Wuhan Steamboat City (The Central)

For photos and more reviews, visit us at http://foodphd.wordpress.com!

The deepest impression people would have about Wuhan Steamboat City would be its advertisement by Aunty Lucy. However, this seemingly did not improve its business and on a Saturday afternoon, Wuhan Steamboat City was pretty deserted.

Wuhan Steamboat City offers both cooked and raw food. Cooked food included glutinous rice dumplings, pickled cucumbers, braised items like duck wings, duck necks and tofu, deep fried items like chicken wings, samosa, spring rolls, dumplings. For the raw items, there were the usual seafood offerings like prawns, squids, cuttlefish, fish. Others include chicken, sliced pork and beef, oyster mushrooms, golden mushrooms, Shitake mushrooms, dumplings, yam, potatoes, lotus roots, various vegetables etc. There weren’t any exotic or unique choices.

Soup wise, the flavours offered were Chicken, Seafood, Tom Yam, Spicy and Tomato. We tried the Chicken, Seafood and Tom Yam flavours. The Tom Yam flavoured broth was the tastiest, providing a satisfying level of spiciness and sourness. It was a good alternative to the Spicy flavour which tended to be too oily. However, the Tom Yam flavour also felt like the one loaded with the most MSG and we moved on to the more bland chicken and seafood flavours after a while.

On the whole, we felt that there was nothing too special about this Wuhan Steamboat City. It felt like a typical local steamboat affair with no element of Wuhan injected into its concept. The cooked dishes were unimpressive and the variety of food seemingly limited. The only draw was the fact that we did not have to walk around to take our ingredients. Service staff weren’t exactly friendly and helpful too.

The lunch buffet on a Saturday costs $19.90 per pax. There’s an additional charge of $1 per pax for free flow of drinks.

Boyfriend and I were stuck at The Central during a sudden downpour on a weekday evening, steamboat sounds like a good option in the rainy weather. Saw Aunty Lucy's poster from level 3, review seems bad but decided to give it a try. 

Soft drinks and chinese tea are charged at $1 for free flow. Filipino waitress was quite friendly, took our orders for sliced meat and 2 plates of beef & chicken was served together with a plate of crab in 5 minutes. For 2 pax, we were offered variety of 3 soups in a pot. We picked 麻辣, seafood broth and Tom Yam. Seafood was very bland, 麻辣 was fairly spicy, Tom Yam was okay. 

Was quite surprised by the range of food on the belts. There were cooked dishes and desserts like Glutinous rice balls, pandan cake (which was VERY random), samosa, fried Man Tou, sausages nuggets etc. Raw dishes were pretty standard singapore steamboat buffet selections like crabsticks, sotong balls, golden mushrooms, chicken fillets, fish fillets and stuffs. 

The cooked dishes were definitely a plus points cos the raw dishes wasn't of a large variety. Empty plates were cleared fast. They didn't refill my chinese tea often though. 

Not a bad experience considering that we weren't really expecting much from them. 

Was at Wuhan steamboat restaurant yesterday with my GF.....radio station 933 was advertising it previously and thought of trying it out...what a mistake it turn out to be..When we sat down and told the service staff which soups we would like to have she simply point it to the paper and ask us to tick instead...well it wasn't as though they are very crowded, what lousy service attitude...At later part of the evening i saw the same service staff insisting on a lady who was alone to sit at a specific seat even though she didn't want to and eventually the lady left without even ordering.

Food choices was pretty limited and the raw food on the conveyor are not covered which makes one imagine how safe are the food...

We tried the fried food on the conveyor and most of it are cold after being left on the belt for so long..The beef which we ordered was very tough and chewy, felt like chewing on the skin of a leather instead....

i was there for another steamboat venture...first, i was greeted by someone who doesn't even know what the restaurant can offer & attitude was terrible...we have to entertain ourselves...was disappointed with the food that was not covered & have to share with the houseflies that were feasting on them...the food item was really lousy...this is so far the worst steamboat i've ever eaten.  when requested for eggs that was not display on the belt, the server just ask us to wait for it to come even when we mention that we have been waiting...they could have saved money by covering the food as the meat & noodles displayed were all dried up after some time & guess they have to throw all...nothing much to say except bad experience...at least we tried & can testify now...try Kichi kichi which is same concept but better in terms of quality, price & service...

