Big D-isappointment
Bus 48 stops outside the famous Holland Village coffeeshop selling XO fishhead noodles. I wanted to get some lunch for Tempest and myself, so it was pretty convenient to grab some food from this coffeeshop, instead of my initial thoughts of going to the hawker centre within the Holland V arena.Scanning through the few stalls - XO fishhead noodles, braised duck rice, Big D's Grill, economical vegetable rice, soups - I somewhat fixed my attention on the western food stall. Tempest likes western, and we had eaten at Big D's at Bedok before it shifted here. The food wasn't too bad. It was the same big tall, bald guy at the helm. He handed me over the menu and patiently waited for me to make my orders. After some consideration...
Me: "I will have a fish n' chips, and a grilled boneless chicken leg. Takeway please."
Big Guy: "Sure. There will be an additional 50 cents each for takeway. Is that alright?"
Me: "Ok".
My thoughts: What else could I have said??
Big Guy: "Please take a seat. I will deliver it to you when it's ready."
Me: "Ok".. and walked away to find some seat not too far away from the stall.
I must have waited for about 10 minutes or so, or maybe even longer as the old man seated at the same table already finished his meal of braised duck rice. Maybe I was back-facing the stall or what, Big Guy did not deliver the takeout to me. I happened to look over and saw a neatly packed plastic bagful of food and decided to check if my order was ready. Indeed, the food was just sitting there waiting for me. What happen to Big Guy's words? He promised to deliver it to me once it was ready! And Big Guy disappeared to nowhere.
Never mind. I asked the Malay chef if there were any utensils packed in the plastic bag. And he said yes. After a few steps, my intuition got the better of me, and I checked. None! I walked back to the stall and asked for the utensils. Guess what? "We ran out of fork, spoon can?" OMG! I ordered fish n chips plus chicken chop. Does he think that those can be eaten easily with just a spoon?!
Me: "No, I need forks."
He then walked over to the next stall and got me 2 forks.
Downright horrible service. It's not as if they were busy with customers. It was 2.30pm with only a third of the coffeeshop filled. I didn't even see anybody else eating western food! The signboard was plain white, with "Big D's Grill" in large black fonts, and the single 'D' in red. It was not even lit up, unlike the rest of the stalls. Kinda pales in comparison. I even thought that the stall was closed until I walked up and saw the chef busying with some stuff at the stall.
Still, I was determined not to let that incident get me down. I was feeling satisfied from the gym workout earlier. Not that I expended large amount of energy, but being able to return to a fitness regime after few months' break is indeed invigorating! So, I crossed the road and waited for bus 95 which dropped me off at Lower Kent Ridge Cresent, just before Yusof Ishak House. And sprightly walked 1 km under the burning hot sun to reach Engineering Block.
It was almost 3.15pm when I reached Tempest's lab. He was eager to have his lunch. Afterall, breakfast was ony a couple of siew mai and half a big bun at 10am. But, I just have to stop him and take the following pictures. I needed them to emphasize my complaints!
They dared to charge me 50 cents for an over-sized paper bag??!! A ridiculously high cost to recreate a teeny weeny bit of the authentic feel of ol' english fish n chips. 
2 large pieces of beer battered fish with no hint of beer. It could have been pretty crispy if eaten immediately after being served. The fries were good - long and chunky.
Palm-sized chicken chop. Nowhere did it resemble a chicken leg to me.Tempest had a fairly good time devouring the slightly charred skin; he gave it a thumbs up. But I thought overall, the chicken was a tad too dry. The fries had also turned soggy from being soaked in the sauce for 40 minutes. The baked beans were cold, so not very nice. One commendable thing though was that they added small pieces of bacon to it, giving it an extra bite.
Given the portion of the foods, $8.90 each seems a bit too expensive, especially so with the likes of Aston and Botak Jones serving equally tasty stuffs, maybe slightly bigger portions (at least for BJ) but at slightly lower prices.
Anyway, ieatishootipost had a pretty good review of this stall, mainly of its high-end stuffs like kurobata loin, and wagyu beef. Actually their pasta didn't look too bad. I saw its chef cooking up a dish for himself - the thick sauce clung on tightly to the pasta. If you like the dry sort of pasta, you will probably give it a thumbs up.
For me, the lousy service spoils everything.
posted by slingwoof @ 6/28/2009 06:50:00 PM
1 Comments:
OK, next time dun eat from there al-ready!!!
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