To continue from the last update....So Rae, the marcom manager from Antoinette extended an invite for a complimentary meal to compensate for my last unpleasant experience. Let bygones be bygones. Since Antoinette, represented by Rae, has expressed his/their sincere apologies, I will not mention this incident again. This will just be a usual and as always, 100% honest review from me. Rae suggested this outlet at Palais Renaissance so we followed.
It was decorated beautifully, adorned with classy ceilings and walls, chandeliers with splendor, opulent furnitures. Indoors were perfectly quiet so it was the perfect ambiance to b*tch. It wasnt dim but was hardly bright. Therefore all pictures were dark, grainy or blur and casted with an ugly orange hue. Regretted not taking pictures with flash for I hate grainy/blur pictures. I spent quite some time editing the above pic to be true to real life, despite so, it's still grainy. Arrgggghhh! Time to ditch my 3 year old Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5.
The macro shots in fact turned out okay. Ironically, the food looked better in pictures than tasted in reality. Actually we love breakfast food like Eggs Benedicts. But my last gruesome experience really freaked all of us out so much so we shunned from ordering them.
If you know me, you know I love foie gras. The pan fried foie gras(top right), labelled as a starter shocked me with it's...look. It's the first time I see a foie gras which look so much like fried luncheon meat. HAHA. This is not a compliment. (=.=)''''' Unappetizing. It looked as though sometime used paper to blot out the oil of the foie gras. And it looks as appetizing as some bbq chicken wings with oil sucked right out with paper before serving it to you.
Healthier. But sad lor. Thanks for looking out for my cholesterol level. How did the guys at Antoinette know my cholesterol level was lingering near the limits? :P But...*shaking head*.....as a customer wise, I'm very sad when my foie gras look like that. It tasted better than fried luncheon meat though.
Crabmeat pasta. Middle pic. Again. I really wonder did the chef had a bad day? Why all the dishes were so poorly presented? Too oily. Saw the excessive amount of oil on the plate? To be frank, despite it's a complimentary meal for compensation, we girls, or rather, Lin and me were very careful in ordering. We wanted to make sure we can finish the food we order and even when the dishes werent nice, we tried to finish it because we didnt want to waste food even though we need not pay for them. We were very grateful for food or just anything on our plates. But really, the crab pasta wont do. It was so oily that both Lin and me felt kinda unwell taking it. And it's our regret we left half of it.
Ordered mushroom soup to share. It was not bad though I still prefer BakerzIn's wild mushroom soup.
The crepes. Lin's order. My nice girl tried so hard to finish it despite it's not nice. The bananas were overcooked, burnt actually and the meringue werent freshly made and tasted stale; sticked to the teeth(just like the ones Jes ordered too, top left pic). Lin, who isnt one to be picky with food like me, said this dessert was really pretty bad. Jes and me actually forbid her to finish it; because she didnt want to waste food despite it's kinda sucky.
Amongst all these cakes, only the Strawberry Shortcake and Antoinette Cake(top left) were nice. I'm actually quite astounded that they served a crazily skewed Strawberry Shortcake which was teetering on collapsing, to me. I've never seen such a poorly presented cake before in my ENTIRE LIFE; it was leaning so conspicuously that it's a rarer sight to behold than the leaning tower of Pisa. Maybe the straw berry was too heavy? HAHAHA. It's a joke. The presentation aside, the cake was wonderfully light and fluffy with a refreshing fragrance of strawberries. I like the cream too. I'm not into fresh strawberries too so I didnt eat them(haha) but Jes who took a bite of the strawberry had her face shrivelled into a prune; it was that sour. Lol.
The Antoinette cake didnt have a full and robust bubble of it's raspberry coulis like the one RERG had. I poked the stupid bubble for half a day and only half a teaspoon of sauce came out. ZzzZzz. But the cake was not bad, to me, because it wasnt too sweet. However, despite sharing with Jes, we only managed to finish half.......somehow we just got sick of the taste midway. But I do admit, I'm not one with a sweet tooth. Jes dont like it's middle because it was bitter.
