Food: Mitzo Restaurant & Bar (Grand Park Orchard Hotel)

Food: Mitzo Restaurant & Bar (Grand Park Orchard Hotel)

Introduction

It's been a while since I did a review, but today's review is going to be focused on something different from the usual lay man fare. Today's review is about some unique dining in hotel restaurants. Hopefully as time goes by, I am able to afford more of these hotel dining and test them for my readers so that you can decide whether or not to come and what you should be expecting!

So for my first review, its the Mitzo Restaurant &  Bar, located within Grand Park Orchard Hotel.

Menu cover

To set the expectations clearly, basically this place is supposed to be a fusion of Cantonese food with cocktail... wait.. one is food, one is drink... what's the fusion there? Ok... so basically, come to this place expecting to eat Cantonese styled food in a non Cantonese like place BUT also you can have some alcohol to drink! Also the styling of the place is hardly Cantonese/Chinese which you can see further down in this review. So I guess in the classification of restaurants this is still considered a fusion....

Food 

So overall, how did the most important aspect fare? Let's split it completely into everything possible

Tasty unique mixed nuts

 Like many chinese eating places in Singapore, the first item on the table are the nuts. Apparently these nuts are not chargable and they are actually mixed nuts if you take a close enough look. It tastes slightly more premium then your usual nuts but was slightly on the salty side if you ask me.

Interestingly, i remember that alcohol is supposed to be taken with nuts so if this is your practice, perhaps this will improve your overall experience.

Mmmmm... roasted char siew

This roated char siew is realy good. The internal portions are soft and juicy which practically melts in the mouth while hte outside skin is crispy! How is it possible to make such differing textures in one dish, this is a question only the chef can answer!

Mmmmmm dim sum, 4 different flavors

A dish possibly meant for two, this dish has 4 different flavors given, one generic prawn wrapped in skin, one siew mai with baby abalone on top, crab roe dumpling and the green version of the siew mai but i cannot really remember what meat it was at this point of time. Taste wise however, its nothing too unique, i guess the ingredients are expensive in itself but no spectacular difference over the usual fare from a dim sum restaurant.

Wagyu beef!! woohoo

Premium beef, cooked in black pepper! Some people are not really fans of this cause it will mute the taste of the meat itself but for me, black pepper makes everything taste better. The texture of the meat its there, soft and tender which is what you would expect from Wagyu itself. There is that fried net thingy at the back that unfortunately, didn't add anything besides aesthetic value to the dish itself although i would imagine some other restaurants are able to fry it and make it nicely crispy to eat with the meat. Not the case here though.

FRIED RICE?? Come Restaurant eat fried rice?

Fried rice, the carbohydrate choice of this meal. Of course it is charged at a restaurant price. That being sad, its quite filling for two persons and the texture of the rice does taste that bit more premium.

Mocktail!

This is the other highlight that yu are supposed to be enjoying over here. In fact within moments of sitting down the bartender actually came over and introduced himself and his menu. In the end, I just told him i wanted something sour, as sour as possible and this was produced, a mixture of orange, pineapple and probably some other citrus things.

Cocktail!

We also ordered a cocktail and for this order, we just requested something that is not too sweet but refreshing. This was the final product.

All in all, for mock/cock tail, as I am not really a professional at this they were pretty ok in the end, but nothing that would make it stand out from some of the other cock/mock tails that I have drunk.

Overall, the taste of both food and drinks, I would give it a 4 out of 5 points as nothing tasted bad and there were some dishes that did taste premium.

Atmosphere

Nice and clean set up, well spaced with cushions all around

As you can see from the overall decor, its very well spaced with a lot of sitting clusters but all the seats won't be too close to each other. The tables are also very wide and there is more then enough space for all your dishes and to sit very comfortably. The waiters are very eager to serve and let you know what is their best dishes are. Its also a very quite place without too much of a crowd when we were there making the place somewhat conducive for a chit chat after the meal.

Has nice light effects and your tables are well lit and big

You can even see the cushions provided at the seats that tells you how much time you should be spending here after the meal itself to just drink and chill. Just like any pub or bar though, there could have the occasional person that is talking too loudly as was our case over there but having a lot of tables helps as you can easily just move to another location and be less disturbed.

