Lousy pre-bday lunch. gah. I hope this meal is my last payback for whatever naughty things I did this year.

If you're looking to enjoy a good, sumptuous seafood meal at a value for money price. Please forget about Jumbo. There really is nothing Jumbo about its seafood except for its prices, at least for this Dempsey branch.

If like me, your idea of Chinesey-style seafood literally centres around a huge centre dish where everyone tucks in heartily, kindly remember NOT to order their executive set lunches. at $36 ++ per pax, their INDIVIDUAL portions were miserly, to say the best.

I don't even know which of the 6 little dishes should deserve the "Most Kiam Siap Dish Award". Should it be the Chilli Crab which was basically only 1 pincer in A cup of chilli crab sauce and a teeny man tou any person on a diet wouldn't be afraid to finish, or should it be the "let's hope this dish fills up the customer"-XO sauce noodles with ONE tiger prawn (but the tiger prawn I had, didn't seem to even go through puberty). Maybe it could be the dessert any PAP kindergarten kid who has played masak-masak could whip up- teeny weeny and I really mean teeeeeny weeny chopped cubes of strawberry, mango and little dices of dragonfruit with oversweetened jelly. Seriously, we are in a recession but the world isn't gonna collapse if Jumbo gave its customers pieces of fruit they can actually get a bite on?

Clearly, this branch is out to ka-tok the expats who frequent the area. This is my karma for thinking something more upmarket might be better. Imma getting back to my good ol' zi char stall for good hearty chilli crabs where my fried mun tous may cost $0.50 (or less!), but aren't the size of a glorified eraser.

-Just to be fair, since its all festive Xmasy & gdbye 2008, service was good, but I think the servers know how pathetic the food is. Bet they were embarrassed too.

my family and i just had dinner at the dempsey road outlet on saturday night (8/11) and the food that was served was really not up to standard. i had the scallop in yam ring that was overfried, and served to the table blacker than usual- hardly golden brown, live prawns in minced garlic that was steeped in salt. the sauce wasn't fragrantly salty, it was too salty, and salted fish with diced chicken that was bathed in oil. i was much put off by the amount of oil that collected at the bottom of the dish. something must be done about this. my dinner was suitable ruined by substandard cooking.

There are three set lunches priced between $28 to $32 i think. I tried Set C.

For Set C, which is my favourite, you start off with an appetizer tray that has three single serving appetizers. For this, i had scallop in yam ring, mango duck salad and seafood bacon roll. I loved the scallop in yam ring. it takes great skill to fry a yam ring to perfection. It's not oily too!

Next is the soup, Hand Made Scallop Dumpling in Seafood Broth which is very comforting. It has this scallop ball wrapped with seafood thing inside the soup.

And then comes the deshelled crab claw bathed in a cup of chilli crab sauce. A mantao comes with it too. It's get for people who just want to taste chilli crab for lunch without going through the whole mess of the chilli crab. For lunch it's perfect.

The XO noodles are delicious and the serving size is just perfect for one.

Try it for a quick lunch. Value for money.

The Dempsey outlet is also nicely decorated and looks different from the other JUMBO outlets. It's less Chinese restaurant looking.

The green island drink is also refreshing. It's a combination of chye sim, sour plum and pineapple i think. non alcoholic