Best Food and Service at Hai Di Lao Steamboat
I guess this is the most expensive steamboat I ever indulged in. For two people, it costs $116.00 inclusive of 10% service charge and 7% GST at Hai Di Lao Orchard 313. Generally I'm quite pleased with the food quality and service. Take note that this is not a buffet and dishes are ordered a la carte. I'll eat here again but I visit it in December since it is not so friendly to your pockets. One lesson I learn is not to order the free flow drink which costs $3.00 per person as you be too full to drink water. I'll order lesser as I realised we ordered too much for two people. As I visited on Saturday afternoon, I waited for two hours and a half. Fortunately there is a waiting area for you to wait and eat the snack. I tried calling in the afternoon to make reservation but the line was busy.
The Good
1) You get to enjoy free flow of watermelons, oranges, pop corn, crackers and drinks like melon drink or herbal tea while waiting for your table. You can also watch the channel 8 drama while waiting.
2) You get to enjoy free manicure. My advice is to make the reservation on the booking list when you arrive in the manicure room. So when you finish your dinner, you get to have your manicure done. Waiting time for dinner is about 2 hours and eating takes about 1.5 hours, after dinner, you definitely get to have your manicure. I actually missed the manicure session when they called me. But they allowed us to have our manicure done since we wrote our names in the list. Service is really good. Before painting our nails, they also file our nails and cut the dead skin around the fingernails, spraying our fingers and painting it. Generally the manicure session takes about 40 minutes since we also need to dry our fingernails. My advice is if possible bring your own nail color. Some of the gel type takes very long to dry. I notice the staff are wearing cheapo mask. Maybe the company want to invest in better masks for the staff as it is not healthy to breath in too much of toxic nail paints. Actually if we include the manicure service, it is quite worth it.
3) Food are of great quality. Soup base like Black chicken soup comes with black chicken, wolfberry and chinese dates. Tomato based comes with fresh healthy tomatoes and you don't free thirsty after drinking the soup. Thus you don't have to worry about MSG. Meat and seafood are fresh. Also by paying $4 per person, you get to enjoy free flow of seasoning, fruits and other snacks.
4) Great Service. There is a waitress allocated to about two to four tables each. She'll helps to de-shell the prawns, break vegetables to smaller pieces. Unlike others who cajole you to order more, she said that maybe we order too much (which we did). Also there are aprons for you if you are scare of dirtying your shirt. Also I enjoyed talking with the staff and I learned that this popular steamboat originating from China Sichuan has 118 branches in China but not one in Hong Kong and Taiwan. There are three Hai Di Lao in Singapore namely in Clark Quay, Orchard 313 and Jurong. There are a few branches in USA and South Korea too.
5) Babysitting service: We didn't know it until we saw it. While parents are eating their steamboats, the staff helped to look after the kids in the playroom. Some parents just dumped their kids there. Some kids are really annoying there, screaming so loudly.
6) Great Performance. You can watch young noodle shifu (master) pulling noodles in front of you. Within a few minutes, the dough is transformed to noodles. I was worried the la mian could hit me as he pulled and swung the noodles. It was quite exciting watching them. We asked how long he took to train and he said he took one year to master it.
The Bad
1) Seriously not much complain except it is expensive.
2) Be prepared to wait at least two hours.
Where? Hai Di Lao
Level 4, 313@Somerset, Orchard Road
How to get there? Just alight at Somerset MRT
Tel: 68357227
Opening Hours: 10am – 4am
Hai Di Lao webpage: http://www.haidilao.com/sg/
Chicken soup ($8.00) itself comes with black chicken ,fishball, mushroom, wolf berry and Chinese dates.
Seafood platter which is half the portion costs $14.00. There are only two mussels, two scallops, three slices of cod and about two prawns. The additional six prawns are from the one set of prawns we ordered.
The Good
1) You get to enjoy free flow of watermelons, oranges, pop corn, crackers and drinks like melon drink or herbal tea while waiting for your table. You can also watch the channel 8 drama while waiting.