Overall, a very comfortable place to dine in giving this place 4 out of 5 points

Price

Unfortunately I forgot to record the price but off hand this is what I remember. 

Dim Sum set - SGD $48

Wagyu beef  - SGD $48

Roasted char siew - SGD $15

Egg fried rice - SGD $20

Cocktail - SGD $20

Mocktail - SGD $18

Total price was $180 nett so since the above numbers do not add up to them, I must have made a mistake in one of the dishes there.

It's quite clear cut that this is not going to be a cheap meal and the cooking method used as well as drink prep is probably top of its class. However I still can't shake off the feeling that i was paying a bit too much extra for not as a significant enough level improvement in terms of the food taste. Hence I would give this a 2 over 5. I will give some recommendations on how to make the entire thing more value for money at the conclusion of this.

On the bright side, this place does have several promotions so do take a look and see if there are any applicable promotions to you when dining there.

Accessibility

With its location being more or less along the orchard stretch and between the orchard and somerset MRT stations, this is a very easy place to organize a meet up and chit chat session with your friends.

Add to it the ability to reserve for a seat as well the lack of a queue which allows you all the way in, there is no problems getting a place to eat here.

Of course being in the orchard belt does make parking somewhat difficult for those who drives, but overall, this place has much going of it in terms of accessibility, winning it a 4 out of 5 points.

Overall

Food : 4 (Good taste in most of the food, but not everything is superb yet.)
Atmosphere : 4 (Very comfortable atmosphere with good service staff)
Price : 2 (Premium food at premium prices, i would still consider this taking a toll on the wallet)
Accessibility : 4 (Very easy to get to, and very easy to get in. Able to reserve for a peace of mind also.)

Overall:  3.5 (Overall, would say this is an interesting experience at a slightly more premium price to pay but may overall be worth it if you like cocktails and a comfortable place to sit and chit chat for a good part of the evening. Its quite a interesting mix of cantonese cuisine and alcohol which makes it unique from other standard drinking places which may be the draw that you need. All in all though, my idea for them to further improve is to market the place as a gathering and drinking spot for friends, and lower down the prices of the food slightly which will be easily made back by people ordering more then one drink while they are there. The atmosphere and seats are already nice and comfortable so they should make full use of what they have.)

That's my review for my first pricey dining spot. Do let me know if you have also visited the place and share your comments!!

http://www.mitzo.sg/

Food: Hai Di Lao

Food: Hai Di Lao

So finally, after waiting for almost a whole year, I finally had a chance to eat at the famed Hai Di Lao. For those who don't know, Hai Di Lao is considered as a ala carte steamboat style of food whereby you will need to pay for the soup you choose, and every dish you order you will pay for the specific dish. This is in contrast to other steamboat buffets a lot which can be found in Chinatown and quite a fair few from all around such as Coca steamboat and Sukiya. These other buffets are free flow and you might need to go ahead and grab or order the food but you can eat and eat. However, Hai Di Lao is an ala carte but all in all, do you need to hesitate when deciding what to order? Would you end up paying more? Read on to find out more.

Food 4.5/5

You get to choose two soups, for this, Mala and Tomato

There are quite a variety of soups presented including the standard chicken stock soup. I think there should be four or five different soups in total. For us though, we got ourselves the Mala which is the spicy type of soup, and a tomato soup for those who did not want to eat spicy. Nonetheless, my mates with me tried the Mala and it was not TOO hot even for them. However, when we ordered the soup, there was the option presented to us to add or reduce the spiciness of the Mala soup. It's this type of variety that made the entire meal a bit more pleasant, and I believe this was the concept that the management of Hai Di Lao wanted to focus on and can be seen in many aspects of the management of the eating experience.

The soup overall, was tasty. Yep, I would dare say that amongst all the soup I have tasted, this Mala is one of the more unique, and even the best, so much that even Mala lovers could give it a try and it might ignite their passion for Mala.

One point to note however, is that when you ask for refill of the soup, I noticed that the soup was the normal chicken stock at least for my Mala. Hence after refilling twice, it started not being that spicy anymore. Not sure if this is the standard but it could have been expressed to us.

