Taiwan is a perennial favorite destination of Singaporeans and Taiwanese cuisine is in every nook and cranny of the local food scene. From bubble tea to extra large fried chickens, it has entrenched itself in our palates. Eat at Taipei opened its doors for some time and we checked it out to see if it lives up with its other Taiwanese counterparts.
I have walked past the restaurant at the basement of Tampines Mall and have never seen queues or the restaurant being full. Located beside the ever popular Putien, one might think it might benefit from the overflowing crowd that might just give up queuing and try out this restaurant. Sadly this is not the case and we found out why.
The restaurant has a very casual setting and is family oriented.
We each ordered mains and 2 sides to share. The first dish that came was the deep fried squid. For such a dish, one will take caution chucking pieces into your mouth as it will be piping hot. We did not had such trouble as the dish arrived lukewarm and appeared to be reheated using a microwave. The batter was lifeless and the squid tasteless. The sad sprinkle of spicy chilli powder did not make any wonders to the dish. Very disappointing.
Our next side was the oyster omelette. This too appear lukewarm and seems to be reheated before serving. Thankfully the oysters were still consumable but it does not land itself in the being fresh category. The gooey state of the flour make the dish quite disgusting.
Our mains failed in their jobs to light up the evening. My seafood baked rice look quite nice with melted cheese layered over a bed of seafood and fried rice. It seems to be prepared over stale fried rice that was bland, It seems that the chef is not at all interested in his job at all.
The missus prawn hor fun did not fare any better. We choose this over the seafood version which came at a slight premium. The consolation was that there were plenty of prawns in the dish. The sad part was that the zhi char stall at the neighbourhood coffee shop can make nicer hor fun.
Thankfully we had the Entertainer app to soften the blow of our very unhappy meal. It is one of the very rare occasion i choose to leave at least half of the meal untouched as it was so terrible. We quickly escape our misery and got KOI bubble tea to cleanse our palate and wash down the misery of a meal. I can now understand why business have not been upbeat and if significant changes are not made, I expect to see a new restaurant at the space.
Damage: $36.13 with entertainer 1 for 1
Food: 1/10
Service: 7/10
