Tims Restaurant & Cafe

Have you eaten at The Vines before? If you have, the experience is essentially the same (a very good thing). However, Tims has its own merits to recommend it, as well as its own caveats.

My family decided to try this place for dinner based on the positive reviews it has received from HGW, and my mother's first question- quintessentially Singaporean- was Will There Be Aircon. Probably, I said, it says here Restaurant. Unfortunately, this place No Aircon, which brought a wry smile to my face since even the Prata shop (Kampong House) beside it Got Aircon. Nevertheless, the place is adequately cooled with fans. The tables are a little cramped though (where I sat), and despite the wine bottle on the table the place never manages to shed its Neighborhood Cafe appearance. That being said, it is more than tolerable, and is in a pleasant neighbourhood with extremely convenient parking.

Food! Prices generally range from $6 for Grilled Chicken to $15 for Baby Back Ribs (a wed, thur, fri only special). An additional $3 makes it a "Complete Meal": soup, coffee/tea, dessert. Again, I must reiterate that the food is extremely similar in ingredients and quality to The Vines, a good thing in my book. The NZ Sirloin Steak came with a variety of possible Sauce choices (I can only recall Mushroom and Barbecue), and was tender and juicy. Unfortunately, one complaint is that while the food was served promptly, this speed came at the expense of quality: the food was lukewarm (at best) and probably a case of preprepared-then-heated cooking.

One novelty was the Nepalese Seafood Chowmein, which has bathed in exotic spices this untrained tongue could not identify. The seafood serving was generous and tasty. Loved it. Only... Please Make it Warmer!

The waiters and waitresses weren't locals, so their English required a few extra seconds of decoding. That said, they were helpful and attentive and fast, a simply unbeatable combination. One nitpick: we ordered Apple Pie for dessert, and they repeatedly returned to us with questions: how many slices? just one? then, after a minute or so.... you ordered apple pie? would you like ice-cream? then... would you like your apple pie cold or warm? The last question was redundant though, since our apple pie emerged not warm, but room temperature, greatly undermining our pleasure. Once again, Please Make it Warmer!

I will return to sample their Chicken and Berries Salad, which the two reviewers before me raved about, as well as their MoMo, which was unfortunately Sold Out on the night of my visit. If you're the kind to follow others when it comes to food (and if you're reading a Restaurant Review site you probably are) then there should be no better recommendation than this: the place was full on a Thursday night. And, well, for good reason!

My family and I wanted to come here since the day we saw the HDB Tai Tai's recommendation, but always find it out of the way to travel. So yesterday, for MoMo's sake, we finally travel from the west to Toa Payoh for lunch. The menu offers a wide range of choices,we ordered a kid's meal, lobster with chix, lobster with fish, cheese mussels, berries salad, and had forgotten about the MoMo.
The serving is quite generous, and we are all very full for the rest of the day. The mashed potatoes, which is my favourite, is very tasty and i bet it fares better than any restaurant's gourmet. The chicken is very tender and succulent with juice, the lobster is cooked at its right timing to capture the freshness and sweetness. We like the berries salad most, the salad dipping sauce blends well with just any food on the table. The cheese musssels is a good catch at $9 for 10, and the mussels is simply delicious. However, we are just too full to try other foods on the menu, esp after the aromatic coffee. Yeah, it may look like just another coffee shop that serves western food, but one can feel the passion the chefs have put into the food when tasted. Moreover, it is just Alfresco Dining. Next time, we will choose the seat outside and try the momo, cos we want to recapture the food taste when we were in Nepal. Overall the service is friendly and attentive.

Dinner on Tue evening, 27/10/09: It is not hard to convince myself to pay this joint a visit with all the stellar reviews under its belt here at HGW.

Imagine my surprise when we were given complimentary crusty garlic bread, albeit not warm enough, for an eatery that does not load service charge to the final bill. I was impressed already and was eager to fall in love with the humble little joint

Berries Salad ($9.50) was not your usual fare of salad with grilled chicken, strawberries, lettuce, cashew nuts, dried cranberries (I think) and a pink dip. When asked what the pink dip was, the hasher said it was something like yogurt, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead of tasting sourish like yoghurt, it was a sweet berry sauce and every bit yummilicious! In fact, the salad dressing made eating the salad fun! Enjoyed this course very much!

Momo, half portion ($3.80) was more like meat dumplings served with a unique sauce to go with and didn’t impress with the thick dumpling skin. While it was something new to me, it wasn’t particularly fetching.

Delievered in a hotplate, Sirloin with fish in BBQ sauce ($13.20) came with carrots, radish and baked potato. Admittedly, the sides were pretty well done. I asked for my meat to be medium rare done and it came in how it should be. Nicely executed. However, I found my meat fringed with too much fat and the fish, although delectable, was not flaky and the flesh kinda stuck together.

