What we ate:
Healthy Wolfberry Soup (Medium, for 4) - $15
Oatmeal Tofu - $15
Broccoli with Monkeyhead Mushrooms - $20
Homemade Assam Pedas (a.k.a. Assam Fish) - $16
Signature Olive Brown Rice/Olive Rice - $7/6 respectively
1 juice - $6.50
Average: $23.66
Firstly, the portions shrank. It wasn't the size of the plate, the plating, the display, the size of the tofu chunks. It was how full and satisfied we felt after the meal. I ordered 3 dishes and a soup for my family of 4, so on average that was about 1 dish and half a plate of fried rice each. On top of that, my family aren't really big eaters to start off with, so my brother and I were really disappointed. Comparatively, our previous experience had the portions about 50% bigger perhaps? The prices went up by a little too, and they did away with the set meals, so we're paying more for a smaller portion. It is obvious especially to people who've been to the old place. Not a good deal.
Secondly, the order of which the food arrived was weird. I arrived about 15 min before my family did since I came from work, so I placed the order first. I specifically asked the waitress to serve my drink first, and the food 15 min later when my family arrived. I think the waitress might not have understood me completely even though she nodded to everything I said (refer to point 3). My juice arrived about 5 min after my family did (about 20 min after my order), and I have a feeling they only starting firing my order when they arrived. Wasn't the point of placing the order early to have the food ready when the others arrive? If that wasn't strange enough, one fried rice came with one dish, followed by the soup, and then the other 2 dishes, and then the other fried rice. I wanted to wait for the brown rice (my preference), but it was taking too long so I settled with the normal one. Isn't the rice the staple for the dishes to go with? I didn't understand why it arrived last after we were mostly done with the dishes.
Thirdly, this is a pet peeve of mine - when a restaurant is marketing itself as a restaurant (and not a food stall), I feel that the service staff should be effectively English speaking and properly trained to at least answer simple questions. Especially if the name of the restaurant is in English. The MOST basic thing a staff could do when unsure is to say "Sorry, I'm not sure, I'll get back to you." and get someone who knows what's happening to answer any enquires. Still, I'm effectively bilingual so in the end I asked everything in Mandarin. Which was fine, but nonetheless a minus for my impression of the place. Unless of course it is marketing itself as an authentic *insert culture* restaurant - I've always been impressed with Japanese restaurants which have at least one Japanese speaking waitstaff (no need to be an actual Japanese person).
We didn't really want to complain though, since it was my mum's birthday and we were in a celebratory mood. I even bought donuts (in place of a cake since my mum likes donuts) and we sang over a donut. The table next to us seemed like a VIP table, so perhaps their resources were channelled to serving them. Also, it was only their 2nd day at the new location (after 6 years at the former), so perhaps these are their teething problems. Their lady boss (I think) was there today, and she's really friendly and receptive to our feedback regarding the portions. Sadly, it seems like she's the only one who knows what's happening, and she was busy with the VIP table.
I must say that the food was still as tasty as before, because the chef is still the same chef. Still, I would probably only go back there if I'm feeling rich (payday!), if someone else is paying for it, and if I'm in a good mood that day that I can ignore the substandard service.
Food: 4/5
Price: $$ (Treat)
Overall: 1.5/5
--------------------
Address:
76 Peck Seah Street
Tel: 6323 3308
Webpage: http://www.wholeearth.com.sg/ (yes their title says powerpoint presentation -__-)
