Restaurant Review: The Garden Slug

The Garden Slug
55 Lorong L Telok Kurau 
Singapore 425500
+65 6346 0504

The Garden Slug is a very laid-back eatery near the East Coast. Let me start off with the positives: the place is indeed very laid back and situated in a quiet neighborhood. The staff is extremely friendly and patient, even if you take 10 minutes extra to decide what you want to eat. I'm trying to think of more positives, but really there aren't that many, especially when it comes to the food they serve at the Garden Slug.

The menu at the Garden Slug is by no means exhaustive, which can be a good sign, making you think that they focus on a few, good quality food items, unfortunately here we were disappointed. We had Salmon Cakes, which were rather tasteless, with few bits of salmon, the "bed of lettuce" were 3 big leaves and the accompanying cherry tomatoes were unripe and thus also not tasty. Next we had the Ultimate Bangers and Mash, where the chicken and pork sausages were again very average and of the two chipolata sausages (which did look homemade), only one was spicy/flavorful, whereas the other was bland as well. The Tiramisu for desert was moist, but could have used both more coffee and more rum.

We were quite disappointed and I think it is unlikely that we will go back to the Garden Slug. Total damage was ok (around $50 for the food), yet the meal was quite unsatisfying. I'll give it the staff bonus and thus rate it

3/5 Stars

Read More

Restaurant Review: Werner's Oven

Werner's Oven
6 Upper East Coast Road
Singapore 455200
+65 6442 3897

Werner's Oven is located close to East Coast Park and ideal for a meal and stroll/activities along the coast afterwards. The restaurant has a bakery attached to it, which is great if you have a faible for German bread, buns and rolls. Werner's cuisine is mainly German, but on the menu are also some items that you'd not find in a "traditional" German restaurant.

We went to Werner's on a Saturday afternoon and the place was literally empty. The interior looks German, but everything appears a bit worn, and could do with a renovation. After ordering our starter + 2 mains (the deserts did not look like anything special), we went over to the bakery to do some shopping. Prices are competitive and for S$20 you can get a whole loaf of oven-baked bread, as well as a few buns and rolls. I must say it was cheaper than I expected. On the downside, trying the bake-wares at home later, I was disappointed by the fact that they must have at least been a day old. If you're into bread like most Europeans are, nothing beats the taste of warm/ freshly baked bread or buns. The bun's from Werner's, however, we dry and crumbly. This might be excused by the fact that the bakery is small and low demand might not merit baking every day, still for the buyer this does not make a difference.

After returning from the Bakery after what was were 10 minutes tops, I was astonished to find that our food was already ready. We had ordered a Baked Camembert with Cranberries for a starter and Leberkaes with roasted potatoes as well as Cordon Bleu with dumplings and mushroom gravy.

Unfortunately, any and all of our food was lukewarm, leading me to believe that they pre-prepare most of it and then just warm it up or put it in the microwave. In any event it would have been neigh impossible to prepare all of it within the short time we spent in the bakery.

The Camembert was okay, but nothing special, the same goes for the Leberkaes, and the Cordon Bleu. All these you could buy in a German supermarket and prepare them at home in the frying pan or oven and you'd have the same result. The dumplings were a big disappointment and the sauce was also ready-made. The only positive surprise were the roast potatoes, but then again one cannot do much wrong cooking roast potatoes.

All in all an ok lunch, though not cheap at c. S$70 with soft drinks.

3/5 Stars

Read More

Restaurant Review: Vansh @ Stadium Walk

Vansh @ Stadium Walk
2 Stadium Walk 
Singapore 397691
+65 6345 4466

If you're looking for a nice restaurant in a decent, quiet setting, Indian restaurant Vansh might be right for you. Vansh is part of the Rang Mahal group of restaurants and located right next to the river near Singapore Stadium and has both indoor and outdoor seating.

I have been told indoors is very nice due to the nice interior, where you can take your meal reclining on cushions on the floor. However, we chose to eat outdoors, at one of the tables close to the river. While this might have been a good idea in theory, there were three main issues that took away from the nice experience: 1) the tables are uncomfortably low, so if you're a relatively tall person like me, you'll probably be unable to stow your legs under the table, being forced to sit with your legs spread on either side of your chair; 2) we arrived relatively late and were the last people sitting outside, this might have been nice if it wasn't late enough for the waiters from the Jumbo restaurant next to us to start clamoring about with their dish carts and cleaning the dishes about 10 feet away, not very romantic/relaxing and 3) there was a constant flow of people walking by on either side of our table to get to the river. Not sure what they were doing there, but most were lugging plastic bags, so they might have celebrated something. Either way, I recommend you be seated inside.

The food itself was quite decent, with some items standing out. For starters and free of charge, we were offered Papadum sticks with 3 sauces: mint, chili and yoghurt. Let me just say that the yoghurt sauce was perfect and that I could have eaten it by the spoonful (which I did), so much so that I finished mine too early and had to dip in across the table. The chili sauce had a good kick and was quite hot, only the mint sauce did lack a bit, in my view.

 

For the main course we had grilled lamb chops, which were of the same quality as the ones I've had at Rang Mahal in Suntec, and somewhat overdone for my taste, though by no means bad.

 

As a second dish we ordered Seafood Biryani, accompanied by plain naan and black Daal. The Biryani was good, but the seafood could have been more plentiful, whereas the Daal was good, as expected. Can't go wrong with Daal, can you? 

The desert menu was not overly exciting so we skipped that. The staff could have been more attentive at times, as in between we were waiting to have our glasses refilled and we had to wait to ask for the bill, but again this might be due to the fact that we were there relatively late. Vansh is not cheap, and for the money I might better quality in both food and service, but I'll still give it 4 stars, to be confirmed next time, when we come earlier and sit indoors.

