New Wheels pt 2 & Really High, High Tea

New Wheels Pt 2 Today decided to take the wife out to visit the showrooms and have a look at the cars available, hopefully would be able to decide on which car model to get. Yesterday was a guys day out and we hit a friend's parallel import business to get a look at the cars on offer. Figured might even get a test drive if time permitted. But the showrooms were really crowded. We went to the Leng Kee/Alexandra area of showrooms. Visited a few the first stop was at the Toyota (Borneo Motors) showrooms. I have to say one thing about the Toyota showroom, once you enter you are greeted by a sales rep who ask if you had an appointment, as I did not she gave me their price list and allowed me to go on my way to look at the cars on display, no pesky hounding sales person following you around which was good. Toyota was the only one who actually upfront gave me a price list once I step in. We had a look around and saw the Fortuner a 2.7 L, 7 seater. A nice car but rather big. Was looking around for a RAV4 but there was none, so I stopped a sales lady and asked if they had RAV4's on display, she said they do but only 1 model which was parked outside (their test drive model I believe) asked if I could have a look at it and she said sure but she will get a sale person to attend to me as they have a rotation policy and it's not her turn it seems. Ok so no queue cutting for their sales rep. Soon a Sales Engineer, Karin came over and brought me out to the RAV4 (see below left) to have a look, they had the 2.4 L Standard model on display, she did a good job I felt of explaining the workings of the car and all my queries. Finally gave me a brochure and a price list as as well. Next stop was the Lexus showroom just beside it, ah this was the only showroom which was pratically empty. We were looking at the RX 400h when Lionel came up and assisted us. Now Lionel was a Sale Consultant and a very pleasant fellow. Well the 400h was a hydrid car so I asked about the RX 350 (see below right) which I was told came in the standard, luxuy and super luxury versions. It's a 4 seater 3.5 L car. I was thinking to myself holy shit man, wonder what the bloody road tax is like, probably switch on the engine and $5 of petrol will be used up !! Anyways made some small talk and got the brochure and contact numbers and we left. So we drove round to the front and next stop was the Mitsubishi showroom. Too little visitor parking, carparking was horrible no clear signs to get to the showroom, bad car park design but still crowded. The vehicle we were looking at was the Outlander (see below left), a 2.4 L 5 seater with the ability to convert to a 7-seater as the rear boot area had 2 hidden seats which can be pulled up to add more sitting room, a rather interesting feature. Alice their Sales Representative came over to assist us as we were looking at the car. She did not really get into too many details of the car, things like how many airbags were there and she had to check for me. The funny thing about this car was that the rear boot area is open and I did not see anything that allowed it to be covered so anyone can peep inside ? Alice did not mention anything about coverings as well. Seems can't put valuables in the back area ? Rather strange.

Final Stop was at the Honda showroom, to see the CR-V which comes in the 2.0 L and 2.4 L versions. The bigger one with souped up accessories like sun roof, side and curtain airbags, power seats etc. One of their Sale Executives, Cheryl, came over to assist us as we were looking at the car. She did the typical sales pitch but basically let us look at the car by ourselves.

Well overall it seems to me that the design of the CR-V is very much like the RX350, it even had individual arm rest for driver and passenger. While the Outlander and RAV4 seem similar. Probably will decide on 1 or 2 and go get a test drive before the final decision is made. So as we were leaving the showrooms for our high tea appointment, the wife says to me, wah how come all the pretty sales girls come to you ah ! And my reply to that was - well Lionel the Lexus Man was a hunky dory guy too wasn't he ? :-) Really High, High Tea

After all that walking around viewing cars has made us hungry and we had a Buffet High Tea appointment at the Equinox. Having high tea on the 70th floor of the Stamford Hotel is really something. An excellent view of the city and also the upcoming IR, we were higher than the Singapore Eye. We got a relatively good table at least it was a window seat.

The food was good, the spread was ok, service I guess resonable but some things could be improved. I took some porridge and as there was no pepper on the table I asked one of the waiters if I could get some pepper and off he goes and returns with this huge pepper shaker. I think I had stood up to take some pictures while waiting for him to return and I was not sure if he was suppose to do it for me or not, in the end as no one seems to be around I self-service myself with the pepper.

Porridge and the Pepper Shaker :-)

The 2 of my favourite dishes are the Prawn Mee soup, they let you make it yourself and since I was not a big fan of those yellow noodles, I could add as little as I like ha ha ... but the soup was really good, enjoyed the soup very much.

Prawn Mee

The other notable dish was this Peking Duck roll and they used the duck flesh not the skin. What is remarkable about this is that I am NOT a duck person I really hate duck, I'm a chicken lover, KFC is great KFD is someting I can do without. But I tried it (thinking there was duck skin inside) and it was actually lovely. Very well done. So I had 4 more below.

Peking Duck Roll

Finally it was dessert and as you can see below they had a really creative dessert menu, besides the normal fresh fruits, ice cream and fondu.

Ok now comes my grip with the whole restaurant. Look at the dessert in the above picture, what's missing ...... can you tell ..... NO DESSERT SPOON !! I asked the staff and they said they will get it, it came later. I really expected better from a restaurant of the Equinox caliber. There was absolutely no dessert spoon at the dessert area, some shortage of plates as well when I was there, probably the lift takes too long to get from the 1st level to the 70th floor to bring up the cutlery. Not only that, there was Chawamushi (that Japanese steam egg thingy) and again there was no spoon beside the cups !! So how was anyone suppose to eat it ? Suck it out of the cup ? I looked around no spoons and as there was no spoon on the table as well I just used my coffee spoon as I did not bother to ask from a waiter. At the Sushi bar (and I really like Sushi) the Wasabi and Ginger again did not have a spoon/spreader for the wasabi and no thongs for the ginger, people were using the thongs that were used to pick up the Sushi to get the wasabi and ginger. So I get ginger smell on my Sushi which I really dislike very much. The waiters were a little slow in clearing the plates as well and considering that there was not much crowd I expected a faster turn around time. Well just a reasonable turn around time which is when I leave my table to get something I should come back to a table which has cleared my plate and laid my napkin out properly usually on the table or handle of the chair. But I will have to admit the view was great and the food was good, service can definately be improved. But for $41 a person after all the plus plus plus extra's it was on a steep side.