Less than normal

Had dinner with my parents and Yun at the newly opened Bai Jia Seafood Restaurant along Upper Serangoon Road. Saw people queuing up regularly and with papa's suggestion, we decided to give it a try tonight. The restaurant's so-called "selling stunt" is to offer a number of dishes at $4.80 each... from vegetables and omelettes to prawns and steamed fish.

We ordered "Bai Ling" vegetable with mushrooms, fu yong omelette, cereal prawns, claypot tofu, and coffee mate ribs.

The ribs was the first to be served. The size of the dish was not too big, just enough for 2-3 persons.

There was a faint aroma of coffee when it was first served. But when we bit into it, the outer fried portions was too sweet (not sure whether from honey or sugar), and the coffee taste was gone.

The so-called claypot tofu was not served in a claypot, but those kind of stainless steel bowl, the 555 brand sticker is still there. Ha! The dish was normal than normal. The tofu was well-cooked and soft on the inside, but totally tasteless.

The vegetables and omelette tasted normal as well. But the omelette had quite a lot of ingredients, and was fried in the way I like, slightly fluffy on the inside, and crispy at the sides.

Finally, for the cereal prawns, Yun and I decided that it was the best dish among all. Not that the prawns were good. I took two. One was damn hard and tasted stale, the other tasted good, and cooked just right. But it was the cereals that ended up to be the best tonight.

As for the service, there are a lot of servers around, but most of them seemed to be quite unattentive. Maybe they are new in the serving line. But at least they should be trained to be observant and attentive to know that customers need their assistance.

We wanted to order a pot of crysanthemum tea. I waved and called as they walked past, and one of them finally noticed me on the third attempt. Then after placing the order for the tea, the lady conveniently forgot about it. We waited for about 15 minutes and reminded her again. I mean, how long does it take to get a pot of tea? She nodded in acknowledgement and went off. But when she came back again, it was to serve other tables, and not our tea. In the end, we ordered from another lady. And this time, the tea arrived within 5 minutes.

I didn't know how much the total bill was, as it was a treat from mama. But if you asked me, I guess I won't be going back there again.