For a period of time, the stretch along Thomson Road has had new food establishments popping up and all of them were oozing with novelty. I've tried a few, a few closed down before I had a chance to and I'm still trying them all.
I had tried
Cafe Ti Amo - it is quite a nice place because it wasn't very crowded. The food was pretty decent and normal. Desserts sucked though. Remembered having tiramisu which came with the set I had and I had only 2 mouthfuls before I gave up. Too dry and not flavourful at all. But for the price and ambience, not too bad a place to have dinner.
Tried
Stevo's not long ago and it was surprisingly very good. Famed for their salads (yes, I DO eat salads) and vehemently recommended by kutu, we finally trudged down for dinner one day. Had their buffalo wings, level 3 if I remember correctly, roast chicken with Caesar salad and fruit salad. The wings was pretty alright and quite cheap when compared to other wings from other establishments. The roast chicken wasn't the best that I'd had. Thought it was a little too dry and not very tender. Didn't finish the chicken but I finished up every morsel of the salad. Yes, it is THAT good. The caesar salad somehow tastes very fresh and very generous with the croutons and chicken and lettuce and whatever else is inside there. The fruits in the fruit salad were also chopped into substantial sizes. Big enough to let you know it is there but not too big to finish it in one mouth. I even went to buy takeouts today!
Today, tried another of the cafes along that stretch - La Petite Cuisine. They have had a place at Serene Centre for the longest time and I kept wanting to go try their food there. Well, now that they just opened another branch at Thomson, I can finally go try it. It was quite a small place with just 3 tables outside and the inside had about 6 small tables. It's better to sit outside though because it was the open kitchen concept inside, which means that after dinner, you will probably smell like what you ate, with smoke and all. No service charge or GST but unfortunately, no service as well. We walked in, sat down and had to take a menu from the empty table beside us. The menu was only 1 sheet of rectangular paper, without much choices. I think that the menu is different from the one at Serene Centre as there were some stuff that I'd read about but didn't see on the menu. Had actually wanted some soup but they only had 2 kinds of soup - tomato or potato and leek, which was more like Soup of the day than anything else.
Friend settled for the soup and dory with white wine and rice for the main course. I went for the sirloin steak. Had wanted to try their tuna steak but the cashier told me no steak today. :( After waiting for a while, our food didn't come. Neither did the soup which requires no preparation. Nor the bread arrive. Boo. The soup and bread only arrived after about 20-25 minutes. Or it could be less, I don't have much perception of time. So, the bread was not too bad. It was the small version of baguette and very hot and very hard. Not too bad though because at least the inside was soft and warm. The tomato soup tasted like ketchup diluted with water, very tomato-y. Polished off the bread and another round of waiting ensued. It was probably after 30 minutes of so that the lady chef walked to every table to explain the long wait for our food. It was apparently due to some 'technical difficulty' with the stove which she was trying to fix. Fine, we were not very hungry thus were pretty empathetic. And after a while, we realised that their problem was that they ran out of gas. Kind of strange for a restaurant to run out of gas during business hours.
So, the food finally arrived after the gas-man came. The dory was quite good. A little sour due to the white wine but tasted quite fresh and cooked to almost perfection. My steak was a little small, there were only 2 small strips of them although they were quite thick. Served by the side were some very grassy tasting salad and fries which were quite tasty and a little too salty. Steak was medium-well as requested and the sauce that comes with it doesn't overpower the taste of the steak. Food was pretty good on the whole but the experience wasn't exactly fantastic. But hey, it is cheap. The dory was about $12 and my steak was only $15. For the price and the quality of the food, I may just consider going back there for some other food choices. :)
They do not understand that when I place my utensils together in the middle of the plate (like in the photo), it means that I'm done with my food and please clear my plate! Ok, to be fair, clearing of plate is quite subjective so I shall not touch on that.
But then as service staff in the F & B industry, you should at least have some basic knowledge of dining etiquette right? If not, no matter how much you smile, how much you offer your best service to the customers, something will always be missing and in this case, ignorance is not an excuse!