Lobster with Chicken in Mushroom sauce ($15.50) also came with carrots, radish and mashed potato, of which the mashed potato was too bland. Lobster and chicken were both palatable. I did wish that the texture of lobster was more succulent though. Mushroom sauce had huge luscious pieces of mushrooms in it. I like!

Service was adequate with the waiter serving both warm and iced water when he wasn’t busy taking or serving orders. Food was doled out within 10-15 minutes which I felt was reasonable. Have I mentioned this was despite the fact that no GST or service charge was taxed? Wow.

I’d love to come back for the salad alone or try their braised lamb shank, which I’d usually avoid cos of the occasional ineluctable gamey taste of lamb but since the chef had proven himself worthy thus far, I’d love to give him the chance to thrill my palate once again.


Dinner on Sun evening, 13/12/09: On a diet, I remembered this joint served one of the most delectable and interesting salads I've ever partook and decided to come back here.

Perusing the menu, I opted for the Mango and Prawn Salad in Thousand Island Dressing ($8.50) instead. I like to try new things and was crossing my fingers this would not disappoint. Indeed, the chef is generous with the prawns and cubed mangoes and I had a good time chowing down the salad. BUT I still prefer the original and innovative Berries Salad la. It will always be my first love of this restaurant.

Crispy Calamari ($6) was more reasonably priced as compared to the salad, I thought. The batter was deep fried to golden hue crispiness and the squid within was tenderly soft; very easy to chew on.

BBQ Pork Ribs ($13.50) was fall-of-the-rack tender and well marinated. For neighbourhood fare, I found it pretty well executed. I didn't like the thick cut fries that were not very crispy, however.

Service was still as impeccable with the courteous wait staff serving up our food and topping up our waters promptly.

I like Tim's Restaurant. It's really too bad for me that I don't stay in its vicinity and I can't come as often as I like. But you can be sure there'd definitely be a 3rd and a 4th and so on number of visits from me. :)

My friend & i was @ Tims ytd. We were there ard 730pm & e cafe is already 3/4 full, what a sign 2 show tat they r bz. We ordered their calamari BBQ chicken wings & Berries salad. I just love their Berries salad as it includes all e "berries" tat u can name & best of all there's Strawberries my favourite fruit. The calamari was served hot & crispy & fresh, good job chef.

As for main course, my friend ordered e nepali chicken chowmein while i ordered e snapper, she loves it, it was her first try. We'll b back again for more food from e cafe. Till then please keep up e good work.

This is my second visit.

The calamari we ordered is very fresh, and good.

My wife order the Grilled Chicken Chop, which I had the last time. But she noticed that it appeared different. The chicken appeared to be insufficiently grilled. It is also quite oily. In our previous visit, the chicken skin is grilled till its brownish in color, this time its pale.

I ordered sirlion steak, which is value for money.

Dessert=the bread and butter pudding is also good. We wanted to order take away for the pudding, but was told that we need to take the whole loaf, which is too much for us.

Will visit again soon to try other dishes

i managed to organize a family lunch on national day w my bf's family n my small cousin who wanted to tag along.

we ordered spagetti for my 7 year old cousin, chicken chop for me n my bf, fish & chips for his mother, sirloin steak for his brother, tenderloin steak for his father n youngest brother. soup of the day was mushroom soup, home-made as contrasted to the standard campbell soup we usually get outside. we ordered garlic cheese mussels as usual n oysters to share.

there were only good comments all round the table. the main courses were delightful as always n his family enjoyed the garlic cheese mussels a lot. i felt that the oysters were quite fresh as well, but i guess his family felt more comfortable with cooked food. the main courses came with boiled vegetables and baked potatoes for the steaks. it was very satisfying meal.

my cousin was throwing tantrums that day because she was a bit tired. she created a bit of a mess, n i was v grateful n want to express my thanks to the boss for passing me extra towels without me even requesting for it. i sincerely appreciate the service from all staff, including topping up of water and changing our small plates when we were served the oysters and mussels.

we got a complimentary meal voucher w our bill, which was a surprisingly sweet gesture on the restaurant's part.

I have been to tims at least 10 times in the last yr with at least 5 different pple. Each time, the food and service warms the heart and delight the soul. =>

My favourite and standard item is the chicken chop ($5.50), which is nicely grilled and served with some lightly boiled vegetables. I have tried other items as well, from my frens' orders. The steak, grilled fish pasta, sausages etc are all worth eating as well. I usually order the garlic and cheese mussels as an appetizer, which is most delightful and flavourful. I attempted the momo before, but was not so used to the taste as they dip it with tomato sauce, i think.

You can top up the ala-carte items with soup, dessert and tea for an additional $2.80, which is honestly a great deal. Their soup is nice and the dessert is usually a small slice of cake. Just enough to not make you feel stuffed.