Here comes the first course of meat! Note, these were all HALF portions

 For a start, we were allowed to order half portions of almost all the dishes on the Ipad provided. What this means is that, you can go for variety and you do not have to force yourself to stuff down too much of the food, making you full and unable to try other dishes. You can also decide from the first round which meats you find most delicious and then order it subsequently. It's a very smart move and like i said, this is a variety in the ordering style which adds to the experience.

Taste wise, you can see that the meats are very thinly cut, and thus very easy to cook and consume. All the meats we chose were tasty, not too fat. For beef alone, they had like 4 different grades or types of beef for people with different tastes and budgets, and this makes good business sense.

Tofu, mushroom and a bunch of 4 different pastes, vermicelli

 As you can see from the photo above, you can ask for an assortment of mushrooms, nothing new many places have this. but look further above and see the red white and white green oval dishes. This was one of the paste dish ranging from prawn, to meat to spinach prawn and one more that i cannot remember cause the waitress said it in chinese. Nonetheless, they allow you to order small bits and really just try everything.

Sauces to tantalize your taste buds

 And look at the variety of sauces. They had a sauce rack with like over 10 different kind of sauces and that rack also had some small dishes like peanuts and pickles. But wait! What if you are not the sauce loving person? Well Hai Di Lao has gotten this covered. For HDL, their sauce and small dish bar is not included, but is free flow for a price of 4 dollars. What this means is that for those who don't need sauces, they actually don't charge you for it like what other companies do in their buffet prices. Hence overall you might not spend too much. You will see this further in the pricing section.

Taste wise, with so many different kind of sauces (in fact this is the biggest array I have seen so far), you SHOULD be able to find one to your liking. In korean BBQ buffet you always only have maybe chilli soy sauce and the korean chilli which honestly I don't really fancy, but here, you can get the spicy chilli paste, but if you like still must have korean chilli they also have that too. That's the variety they give. Other sauces include chilli oil, mushroom paste (chinese version), sesame and more.

Atmosphere 4.5/5

This is the style for 4 people hotpot, come prepared with charger, you might spend long here

If you haven't noticed, I have given the atmosphere 4.5 out of 5. Is that justifiable, well, let me tell you why.

Look at the size of the table. Its big and that means you don't have to try to squeeze all your stuff on the table. Of course our table was for 4 and maybe 6 people may be given this table too but it is quite large in general already. For 8 tables and above there are even bigger and more fun round tables. With a huge table like this, there was also no worries about the steam and smoke flying into your eyes. In fact, none of us left the place smelling like Mala. The whole place is well ventilated.

When the guy brings in the soup, he even asks you which way you want to orientate the soup. So if you are the only guy eating using one of the soup, you can arrange it so that its convenient for all. 

All tables are also looked after by a specific waitress. For us, our young waitress only had to look after 4 tables. There is no need to reach out and try to grab the attention of the waitress and spend quite a bit of time looking like a fool. Nope, our waitress was right there for us and she even offered to help us order when the chinese words and the navigation of the Ipad became a chore.

The waitress can even help you scoop the soup and filter it for you

The waitress can go all the way to the extent of helping you scoop your soup and she even helped us put in the mushrooms and tofu when we started.

Lazy to hold the soup? Make use of the ladle holder

Other good things that they did, they offered to give us plastic bags to cover our hand phones to protect from the splatter.

The overall structure and layout of the place was also very very good. No one was too close to anyone and there was much space to move around. They didn't squeeze all the sauce and small snack bar at a corner and make everyone go long distance for it. Instead they provided no less then 3 corners for all their customers at the sacrifice of their number of tables that they could lay out.

Price 3.5/5

As you can see from the picture above, the price for 4 people would total to about 130.65 which is about 30++ per pax. Granted not all of us took the sauce, we still ordered pretty much to our fill and it was filling. Note that I ate with 3 ladies so maybe their amount they ate was slightly lesser but in all honesty i doubt that.

On a side note however, I made another visit to the place and this time two of us actually ate a sum of 90++ dollars which is about 40+ per pax. So this would be the probable range that you spent but the 2nd time we ate, we slightly over ate.

