农耕记湖南土菜 Nong Geng Ji @ VivoCity — Restaurant in Singapore

Wow, expect to queue 🅿️ for this restaurant if you get there at the peak makan times 🕕. I have never been to China 🇨🇳 Hunan so I really can’t say that “This compared to that….…” But here’s my honest review from a hungry jack! Lol 😜

Restaurant : We chance upon this at Vivo and we didn’t plan on eating here ahead of time. So, “Queue up we must”…. And that took about 20mins during dinner time @ 7pm for a table of 4 pax. Restaurant design is clearly influenced by China Chinese decorations and it’s beautifully done up. High ceiling, bright 💡, airy 💨 and no lingering smell 👃🏻. The pictures 🏞️🗾🌄 on the walls are of their recommended dishes and while walking in, by the time I sat down, I kinda already knew what I wanted to order. All the signatures dishes are up and superimposed in size. 🔍#hungrysiah

Staff : Friendly, polite and fast on service. 💁‍♀️💁‍♂️ You are seated, scan the QR Code 🧾, place the order and the drinks 🥤and dine wears 🥢🍴🍽️ just appear! #magicspeed

Food : Impressive! You will think you are being transported back to China 🇨🇳! I mean I ate at a lot of Chinese restaurants but this restaurant's quality of food 🥘🍲🍜 and Wok Hey is really impressive! Food is super fragrant, tasty, not overly salty🧂and the ingredients 🐟🍤🫑🥬 used are super fresh. I will highly recommend the following if you just want to be on the safe side and worry about the rest of the unique dishes. Go for : Stir Fried Beef 🐮 In Dried Chili 🌶️, Bake Shrimp 🍤 with Vermicelli & Garlic 🧄, Stir Fried Pork 🐷 with Abalone 🦪 & Chilli 🌶️, Sauerkraut Spicy and Soup Fish 🐟, You-Mai Lettice 🥬 with Black Beans and lastly…. The Signature Lemon Tea (1L) 🥤🥤🥤🥤 They are all very, very good, just whack!

This is a must-return-to-eat-again-restaurant, which I intend to do so soon. Overall, I’m impressed by the restaurant 👍, service and quality of food. You should also visit this with confidence despite some not so ideal reviews previously. I didn’t experience any negative vibes and we had an awesome evening....

Went there on the second day where there was a 50% promo. We managed to get a queue number and was told number will be called at 5.08pm, but was not advised if we can come back later to wait since our number is at the back, there was no system which allowed us to know what the current number is at at the moment, we can only just hang around outside the shop. We tried scanning the qr code on the queue number paper,as it says scan to avoid missing the number but it was not working, and was told it is because it is a qr code for china??? But hello we are in SG?

Food overall was ok, although slightly oily, but flavours are good. But there were a few things that were rather disappointed. When we went in, a few of the dishes that we wanted were sold out. One thing to mention is the rice w sweet potato and red dates, it is a dish served in rice cooker and also a dish highly recommended. But the rice was sold out, but upon further asking, we realized the whole shop only had 8 rice cooker, that's why it was sold out. But we couldn't understand, 100+ queue number was given out, the whole shop that was so big, but they only prepared 8 rice cooker? The staff mentioned we can order if we are willing to wait for 20mins, as the rice needs to cook for 20mins, but right after placing the order, we were served the rice almost immediately??

Just probably won't go...

I decided to give this a try as I really like Xiangxiang, another Hunan restaurant. Turns out there’s a reason why the other restaurant is doing so well, and this isn’t. First and foremost, the staff are overwhelmed. They looked unhappy, and they just threw one menu on a table and waited for us to ask for more (we are a party of 6). Then we ordered the food, and we were about 4 dishes in, and the rice still haven’t arrive. You know how the food is kinda salty and best to go with rice? Yup, we finished half our dishes without rice. And when we asked for the manager, the lady said find the one in black. They are all dressed in black. When I asked for my rice in a bucket, they gave us wet rice that wasn’t cooked.

I really want to say that I understand that the rice bucket needs time to be served and cooked. Then, don’t serve your dishes first if you clearly can’t prepare the rice. Two, don’t serve the dish if you can’t prepare the rice. Three, suggest alternative such as the normal rice (which we didn’t even know exist) and don’t wait until your customers question you.

Basically. Food is passe, Xiangxiang is better, service is lowest tier, ambience is extremely low class get go compared to Xiangxiang’s modernise feel….. please give this a skip. Terrible restaurant. I think they probably brought all...