4/5 Stars

 

Read More

Restaurant Review: Viet Lang @ The Arts House

Restaurant Review: Viet Lang @ The Arts House

1 Old Parliament Lane
Singapore 179429
+65 6337 3379

Located at the Arts House, Vietnamese restaurant Viet Lang is situated in a very nice setting on Parliament Lane, near the Supreme Court, Parliament House and Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall. The area is very nice and ideal for an evening stroll to nearby Fort Canning Park.

Viet Lang restaurant itself is part of the Art House, with access from either inside the Art House (also nice for a look around at the newest exhibitions) or from the outside seating area. I've been to Viet Lang on 3 different occasions, and the place was always near empty, but you should still call to check whether they are closed for a private function. We decided to sit outside, realizing too late that there are construction works going on nearby (even on a Saturday night), so if a little of noise bothers you, you should choose to sit inside until the works are completed.

For drinks we ordered Vietnamese Tea (recommended by a very attentive Vietnamese waitress) and Lemongrass Tea. When the teas arrived, we were surprised to find out that the Lemongrass tea was plain Iced Lemon tea instead, however, when we asked our waitress she insisted that it was Lemongrass tea, despite the obvious fact that there was no lemongrass in it.

For starters we ordered Vietnamese beef rolls. These rolls you have to finish do-it-yourself style, packing them onto a thin rice-paper leave together with lettuce, different leaves, fruit, peanuts and cucumber, which requires quite a bit of skill and makes for good fun and entertainment. When else are you allowed to play with your food?! The rolls tasted quite good and the sauce they came with hit the spot.

Our main course was Curry Duck with steamed rice, which was rather nice, and Beef Pho, which was  lacking, seasoned perhaps a bit mildly and thus not developing the full flavor Beef Pho usually should have. For desert, we had Vietnamese Baked Cassava Cake, which was served warm and presented a nice finish to our dinner. Overall, I was slightly disappointed by the food, as for a triple digit bill I would expect a bit more flavour, therefore only three instead of four stars.

3/5 Alien Stars

Read More

Restaurant Review: SHIMA - Japanese Teppanyaki at Goodwood Hotel

Restaurant Review: SHIMA - Japanese Teppanyaki  at Goodwood Hotel

Last weekend my friends and I had dinner at SHIMA, one of Singapore's oldest Japanese Restaurants at the time-honored Goodwood Hotel near Orchard Road. The Hotel itself makes for a very stylish background, with which SHIMA's architecture unfortunately does not quite harmonize.

SHIMA had been closed for a while and reopened about more than a year ago with a new interior layout. Despite this renovation, the interior and ambiance are not as classy or as posh as one would expect from a restaurant in such a location, where the cheapest set meal starts at SGD 80 per pax.

For our group, we ordered the Salmon Sashimi for starters, which was one of the best Sashimi I have ever eaten, with very nice and fresh Wasabi and in decent-sized portions. The tempura we ordered afterwards was rather disappointing and really nothing to write home about. Next came the Teppanyaki, where we had King Prawns (quite decent), rice (just ok) and different types of beef. The rib-eye was surprisingly good and we all agreed that it tasted better than the Wagyu and the Sirloin, which were rather disappointing, considering that they are relatively more expensive. The Miso Soup we finished the meal with hit the spot and was a very nice finish to a hearty and heavy meal.

The Soju we had recommended by the waiter were both very nice and smooth. The staff was very friendly and attentive, so kudos for that.

From what I hear, lunch at SHIMA is more recommendable than dinner, as you get more for your buck and as, in my opinion, the substantial prices for their dinner sets are not quite justified. I've been told that at the lunch buffet there is all-you-can-eat Salmon Sashimi, so that alone would be worth the trip back.

All in all a decent restaurant experience at an upscale location, which is reflected in SHIMA's prices.

4/5 Alien Stars
 

Read More

Choosing a phone system/ PBX/ provider for a SME in Singapore

Choosing a phone system/ PBX/ provider for a SME in Singapore

The SME I’m working for has been using Skype for 2 years now, mainly to do marketing calls, but also for client calls. Skype has a very comprehensive offering with online numbers (we’re using a UK landline number which is directly routed into Skype, making it easy for interested parties to call us from the UK, at national rates) and a flatrate for calls to landline numbers 40 countries, in addition to mobile numbers in a few countries. Further, calls to our online numbers are being forwarded for free to either a Singaporean landline or mobile phone of our choice. The downside, however, is that Skype does not always function perfectly and that sometimes the call quality is bad, the call doesn’t go through or similar issues.

When we moved offices, we therefore decided to get an alternate phone solution as back-up system for important calls. To this end, I contacted several local and international providers to source a phone solution that would best suit our needs at relatively low cost.

First, we tried out Pfingo, a local Voip provider exactly like Skype, but of much smaller scale. We had had been told that Pfingo’s call quality was superior to Skype as the company is based out of Singapore. Testing the program, I first noticed how few features Pfingo contains, and that you cannot copy and paste a number into the dialling field, having to type in the number manually instead. This might not sound like a big deal, but  if you have a lot of marketing calls to make, typing in the (possibly wrong) numbers can quickly turn into a time sink. The call quality was good overall, but the limited amount of features (no flatrates, no packages for international calls, empty forum/help section) quickly made us decide against Pfingo.

Next, we contacted a number of local providers to get quotes for a PBX system. PBX stands for Private Branch Exchange, a telephone exchange that serves a particular business or office. As an example, if you call Singtel to get 6 landlines for your office, you need a PBX system to transfer calls within your office, to conference people in and so forth. There is quite a range of different PBX systems, as well as so-called virtual PBX systems.

One of the main Telco providers that springs to mind is Cisco, which we contacted, too. However, the salesperson at Logicalis, one of Cisco’s local partners, told us from the get-go that they tend to cater to high-end solutions and that the solution they could provide would not be cheap. That said, the quote Logicalis provided in the end was so over the top and exceeded by multiple times the budget that I had mentioned to them that I wondered why they even bothered coming back with such a quote. Further, there would have been on-going service and licencing costs that additionally reduces the attractiveness of their offering, in my view.

