My friend Lisa from Austin came to visit for a week! We had loads of fun. Darin was away in Italy the entire week she was here, so it was ladies week, and we painted the town red.
We did a lot of shopping (of course) but other hightlights include Arab street bargaining for hookahs, steam boat dinner, dim sum disaster and the Singapore zoo.Steam Boat dinner in Chinatown!
Dim sum disaster: Dim sum here is very popular and there are alot of good restaurants in Chinatown. One in particular called Yum Cha advertised a special running Monday - Friday till 11am for a dim sum buffet for a fixed price of S$9.80 (about US$6.50) per person. Dim sum buffet here means unlimited orders from the little carts that the servers push around. Sometimes you don't know what the dish is, but for the most part it is steamed buns, spring rolls and potstickers - eaten for breakfast/brunch. One server offered us chicken feet, but we declined.
Anyway, so Lisa and I arrived at 10:30 am at this place. We were the only westerners in the establishment and subsequently we were completely ingored for about 15 minutes! When the server finally stopped at our table (after walking right by us 10+ times) we asked for the fixed price buffet. He exclaimed: "Buffet finish! You pay a la cart" and shoved an ordering list onto our table. The next thing we know, one server with a cart comes along and starts unloading items onto our table (things we didn't necessarily want) and then she proceeded to check off the items on our list. At around $3-4 per small plate, things can add up fairly quickly (this is why the fixed price option is a good deal).
Lisa and I started looking around and saw that none of the other customers had an order sheet like we did. We were miffed. We asked one waiter why we had to pay a la carte, but all the other diners had the fixed price option. He claimed that we "had to say fixed price when we came in". We said we DID say that, and that we arrived at 10:30 when the buffet was not supposed to be over and that we feel this is unfair. We called the manager to complain and got into a bit of a tif. After stomping off, and a bit of huffing and puffing (the manager, not us), he came back and said that we could pay the fixed price. He immediately said "last order!" which ended the buffet anyway.
I won't go to that establishment again. Just because we are westerners and women doesn't make us stupid! We just want to be treated like everyone else.
If you'd like to see pictures of Lisa's visit and of all the fun things we did, you can view them here
We did a lot of shopping (of course) but other hightlights include Arab street bargaining for hookahs, steam boat dinner, dim sum disaster and the Singapore zoo.Steam Boat dinner in Chinatown!
Dim sum disaster: Dim sum here is very popular and there are alot of good restaurants in Chinatown. One in particular called Yum Cha advertised a special running Monday - Friday till 11am for a dim sum buffet for a fixed price of S$9.80 (about US$6.50) per person. Dim sum buffet here means unlimited orders from the little carts that the servers push around. Sometimes you don't know what the dish is, but for the most part it is steamed buns, spring rolls and potstickers - eaten for breakfast/brunch. One server offered us chicken feet, but we declined.
Anyway, so Lisa and I arrived at 10:30 am at this place. We were the only westerners in the establishment and subsequently we were completely ingored for about 15 minutes! When the server finally stopped at our table (after walking right by us 10+ times) we asked for the fixed price buffet. He exclaimed: "Buffet finish! You pay a la cart" and shoved an ordering list onto our table. The next thing we know, one server with a cart comes along and starts unloading items onto our table (things we didn't necessarily want) and then she proceeded to check off the items on our list. At around $3-4 per small plate, things can add up fairly quickly (this is why the fixed price option is a good deal).
Lisa and I started looking around and saw that none of the other customers had an order sheet like we did. We were miffed. We asked one waiter why we had to pay a la carte, but all the other diners had the fixed price option. He claimed that we "had to say fixed price when we came in". We said we DID say that, and that we arrived at 10:30 when the buffet was not supposed to be over and that we feel this is unfair. We called the manager to complain and got into a bit of a tif. After stomping off, and a bit of huffing and puffing (the manager, not us), he came back and said that we could pay the fixed price. He immediately said "last order!" which ended the buffet anyway.
I won't go to that establishment again. Just because we are westerners and women doesn't make us stupid! We just want to be treated like everyone else.
If you'd like to see pictures of Lisa's visit and of all the fun things we did, you can view them here
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