decade-long Japanese establishment. This branch at Starhub Centre was a co-flagship, along with its East Coast Branch. It was called Sento back then, frequented by Japanese and known to few locals. The change of name to Waraku did not initially do much to its well-worn traditions of good service, reasonable food and prices. Of course, times change and probably profit margins came to dominate its management. Out-popped its cheesy offsprings, the Pasta and now Gohan branches.

And Singaporeans, apparently, don't mind being taken for a fool; myself including. I had the chance to retract the opportunity to dine at this place. The desire grew stronger by the minute as the queue mounted. I almost stormed off when I asked politely how long would my group have to wait for a seat and the restaurant manager, without a word, shoved a queue ticket in my face. It was a very 'hawker centre' moment.

But we waited anyway. Holding the increasingly sweat-moist queue ticket in our palms, begging that some waiting staff would call out salvation and we would finally be fed at our own expense. It was surreal on hindsight, and clearly deserves its own sociological study on crowd behavior. In the end, we waited more than an hour for a group of 6 on Sunday evening (6.30 - 7.30 pm).

We were ushered to a warm wooden cage of sorts. Under normal circumstances, it would be rustic (eg, Nirai Kanai had the same concept) but for the noisy metal fan at our side and the uncomfortable feeling that we were herded to be fleeced.

On perusing the menu, the price of the dishes are shockingly expensive by normal standards. Without the discounts, a meal here for 2 would easily run up to prices equivalent to a session at Kuriya or the better restuarants inside Cuppage Centre. Nothing is cheaper than $5. Even the plain rice is $4.50, or $5.20 after taxes.

As if to relieve the financial burden, the restaurant was having a promotion from 7 Nov - 31 Nov to commemorate its opening. And thankfully, the promotional coupons are in abundance at its counter (and later, its waiting staff would helpfully bring their own copies for customers).

In the end, we ordered the following, with its own side review:
1) Gohan set ($4.50) - bowl of clumpy rice, soup pretending to be tonjiru and untasty but pretending to be homemade tsukemono.

2) Ochatsuke (~$6) - larger bowl of rice, with toppings of either salmon, mentaiko or konbu. A pot of flavoured tea to pour onto the rice. and the same pretentious tsukemono.

3) selection of 5 sticks of kushiyaki ($14.80) - very small serving. bacon asparagus, bacon with quail egg, pork belly, yakitori. None were impressive.

4) Koro steak (promo: $6.80, orig: $12.80) - 6 small cubes of poorly cooked beef. Some cubes were well done, others were rare but very chewy.

5) Kansai Okonomiyaki (promo: $4.90, orig: $9.80) - halfway decent okonomiyaki, but Iroha does way better. Serving size too small for $9.80, but decent for $4.90.

6) Butabara Miso yaki (promo: $6.80, orig: $12.80) - 6 small slices of pork belly. Sauce is decent but the pork quality isn't as it tastes and smells like frozen meat.

7) Neapolitan Pasta (promo: $6.40, orig: $12.80) - definitely the low point of the meal. The sauce was too sweet and serving size probably for a 12-yr old. At $12.80, it would have been borderline robbery.

8) Gindara Yaki ($12.80) - Cod fish. But when it arrived, I thought it was ikan bilis. Jokes aside, the slice of fish was half the size of my palm. By this time, we were at the end of the meal and looking at the tiny piece of fish, everyone just gave a collective sigh as we each took one small 5-cent coin piece of cod and quietly swallowed it down.

9) Choya Umeshu soda (promo 1-for-1 @ $8 orig: $8) - It tasted like sour soda water.

My conclusion? If you need more hints, well, I didn't like the place. I didn't enjoy paying what little amount I did for it. And if this is how restaurants think they can treat foodies, I will be sitting at the nearby Oocho, eating their delicious $16 set dinner to the point of indigestion, because the standards at Waraku now are simply too hard to swallow.

My wife and I decided to pay a deserved return visit to, what shall we say, the most deliberately retro restaurant in Singapore (minus the usual lame tourist-trappy lameness). We were lured by information from a dear friend (who is now dearer for this exciting news) that Nirai Kanai has daily promotions and Thursdays featured 50% off all sashimi dishes!