The next company we contacted was BorderlessHub, also a local Singapore company. BorderlessHub offered us a hybrid IP-PBX phone system that supports analog PSTN, digital ISDN, GSM and VoIP trunk lines for small and medium size offices up to 100 users and 22 concurrent calls. Further, the phone system they quoted us featured 4 trunk lines & 4 phone extensions. The trunk lines make it possible to have a virtual ISDN connection using internet broadband, with a flexible configuration for the number of channels (concurrent calls) supporting multiple DIDs with comparatively low setup and subscription charges. This would have enabled us to use a provider such as Pfingo in combination with IP-Phones. BorderlessHub further offered us to test their own brand of IP-Phones, however, we had to pick up/return these phones ourselves and the testing we did was not convincing, as the call quality did not seem to be superior to Skype. Furthermore, there were setup charges of c. SGD 1K, bringing the grand total up-front investment of this solution to close to SGD 3K (including the PBX and 8 IP-Phones). We had asked BorderlessHub for different IP-Phones, either from Cisco or Polycom, but again the prices we quoted were almost twice as high as the cheapest online warehouse in the US (including UPS shipping in 4 days to Singapore for USD 140), citing services charges. BorderlessHub would have been a possibility, but we were not very enthusiastic about going with this solution.

Another quote we received from DCS Networks Pte Ltd, who quoted us for an IP-PBX system with 4 built-in 4 PSTN lines, 1x WAN port, 4 x LAN Ports, 50 x SIP users license, extensions with voice mail, up to 15 SIP trunk or concurrent calls and well as a very-nice-to-have meet-me conference facility for 8 parties. However, they were also unable to provide us with either Polycom or Cisco phones, trying to sell us Grandstream IP-Phones instead. At approximately SGD 2.5K their offer would also have been within our budget, but again we decided against it because we wanted top-notch phones to provide a superior call experience.

Lantone Systems also provided us with a quote, namely for a Xorcom XR1-19, XR1000 Asterisk Server - 8 FXO, 1U Rack Mount with Yealink phones (or Polycom phones at a considerable mark-up compared to the US, but relatively ok for Singapore). The main reason we decided against Lantone and their offering was the 2K service fees they were planning on charging for the setup of the IP-PBX and phones. Total cost with Yealink phones would have been close to SGD 7K (over 7K with Polycom phones).

In the end, we went with Accede Technology Pte using their SIP Connect Services Global Plan with a 1504 IDD pre-setup for international calls. The advantage of this choice are relatively low setup costs (less than SGD 2K), call quality nearly equal to landline, as the calls are routed through our fibre connection to Accede’s PBX and high-quality Cisco phones with 2 lines and voicemail. There is a running cost of SGD 23 per phone but they also offered us the option to upgrade to a more sophisticated system later on, once our company grows. For our SME the SIP connect is the ideal backup solution, with good call quality and low set-up and moderate on-going costs.

Lastly, for a faxline, we chose Pamfax in connection with Skype, using a UK number, as providers for fax lines with Singaporean numbers were considerably more expensive.

Read More

Restaurant Review: La Braceria Pizza and Grill

Restaurant Review: La Braceria Pizza and Grill

5 Greendale Avenue
289501 Singapore
6565 5918

This review is gonna be a short one, just as our meal at La Braceria was relatively short. La Braceria is located int he Greenwood suburbs, close to 6th Avenue and Greenwood Avenue. The place is relatively small and well hidden in a cluster of shophouse restaurants. If you don't know the location of this little Italian place, better print out directions for your cabbie, as ours only had a rough idea of how to get there and only thanks to my companion's knowledge of the area did we manage to find it.

The restaurant itself is quite cozy and has a nice feel to it, we got a table outside on the wooden deck, surrounded by green plants. The waiter appeared less than knowledgeable, and could not answer most of our questions regarding signature dishes or dish sizes.

Eventually, we ended up ordering Agnolotti with veal and Parppardelle with boar. Having lived with a home-cooking Italian, I'm aware of the fact that pasta is usually only considered a part one of two main courses, but as neither of us were very hungry, we still only ordered one dish each. However, as the food arrived, I did have to bite back a laugh, as on my big plate of pasta I could count exactly 5, in words: five, pieces of Agnolotti the size of big Ravioli. The Pappardelle were slightly more generous, and enough for a main course, but at S$25 I would have expected a dish that is more filling than a small appetizer. On top, my pasta was average at best, with not enough flavor to come even close to justify the steep price of five bucks per Agnolotti.

While the Pappardelle were good, I can't help but feel that La Braceria is very much overpriced and overhyped and I would not go back.

3/5 Alien Stars

   

Read More

Restaurant Review: Al Hamra - Lebanese & Middle Eastern Cuisine in Holland Village

Restaurant Review: Al Hamra - Lebanese & Middle Eastern Cuisine in Holland Village

23 Lorong Mambong
Holland Village
Singapore 277682

+65 6464 8488 

On Sunday night, I went to Al Hamra in Holland Village to try this Lebanese restaurant, as so far I had only gone to Al Quasr at the very end of Lorong Mambong. 

Surprisingly, especially for a Sunday night and the hustle and bustle in Holland Village, the restaurant was only half-full and we could choose between a table either inside or outside. The deco at AL Hamra is nice but nothing to write home about. The service staff was quick and friendly and didn't seem to mind us taking our time to try and pick our dishes. Eventually, we went for a Hot Mezza Platter with Falafel, Sambousik, Spinach Fatayer, Lahem Bil Ajine,Kibbey Mekli and Cheese Reqaq. and Kebab Khash Khash, which is minced lamb meat on a bed of tomato sauce and onion served with Arabic rice. For drinks, we just had plain water and a cold Moroccan mint tea.

