i came tim palace few weeks back with my sis & b-i-l on 24.11.2015.

some RI friends wanted to try after reading that post. happens that a close RI friend was visiting from cupertino USA (same friend so was at my house yesterday for a homecooked pasta + steak lunch & we had a cuppa at ducth colony pasarbella afterwards).

so he arranged a 10pax lunch at tim palace today on 16.12.2015. ^^

the restaurant was more taken up than the last time i was here.

we started with the cold station. din take any photos this time –

today the salmon sashimi was bad, wrong colour & almost “sweating”. i took 1 piece & stopped.

din take the cold flower crab also since last time did not look or taste good. but it looked a bit better maybe it was ok this time.

the prawn & sotong salad & the pickledd scallops tips was still ok. & the poached prawn was good too.

the roast station though was quite ridiculous –

we had 10pax so i thought it would make sense if they give us liek 1 whole roast duck (or maybe start with 1/2).

instead we got a plate good for 2pax!! yes 2pax!! you just have to look at my photos last visit to see what we got for 3pax! so being not so silent & compliant type singaporeans, we told the manager & was served another 2 plates (top photo).

so some points to observe here –

service was “good” kind of pleasant if untrained, so if you tell them nicely (no need to be rude) you should get what you want la…

in my view this kind of eats, best to come say 4-6pax. if you look at my last visit photos, we had much more decent cuts (drumstick aside)…this time, the roast station chef was rationing & we had very thin cuts of duck & chicken replete with lots of bones.

sharks fin was ok.

mainly because the stock was tasty & so the dish overall was pretty good.

drunken prawns like last time, was good.

prawns were very fresh, bouncy, good just like the poached prawns at the cold station.

& the herbal soup was good too. our lady friend was happy to take the remaining soup when the server wanted to remove.

the abalone & broccoli dish was very competent.

but this kind of place you really have to count your abalone! there were 9 for 10pax. i guess there were a few broccoli to replace the abalone.

so just tell the server & manager, & you get your abalone, no worries la! 🙂

they served us 2 deep-fried flower garoupa. i din order this last time because some reviewers said it was dry. actually it was pretty ok for this dish.

the steamed seabass with sambal sauce was good, like last time. ^^

very nice sauce & dish done well.

the sea cucumber with yam was a repeat of the cold station. we were served the plate above for 10pax. it was good for 3pax maybe 4pax.

& after telling the manager & asking for a serving for 5pax, we got the above. the 5pax serving was more than 2x the 10pax serving.

moral of the story – anything don’t make sense, tell them (nicely!)

there was a last order (i think 2pm). i ordered the prawns since the other 2 prawn dishes were good.

& just as well. this was good too.

the xo scallop dish was competent.

small scallops, quite nicely done.

& we ordered the lala.

lala was fresh but it was overdone. this dish below par.

one friend said my manila clams was so much better.

haha! manila clams more ex leh, but also not really la ‘cos they are a lot lighter in weight so overall price for quantity i find quite ok la…

the cereal crayfish this time was quite fresh so pretty ok.

honey ribs non-descript.

not badly done, just very ordinary zi char standard.

spicy steamed chicken feet was ok but not the good dimsum restaurant standard, both the sauce & the texture of the deep-fried chicken feet.

2-egg spinach was competent.

not the standard of uncle leong though.

sambal kang kong was good if ordinary.

dessert station quite average. i had both the sea coconut & the lotus seed red beans, quite ok both.

we had a great time, lot of laughter & fun.

food was pretty good re the price = it was S$20.90pax after S$5 SC (senior citizen 55yrs) discounts. there is an additional S$2 for the tea+peanuts (you get charged anyway whethe you take or not).

here is what i meant by service being pleasant if untrained.

we asked for 2 pots of different tea. they said cannot & they will charge. we told them we had 10pax so 5pax take 1 tea & 5pax take another tea, why cannot leh?

after talking to manager we got 2 pots – pu er & jamine..of course they can actually refuse, but they let us have 2 pots. in my opinion the best trained service is one where you know something does not really matter, & the customers are not asking something unreasonable, and you can be flexible & give it to them to promote goodwill.

c.h.e.f andy