The daily promotions are proudly displayed at the entrance (and on their tables). I cannot remember all of them, but the notable ones are Mondays (50% off awamori bottles), Tuesdays (50% off lady's alcohol drinks) and Thursdays (50% off sashimi).

For our present meal, we had goya champuru (stir fried bittergourd), sashimi moriawase of 3 kinds of fish (salmon, tuna and madai/seabream), okinawan pancake, mini stew pork ramen/soba and chimbim (rolled okinawan crepes).

Okinawan goya truly lived up to its name. If you had seen the vegetable in the raw, you might think it's a medieval torture implement. And furthermore, us young 'uns tend to shy away from the horrors of bittergourd, healthy as it may be. Even so, be daring and goya will blow your mind. It's crunchy, refreshing and delicious, fried in black beans and egg sauce. The bitterness came as an after-thought. Like a slap after a roughshod kiss; you'd smile anyway.

The sashimi was for my wife. After so many years of eating japanese food, I still can't find the taste buds for raw fish. According to her, the 9 slices of fish weren't the freshest in the world, but it was decent and came in value-for-money thick-as-idiot slices.

The okinawan pancake was normal. It is a thin chinese pancake about 25cm in diameter (the kind you wrap peking duck with), topped with sprinklings of seaweed and shaved bonito flakes. It was ok, tastewise, but nothing too special. Tastes better when you wrap it around some goya and stuff the leaking package into your mouth. Hush your dirty thoughts, it's just bittergourd.

The stew pork ramen/soba was utterly dominated by the slice of belly pork floating on it. Having eaten Santouka's toroniku twice the week before, I am now able to say, Nirai Kanai's belly pork is much better. Maybe it's the layers of gelatinuous fat. Maybe it's the delicate soy stew-base. Or maybe, it's just the awamori speaking.

To end the meal, we skipped the ubiquitous Sada-andagi (okinawan dounuts) and went for the more expensive Chimbim. At $8, it is quite pricey for 6 pancake rolls that reminded me us ot Bengawan Solo kuey-kuey. But, after one bite of the rolls dipped in generous whipped cream (do feel free to ask for more cream, we did!), we were convinced otherwise. We cannot pinpoint why we liked it so much, and before you point a finger at the awamori again, we weren't exactly roaring drunk either. Note that our appreciation of this dish is likely to be subjective and I can foresee disappointment in the faces of some would-be gourmands. So please, spend the extra moolah at your own risk.

The entire meal was prefaced, accompanied and concluded with a 180ml bottle of awamori. You can either point to any random selection, choose based on price or picture, or do the smart thing and ask the Japanese staff. This is not sake though, at 30+% alcohol, most adults would do well to stick to a sensible 180ml serving or you will be throwing up all the food afterwards. The standard way of drink awamori is to first sip it raw. Then drink another sip with water added. Then drink it with ice (or more water if you don't like it cold). However, don't let this stop you from drinking it anyway you want. It is your drink and your pleasure.

Unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact prices for each item, but the bill was about $75 for 2 pax. Seeing how it include alcohol and sashimi, I felt it was reasonable.

No, this isn't going to be a damaging review, hell just sounded like a good word to use ever since I read about the Hadron Collider...

Anyway! My wife and I, along with 2 friends chose this buffet location in a secret and ritualistic drawing of lots (if you must know, yes, there was chanting, candles and sacrificial ice cream; we draw the line at nudity) among the numerous and illustrous hotel high-teas in Singapore that offered a 4-for-3 promotion. Sadly, the 1-for-1 lunch buffet promo at Carousel ensured that it will be fully booked by kiasu Singaporeans until the end of 2010, which excluded us among its hoard of wide-mouthed, belt-loosened food shovellers.

Sheraton Towers' high-tea start at 12 noon until 4 pm. That's 4 hours of undisturbed pigging out. But figure in the cost of buying larger clothes into the buffet's price. Suddenly, it's not so cheap.