Hot Mezza Platter @ Al Hamra Lebanese Restaurant

The drinks arrived quickly and after a short wait the food and also arrived. The Morrocan Mint tea was tasty, but not quite strong enough and I would have wished for a few more mint leafs in the glass to add a bit more flavor. Al Hamra's signature dishes appear to be the lamb dishes, as they were much more savory, albeit somewhat dry, than the other food items. The Kebab looked very intriguing, in an oven-baked clay dish covered with a layer of thin dough. However, this dish as well did not quite hit the right spot despite it's quite-alright taste.

Kebab Khash Khash @ Al Hamra Holland Village

Pricing was ok and all in all, the meal was quite pleasant, but I will probably not return as there are other Lebanese/ Middle Eastern restaurants in Singapore I would prefer over Al Hamra.

3.5/5 Alien Stars

Read More

Restaurant Review: BBQ Box @ Geylang/ Kalang MRT

Restaurant Review: BBQ Box @ Geylang/ Kalang MRT

103 Geylang Road
Singapore 389212

BBQ Box is a very simplistic, Chinese-style barbeque place located in Geylang, about 3 minutes walk from Kallang MRT on Geylang Road. Looking in from the outside, you might not be too impressed, as the interior is nothing to write home about, especially the tables/benches remind me of old railway cars with wooden seats and dividers.

For a Geylang eatery, BBQ Box is not cheap and you can get lower priced meals around the corner. However, even on a weekday, this place is abuzz with activity and people are often seen queuing outside to get one of the much-coveted tables. So, if the price is just ok, and the ambiance is not great either, the food they serve has to make up for all this, and it does.

The staff, albeit friendly, only has very limited English skills, and sometimes they get one of their colleagues to answer any questions you might have regarding the menu. The order procedure is very simple and straightforward. Once you are seated, you get a sheet of paper with the 50 or so different BBQ food choices they have and you just put down how many of each item you want. The Chinese-style BBQ food is mostly served on long skewers, but other things, such as steamed dumplings, BBQ eggplant (must try!) and the minced meat noodles (delicious!) they offer come on plates or in bowls. If you are not sure what to order or if your mandarin is as bad as mine, you can ask them for a proper menu, where big pictures give you a relatively good idea what the food is/looks like. However, be aware not to order too much, some portions are quite big (such as the dumplings or the noodles) and are very filling, even at a low price, whereas other, pricier items like the roasted quail (also delicious) are not very big. If you are unsure, whether you ordered enough, you can always ask the staff. In the event you still ordered too much, the staff will be happy to doggy-bag your food.

For more adventurous gourmets, BBQ Box also offers some more exotic items (at least for a Western palate) such as Wasabi-Agaric, which has a very strange texture and is color of algae or seaweed, but is actually a fungus. The Wasabi sauce is very nice and hot and will clear any sinus troubles you might have that night. On that note, I should point out that almost all the food at BBQ Box is spicy, as they use a special spice-mixture on the majority of their dishes, if you do not like spicy food, better stick with the noodles, dumplings or some of the veggies.

The drink menu is very limited, but fits nicely with the BBQ food and the beer and wine are ok.Personally, I prefer some water and the fresh Chinese tea they make. For a fully satisfying Chinese-BBQ experience for four people we paid S$100, which is pretty consistent with my other visits at BBQ Box. However, if you drink more alcohol, the price will go up.

Lastly, please note that you cannot make any reservations for a table at BBQ Box, as they treat their customers strictly on a first-come-first-serve basis, and even on a weekday evening the place will be full. However, the restaurant is pretty big and the waiting time is usually short...and totally worth it.

5/5 Alien Stars

Read More

Using the Better Business Bureau to resolve complaints against unauthorized Linked-In credit card charges

Using the Better Business Bureau to resolve complaints against unauthorized Linked-In credit card charges

A few months back, I signed up for a premium account on Linked-In with the intention of using the Premium features for the period of one month. As I wanted to avoid being billed for more than once, I immediately cancelled the Premium feature and the system indicated that the period I would have the added features available was 30 days. As you can see, this is not the first time I subscribe to an online service and I am quite familiar with the (usually) relatively straightforward procedures to cancel such premium features and to avoid further hassle. Linked-In was nice enough to extend this period for another 30 days, for free. So far, so good. However, the bad awakening came a few months down the line, when my accounting department informed me that Linked-In incorrectly charged my credit card 3 more times without my knowledge. I did not receive a billing statement from Linked-In at any time. I logged into my account again, and cancelled the premium subscription for a second time, which was confirmed by Linked-In on the account page, but again no confirmation email.

Immediately thereafter, I contacted Linked-In to inform them of the incorrect credit card charges and to ask them for a refund of all 3 charges. Their customer service team (customerservice@linkedin.com) was very prompt in their reply, but expectedly did not resolve the issue. The following is the reply from Linked-In's customer service:


"I'm sorry for any confusion caused by our renewal process however, our system confirms that no cancellation request was made prior to your last renewal. I’ve transitioned your account back to a Basic (free) account effective immediately and a courtesy refund for 1 month has been issued to your credit card."

What surprised me was that Linked-In had to "transition the account back to a free account" manually, even though I had gone into website myself to cancel the Premium feature for a second time and it had again showed me that the cancellation was successful. I was not at all surprised that they wouldn't give me a full refund.

As I didn't want to bring lawyers into this, and despite the fact that one of my co-works witnessed my first cancellation of the Premium account, I decided to give it a shot and file a complaint against Linked-In with the Better Business Bureau. As Linked-In is headquartered in California, I used the Better Business Bureau in San Jose to file my complaint online.The process is relatively straightforward, just remember that the case notes are publicly accessible, therefore do not include personal information or credit card details in your description of the problem. I also included Linked-In's response to my complaint and as a desired outcome I specified a full refund of the three unauthorized charges to my credit card. I was in good spirits to get some of my money back, however, did not expect Linked-In to give me a full refund.