Oh to be fair, I didnt try the cake on the middle right so I cant comment whether it's nice or not. Jes and Lin finished it so I assumed it's nice. However, the top right cake(I called it the polka-dot cake) was a nightmare to me. I really cant take the taste and I puked the cake right out because I was unable to stomach it. It's a-u-t-o-m-a-t-i-c(Kelly Chen's song. Hee). Jes's reaction was less violent but she maybe took 1 or 2 bites? Ha. Lin was the only 1 who liked the cake. The bottom right cake was dry and tasted stale. Not worth me checking out their names.
Chef, did you reallllllyyyyyy had such a bad day??? That you actually served meringue to us like this~ Is it even so much hard work to present the meringue on it's right side.......
We had 5 pots of different teas from 2.30pm to 7.30pm. But since none of which impressed us and to stop the bill from growing, we requested them to refill with hot water instead just to keep our throat moist with our endless chatter.
I'm neither pleased nor unhappy with the service. We're completely alone indoors and maybe they're giving us the privacy so there's no service staff indoors. For the first few times, we politely stepped out to order our stuff and such but as the hours advanced, we simply shouted out. Sorry, we just want to continue our b*tching convo and dont wish to stop halfway again and again. Service was sub-standard too. From the moment we stepped into the restaurant, all the staff send me odd looks, much to my uneasiness. And Edwin, the manager who was supposedly in charged to host me seemed to only extend his excellent service to me and me only. I was quite shocked that he inquired whether to serve me iced or warm water but promptly took his leave with my answer and totally disregarding Lin's preference. He assumed Lin wanted iced water as well.
This is just blatant proof that Antoinette simply wished to let the garbage fly in food incident die down with my acceptance but showing no sincerity whether in terms of service(to my friends) or presentation and quality of it's food and desserts. I can understand if a chef has a bad day and cooks less-than-excellent food but I cant accept a chef who presents his dishes in a shabby way(pasta and meringue) as if he's feeding his dog nor a manager who serves me a cake(the Strawberry Shortcake) which is crazily tilted at a 45degrees angle, as if it's collapsing anytime. I also cant accept a manager who gives me good service just because they wanna save their reputation but choose to give inconsistent service to my friends, whom he thinks doesnt matter.
Very disappointing. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just suay. But twice, is really enough. I should thank god there's no cockroach or flies this time round. Amen. Weirdly, I got nauseous that night again. I simply dont know why. Maybe I shouldnt have went back at all. I should have extended this invite to anyone else other than me and my friends. Perhaps they will have a better experience?
Well, I feel Antoinette is being reasonable about all this but I do not think I should feel hopelessly grateful nor feel embarrassed on accepting the meal; like how some people may feel. I dont feel superior nor happy just because we got a complimentary meal; I dont believe one should go for the throat just because someone else genuinely made a mistake(in serving that fly). HOWEVER, I was pissed because the staff and especially the manager Zul wasnt emphatic and sincere in his attitude and apology for my situation. You understand where I'm getting? Like I said in my email reply, IF ONLY he and his staff had been emphatic about the whole situation, frankly speaking, I will just count myself unlucky and let it all pass, despite all the diarrhoea and nausea stuff. It's precisely because my friends and I were all treated poorly, coupled with my discomfort after the incident, that Lin felt righteous about it and thus commented on their facebook; which lead us here.
I'm so grateful for such a friend who stand up for me. Very very grateful. Smuacks!!!
Excellent food are of course a must in our criteria. But if the food is not even nice and the management is unprofessional with poor attitude, I dont see why should we patronize them again. Antoinette wont just collapse with just 1 review of mine. Similarly, I wont die because I wont get to taste their food/cakes again. We simply wont cross road again.
By the way, I gotten myself a new camera!!
SONY DSC-HX10V in white
No more blurry and grainy pictures in dim lightings or at night!!
Will do a review soon! This camera is pretty awesome!!
Any decent camera can take wonderful pictures in the day,
but the real test comes during the night!
(P/S Antoinette compensated me for my medical bills and transportation with a cheque of S$64.80)
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