The spread is mainly Asian. I don't know if the menu rotates, if someone would throw a sponsorship my way, I'd gladly oblige to find out. The main dishes on offer (according to my poor memory) were:

1) Olive fried rice - Not too oily. Nice but no respectable Singaporean loads up on carbs during buffets.

2) Samosas with mint yogurt sauce - The skin was crispy but a little too thick. The potato filling was bland. The sauce added a good touch to the otherwise disappointing morsel.

3) Carroy Cake aka Chai Tao Kuay - 'Black' version inside the metal food tray. 'White' version can be made on request. Both were fragrant and fresh - lots of egg and chai por.

4) Spring roll aka handrolled pohpia - Fresh but nothing to shout about. Anyway, I never understood how pohpia can be well made, although I know of some very badly made ones.

5) Mini seafood tarts - Typical catered buffet stuff. Underpar

6) Dim sum - Was conned into think there wld be sharks fin inside the chawanmushi (thanks to the photos on camemberu's blog). Not even a koi fin inside, only some mushrooms and mince pork/chicken. The other items, chives dumpling and glutinous rice are mediocre.

7) Laksa - 4 of us couldn't stop raving about the laksa. It was 'lemak' with the right amount of spiciness. Prawns were fresh, translucent and crunchy.

8) Finger sandwiches - A wide selection of tuna salad, cheese, egg salad, smoked salmon (lox and bagel), parma ham with melon. All were generally of a high quality.

9) Handmade(mixed) rojak - Many ingredients available for madcap mixing action. An auntie spent the better part of her life at the bowl mixing up enough rojak to lift a 3rd world country out of famine.

10) Rice paper rolls - I am no expert on southeast asian cuisine, but the roll was fresh and crunchy with a nice mix of flavours. One of my friends got a plate that was nicely decorated by a chef.

11) Waffles - Many toppings (maple syrup, strawberry compote, jam, cinnamon apples, caramel bananas) available. The ice cream is decent too. But the waffles are not as nice as Oriental's Melt.

12) Durian Pengat - Mediocre. You can taste the durians. Which also means you can taste the poor quality of durians used.

13) Bread and butter pudding - A little too soggy, but otherwise...well, plain as butter and bread.

14) Chocolate fountain - Tastes like the same couverture we can buy from shops for our pseudo-chic fountains (which is one of those mysterious fad i don't get). I grabbed fruits from the next table and had a fun time drizzling cherries and dragon fruit with chocolate sauce.

15) Mini pastries - The mini lychee cake was as delicious as it was cute. The chocolate praline mousse has better chocolate than the fountain, with a crunchy praline base. I didn't try the cheesecakes and what not.

Buffet comes with coffee and tea, which were unremarkably pedestrian.

The service staff were attentive, polite and plentiful. None of that hurried and sweat covered service here, some hotels give the impression that they are a giant beehive.

Ambience, as mentioned, is the key perk here. How many people can have a buffet meal by a waterfall, in a room with a tall ceiling and, most importantly, unfettered by hoards of plundering eaters?

Price - $28++, after discount (4-for-3), about $26 nett per pax.

This spurs me on to find more high-teas....and to hurl stones at patrons inside Carousel like the angry peasant that I am.

One night after swimming, my wife and I craved tonkotsu ramen. Thankfully, our pool was near to Central and I vaguely remembered this tonkotsu specialist. After searching the mall for this elusive outlet, we were delighted by the moderate and saner queue (compared to the insane amount of kiddies queuing at Marutama).

Looking at the menu, I immediately decided on trying the toroniku; we could never resist Japanese style fatty pork. However, I sadly recalled that Santouka only served limited quantities of the pork and my watched showed 8.30 pm. Hope faded away like William Hung.

We were seated after 10 mins of sitting on drool covered benches. We promptly ordered a toroniku set, clenching our eyes in anticipation of being told it was all finished. By some stroke of fortune (or good business sense by stocking more servings), it was available! I had the shoyu, while my wife choose shio.