After filing my complaint with the Better Business Bureau against Linked-In, I received an email from the BBB telling me to wait for 2 weeks while the company was given the opportunity to respond to the Better Business Bureau inquiry. On the very last day of this two week period, Linked-In indeed replied, saying again that they had not received any cancellation and that -out of courtesy- and as I had only used the account minimally after the first two months (naturally, since I had assumed the premium features had expired by then) they would give me an additional refund for one month.

Now, this was still one month short of my original goal of getting a full refund for the unauthorized charged to my card, however, as I had already spent considerable time and effort, I was unwilling to pursue this matter further and therefore told the Better Business Bureau to go ahead and close the case. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened, if I/ the  Better Business Bureau had pursued this further, but I still think a full refund would have been unlikely.

Telling my bank to reverse the unauthorized credit card charges from Linked-In might also have been an option, but I was worried about the company closing my account and me losing access to my extensive network on their platform.

All in all, I'm still not happy with Linked-In's behavior, as both cancellations I made apparently did not go through and were not recorded in their system, only an email achieved that. So, if you're thinking about subscribing/cancelling your Premium account on Linked-In, I would advise you to document this with screenshots or similar measures or to ask a confirmation by email. It puzzles me why a big corporation such as Linked-In appears to be unable/unwilling to send out confirmation emails or billing statements. I leave it to your imagination whether Linked-In acts this way out of negligence or malintent.

A fine thanks goes out to the Better Business Bureau, as they really do serve the customers and help people push through their rightful claims against big corporation who would otherwise just brush you off with a standard email/procedure. 

Read More

Restaurant Review: The Green Bar

Restaurant Review: The Green Bar
9 Raffles Boulevard #01-9B
Millenia Walk, S039596
Tel.: 6336-0780
Opening hours: 11.30am - 8.30pm

Yesterday, I had lunch at The Green Bar in Millenia Walk, Suntec City. As the name indicates, this place is mostly about healthy food and salads, but on weekends they also offer all-day brunches with "less healthy food". My colleagues and I all went for the healthy salad option, with slight variations. Personally, I had a Moroccan Couscous Salad with Tandoori Chicken for SGD 12,40.

The ambience inside the restaurant is quite nice, with soft classical music and a very relaxed interior design, including a wooden tree. The staff is very friendly and helpful (it's a new place so when someone in the kitchen forgot to put cashew nuts in my salad, one of the senior staff came and took the salad back to add the nuts. I wouldn't have known there were supposed to be cashews in there in the first place, so I was pleasantly surprised by that extra bit of service that is sometimes hard to come by here in Singapore).

The Green Bar Millenia Walk Interior Design

The salad I had was served in a wooden bowl and consisted mostly of green mixed mesclun, couscous, raisins chickpeas, olives and the extra Tandoori I had added. The dressing was a very light and fresh yoghurt sauce with a lemon slice for additional freshness. The meal was just the right size and they offered all of us some toasted bread on the side to go with our salads.

Morrocan Couscous Salad

All in all, a very nice experience I would even consider for a casual early dinner. The only 2 minor points of critique I have are that the salads arrived one after the other, not all together, in a span of say 7-10 min and that they close very early (8.30pm).

4/5 Alien Stars

Read More

Negotiation Strategies for SMEs in Singapore

Negotiation Strategies for SMEs in Singapore

As I mentioned previously, the SME I work for is moving offices. In my dealings with other Singaporean contractors and salespeople I had noticed that the usual approach here, in my opinion, is to rip the customer/client off. It might not be as bad in Singapore as it is in China or other parts of Asia, but I have the impression that it is harder to find a trustworthy counterpart than it is in say Europe or the US.

From our dealings with businesses in Singapore, we learned some very valuable lessons that can help you or your SME save a lot of money. If you are an individual person, it might be harder for you to implement some of these things due to the relatively smaller amounts of money involved. In contrast, if you are bigger business, you have more pricing- and negotiation power.

I'm sure the below is applicable in most countries, but I was surprised as to the effectiveness of applying these simple steps when dealing with contractors/suppliers. On various occasions, we managed to cut the original quotes by 20-50%.  

1. Compare, compare, compare!

Singapore has solutions/products for every gusto. Whether you want a high-end solution or a work-around that will tide you over, you find it all. However, it takes a lot of legwork to find the right people for your job. Surprisingly for a high-tech country such as Singapore, a lot of business have very bad websites (some seem to stem from the 90s), if any. Therefore, you might be required to call them or go to their place of business to get a feel of the quality of the services/goods they provide. In general, the salespeople here speak good English, however, over a bad phone connection even simple inquiries quickly become frustrating. Either try by email or in person and be very specific about your requirements and the things you don't want.

2. Never accept the first quote you receive (even if you worked with the company before)

The first quotes we received were all overpriced, both regarding labour/services as well as hardware/materials. Have a look around and see whether you can source the hardware/materials from other suppliers, maybe even from abroad. For electronics, many US stores ship via UPS in 4 business days for a reasonable price. Further, check the quality of the products/services sold to you (e.g. find reviews online), as often what is offered to you is not what you asked for/need). Often you can get a similar product, with better qualities for a cheaper price. Always, always contend the cost charged for services rendered and try to either eliminate these costs completely or at least reduce them substantially. The cost of labor is comparatively cheap in Singapore, don't let them try and tell you otherwise.

3. Use quotes from different contractors/suppliers to push down the price.

Again, this might be obvious, but proves very effective. For instance, we had a supplier for cartridges for our laser toner. We had order with him twice for a good price. When we wanted to order a 3rd time, he replied that the price had gone up 30%! Here is how the email exchange went:

I: This is very unfortunate, a 30% price increase within 6 months is quite steep. I will have to discuss this internally. Is 500 the best price you can give us? 

