Rachel and I chanced upon this candy kiosk at VivoCity, located just outside the entrance of the Golden Village cinema on level 2. We were attracted by the colourful candies and decided to order one to try.
The kiosk at VivoCityPrices
Softie in My Lollypeddles licorice candy with fondant filling inside. They have a wide assortment of flavours. Rachel and I opted for the Sour Cola flavour:
Sour Cola
The candy comes in a long form and the sales assistant will offer to cut it up for you if you find it too messy to eat.
It’s pretty delicious, but the price is not cheap though – at around S$3.50 a piece. After visiting their website, I found out that you can order their candies online too, but collection is at the same VivoCity kiosk.
Rachel and I have tried the Kim Gary at VivoCity and found it pretty average. When we passed by the Tampines 1 outlet, we couldn’t resist the colourful menu and decided to give it a try again. Given that they have such a wide variety of food, we may chance on something better this time round.
They were having a tea-time promo when we stepped in. Strangely, for some of the items we wanted to order, it actually cost more to order them a-la-carte than to go with their tea-time set meal that comes with a drink.
That’s how we ended with with four food items and four drinks.
Four cups of beverages for two person!
As per the experience we had with their VivoCity branch, the price is great, but the food is pretty average.
Couldn’t complain much about the pineapple hotdog and the two soup noodle dishes as they are really simple to cook and you can’t really go horribly wrong with them.
The beef burger was really bad though. The beef was as tough as leather and we had problem chewing through it.
Super tough Hong Kong styled beef burgerBeef soup noodleMini hotdogs with pineapple and cornsInstant noodle with luncheon meat
We enjoyed the drinks, but four cups of tea between two person is really too much. We both suffered from caffeine overdose after the meal and were feeling giddy for a while.
Rachel sipping her hot yuan yuang tea
The conclusion we came to is that Kim Gary is a restaurant that’s good for social gatherings where the extensive menu should be able to cater to everyone’s taste bud, without hurting the pocket too much. It’s not the place to go to for a quality meal.
We were really famished then, and anything should have tasted twice as good, but I found my fish and chips really ordinary – just like those you can get at the ubiquitous western food stall found in most hawker centres.
We chose to dine there because there were long queues outside most of the other restaurants at VivoCity. We should really have followed the crowd.
My hawker centre fish and chipsHan Joo's seafood pasta (I don't remember her praising the mussels...)
Then again, given the name of the restaurant, their specialty should be mussels I guess? I do not eat mussels, cockles or most kinds of shellfish due to a bad childhood experience with them, leaving a horrid aftertaste that lasted for more than two decades. Henceforth, it’s not really fair to the restaurant. Someone who tried their mussels can give a fairer review. Feel free to pop a reply in my comment box. 🙂
My colleague, Han Joo told me this Hong Kong-styled cafe-restaurant has rather good food. Hence Rachel and I went to try it last weekend. The restaurant appointed Hong Kong TV star, Wong Chung Chak/ Bosco Wong (黃宗澤) as their brand ambassador. They sure made full use of their contract with him – you see the dude’s face plastered over everything from their menu to the store front posters.
We quite like the restaurant’s decor and the extensive menu. The price is also quite reasonable. Food and service are average. We both ordered baked rice – a decision which we regretted as it gets really sickening when you eats too much of something that taste quite the same. Next time, we will order a rice and a noodle so we can switch around.
We enjoyed the soup and the drink. However, their specialty fries was disappointing. The different seasonings were funky, but maybe they can consider serving fries with ridges or wedges that can better capture the flavouring instead of the plain old McDonald’s fries.
It’s likely that we will visit the restaurant again as we only tried a small fraction of their menu. 🙂
Inside the restaurantThe restaurant is quite packed and there's a substantial queue just to get inYou order by filling up various sheets of paper - novel yes; environment friendly noSpoilt for choice by the extensive menu which listed over hundreds of itemsSoup is served in a mugFries with "special sauce" - this is a disappointment, it's just normal McDonald's fries with some funky seasoningMy cheese baked rice, steamed with lotus leavesRachel's twin baked rice of two different saucesEnjoying a glass of Almond Milk TeaRachel tucking into her baked rice
I attended the final last Friday at VivoCity. I was quite surprised to see supporters turning up with home-made placards and posters to rally for some of the contestants. It felt as if there was a mini-concert going on.
Overall, I think the event was pretty successful with a healthy turnout of the right office crowd. There was no swimsuit round as per most conventional beauty pageants and contestants need not answer fake “world peace” kind of questions.
The ladies doing their catwalkThe guys' turn
Instead, the whole event was like a mega job interview for a bunch of highly confident, well-educated and articulate individuals, vying for the top positions.
The eventual three top winners were all females… what happens to the guys!
Anyway, the winners are overall winner Evelyn Pang, 27, a scientific-affairs associate; first runner-up Meryl Koh, 25, a lawyer; and second runner-up Cai Suqi, 25, a senior marketing executive.
A L V I N O L O G Y 