Wala Wala Cafe Bar

Asked for bill 4 times, Waited for more than half hr. saw 3 tables beside us gotten their bills way faster than our table. realised they were Stalling us Intentionally. Worst Service Ever!Sucks. 1st they took our order wrong. How does Apple Juice sound any similar to Mango Juice. Then the cup doesnt come after asking several times. following, the next round of drinks takes forever. damn, the list just goes on and on.The waiters' bad service was intentional after the 1st wrong order of drinks. we had 2 person telling him Apple Juice. So that was twice of mentioning the words Apple Juice. We had all 4 people hearing that the order was for Apple Juice. How on earth is Apple Juice similar to Mango juice that he can write the wrong order down. n still had the cheek to show me what he wrote when the Mango juice came. And then blame on us to follow with a series of Bad service.When you charge service charge, it means you need to provide the service to charge your customers for it. Instead, they intentionally pick on the customers for something which they have done wrong!

If you are looking for a place to eat or drink, without having the waiters to spoil your night. Never go there! It's like paying the waiters service charge to be picked on. 

That'sa good place to have a beer with friends, chill out and have some snacks.

Don't expect a service like a restaurant but, good enough, since that's a kind of a pub.

In quick summary, I liked the food especially the pizzas and the beer - though that latter one is not what Wala Wala is good for. Jack and Rai are great whenever they perform.

The one thing that irks me though is the bad service - the waitresses seem to discriminate against the Asian clientele, preferring to serve the Caucasians first and with much better service. Next time you come here, make sure you bring a white friend along, cos otherwise, you can expect to wait forever for your food order to be taken, or even to be noticed. 

Particularly irksome at times is this stupid floor manager with slicked back hair and a ponytail - while I can understand that he will defend his staff, there is no justification for having a bad attitude and he has tons of it. If this is the kind of thing Wala Wala wants people to take away, by all means.

Never going back again - I'll get my Jack and Rai fix elsewhere.

I have received my fair share of bad customer service, and not for the first time from Wala Wala's badly trained wait staff. Today took the cake for SERIOUSLY horrible service.

The waitress serving the area of the restaurant where I was seated chose to totally ignore me and my friend sitting there. We waved, we tapped her shoulder, we called out - for over 20 minutes, we were ignored. I finally could not take it anymore when I saw her taking orders from another table (whose patrons arrived much much later than we did???). I had to stand in front of her, and stop her to ask her to serve us.

Later on, after taking the order and serving drinks - all with the "I can't help it, it's a busy day" look on her face - I asked her to bring the manager. The manager's only explanation was that it was a busy day, and he had only 2 staff serving the floor, and he apologized. I was still angry and insisted that the LEAST they could have done was to acknowledge their customers: a simple "Hi sir, sorry, we're busy - please wait a while" would have sufficed, but NONE came.

He showed that he was impatient, and pissed off, and told me that if I had a complaint, to write it in an email to him. He gave a name card, and subsequently, when I was still not placated, he took it away. He then challenged me to tell him what he could have done. Why should I have to be the one to offer a solution??? Why couldn't he have offered one himself?

It totally feels like he's trying to make me ask for a free drink so that he can have the moral high ground.

Anyway, I just want this off my chest - and if this should somehow make people DEMAND better service from Wala Wala, and if Wala Wala could have done something about this dismal attitude of their staff, then I'll probably go there again. If not, it's goodbye to this patron.

Was brought there by friends after dinner @ Holland Village. Ordered a Mojito which wasn't chilled enough. My guy friend ordered his drinks - Happy Hour and while still drinking his Mojito, his Gin Tonic came. Did the waitress except my friend to have 2 drinks @ one time? Told them to hold the drink and the waitress had the cheek to point finger @ my friend for not telling them first. Is it too much to ask for? We spoke to the Indian manage in charge and service recovery was BAD. Was told that it works both ways in this scenario. Gosh! What kind of service is that? Not even an apology. Bad body language and service attitude. Understood it was a Sat night and it was crowded but that's not the way to treat ur customers - especially when First Impression counts.

Calamari wasn't great either.

Never going back there again even if the Live Band is not too bad.

At the risk of evoking ire from die-hard fans who adore Wala Wala for its live band, I have to say that this particular core element is probably its only saving grace.

