Went to Peach Garden Noodle House for Mother's Day and the food is quite affordable - 4 pax = pay for 3 pax only! Great ambiance, average food and the service is not too bad! More info at HERE!

Came to try out the weekend dim sum high tea buffet with a friend. The restaurant is a new addition to the F&B outlets in this mall and everything in the restaurant is new and have nice ambience. It is also very brightly lighted and you do have a good outside view if you are seated along the windows.



The high tea buffet started at 3pm and ended at 5pm. About 15 minutes to 3pm, there was a queue started to form outside the restaurant. Staff were still busy setting up for the buffet and thus asked the diners to queue. This is unlike in its other branch at Thomson Plaza, where chairs were placed outside the restaurant to allow diners to “sit and wait” especially for the older and senior citizens. Staff did not even explain further but keep on repeating “wait till 3pm then start” and did not even apologize for the long queue and at times they tried to see the customers as "transparent".



They also rejected those walk-in diners saying the restaurant is already full with those who have made reservations. The staff took more than expected time to setup and by the time diners were ushered in, it was almost 3.10pm. (the setup process was slow and messy as staff were searching with the food nameplates to be placed infront of the food items, quite disorganized)



In addition, unlike the other outlets, diners were asked to make the payment first before being ushered to their seats. This reminded me of those Seoul Gardens or Sakura restaurants etc, very different from the Chinese theme restaurants. Perhaps they have bad experiences before where diners left without paying!



Generally, the buffet items were quite limited (at least comparing to its Thomson outlet) and if you are expecting more and various items, you will be disappointed. In total, the spread consisted of about 12-15 main items, with herbal soup, free beverages (which included fruit punch, iced and warm Jasmine Tea, Glass Jelly drink, iced water which were self service), some cut fruits and desserts. You will need to self-serve all the food at the counter tables and not served to you.



Generally the food here were quite nice. Among those we have tried, the roast and braised duck were good (though a bit salty), good flavor and tender of meat. The Har Kow (prawn dumpling) were nice too, with big and fresh prawns, similarly good was the Siew Mai too. The deep fried fish skin, was another nice dish, crispy and crunchy though a bit salty too. The fried Chicken Wings were nice, crispy and well marinated with fragrance flavor. The egg roll with custard was a good combination, flavourful and yet not too sweet which I like very much (since I am a fan of custard cream). Char Siew Pao were good and the dessert, Mango sago with Pomelo is definitely a must try! Not really, its refreshing and sweet, you could actually taste and feel the real mango and pomelo ingredients, I would give this almost a perfect score!



For the other dishes, they were so-so and acceptable which included the fried kuey teow and fried rice, fried carrot cake, fu pi juan, lotus leaf rice, herbal soup, stir-fried mushrooms with vegetables, deep fried fish fillet etc.



Some of the disappointment dishes include the chicken porridge (quite bland and watery, and they also did not provide spring onions, fried shallots or pepper powder to go with it), the so called Hainanese Chicken, very salty and oily and meat were soggy and the Char Siew pieces were too hard. The fruit punch was overly sweet though after adding some ice cubes, it was acceptable (but the tea were nice). The cut fruits of water melon and honey dew were naturally sweet and nice!



Overall service was satisfactory as the used plates were clearly promptly and without request. When we left, staff greeted us “thank you and wish you have a nice day ahead” was a nice gesture (very different from at the start of the buffet). If the staff could smile more and took initiative/actions/provide explanations before the start of the buffet with so many diners queuing to enter the restaurant, they would have scored better in this aspect.



As for value for money, it was ok. At $19.80++ (added up to be about $23.80), its reasonable as most of the food items were quite nice and went beyond general expectation and satisfaction on quality despite of its limited spread (the lacking of egg tarts, choo cheong fun, chicken feet and spare ribs, yam cake, popiah etc where these items were common at Chinese or Dim Sun buffet spread).



We did enjoy ourselves here and overall it was good and we hope they will improve in the customer service aspect and increase the spread of food items in time to come and we really don’t mind to pay more for them. (this is just like the Thomson outlet, despite increasing the buffet price but with more variety and spread of food items and yet being able to main the quality and consistency of food standard, diners like myself and friends, are still going back there quite frequently).

At $19.80 for weekend high tea, we thought "why not?". Following the first review, we moderated our expectations. Would we be back? Yes.

The House Soup which changes regularly was simple and splendid: the rich carrot and root vegetable broth stewed with meat was pleasantly light, sweet and tasty. Our favorite savory dish would be the Lotus Leaf Rice - rice still well formed, sticky not mushy, and infused with the slight tea-smokey fragrance from the lotus leaf. Its portion of salted egg was just right. Other good dishes were deep fried fish skin - eat it immediately for crunch, prawn-crammed Har Gao and Siew Mai. The Chinese pancake dessert had a not-too-sweet delicious lotus paste filling and its standard red bean version was also pretty d*** decent. Classic Cantonese dim sum are well worth a shot but not the fried rice and waxed meats.

Service was good: used plates promptly cleared, dishes brought on trays for diners to sample. But 1 server was loudly hustling diners like school children to "Lai ah, jiak ah..." and the tone felt inappropriate and annoying in a classic eatery.

Discreet service, spacing out tables, and music would have enhanced the meal and conversation, less awkward clinking clanking of plates and pattering of feet...