The commercial shown was very attractive and made us tempted to give it a try. But to our disappointment the food, services really below expectation. Although the conveyer belt style for steamboat is something very new and unique in Singapore but hygiene is also our concern . The raw food are not cover and was left at the conveyer ,I saw flies around and touches the raw food . I feedback to the service staff and the lady boss was called over but to my disappointment she tried to cover up the fact and reply me that inside the air conditioned mall there isn't any fly then what are those I see ?She also said that only the cooked food are covered and those raw food are not as when is cook under high temperature it will be fine. I can't really accept the explanation but I felt that is useless to talk with her anymore. Her tone of voice was rude and service was really bad,we asked for the bills and left. That will be our first and last time to dine in wu Han . Anyway there isn't much variety to choose,food are not fresh and the pathetic one piece of crab provided. I would rather go to bugis for steamboat better , more choices , food more fresh and better service.

Saw the TVC and decided to give it a try.

The food tasted normal and theres not much choices. The soups were a little bland for my liking too. The only plus point is the concept, whereby all ingredients are on the conveyor belt and that there's no need for us to walk all over the restaurant. The entire restaurant is clean and spacious too. I actually went to another restaurant with the exact same concept, just that they provide individual pots (depends on the seats you choose thou), have more varieties of food, sauces and soups, and even their sauces are on the conveyor belt. Most importantly, it's cheaper than Wu Han.

Maybe Wu Han can try to increase the choices of food available as to make the meals there more value for money.

The concept used by Wuhan Steamboat City is quite "Japanese" by using the conveyor belt style to serve food. The quality of food was quite nice except the chicken, which didn't taste like it at all. The lamb wasn't really good as well, but the pork and beef was. It also allows you to choose up to 3 different types of soup. As we had the buffet for dinner, it is quite worth it for the big-eaters. The service was really average as they took a while to clear the plates and the tables were too small.

The worst experience that I have in Steamboat Dinner @ WuHan Steamboat City (Central) in 22 Nov 2009 (2 months ago). If given a choice to put negative or zero rating, I will not even give 1 point to them.

As usual, we are seeking for a place for our dinner @ Clarke Quay after whole day shopping.

We are been approached by the waiter when we walked past this steamboat shop. We have stopped our feets & listened to him what are the variety of foods that they provided. They mentioned that we can have unlimited fresh crabs, fresh prawns, fresh seafood and meats.

I went with my family (2 adults & 1 child), the waiter said they will charge (child price - half price of adult) for my child. So after considering food variety on their "sushi" conveyor belt, so we decided to go for our dinner there (although price are not cheap).

We are totally disappointed (100%) with their service, foods and overall. What they mentioned unlimited seafood has been limited to one small plate of crab and seafood. Prawns and seafood are not fresh at all. When we checked with them why we only entitled with a small plate of crab meat, they just tell us that they had run out of stock. So there is not enough for customers. They keep forcing us to take their own made dumplings (Not tasty at all) (2 plates). They only keep providing vegetables on the conveyor belt. There are less than 12 customers in the shop at that time.

When we decided to pay for the bill, we are shocked about the amount of money we are going to pay (ard $90 plus). The lady insisted to charge my son at adult price and all the drinks (mixed with water) are chargeable (on top of the buffet). That lady said that child price is valid if child is not higher than their table top (they did not mentioned to us beforehand nor stated at their stall). Even-more, the waiter is the one who told us that my son just need to pay for child price. End up we still have to argue for the price that they charge us extra on my son (primary 1) who don't eat a lot. We still paid almost 70-80 plus for that horrible meal.

After dinner at this place, I actually feel one kind of weird and had vomited out when on my way back home. 2 weeks ago when i heard the radio is recommended on this place, I felt so sorry for those who intend to go there.