Water is served promptly and usually without any need to ask. The servers refill the water as they go around and are friendly and courteous. I have not had any issue with their service thus far, despite many times when the restaurant was totally packed.

I look forward to each visit to tims and leave a happy, well-fed and satisfied girl. 2 thumbs up!

Its great to see guys like Tim, a Nepalese, start a little restaurant like this. It was packed the night we were there and we could see why - really affordable, well cooked western dishes with touches like raw oysters and wine as well. And in an effectively void deck setting the stars all aligned. Most impressively with the pricing which was very reasonable for the quality you were getting.

The steaks were excellent. The soups nicely done (assuming you like that Jack's Place style which only those too pretentious to say so will not admit). I would probably not recommend dishes with the lobster though as the lobster is very small and frozen and flown in from Vietnam. That said chicken chop and lobster for 11 bucks is hard to come by elsewhere.

Tim is a gracious host, but very harried! His staff of fellow Nepalese are very genuine people although English is still being worked on. Nevertheless, this place is value for money and the ambience is great.

i've read thru all the reviews before me and i'm ashamed that it's taken me so long to write tis review. sorry, tom! you see, i live juz behind tim's, and everyday, i have to "endure" all the nice smells coming from this restaurant & resist going. ha! tim's was opened about the same time i moved into the neighbourhood. when i saw the renovations, i was thinking, "how is a western food restaurant going to survive in a old neighbourhood? their biggest fan is probably just me??" my oh my was i so wrong. tim's is doing so well, we usually rush thru our food in order to give the table to someone else!

after getting to know the owner, tom. we found out that he used to work at the vines in novena, which we used to frequent, which is why we are so in love with the food. although he was a manger there, he started as a cook, so you can be assured of the standard of the food at tim's. the cakes you eat are also handmade and baked by him.

i've brought & recommended many, many frens to his place and everyone, and i mean EVERYONE is amazed that an old neighbourhood has a hidden gem like him. we dun go to UNO anymore (the other famed steakhouse) cos why put up with the lousy service (1st greeting is "wait 1 hour, u want?")and sit in the void deck to eat @ UNO, when you can have great, prompt service, in a reasonably nice environment. tom makes it a point to go around and tok to everyone when he has the time and i can see everyone appreciates that. his service staff also tries very hard, but we do miss the bubbly missus who is now a happy housewife!

we are such a regular now we dun really need the menu. i'm huge on steaks, which is done to my requirement most of the time (its hard to meet my requirement to begin with), but we are so in love with the chicken cutlet, chicken chop, lamb shank, fish & chips, coleslaw (i dun eat anywhere else) and the top choice : the pork ribs! and guess wat? the ribs @ tim's is even better than seah street deli in raffles hotel!!! we usually order 2 main courses, and the ribs is a must-have "appetizer"! we've also spoken to other fans, and a family even drove all the way from pasir ris regularly to eat at tim's!

our fav line is : why do anywhere else for western food when we've got tim's juz downstairs. we dun even eat western food @ foodcourts now, tim's is cheaper and 100 times better!!


added 1 may : juz wen to try their new addition - the T-bone steak and it was so gd, i could totally ignore the temptations from the chicken cutlet! 300gm steak for $13.80!!! thats cheaper than food courts!

Went to this "restaurant" on a HOT weekend afternoon. (Very very hot afternoon. Was there at about 3pm, surprisely is still quite crowded.

This place is hidden in a old HDB area (next to a SingaporePool)at TPY. No air con, *faint* it was really very hot that afternoon.
Old looking - lack of maintenance, with table and chairs like a coffee shop.

But dont be put off with the ambience,they serve good food here!

Shortly we were seated, we were served with ice water.... Great! I need that!! The waiter (later that I know he is the boss) serve us prompty, making recommendation as you were in a steakhouse.

We ordered a tenderloine $15 (paid additional $2.80 for a set which include coffee/tea, soup and dessert)and another tenderloine set with local lobster $18.Both steak to be medium rare.

The food came slizzings with vege and bake potatoes. The waitress came with the standard "Jacks place" combo for the baked potatoes.
The tenderloine is just nice, surprisely nice...My bf keep telling me is better than UNO, which is just a few streets away. However the lobster is not very fresh - won't try it again.
We finished off with a nice piece of homemade cake as dessert.

Not something that you will get from fine dinning restaurant, but defintely worth the go for the value of the food. With the kind of food ordered, we easily have to pay $100 at any restaurant which might not even reach the same quality as the steak served here. So overall is worth it...

I will come back again, but this time round have to be for dinner - cos no aircon.

BTW, later that I know from my bf's mum, the boss used to work as a Management at Vine (Novena) and Jack's place as well.