2) You get to enjoy free manicure. My advice is to make the reservation on the booking list when you arrive in the manicure room. So when you finish your dinner, you get to have your manicure done. Waiting time for dinner is about 2 hours and eating takes about 1.5 hours, after dinner, you definitely get to have your manicure. I actually missed the manicure session when they called me. But they allowed us to have our manicure done since we wrote our names in the list. Service is really good. Before painting our nails, they also file our nails and cut the dead skin around the fingernails, spraying our fingers and painting it. Generally the manicure session takes about 40 minutes since we also need to dry our fingernails. My advice is if possible bring your own nail color. Some of the gel type takes very long to dry. I notice the staff are wearing cheapo mask. Maybe the company want to invest in better masks for the staff as it is not healthy to breath in too much of toxic nail paints. Actually if we include the manicure service, it is quite worth it.
3) Food are of great quality. Soup base like Black chicken soup comes with black chicken, wolfberry and chinese dates. Tomato based comes with fresh healthy tomatoes and you don't free thirsty after drinking the soup. Thus you don't have to worry about MSG. Meat and seafood are fresh. Also by paying $4 per person, you get to enjoy free flow of seasoning, fruits and other snacks.
4) Great Service. There is a waitress allocated to about two to four tables each. She'll helps to de-shell the prawns, break vegetables to smaller pieces. Unlike others who cajole you to order more, she said that maybe we order too much (which we did). Also there are aprons for you if you are scare of dirtying your shirt. Also I enjoyed talking with the staff and I learned that this popular steamboat originating from China Sichuan has 118 branches in China but not one in Hong Kong and Taiwan. There are three Hai Di Lao in Singapore namely in Clark Quay, Orchard 313 and Jurong. There are a few branches in USA and South Korea too.
5) Babysitting service: We didn't know it until we saw it. While parents are eating their steamboats, the staff helped to look after the kids in the playroom. Some parents just dumped their kids there. Some kids are really annoying there, screaming so loudly.
6) Great Performance. You can watch young noodle shifu (master) pulling noodles in front of you. Within a few minutes, the dough is transformed to noodles. I was worried the la mian could hit me as he pulled and swung the noodles. It was quite exciting watching them. We asked how long he took to train and he said he took one year to master it.
The Bad
1) Seriously not much complain except it is expensive.
2) Be prepared to wait at least two hours.
Where? Hai Di Lao
Level 4, 313@Somerset, Orchard Road
How to get there? Just alight at Somerset MRT
Tel: 68357227
Opening Hours: 10am – 4am
Hai Di Lao webpage: http://www.haidilao.com/sg/
Free flow of snacks like popcorn, crackers, drinks and fruits while waiting for your seat.
You can sit to read free newspapers or watch channel 8 drama while waiting or just eating the free snacks.
I was watching Qigong, a China drama production.
Service staff will serve you this while you are waiting.
At the seasoning and fruit area in the restaurant. When you pay $4 per person, you get to enjoy free flow of fruits and seasonings.
Many types of sauces for you to choose from.
I still prefer the seaweed at Ding Tai Fung.
Peanuts and vegetables.
I love the sesame paste. Besides it is the dessert.
As there were only two of us, we had the small pots of chicken soup ($8.00) and tomato soup ($6.00).
We had half set of vegetable platter ($9.00) . One set costs $18.00. Yes you can choose either half or one set. For two people only, half the set is more than sufficient.
Half the portion of black pork ($8.00). This is a must order meat if you love pork.
1 set of quail eggs ($6.00)
Half set of pork ball ($6.00). This is delicious too.
The dishes are presented beautifully. Can you see the face?
Seafood is generally expensive. One set of six prawns cost $10.00.
The tomato soup ($6.00) itself comes with fresh tomatos and mushrooms.
Pumpkin pancake has sticky texture and is not so sweet.
We had a feast!
Black Chicken soup
Tomato soup is really good.
Special seasoning by my cousin.
Shifu preparing the handmade noodles. One set costs $4.00 and the portion is really small.
This is the noodles prepared by noodle shifu.
Really smooth and good noodles.
We ordered additional Szechuan spicy noodles or Dan Dan mian. I think Ding Tai Fung has better Dan Dan mian.
We ordered via the ipad.
We had fruits and soya pudding for desserts. The soya pudding is really smooth and delicious and it is not too sweet.
After dinner, we had manicure. You can choose your nail colour.
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