Nonetheless, they actually allowed you to order HALF portions so that you can actually try and sample the food first before deciding on what u want to order more of which will help keep the cost reasonable.

It's not entirely cheap but you will feel that overall, you got your money's worth (unless you really wasted a lot of time waiting)

Accessibility 4/5

Hai Di Lao is actually famous for it's long queues if you ask people who have been there before. If you plan to go there for dinner, i would recommend you actually go down at about 4.30 or even 4 to get a number first so that by the time you reach your number, it would be about 6.

In fact, when we were done eating at about 10 plus, we still saw people queuing outside. Be prepared for 2 to 3 hours queue at the peak weekend hours. Also note that the staff will tell you that it is a 2 hours wait but in the end you wait for about 3 hours instead which was what happened to us.

However, if you are up to it and just want to try the food, you can come down early at about 11.30 and treat it as lunch instead. The 2nd time I went around that time, there was no queue and we could go there to eat.

On the other hand, the reality is, despite the long queue, HDL actually managed to score some points back in accessibility. This is because unlike other places where they want you to stand in queue, this place allows you to just take a number and come back a few hours later. Even if you came back too early, they actually served some drinks and fruits AT NO CHARGE. In fact you can even go get a manicure done over there, just walk in and get a time slot for it to be done and this is also free. All these facilities and actions make this restaurant well above the rest in service and making the wait less miserable.

The queues are long because this place also DOES NOT restrict your eating time unlike buffets. So you can go in and take as long as you want and it adds to the overall comfort of the place.

One more thing is that phone bookings are possible, but only if you book weeks in advance. Their booking seats are very limited such as half of their premise at a time and actually I would say that this is the better arrangement because you can go and eat when you feel like it and the waiting times for the waiting queue will not be atrociously long as there are more tables allocated to walk in.

It is also just above somerset MRT which means it is easy to get there and easy to get back from there which is a big plus.

All in all, besides the long long long wait, HDL has done a lot to make the wait less miserable and in all honesty and realism, it is difficult to improve further given what that they want to focus on a good eating experience and good service instead of just merely focusing on profit.

Overall

Food: 4.5 (Food and soup tastes good, has a huge variety and is highly customizable)
Atmosphere: 4.5 (Very customer service orientated right from the queuing stage all the way to the end)
Price: 3.5 (It's not cheap, but its not expensive. All in all, you feel that the price is deserved)
Accessibility: 4 (Easy to get to, and if you in a rush, go there very early first. Even if you queue, you are not stuck there and can do other things)

Overall: 4.125 (This is a kind of place that I can safely say, you should go and eat there at least once in your life. In fact, if you have friends coming from overseas, get them to visit cause they are not just selling the food, but also the entire experience. Tips to make the wait easier, bring card games to play. You can literally sit there for hours and if you have cards, the wait can be longer. Didn't see anyone doing this though so don't go gambling there. Just make proper planning and I think your visit to HDL won't be anything regrettable.)

If you want to check opening times and other details, click here

Food: Han Ka Ram Korean Restaurant

Food: Han Ka Ram Korean Restaurant

Occasionally, you will find yourself in a strange place, unfamiliar, hungry, and with no willpower to move on, the need to just find a place that doesn't have a long queue and can keep you alive for a while longer takes over the need to find famous places that you can discover on the internet or on other review sites.

This is one of those places. The original intent was to go to eat at Mad for Garlic at International plaza, but upon seeing the long wait time due to the small size of the shops, we decided to just explore nearby and found this quaint little place.

I would expect that this place is well known to those working in the Tiong Bahru area but to those who are like me who work miles away, here's a review to help you decide whether you should make this trip and would it be worth it!

This place is located in B1 of the AXA tower and is a pretty small place. So what food we have here?

Here is the menu

Has a pretty reasonable variety ranging from the Bibimbap to the noodles to the soups and the rice cooked with meat. Its pretty good with a fair choice of meat.

Their set meal

They even have a set dinner promotion and at $35 nett it is a pretty reasonable spread. We got the Beef Deopbap set and the following are the pictures

The 3 side dishes

There are alot of other more expensive Korean restaurants that sell unlimited servings of side dishes, but here you are entitled to 3 (or is it 6) side dishes. They probably just meant 3 types of side dishes. Overall tasted pretty fine for a side dish, but it is not hard to go wrong with this.