The toroniku came first, along with toppings for the ramen. The pork itself wasn't as spectacular as I expected, but it was still delicious. It was smoky, salty, tender, and the fat was delightfully gelatinous and fragrant. My wife said it reminded her of canned china pork belly, in a good way.

When our ramen arrived, I was pleased to know that Santouka doesn't believe in oversized crockery. I hate eating a smattering of food served in a huge plate, I think it's an insult to allow the crockery to outshine the food.

The soup was hot, unlike its advertised 'moderate' temperature. No matter, I adored boiling soup, thanks to my ironclad mouth. The noodle tasted fresh and certainly one of the best ramen noodles I have tasted in Singapore. Not soggy, didn't clump and smooth to slurp. And doesn't stick to the teeth when chewed. Excellent.

The shoyu soup was exceptional - smoky, full of umami and a hint of milky tonkotsu goodness. But my wife had special love for her shio because it was unadulterated tonkotsu, milky without being offensive and flavourful without being 'jelat'.

I cannot account for why so many reviewers here find the soup so salty. Personally, Santouka's ramen was the least salty among outlets such as Osho, Waraku, Tampopo and many others. Maybe they are too used to Tokyo styled clear soupbase. They should have tried ramen from Kyushu. During my trip to Nagasaki and its vicinity, the ramen I tasted there were bold and uncompromisingly salty, spicy and you could hear the pig oinking in their tonkotsu. Probably grew some hair on my chest too. By contrast, the ones I had in Tokyo were mild, unoffensive, and comparatively lacking in character. To each their own, I guess.

About the other stuff, ambience, service... seriously, I cannot really remember. All I recalled was the ramen, the pork, and even the nice and simple bamboo shoot that so many outlets in Singapore do such offence to.

So, here's my vote of confidence. I will definitely be going back and if there are less people who like it, it means I will have less time to drool while waiting. Give me my toroniku...

PS I like bak chor mee too...

You know how some children are brilliant with their artistic scribbles? Somehow, their crayon strokes and paint splatters exude a sense of vibrant innocence, unencumbered by the mores of society. Like a breath of fresh air.

Sketches used to be like that. It emerged at a time where mainstream italian food was unheard of, maybe except for Pasta Fresca (another chain that went downhill).

Its gimmick was simple and catered to the Singaporean in everyone of us. Face it, we want everything and we want to choose which 'everything' to have. Sketches provided those choices; even if some misguided souls inadvertently added chilli flakes to their pesto sauce. Ah well, fusion italian food, anyone?

Fast forward many years later, I still enjoyed having pasta at Sketches occasionally, even if standards had dropped and the decor aged badly (guys, the sadcase comics on the wall...pls change them).

However, my most recent experience has probably convinced me to leave this flake of childhood memory behind, along with my plastic trucks and half-chewed lego blocks (alas, the misguided follies of gluttony in youth).

Firstly, the service was horrible. I don't understand why the waiting staff must cluster magnetically at the drinks counter, leaving dozens of tables stranded in thirst/hunger and forlornly waving their hands.

Secondly, the pasta chef seriously scared me to my bones. Now, Sketches has an open kitchen and when my wife's pasta came, it was extremely spicy even though she indicated 'no, thank you' for spiciness. The poor waiter (ripping himself from the magnet at the drinks counter) took it back and the chef vehemently insisted that we had wanted extremely spicy and pointed sharply at the order sheet. The waiters looked at each other and told the chef, 'uncle, this option here is 'no thank you' means no chilli.' MY GOD!!! Didn't they brief the chef on the menu options?? I won't begrudge them employing foreigners or non-english speaking staff but please, for the love of food, brief them properly! I have no idea how many caucasian customers left the restaurant with a swollen tongue, never ever to speak again.

Thirdly, it is no secret that my 3 year old cousin could probably cook at Sketches. You just throw in whatever ingredients were ticked by the customer and stir for several minutes, and serve. However, it was a revelation to me that the chef did not understand simple concepts of cooking. Garlic, for example, are not very nice when raw! But my poor wife spent the majority of the meal plucking the thousand bits of raw garlic off her pasta. She might have chosen garlic, but not a Dracula moment.