He: This is the best price we can supply at.

I: Another supplier has quoted us SGD 470. If you cannot match the price I cannot justify this with accounting. Please let me know if you can go 470 or below.

He: I will do a price of $450 for you. Hope this helps. Earliest delivery will be on Wed.

Naturally, we are not talking about large sums here. However, personally I don't like being ripped off, so it becomes a question of principle and ten minutes of research and one other quote saved us 50 bucks. Not so  bad, eh?

If you follow these simple 3 steps when negotiating with a supplier or contractor in Singapore you will save a lot of money. Don't take it personally, it's not like they just try to rip you of all people off. Further, don't be embarrassed about negotiating and slashing their prices left and right, it's part of the game. Lastly, if you find a good contractor or supplier keep them tight and reward them for services provided well. Spreading word of mouth and sending business their way can help you get a better quote from them next time.   

Read More

Choosing a fibre provider in Singapore for a SME

Choosing a fibre provider in Singapore for a SME

Recently, my company decided to move offices and thus we had to find a new broadband provider. Surprisingly, and unbeknownst to many, Singapore has more broadband providers to offer than just Singnet, Starhub and M1net. The country is currently rolling out its Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN), with service providers "starting to offer services and products that can leverage the ultra high speeds delivered over the network." A list of such Next Gen NBN providers can be found here.

My company soon narrowed down this list of providers to 5 we would choose our fibre connection from. The following is based on information I was given in response to inquiries I made to their respective sales teams and are purely based on my personal experiences. I have some experience with IT stuff, but am by no means a professional, so please take all this with a grain of salt and comment on obvious mistakes.

If you choose a fibre provider in Singapore it is good to know that while speeds within Singapore may be multiple times higher, all international lines are limited to 25 Mbps. So, even if you go for a 200 Mbps line, as soon as the information has to travel outside Singapore, the speed will reduce significantly. Therefore, and as most of our business is international and doesn't require huge amounts of data to be shuffled around, we decided to go with a dedicated 20 Mbps fibre line. Further, we have our own server and firewall, thus we required at least one static IP.   

The five companies our SME was considering as a fibre provider were: MyRepublic, OSInet, Singnet, Starhub and Viewquest. Below you can find the pricing/offering for the different SME packages they offer and my comments.

MyRebuplic apparently is a relatively new broadband provider setting out to roll up the Singaporean ISP market I feel. Their SME offer seems to be compelling at a first glance:

A 100 Mbps line for SGD 199/month with a 12 month contract. Additionally SGD 40/month for a static IP, one-time charges of SGD 1080 (One-time service sign-up, activation & equipment installation charge of $492.20 plus Installation of OpenNet Termination Point (TP) for Business premises is $548.91). Included is one router with 4 lines. However, MyRepublic currently has no formal SLA (Service Level Agreement) in place. A sales employee I spoke to talked of 96% up-time guarantee, with 1 -2 recovery days if there is a problem and daily maintenance at 3-4 am in the morning. Apparently, there is no backup. The connection would take 2-3 week to activate once the building is fibre ready. As we are a SME that is doing virtually all business online, an informal 96% up-time guarantee with 1-2 days of recovery time in case of service interruption was not an option for us.

Viewquest has a 20 MB/s dedicated fibre line offering for SMEs for SGD 350/month, 2-year contract and no one-time setup costs. They provide a router for four lines and the repair time would take a maximum of 8 hours if it's a modem issue (customer end)/ 4 hours if it's a network issue, they do have a backup line. The SLAs in place for all providers except MyRepublic are all around 95%.

Singnet's offer for 20 MB/s is priced at SGD 350/month as well, on top there is a one-time fee of SGD 800. Starhub is slightly more expensive at SGD 369/month, but has no set-up fee.

All of the above would have been viable options and the pricing differences are marginal in the longer run. However, the offer that convinced us the most came from OSInet. 
  
OSInet offered 8 IP addresses (by default, you cannot choose just 1 static IP), 24x7 network monitoring and helpdesk support (if there is a problem with the line, they are supposed to detect it first and give you a ring); and an online bandwidth utilization report. Further included is hardware on loan, on-site installation, hardware maintenance, on-site replacement of faulty equipment and up to 4 configuration change requests per month (via remote access). However, the big downside was that their initial offer was ridiculously overpriced, nearing double the price the other providers asked for. After some very hard bargaining with a very nice sales lady, we brought the price down to the level of the other major providers and then went with OSInet.

Apparently, OSInet leases their line from Singnet. Previous to the activation, if your apartment/office does not yet have a Fibre Termination Point, Singnet has to come in to do the installation and get the unit fibre ready, then OSInet will come in and do their respective part of the setup, all-in-all this process takes about 3-4 weeks.

Read More

Kayak Rental at Bedok Reservoir

Kayak Rental at Bedok Reservoir
Bedok Reservoir has a very bad reputation in Singapore due to the amount negative events taking place there. Be it suicides, accidents, violent crimes or "wild dog attacks" Bedok apaprently has got it at. Despite all these horrible things happening there, I went to Bedok for a bit of kayaking and to move my rusty old bones a bit.

The reservoir itself is not exactly tiny, but it's by no means huge. The jogging route around the water measures about 5km in length, to give you an idea. Besides kayaking, you can also spend time in an doing a forest adventure in an aerial garden , which involves exercises and obstacles above ground.

