My complaining post...
posted on Friday, January 9, 2009
Today I met up with some long-time friends, whom I haven't met for donkey years. Initially we wanted to go for dinner at paya lebar but last min some of us decided to try out a bbq+steamboat (I won't name which one la but it's the one we always see on TV advertisements that says they charge $16 EVERYDAY. Oh if you must know, trying translating everyday into chinese and you will understand.) buffet at bugis. I agreed readily since someone was paying for me.
The place wasn't too hard to find especially with a large bright green signboard with a huge "$16 everyday" printed on it. Upon sitting down, we were instantly asked what soup base we want, then someone came and wanted to collect $$ from us. Instead of $16 (EVERYDAY), we were charged $21.30, and the worker explained that $16 is for steamboat only, and if we want both steamboat + bbq it's $18 and the soup costs $3. Well, we felt kinda cheated cause for that price we coulda gone to a much better place, but we went with it anyway.
The concept seemed kinda appealing tho, there was an electric stove for the steamboat and then there was the gas stove for bbq where they placed some charcoal on the metal plating that was just above the flame and then the bbq grill. I guess the idea was to heat up the charcoal through the metal plating and allow their customers to do some "real" bbq on the spot.
Well, the first thing that happened after we paid was that we picked up all the food we wanted and waited for like 5-10mins (looking silly) and no one came to turn on the fire for us. Feeling kinda silly, one of my friends tried looking for the switch then asked me if it was the one by the side, well I turned the knob and there was fire. The famished group of us couldn't wait to eat and thus we quickly placed our food on the bbq grill and into the steamboat thinking that it won't be long before we can actually fill our stomachs.
But we were so, so wrong. After 15 mins of flipping our food on top of the bbq grill, the food did not seem any less raw than before. The flames were at the max but the charcoal did not look any different than before and the grills just ain't getting any warmer. The electric stove did not do very well either. We only put in minimal stuff like thin slices of beef/mutton, some tou fu, dumplings and meat balls yet it's like, not even close to boiling after 15mins on MAX heat.
It was like almost 30 mins when the soup began to boil very slowly. I quickly took the ladel and help myself to the beef and some soup but guess what, the first sip of the soup made me lose my appetite totally. It was like horrendously blend and tasteless even though it was tom yam, it was like plain water with color and oil. Yuck man the taste was horrible. The bbq wasn't getting any better either and my first serving of bbq beef wasn't even close to getting cooked. I was totally upset with that place man, and started complaining non-stop to my friends about how bad the place was.
It took like almost an hour for the charcoal on the metal plate to actually heat up and thus, heating up our grill for bbq. Even though the bbq tasted not bad, the smoke from the steamboat kept blowing in my direction and the smell of it made me kinda sick. I was really upset the entire evening about the charges and soup and I went complaining away the whole time (yeah like a girl LOL). To make matters worse, there were 3 uncles who were beside us and they started mocking us and said that we don't know how to eat all the good stuff (by that they meant like seafood i.e. prawns, cuttlefish, and other shell stuff). I was so uber pissed with everything man seriously.
AND that was not the end! On the way home, I took the same bus with this girl friend of mine and we sat somewhere at the back. There was this fat girl with her small eyed friend right at the back who kept glaring at my friend and me. She gave those kinda super pissed of glare at both of us which really got on my nerves and I whispered to my friend about it. The funny thing was that she went like "the fat one ah?" really loudly and we both just laughed. Both of them immediately looked straight at our direction and most probably realised that we were talking about them.
Bleh, this is one of the horrible horrible buffet experience I've got in a long time. I won't ever go back there again man. the time is right;
{12:11 AM}
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