Spring Court, as I knew it was at the Upp East Coast Road, just before the Bedok corner amongst the many seafood eateries: Kheng Luck, Palm Beach (actually on the sandy beach). It was spacious with airy places and openly spaced tables and ample car park. This new (don't know when they moved) location is cramped, diners sit back to back with each other, lousy carparks (park off the street at Mosque st, or at the highrise car park at Hong Lin). The only character left over from the old eatery is the quality and style of food: Robust, fresh ingredients and Singapore Chinese food.

Food: Peach buns, to celebrate the birthday followed by cold dish whichhad egg with sharksfin, top shell, prawns. All were tasty, fresh and well prepared. The next was a serving of popiah - unique to a Chinese retaurant, but packed with ingredients to give it a nice Hokkien style taste. Other dishes were the steamed "soon hock", freshly steamed prawns, chicken with ham, broccoli with mushrooms and birthday noodles. The fish was steamed to perfection so much so that nothing was left on the plate. Prawns, succulent and fresh - skin came off the flesh easily; mushrooms large and meaty. The worst dish was the chicken. I suspect the chicken was cooked, then frozen for service - it had that freezer burn taste. The ham was not really ham, but luncheon meat - should have used Yunnan ham instead.

Ambience: Jam packed, could hear the diner behind you breathing, loud, noisy, walking to the toilet was a chore as you had to circle other tables.

Value: I suspect it was expensive so overall value is average.

Service: The waiter and waitresses tried their best but it was impossible to serve. They have to go under diners armpits just to retrieve the old dishes and collect the large dishes that served the courses.

My co-worker and I ended up at Spring Court as were in the area. We arrived right around noon so the restaurant was fairly empty and service was prompt, if not somewhat odd. Food was quite fine though...not sure it was the best dim sum in Singapore, but we were quite happy.

We had Roasted Port, Steamed Shrimp Dumpling (hargow), Steamed Pork Buns, Steamed Pork Dumpling (shao lin pao), and a spicy steamed dumpling. I think we were most impressed by the roasted pork - the skin was very crispy and the meat tender and tasty - a real nice combination. The shrimp dumplings and others were just fine too. My friend seems to think Mouth has a better dim sum taste, but I found this just fine.

Service was typically odd. I say typically because you have multiple people coming over and checking the same thing twice. "Do you want another beer..." asked by three to four people in ten minutes is bothersome at the end.

I'd go back, but with knowledge it will be a bit pricey. I do want to try the Peking Duck so that will lure me back in once more.

The service wasn't great I must say but decent enough to have a meal.
But @ the price that they are charging, that's the reason for the 6 rating.

Perhaps I was lucky as my table was served by @ least 2 waitresses on Sat. There was some waiting time but still it was a reasonable wait.

It was my FIL's bday and we had ordered the set.

The cold dish was pretty decent, but I loved the egg with shark's fin.
I was pretty impressed with sharks fin soup... see pict. But they could work on the soup.
The prawns was yummy... *I hate seafood which is not fresh... when I say fresh, I mean the seafood was still jumping around less than 1 hour ago.
Couldn't say much about the deep friend soon hock... IMHO all deep fried fish taste the same, but the sauce was great.

Overall comment, the food was fresh I must say and pretty decent. But the portions was quite disappointing though.

Also, the price... IMHO, for that amount of money.. I'd expect the portions to be bigger and of a better quality.

For the set dinner that we had they even threw in a suckling pig. *Which we topped up another $15 to have it fried with ginger and spring onion. It was yummy!

Made a reservation for a Sunday evening for 8 persons. Decided against their set dinners and chose ala carte instead.

20 minutes to get the attention of the captain/manager to take our orders, only to have him back with us 10 minutes later to inform us that 3 of the 7 dishes that we've selected are not available.

I'll have to take my hat off to the captain/manager, when he came back to inform us regarding the dishes that weren't available, he had no menu in his hands for us to choose, instead, he verbally flooded us with the choices. Excellent memory for being able to quote up to 15 different dishes at one go. Unable to create a mental picture on the items, we went with what he suggested.

5 minutes later, captain/manager came back to inform us, 1 of the 3 dishes that he suggested, ran out. Selection game began again.

Dinner was served at late 8ish, after the 2nd course, there was no rice still, reminded the captain/manager 4 times. Finally he appeared, still with no bowls of rice in his hands, to say that they ran out of rice, thus they needed 5 - 10 minutes to cook.

4th course served, still no rice, approached the service staff instead, and the lady rushed to the kitchen and appeared with rice immediately.

The most annoying thing was I was having a can of Coke, and the staff kept coming to the table to check on the Coke. Mind you, they weren't refilling my glass, but simply lifting the can to see if there was any more left. Once they have lifted it and realized that there was still some amount left in the can, they simply replaced it back on the table, EVEN THOUGH MY GLASS WAS EMPTY. This was done by 3 different staff. Superb training.

The staff were all very well trained to clear the tables, irregardless whether was there food or not. They would swoop down on us and clear the tables, even if there was still food on the dishes. And one staff actually asked me to quickly take the remaining food and put on my side plate so she can clear.

Now, the food:
- Peking duck, scrawny & poorly sliced. Kudos to Ming Jiang
- Deep fried chicken, dry and tasteless. KFC wins this round
- Steamed fish, fresh and bland. Poh Ke wins
- Sea Cucumber & Broccoli. No comment
- Sweet & Sour pork. Good
Can't remember the rest... insignificant...

Had individual portions of desserts.
- Honeydew Sago. Will be very popular with diabetic patients
- Mango Sago. Refer above
- Yam Paste. Refer above

I understand that regardless which eatery, once it is the weekend, they will be busy, thus a lapse in service and food. But for a restaurant that has been in Singapore for more than 77 years? How do they do it? There's only 4.4 million people in Singapore for them to con. And don't tell me, they haven't finished conning these people over a period of 77 years? Amazing...

Food Court rule. And sorry Mum... for a screwed up birthday dinner

Spring Court Restaurant celebrated it's 77th Anniversary last year. Wow! for a restaurant to stay 77 years in business, especially in a competitive F&B industry in Singapore, it really says something about the restaurant. So I decided to go there with my family during mid-autumn festival last year. Thought it was a brilliant idea - can stroll along Chinatown after dinner and Spring Court was also having a promotion - 77cents peking duck.

Anyways, the restaurant was packed when we arrived around 7ish. Thank goodness we made a reservation. Service was poor that evening perhaps the restaurant was overwhelmed by the number of customers. Food was way below par. Some of my family member actually went home hungry and had to "tapao" supper from the hawker center. Well, as for the 77 cents peking duck? it tasted like it's a 7 cents duck! Enuf said.