The kayak rental place is located near the car park and you should check with the Water Venture regarding events taking place on the lake that day. We did not check previously and had to learn that we could only go around in a specific area on the water, marked by a buoy, as there was a water-skiing competition of sorts taking place on the opposite site of the river and people from the Water Venture were practising for a youth Olympics. If I remember correctly, we paid SGD 35 or so for a 2 hour rental of two kayaks and a locker to store our belongings while we were out on the water. Apparently, in Singapore you need a license if you want to go in a closed kayak (unlike other countries), my guess is because of the risk of drowning if your kayak flips and you don’t know how to do an ‘Eskimo Roll” to come back up. Anyways, we rented two open kayaks and then had to carry them together with the paddles about 50 meters to the edge of the water. A girl form the Water Venture gave us a 5 minute instruction on how to paddle and where to stay away from. Unfortunately, watering the kayaks is not as easy as it could be. All around Bedok Reservoir there are soft grassy slopes and also some wooden piers, however, at the Water Venture the place to bring the kayaks into the water is a slope of rough, sometimes jagged stones that can be quite treacherous to navigate if you are carrying one end of a kayak. The same holds true for when you try to make your way out, as the stones under water are very slippery with algae.

The kayaking itself was a nice, relaxed experience and there is lots of activity going on in and around the water. However, beware that the sun can be very strong on the water, so best use some sunscreen. We probably didn’t use the full 2 hours, as our range of movement was rather limited due to the aforementioned competitions. If you need to change/shower afterwards, there is a public shower + bathroom near the Water Venture that is reasonably clean and gets fumigated twice daily.

Following the kayaking, we went for the 5km walk around the reservoir to finish at a restaurant near the water, where you can take a drink to cool down or sate your hunger. All in all, a nice way to escape the more hectic sides of Singapore for an afternoon and get some light activity done in a nice, relaxed environment (if you are not scared of ghosts, that is).

Read More

My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore 5

Myth: Singapore is a tropical island, therefore it must have nice beaches.

Truth: The sun is mostly shining in Singapore and the country is very clean and tidy, it is a tropical island, the water is very warm, nevertheless, the sad fact remains that Singapore neither has beautiful beaches nor clear blue waters. One look around the coast line (or even better, down from the viewing platform at the Marina Bay Sands) will show you why that is so: hundreds and hundreds of ships always anchor a short distance off the coast waiting to be (un)loaded at the port. According to this site, "Singapore is the world's busiest port in terms of total shipping tonnage and tranships a fifth of the world's shipping containers and half of the world's annual supply of crude oil." You can imagine what this kind of shipping traffic does to the water quality (if you can't imagine, just think of how nice it would be to have a picnic right next to one of Germany's busiest Autobahns to enjoy the quiet and fresh air).

Unfortunately the same holds true for the surrounding islands of Sentosa, Pulau Ubin, St. John's etc., where the water and beach quality is sometimes even worse than in Singapore itself. Also, don't trust the nice advertisements about a beautiful weekend getaway to Batam, a small Indonesian city across from Singapore. The water and beaches there are in even worse condition and the whole place in general is rather unclean and rundown outside of the malls and hotels they put up, definitely not worth the trip.

If you want nice beaches and clear blue water, you will have to leave the immediate vicinity of Singapore and go to Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand, just to name the closest. Thanks to the well connected Changi Airport, a quick beach-weekend in the region for a reasonably cheap price is always doable.

Read More

Singapore Public Transport and Taxis

Getting around in Singapore in general is relatively easy and straightforward. However, there are certain things you have to beware of when you don't use your own method of transport.

Buses and the MRT are usually pretty packed around rush hour (as is the case in any larger city), so best don't count on the fact that you will be able to get on the next bus or train during such peak times. If you want to know when the next bus is arriving, there are various smartphone apps that are very helpful. There are no timetables posted at the bus stops themselves, only the routes the buses take. You might have to wait around for a while for your bus to show up, and often it's one bus following another with the same number.  For buses you need either an EZ-link card (you can buy it at any MRT station) or coins. For the MRT, you need to buy an EZ-link card. During raining season (November-February) the ground around some bus shelters (or sidewalks in general for that matter) can get flooded you might get your feet wet waiting for your bus to arrive.

Taxis: Cabs are another comparatively cheap and convenient way to get around in Singapore. However, there are again some things you need to watch out for. During peak hours, it might be hard for you to flag down a cab at the roadside, so you might be better off booking one for a fee of c. SGD 3.50, either through an app, by calling, or by sending a text message. Every building in Singapore has it's own postal code, so to order a taxi from "Comfort", the biggest taxi company here, all you need to do is send a text message to 71222 saying "Book XXXXX", where the XXXXX is the ZIP code of the building you are at. As soon as a taxi driver accepts your booking, you will receive a text message with the license plate and the estimated time of arrival, which tends to be on the higher side. If you want to cancel your booking, all you have to do is send "Cancel" to the same number. All very straightforward and convenient and no need for you to stay on the phone waiting to be connected to an operator.

Singapore has a lot of taxis, and if you ask 10 different taxi drivers how many taxis there are, you will get 12 different answers. My own personal survey has led me to believe it's around 25,000. Either way, there are always cabbies who haven't been driving for very long, and even though Singapore is a not a huge Metropolis, a surprising amount of taxi drivers simply don't know the place you want to go. This occasionally holds true even for bigger, more touristy places, but particularly so for residential addresses or restaurants. Again, there are smartphone apps you can use to direct your driver if you don't know the way, or simply use a printout so show him the location. If you don't know the way, and he doesn't know the way to your destination, getting out of the cab and picking the next one might save you quite a bit of hassle, time and money.

The large majority of cab drivers speaks good English and are friendly and straight with you. If you feel unsure, just ask them for a receipt when you get in the cab. Overtouting is illegal in Singapore, and they will usually only take you the long route if they don't know another. Sometimes, they ask you "by which way you wanna go" inquiring about your preferences as to the route they are supposed to take.

The cost for all taxis, including the white Mercedes, is roughly the same, except for one big exception: black Chrysler taxis. These are 'luxury cabs" and will charge you roughly twice the regular price, which can get particularly expensive on a long ride, say from the airport.