Haemoel Pajeon or seafood pan cake

Here was the appetizer that we got. It was between this and some fried meat with veg. It was a reasonably big portion and tasted pretty good. It's not the best pan cake that I have eaten but it was at least crispy and tasted pretty nice.

Beef Deopbap

WHY IS THERE THAT P  inside!! deo-p-bap!!! so hard to pronounce. But this was easily the best korean meat I have eaten. It was even served in the a hot bowl to keep it nice and hot while we ate. And it was not burnt and stuck to the bowl either. The beef was nicely marinated. Only qualm was that there was so much more beef then rice. There was also an egg inside. Because of the lack of rice though, I personally thought it was not going to be filling.

KalbiTang

This was the beef ribs soup that we ordered with such a cute name! KALBI TANG! see it even sounds like mandarin! Tang!! I always knew i could speak korean. Either way, i counted 4 chucks of meat in total which is ok.... but the plus point was the meat was perfectly soft. Not over cooked, not under. Just nice. And served on the hot bowl again meant that the soup stayed hot. The soup tasted fine also and wasn't like too salty or MSG soup or anything like that

Overall, the taste of the food is up there, add to it the variety because you can choose any other type of soup as well as different types of meat. Like I said earlier, the food overall was just almost filling thanks to the pancakes but there could have been a bit more rice given or meat put into the soup.

Food 4/5

Atmosphere 4/5

It was a really quaint place, small, but it was well spaced out with a TV showing korean singing or korean MTV.  Not really a fan of that because they all look the same to me but its there! There was only one single girl staff doing the waitress but she really really really looked like she was working very very hard. I would even say she managed to do the job of 2 waitresses with the same level of professionalism.

She also showed some extra care when she actually directed us to change our seats to a 4 persons seat even though we were only two people to our confusion. After being confused for a while, we finally found out that because we ordered the set meals, it would be more comfortable to eat given a bigger table space. Its this kind of additional touch that made this place stand out.

Still, for one single staff it is hard for her to keep this up so they would have gotten more points should there be a bit more hands on deck.

Price 3.5/5

37.00 SGD for 2!

My impression when I eat korean food is that it is usually pretty expensive. Usually above 40 dollars. For this place however, we had a full meal complete with appetizer and even drinks at 37 dollars. Its cheap. 

Still being the cheapskate that I am, I would say it was almost at the 4 mark if they had put in a bit more rice into the rice bowl! I felt that more of the fillingness came actually from the pancake as compared to the rice and meat itself which was slightly a waste. 

Accessibility 4/5

Note the opening and closing times

Note that this place is not open on weekends at all!! NOT OPEN ON WEEKENDS! They should though.. if they had a branch else where. However, like many shops in the raffles place/tanjong pagar area... its closed during weekends. Nonetheless when we were there it was about 7 pm and we finished at 8 pm. The place was filled, but there was no queue outside or at best a 1 to 2 group queue. I suppose this place might be crowded during the weekdays itself given its good price and location in the office area.

If going for dinner however, a weekday dinner that is, it is veryveryvery near the Tanjong Pagar MRT exit. Less then 50 meters so it is easy to go if needed and with no visible queue, this is a place to try out. Anyway the number is over there in the name card so just give them a call if you wanna check it out!

Overall

Food: 4 (The taste is definitely there. It tastes authentically korean we were wondering if the chef was korean. Its nice and has good variety for you and your eating group)
Atmosphere: 4 (Good staff, could be more, but space is well utilized and spaced out)
Price: 3.5 (Drinks are included into a NETT price. Definitely cheap for korean food standards)
Accessibility: 4 (Easy to get there and IN there. Only qualm is no where else to go after)

Overall: 3.875 (A worthy high score pushed up because of good food and good service. A place you should consider going if you want a korean food fix. Also won't burn a hole in your pocket so you will feel pretty comfortable and content after.)

This place has no website but I believe the picture of the menu should help you know what to expect. Any readers who are from that Raffles Place/Tanjong Pagar area that eaten there before? Let me know your views!!