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

   

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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

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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

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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. 

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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

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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.   

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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.

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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).

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