Lastly, my order of pizza took approximately an hour to arrive. Which means I only started eating after the whole pasta mix-up and garlic treasure hunt fiasco my wife had to tolerate. And it wasn't even good. Plastic dough, stale ingredients. Frankly, my mood at that point probably made it worse.

So my advice to would-be customers.
1) Enter with plenty of time to spare.
2) Do not tick 'No, thank you' for spiciness, just leave the whole damn thing alone if you know what's good for you.
3) Do not tick garlic. Trust me, nobody can love it that much.
4) If you're ordering pizza, inform your immediate family so they don't file a missing persons report on you.

I dare you to enjoy.

My sworn brother was going back to his overseas residence and we decided to have high tea. The first choice was actually Atrium at Pan Pacific, which turned out NOT to be a buffet. Without sounding too Singaporean, we decided to look elsewhere because we're big eaters (my SB, my wife and I...).

Melt came into mind, because it was nearby and...well... it was a buffet. A friend had actually mentioned it wasn't great, but I decided to give it a chance.

Now, Oriental Hotel has to be one of the most under-rated hotels in Singapore. Quietly austere, it exudes a calm confidence and subdued elegance. Just entering the hotel convinced me that the high-tea can't be all bad.

The Cafe itself did not look impressive, if anything, it looked too small to sustain a buffet. The service was pretty good, but best of all, the place was not crowded. As much as crowds tend to correlate with quality, I prefer to suffer in silence.

But suffering was nowhere to be found. The limited range of food available was decidedly above-average.

Right behind my table were the dim sum and laksa, which unfortunately, were the weaker items on the menu. The har-kow was fresh, but the skin is too tough. The siew-mai tasted like a reality show, tired and boring. I am ambivalent, however, on the laksa. It had kick and flavour but it was missing the x-factor. The prawns that came with it, however, were fresh, crunchy and beautifully translucent.

Onto the tea-foods. The finger sandwiches were almost all delicious - my vote goes to the lox and bagel. The salmon was full-flavoured and fresh. The bagel, firm but yielding. The cream cheese...yum. The challenge was trying to fit the whole thing in my mouth, which I did. The next 5 minutes of chewing was a revelation.

I loved the waffles! Forget belgian waffles, these are quite close to the best. The fragant caramelization of the edges, the inexplicably crunch and the succulent moist interior. And topped off with a scoop of Movenpick maple walnut ice cream. Wah, heaven.

There was also a chocolate fountain, which i sadly was too full to try. The cakes selection tasted mediocre, and I tried about 3/4 of them (sacrificing the chocolate fountain in the process).

The damage? $32+++, I think my UOB card was also entitled a 15% discount.

This buffet does not score with variety, so people who need to see 6000 items in their buffet, pls give it a miss and go somewhere else, like The Line or China. But it does has several worthwhile highlights, which may not be worth more than $30, but I found it worth my time; which is essentially what high-teas are all about - a good time.

Ignoring the title... this corner of Mezza9 is not easy to find without knowing it exist in the first place. Kind of like your soulmate actually.

The bottomline is that they serve $10++ martinis (and "muddlers") and free, but infrequent, tapas from 5pm - 8pm.

Ambience gets top marks here. The seats are comfortable and widely spaced. Might actually be a bad choice after a hard day's work, since you might fall asleep before the drink is finished. The lighting is dark but not pretentiously 'bat-cave', just sufficiently subdued to obscure minor facial flaws; character flaws notwithstanding.

I hesitate to comment on the crowd because it probably changes everyday. I assume this to be the case, since there were a group of fancy-dress-party sailors doing their best salty impression of inebriated louts, and I don't expect them to be a regular feature.

The $10++ drinks range from Lychee Peach Muddlers (lychee and peach fruits pounded into submission and doused with alcohol), nescafe martini, lemongrass martini and so on. The drinks were not particularly strong but that's to be expected from fruity cocktails.