As it was, finding an available staff member was a ball game by itself. We were still in high spirits and waited patiently. Finally, a lady took our orders. (Mind you, we were seated in the middle of the place and not scattered along the tables along the kerb.)

It was then my mien gave way to a frown. You would too, if the same reply was regurgitated in response to your order.

Lasagne - "Don't have"

Meatballs - "Don't have"

Steak burger - "Don't have"

Escargots - "Don't have"

Yes, I do understand that they're revamping the menu, which was why I queried, "So, what do you have?" and the lady rattled more items off the menu that were deemed unavailable.

I sighed and placed an order for Fettucine Cabonara. How wrong could carbonara go?

Well, I got my answer soon enough.

While the idea of cabonara conjures images of spiralled pasta delightfully swimming in thick creamy sauce, that was a fallacy in a plate for me. What greeted me was the sight of thick coagulated flour twirls. The word 'curdled' came to mind as I attempted to convince myself otherwise.

The carbo rush that we sought dwindled to a sorry whimper when the plate of fries arrived. My friend commented that it looked as if someone had harriedly emptied two servings of large fries from a fast-food restaurant. Juxtaposed against the stark white ceramic plate, plain straw-yellow scarcely appeared alluring. I kid you not when I say that the most gratifying morsel came in the form of a Farmland Chilli Bottle. Hardly worth $20 per pax, I'd bet.

Bah, there were still drinks, right?

Wrong.

The lady had whisked the drinks menu away without even asking if we wanted a tipple or two.

I shall spare you further details of my futile attempts at communicating with the rest of the available staff.

So, 4 unhappy diners left Wala Wala's and headed towards Coffee Bean where we chatted and laughed the night away on Mango Matcha Green Tea. It certainly provided more bubbly than Wala Wala! =(

Go to Wala's for the live band or for a drink but don't expect any good to emerge from other aspects.

Voila! Indeed.

Most people go to Wala for the live music. I do, too. But more than that, I also happen to love the pizza there, and the 1-for-1 beer treats during happy hour. :D

For a drinking place, it serves up a respectable menu. You have the usual finger food like french fries and calamari, which are real good and served in generous portions, and then there's the whole list of pizzas to choose from. I never get sick of the pizza there. It's that good.

Throw in the good chillout vibes there, you get a cool place to hangout with friends and buddies to catch up and to people watch. There's TV too, so that the guys will never have to miss out on their soccer games.

I've come here quite a number of times for the live music. You can never go wrong with a couple of cold beers in the company of friends, and their deep fried chicken wings and french fries, which at $6 are quite a steal.

However, I've come to realise that this place is also good for so-called "proper food"; I ordered the ham and cheese pizza here on Saturday, being famished and not having had dinner. It cost $17 for a whole thin-crusted pizza. While this isn't exactly cheap, I found it quite reasonable because of the size of the piza, the generous toppings of ham and what I consider quite good quality cheese, and no service charge or GST.

And best of all, the pizza actually tastes pretty good. The cheese isn't rubbery or tasteless unlike a lot of cheeses, and the ham is pleasantly tasty without being overly salty. The thin crust also makes it crispy. Even when it gets cold (i.e. if you intend to eat your pizza over a period of 3 hours), it's still good enough to eat.

The next time I come back here, I'm definitely trying the other pizzas, too.

I must admit that my primary reason for patronising Wala Wala's is for the excellent live band EIC that plays on Fridays. Playing a selection of current alt/soft rock songs, the band never fails to get the crowd in a mass sing-along session.

But I digress.

Pub grub usually comprises blah finger food like fries, calamari, chicken wings.

At Wala Wala's, there's quite a selection of lovely thin-crust pizzas courtesy of their cafe downstairs. Their chicken wings are also scrumptious, better than the reputed ones over at Ice Cold Beer in my opinion.

Note of caution: If you're there for the music, get there early to get a table (no reservations for the pub) - tables are usually all taken by 8.30pm. Otherwise, I imagine it would be quite hard to struggle with oily fingers, chicken wings, pizza and beer unless you're some expert juggler.

But you're rewarded with one-for-one beers and housepours if you order before 9pm.

Servers are a friendly bunch of folks but in crowded situations like this, it sometimes is hard to get their attention.

Overall, a great place to just hang out and welcome the weekend.