Read More

My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore 4

Myth: An Australian high-tech company has invented a spanking machine for the Singaporean government.
I've been told this myth by an expat who had been living in Singapore for quite a while. Sounds incredulous, I know, but if you've been here for a while it doesn't sound so very unbelievable anymore.

Truth:  Just because there is no spanking machine, doesn't mean there is no corporal punishment. Caning forms part of the local culture and starts, naturally with different degrees of severity, for kids at home (not in every family), continues at school, and if you're unlucky/dumb enough to spray graffiti on a local train and get caught, you get caned as an adult (amongst other things). There is a wide range of offenses that are punishable by caning, so better tread carefully and don't go around and give the local coppers wedgies. Lastly, at least some Singaporean kids seem to be disappointed and wish to remedy the fact that no caning/spanking machine is used here.

Read More

My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore 3

Myth: Singaporeans love garlic.

Well I don't know if this holds true for every single inhabitant of Singapore, but the

Truth: is that I've never, ever seen so many garlic-themed restaurants and eating places as in Singapore. At least these eateries advertise with their main ingredient. Unfortunately, many, many other restaurants (mainly those with a "Western" theme, such as pasta places) unexpectedly just put unbelievable quantities of the white gold into your food. It is not unusual to find whole cloves of garlic in your pasta or goulash soup, and they aren't even particularly secretive about it, not dicing the garlic into small pieces but cutting the cloves into slices as big as my fingernail. The upside is that you can pick them out, the downside is that by the time you're done, your pasta will be cold. Even if you like garlic, it might be a good idea to think of your fellow man (or woman) when deciding to eat heaps of garlic in a climate as hot and humid as Singapore. My colleagues and I have just gone over to order our pasta with "no garlic" at the restaurants we know use this ingredient excessively.

Read More

My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore 2

Truth: You can't buy chewing-gum in stores.
In general, stores in Singapore do not sell bubblegum. They do, however, offer a range of alternatives like Fisherman'sFriend, breath mints and other mouth-refreshing candy. Pharmacies are also allowed to sell "medical chewing gum" for "therapeutic" reasons, I never actually inquired about that, but if you can't live without chewing-gum then this might be worth a shot for you. However, be aware that you must produce some form ID for that and the pharmacy is obliged to forward your credentials to the government.

The original reason given for the ban of chewing gum that was enacted in 1992 and revised in 2004 were a) public hygiene and b) some people used to stick chewed gum into the door sensors of the public Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) trains to prevent them from closing, causing significant delays and cleaning costs. personally, I like chewing gum, but it is nice not to have to gum stick to your shoes or find it on the underside of table or chair that you touch.

Myth: People in Singapore don't chew gum.
Just because you can't buy it here (except for the medical kind) or import it (even for personal reasons/in small quantities), doesn't mean people strictly obey this law. Apparently, local law enforcement is turning a blind eye to this, as I regularly see people chew gum in public and hearsay propagates that bringing 1-2 packs of gum here will not get you in trouble.

Read More

My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore

For starters, I'd like to clarify some right/wrong preconceptions I had before actually setting foot in Singapore. Maybe I'm the only one who had those, I picked them up from friends, family and the internet. However, I believe we all have our preconceptions about places we have yet to visit and some of the below might come in handy when you're thinking of moving to the other side of the world. A lot of the below is local hearsay and anecdotal evidence, if anyone has made different experiences, please comment.

My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore

Truth: Singapore is a fine city.
As you've probably read in other places, there are heavy fines for most things illegal in this country. This starts as "low" as a few hundred bucks for eating/drinking in the local buses/trains/stations to the death penalty for drug trafficking. Just recently, a local art student was arrested for vandalism because she did some street art on lamp posts and roads and she is facing a 2K fine up to 3 years in prison + caning. Singapore laws are strict and you better not mess with the local authorities. 

Myth: The strict laws in Singapore impact your quality of life.
Notwithstanding draconian fines/sentences for what might appear small offenses, your quality of life most likely will not be affected by this (well if you are indeed a drug lord and your wife urges you to move to Singapore, you might disagree). If you don't want to meddle with local customs/politics and if your rep sheet is blank so far, there is nothing you have to fear. In contrary, some things I read before coming here are simply not true. For example, tons of people cross the roads in all parts of town, without using a pedestrian crossing or traffic light. This holds true for small side streets as much as for 6 lanes streets with heavy traffic and I've never heard or read of anyone being fined for this.

The upside of this system of heavy fines and draconian sentences is that Singapore is one of the safest city's in the world. You never have to worry about which part of town you're in at night, whether it is safe or not not as a woman to walk home alone or whether as guy you might run into trouble visiting the local clubs and watering holes. Of course, as the local slogan goes, "low crime doesn't mean no crime", but if you display some common sense you'll be perfectly fine here. Another positive (at least most times) is that the city is squeaky clean in it's most touristy parts. There is no bubble gum on the sidewalk, no trash in the streets and no graffiti, which does improve quality of life imho. And if you want to see a less sterile and more vibrant side of Singapore, all you need to do is go to neighborhoods like Geylang or Katong.   

Read More

There are times in our lives when we are granted the possibility to choose from different paths for our future and to take destiny into our own hand. A call from your boss or a conversation with your life-partner asking you to leave everything behind to move to Singapore to work or study most certainly is one such opportunity.

Now, you might have heard about Singapore before, you might even know where exactly is located, its role in the world economy and general life in this city. However, if you are like me, mostly likely you had to google to find out about either of  these things and I reckon this is how you stumbled onto my blog. I had a rough idea about where Singapore is, and what its economy is about, but no clue about life there or in the region. You can get the hard facts from Wikipedia and other such sites, and I found some info from expat forums, however, I'd like to give people living in Singapore, or who wish to live or travel here, my personal impressions of this city and its inhabitants.

Read More