Lastly, the nuts that came with the drinks were delicious. I mean, lick-the-bowl scrumptious. Imagine, fragrant cashews coated with savoury crispy black pepper. Heaven. My wife and I had so much of the nuts, it actually ruined our appetite for dinner.

My friends wanted to meet at Kadoman for lunch so I got a chance to revisit my review, which was less than flattering.

This time round, I opted for a non-noodle dish, the Una-ju ($18), which the lady boss tried hard to sell. So I figured to give her a chance and see if her recommendations were indeed fitting of the price-tag.

My friends, however, wrangled with the boss after being told one dish after another were unavailable. I imagine Kadoman wants to create an 'artificial demand through atmosphere and limited stock of basic food ingredients', I don't know many Singaporeans to be patient enough for that. In Japan, if they ran out of a dish, they will apologise profusely for their lack of foresight and offer another similar item usually accompanied by a free side-dish as atonement. No such luck here, of course - this is Singapore.

Anyway, after a furious National Debate, they got Tan-tan Men (my friend wanted a Jiang Men, which the boss said was similar to Tan-Tan men....then why allow the menu duplication...) and Miso charsiu men. The one who got Tan-tan men enjoyed her food, while the latter wondered rather less quietly about the disparity between the price and what she saw in her bowl; in the end, she didn't even finish her food.

The bespoken Unaju, to be fair, was above-average. The sauce didn't taste store-bought and the Unagi was moist, sweet and fragrant. It can't compare to the best I have had (in a shoe-box sized corner of Takayama), but for Singapore standards, it's pretty well done. The soup it came with was not miso, which is a nice touch as well. My only grip is the lack of a bottle of Sansho at the table, which I consider essential to the enjoyment of Unaju. Oh well.

The service, this time round, was less brusque but my first-timer friends gave me raised eyebrows since they did not understand my remarks in my first HGW review. Now they do.

Will I come back (even though I said I wouldn't)? You know what, actually I might. Reluctantly.

...to deserve this kind of service.

I typically read prior reviews of a F&B outlet before penning my thoughts to understand if my experience was an exception or the norm. In this case, the previous reviews did not make mention of service (before being given water without asking) so I shall.

My wife and I were meeting a few friends for drinks and, by default, dinner as well. Coffee Club and its peers never struck me as a place to dine, so I was a little perturbed to begin with.

Since my friends arrived earlier, the waitress was taking the drink order for them while my wife and I had just received the menu. As she slipped to our side to take our order, I politely asked her to give us a minute to go through the menu. That was the first sign of trouble. That unmistakeable and dreaded black face of service staff. Which surprised me because there was hardly anyone else in the cafe. I tabled this thought to our friends and we found a myraid of reasons to explain her rudeness. Ok, forgiven for now.

I later found that other 2 service staff to be pleasant and well-mannered. They were attentive, patient and unflustered. That particular waitress, whom I shall not name, however, continued to wreck havoc on our otherwise hilarious evening.

My wife's order was wrong and when we brought it to her attention (frankly, i was trying my best to avoid her by this time, but there was no other staff around). She then gave us an incredulous look, like we were looking for trouble. She then took the dish and we watched agape as she stormed to the table and visibly, although not audibly, complained to whoever was in the kitchen. She must have known we could see her, unless this was her first day...sigh.

Now onto the food, which frankly was lousy to start with and made worse by a ruined appetite.

Wedges. At $7, it was sparse and unremarkable. Not worth it.

Burger. $10.90. Overcooked (i knew something was wrong when I was not consulted on doneness) and bland (salty but no flavour). But on the bright side, it perplexingly came with the same amount of wedges as served on the $7 plate.

Dory Gremolata. $13.90. Soggy tasting fish. Gremolata? As far as I know, that doesn't mean flabby breadcrumbs. On the bright side, the mash with sausage was delicious.

My friends ordered drinks and a salad but I can't comment on those, beyond the fact that the parmesan basket was limp and tasted stale. My latte was flat and my wife felt it tasted strange. I don't agree that it was strange but it was sub-par for a $5.50+++ cuppa.

Coffee - fail.
Food - fail.
Service - pls see me after class.